Destiny's Tears-Prologue: A Jewel in the Shadow Part I

[Brother Shatterstone]

Molpe Lilypetals: Limnad/Female (Siren)

[sblock]Molpe smiles mischievously and winks at the young girl, “Yes! That’s exactly why we want to be left alone,” she turns serious for a second, “Now go and see if your mom is home.”[/sblock]

 

[Rystil Arden]

Molpe:
[SBLOCK]
*Esperanza enters the shattered threshold cheerfully.*

*Before she can return, however, Molpe hears a shuffling, thumping sound coming from the nearest bend in the alley. Could the big man have followed them here?*
[/SBLOCK]

 

[Brother Shatterstone]

Molpe Lilypetals: Limnad/Female (Siren)

[sblock]* After putting a single slender finger to her lips Molpe points to the alley and then moves over to his side. After a look or two she slowly moves forward to look down the alley hopeful that Wei-Han will be joining her. *[/sblock]

 

[Rystil Arden]

Molpe:
[SBLOCK]
*Wei-Han follows Molpe's quiet stride in utter silence, as if he simply wasn't there.*

*As Molpe turns the corner, she is relieved not to see the big man, but what she does see is equal parts horrifying and saddening.*

*The approaching creature seems to either be a walking corpse or else a skeletally-gaunt humanoid, which walks forward with a shambling limp due to stiffness in the right leg from some sort of terrible wound. You can't tell from this distance, but the razzled long chestnut-brown hair streaked with gray seem to indicate a female, though the tattered rags do not help decide the matter.*
[/SBLOCK]

 

[Brother Shatterstone]

Molpe Lilypetals: Limnad/Female (Siren)

[sblock]* Molpe not sure what else to do back pedals out of the alleyway and into Wei-Han’s arms. *

She whispers softly, not out of fear of offense, but in case the creature didn’t see them it wouldn’t know they are there, “What sort of creature is that?”[/sblock]

 

[Rystil Arden]

Molpe:
[SBLOCK]
"I'm aflaid to terr you what I think," Wei-Han says, horrified. "Check her light reg and you'll see why," he continues, using the female pronoun to refer to what approaches.
[/SBLOCK]

 

[Brother Shatterstone]

Molpe Lilypetals: Limnad/Female (Siren)

[sblock]* Molpe looks for what Wei-Han is speaking about but it takes her a few seconds for it to dawn on her but even as it does she looks horrified by what she sees. *

“Oh my, Wei. Is that her mother? Is it still alive?”[/sblock]

 

[Rystil Arden]

Molpe:
[SBLOCK]
*Wei-Han nods*

"I'm not sure if its her mother, but she is alive. I can see her bleathing even from over here, and her eyes would be brank and grazed lathel than simpry sad-rooking. Prus there are signs of broodfrow to sevelar vitar spots," says the sharp-eyed Larakese man, even though Molpe can't make out any of this--not even remotely close--and she knows that she doesn't have troubled eyesight.

The thing that might just be Esperanza's mother shambles towards you with a cough and then rasps some words painfully in a dry hacking voice that is made sadder by the fact that it carries a melodic sense of rhythm and tone as if to hint that the speaker had once had a clear sweet voice before constant dehydration, desiccation, and disease kicked in, "Are you two rich folk going to keep whispering to each other and gawking at me? Please, could you remove yourself from my path? I must reach home as soon as I can so that my little girl needn't go hungry any longer than she has; I hope you two understand can the feeling?"
[/SBLOCK]

 

[Brother Shatterstone]

Molpe Lilypetals: Limnad/Female (Siren)

[sblock]Molpe nods dumbly as she removes herself from the path, “I’m, I’m so very sorry… My reaction was quite uncalled for, I have no excuse for it, and I’m not proud of it. I hope you can forgive me…”[/sblock]

 

[Rystil Arden]

Molpe:
[SBLOCK]

*The pitiful woman shrugs as she continues to limp towards the pair.*

"You are forgiven, of course. No matter how hurtful it is to me to see a reaction like that from one whose beauty I once resembled, I'm sure that you didn't mean to make me feel that way. It is like I always teach my daughter, we must forgive and forget."

*As she draws nearer, Molpe can make out more features. She is wrinkled and feeble-looking, gaunt and skeletal, sickly and malnourished. The woman's left eye is covered by some sort of thin film that dulls the bright green, but the right eye is still clear, though sad-looking, holding a spirited glint that betrays the only remaining sign of the woman's lost beauty. Her chestnut-brown hair held streaks of grey and was devoid of any lustre, looking more like an odd-coloured clump of the rags she wore than anything else. The saddest thing of all is that Molpe, a true connoisseur of beauty in women, could attempt to mentally reconstruct this woman before the ravages of illness and starvation, and she might have once been more beautiful than the Limnad!*

"Why are you people here so deep in the slums anyway?" the woman wonders aloud, breaking up into a hacking fit of coughing.
[/SBLOCK]