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Message: <blockquote data-quote="arwink" data-source="post: 1691516" data-attributes="member: 2292">EvanaNo one wants to live in Fort Doom.  Evana reminds herself of that as she skulks through the mountain pass, looking over her shoulder at the keeps imposing black stone.  It’s a place of sadness and tragedy, the common folk being ground into the dirt by the oppressive Baron and his minions.  No one wants to live in a place where goblins steal your food and ogres have free reign to take the children.  But when she turns and looks at the winding road, cutting through the narrow pass, Evana misses home almost as much as she dreads what lies beyond.  Behind there is danger, the possibility of beatings and torture and possibly even death, but it is the familiar dangers.  The dangers she has long grown to accept, knows how to expect.The way ahead involves unknown dangers, pain and fear she doesn’t know how to prepare herself for.   Danger that is all the more frightening for its absence.  No one wants to live in Fort Doom, but it’s the only place Evana has ever known.  It isn’t that she will miss the place, its simply that the dangers you know are more familiar than the dangers you don’t.  She spots a stray pebble tumbling along the roadside on its own, drifting a quarter inch above the ground, and Evana swears quietly.  It’s been months since she manifested powers like this, let any scrap of power free without her knowing.  She frowns at the pebble, forces it to drop to the side of the path, and grits her teeth against the pressure of the magic running through her head.Once again she reminds herself that the dangers of home are no longer familiar, that the discovery of her magic simply makes her the target for new and more horrific terrors.  Her powers are wild, untamed, born of the spark of the arcane on her very soul.  Such people do not survive long in the Black Eagle Barony, for they all to quickly attract the attention of Bargle, and Bargle’s fascination for the arts of sorcery know no boundary.  Evana shudders as she remembers her mothers stories, the way she describes the trials that her elder sisters went through.  Milda was always pleased she escaped the tortures of magic, had none of the gifts of her siblings, but she knew enough to teach Evana how to control her powers when they started to manifest.  Control and secrecy, these were the way to survive in  the terror of the Fort.  Evana was merely a fisherman’s daughter, no-one special or worthy of attention.  Deep down, Evana knew it wouldn’t work.  The power was a part of her, to strong to stay hidden away forever.  And soon she was caught, using a little magic, and so she had to flee.Fort Doom dropped out of sight behind her.  It occurred to Evana that she’d gone further from the Black Keep than she’d ever considered.  All that was left was mountain pass and the wide world beyond.  Well, the mountain pass, the wide world beyond, and a dapper gnome wearing a three-piece suit emerging from a gorse bush.  Small hands brushed at the front of the suit, pushing away leaves and twigs.  Then the gnome regarded the shivering rider with a wide smile.“Evana, Daughter of Milda, late of Fort Doom?” he asked.Evana could only nod, her mouth wide.“Did you have an Aunt by the name of Portia?”“Yes,” Evana whispered.  “But she’s dead.”“You’ve already heard?” the gnome asked.  “My apologies, I hadn’t realized news had gotten through already.  Ah well, no doubt you’re well prepared for this then.  I believe this is yours.”The gnomes’ small hands offer a folded piece of parchment, sealed in red wax.  Evana is no longer sure what’s going on, but she takes the parchment anyway.“I’ll see you soon, then,” the gnome says cheerfully.  He scrambles through the gorse once more, disappearing out of sight.“My Aunt died years ago,” Evana says quietly, but the gnome is gone.Then, carefully, she pulls open the wax seal and reads the letter.</blockquote>

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