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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sagiro" data-source="post: 381770" data-attributes="member: 726">Sagiro’s Story Hour, Part 149 With the stinkwiggles dispatched, the unpleasant cleanup effort begins.   Tankersley takes charge, ordering crews of townsfolk to start gathering and burning the bodies of the creatures.  He relays the important warning from the Company that they should avoid direct contact with the carcasses, which could easily transmit disease.  Despite the horrid smell, many small children are out and about trying to catch of glimpse of the heroes who saved Tal Korum.  They are particularly curious about the halflings and Kibi – they’ve led sheltered enough lives to have never seen halflings and dwarves before.  Scree tries to offer a friendly greeting, but the animated pile of rocks scares most of the kids away.   Another child makes the comment:  “Those other two wizards have a monkey and a cat.  How come you only got a bunch of rocks?”  Kibi is not amused.Helping coordinate things post-battle, Dranko finally gets some recognition from the townsfolk.  They remember him as little Mellendiel Brightmirror, a mean little prankster, but time, to say nothing of in-your-face heroism, has a way of mellowing old memories.  Dranko cringes at each utterance of his birth name, but accepts various compliments with good grace.  It seems that the entire town has forgiven him his delinquent youth – with one exception.Ernie spots Dranko’s grandfather, Cormin, helping one of the clean-up crews.  He jogs over and tries to strike up a conversation about Dranko.  “Greetings sir,” he starts cheerily.  “My name is Ernest, and I’m a friend of Dranko.  I really think you should talk to him.  He’s a much different and better person than you’re giving him credit for.”Cormin just snorts and turns his back to the halfling.  Ernie goes straight from cheerful to incensed.  “Why are you being so stubborn?  You won't solve anything by ignoring him!”Dranko’s grandfather stops and turns slowly around.  “Listen.  You don’t realize what a blessing it’s been to be able to ignore him.  Delioch knows it was impossible when he lived here.  It was a good riddance to him, and it still is.”  He again turns his back on Ernie, and walks away to rejoin his crew.  Ernie turns red, but doesn’t pursue.The mayor of Tal Korum, a tall woman named Larissa, walks over to the Company to inform them that, in the evening, there will be a celebratory dinner in their honor for their role in saving the town.   They graciously accept her invitation to join them at the town meeting hall.   Dranko thinks that might make a good place to try reconciliation with his grandfather.   But as the guests arrive, mostly farmers and farmer’s wives (with the latter bringing a variety of fine-smelling platters), Cormin ends up a no-show.  There is much feasting, and a short speech by the mayor followed by great applause for the Company, but three hours later, as most of the guests are going back to their homes, Dranko stands and looks around in disappointment.  He turns to Morningstar.“I guess I’m going to have to go to him,” he says.  “I don’t want the others along, but I do want you… as we’re engaged to be married and everything.    For one thing, he’d never believe me without evidence.”Dranko and Morningstar walk out into the warm summer night, where a lucky breeze is blowing the stink of the stinkwiggles back into the fields and away from the town.  They walk down the dirt streets, waving back to several grateful townsfolk they pass, until they arrive and Cormin’s small house. The rest of the Company, eager to eavesdrop, send the trio of familiars to follow.  And as soon as Dranko and Morningstar are out of sight, Grey Wolf and Aravis grab the mayor as she’s on her way out of the meeting hall.  “Excuse me,” Aravis says politely.  “We have a favor to ask.”“Anything, of course!” beams Larissa.“We were wondering,” Grey Wolf says, “If you were planning on making this any sort of town holiday.”“I had thought about it, yes.” Larissa answers.  Something like “Victory Day.”  I hope you could make it back every year to celebrate, since it would be in your honor, after all.”“Actually,” says Aravis, “It was Dranko who was most responsible for us coming to save the town.   And seeing as this was his hometown growing up, we thought it would be nice if you could name the holiday after him.  ‘Dranko Day,’ or something like it.”“That’s a splendid idea!” exclaims Larissa.  “Though people here don’t remember him as “Dranko.”  I think we should use his old name.  “How does ‘Mellendiel Day’ sound?Aravis and Grey Wolf grin.  That sounds just fine.At his grandfather’s house, Dranko knocks, but there’s no answer. “Grandfather, it’s me!  Come open the door.”There’s no answer from inside.  Dranko tries the door, but it’s locked.  “Oh, for crying out…”  Dranko applies a bit of skill, and a bit of force, and the door pops open.  Inside, he and Morningstar are greeted by the tang of alcohol and the sound of Cormin muttering to himself from the other room.  Dranko goes to stand in the doorway, and shakes his head at the sight of his grandfather slumped over in a chair, a one-third-full bottle of cheap wine nearby on a table.  The old man looks up and his face darkens.  “Go away,” he slurs.  (Pewter and Edghar have found windows at which to listen.  Scree has poked an eye through the floor into the darkest corner of the room.)Dranko sighs, points a finger at Cormin, and utters an Orison to quick-sober his drunken relative.  Cormin sits bolt upright, grips his head, and then glares at his grandson.“I didn’t ask you to do that,” he snaps.  “But now that you’ve done it, get out.”“Not until we talk about some things,” Dranko says.  He notices then that his grandfather is shaking, possibly coming down with filth fever from the stink-wiggles.  “You’re sick,” he points out.“I am not.  I feel fine.”Morningstar grins in spite of herself.  “I see where you get your stubbornness from.”Dranko turns to Morningstar.  “Would you cure him?”“He has to ask me, Dranko” Morningstar reminds him.  “Dranko?” Cormin snaps.  “Why are you calling him that?  His name’s Mellendiel.  Mellendiel Brightmirror.  Though Delioch knows he’s nothing but a blight on the family name.”“Grandfather, Dranko’s the name I’ve used since you… since I left.  Now would you please ask Morningstar here to heal you?  We both know you’re sick.”“Hmph.  If I do, will you promise to leave afterward?”Dranko sighs.  “Yes, I promise.  If that’s what you want.”“Fine,” answers Cormin.  He turns to Morningstar.  “Go ahead and heal me then, if you can.  And just who are you, anyway?”“Ah, forgive me.  Grandfather, this is Morningstar.  She’s a priestess of Ell, and… my fiancée.”Cormin snorts, and then starts to chuckle.  “Oh, please.  Who in their right mind would agree to marry you?”Morningstar steps forward.  “I would.  Sir, I don’t know what Dranko was like as a child, but this man here is one of the bravest and kindest men I have ever met.  He has saved my life and the lives of others on numerous occasions, and he serves with an elite group that has defended Charagan against many threats.  Including the one that just attacked your town today.”Cormin gazes levelly at her for a moment before replying.  “So, Mellendiel, how much did you have to pay her for that bit of tripe?  Kind and brave?  There isn’t a bone in your body that isn’t malicious and cowardly, and we both know it.  That battle today, even.  By all accounts your friends fought bravely to defend the town, but you were nowhere to be seen.  And then you come here with some dressed up slattern claiming to be a priestess and your betrothed to boot.  You never did know how to lie.”Dranko opens his mouth, not sure whether to explain about invisibility magic and how it helps his fighting style, or to defend the honor of his fiancee.  He doesn’t get the chance to do either.  Morningstar stands tall, and calls a personal darkness around her; the room becomes immersed in dark shadow, with Morningstar’s form a black silhouette against the twilight gray.  “I do not lie about my religion,” she says sternly.  “I am a Priestess of Ell, just as Dranko is an honored cleric of Delioch.  You do us both a disservice with your stubbornness.  Here…”She casts a prayer, and Cormin’s tremors slowly cease.Cormin’s lips quiver, and a conflicted look crosses his face.  But when he finds his tongue again, he sneers, “So you’re a priestess, then.   And my grandson is a priest.  Good for you both.  Mellendiel, I hope it’s given you the opportunity to make up for all that you put me through, though I doubt it.”“It has,” Dranko says.   “Look, I won’t pretend that I wasn’t a horrible little sh*t.  I was an outcast, and I didn’t handle it well.  I know I put you through a lot, and I’m sorry.  But… well, mostly I wanted you to meet the woman I’m going to marry.   And, I guess, to see if we couldn’t patch things up.  We’re family.”“Family?” Cormin whispers harshly.  “You didn’t even keep your family name.  What does ‘Dranko’ mean, anyway?”“It’s orcish,” Dranko says.  When his grandfather glowers, Dranko continues, “I looked it up when I got to the church, the very first day.  They make you take a new name there, and I knew the name I wanted.  Dranko means ‘unloved.’Cormin looks up, wide-eyed.  Suddenly his face contorts, and his body becomes racked with sobs.  Through his tears he says, “By Delioch’s healing hands, there’s not a day that’s passed in the last 15 years that I haven’t though about my daughter, and the monsters who killed her.  And poor Dalsmith, who died protecting her.  He was such a good man.   I loved them both, so much…”  He looks at Dranko with puffy eyes.  “Dranko, I look at you, and all I can see are those… those beasts who… who attacked… who killed my daughter.  I’m sorry… I know it’s not fair…”Cormin lapses into uncontrolled sobbing for a few minutes.  Dranko puts his hand on the old man’s shoulder, and Cormin does not flinch.   (The three familiars decide it’s time to stop watching now, and slink away…)“Grandfather, forgiveness is a tough thing.  It took me a long time to forgive you for shipping me off to Tal Hae.  But I did it.  Let it go.”A minute goes by and Cormin says nothing, but when he looks up again, something in his face has changed.  The corners of his mouth turn up in an unfamiliar smile.  “Morningstar,” he says, “you do realize what you’re getting yourself into, don’t you?  I never thought there’d be a woman on this earth with enough patience to spend an afternoon with Mellendiel, let alone marry him.  Gods, did he ever tell you about what he did to the Roofswallow’s barn?   Or the bucket of tar he rigged to fall on old man Cartwright, that nearly suffocated him?  Or the frogs?  Mellendiel, where in Delioch’s name did you find so many frogs?  You never told me.  You never even admitted it.”“I… uh…” Dranko stammers, looking guilty.  “I found where they were breeding, down by the stream.  I saved them up.  It was just supposed to be a joke.”Cormin turns to Morningstar.  “Those frogs got into the food stores that were supposed to last us through the winter.  We had to burn most of them.  The extra hours we had to work that year just to stay fed would have pushed anyone to distraction.  And in the end there still wasn’t enough; we had to beg food from our neighbors on many a night that year.”Morningstar laughs.  “Dranko has changed, but he still has some of that old streak in him.   I’ll be able to handle him.”“Good, good.”  Cormin smiles again, and his face is clearly unaccustomed to the expression.  Several more moments pass in silence, as if neither Dranko nor his grandfather wants to risk breaking their emerging truce.  Then Cormin yawns.  “I think I need to be getting to bed.   Mellendiel, it’s… it’s not all going to heal overnight.  I’ll need some time to think things over.  I’ve been feeding these feelings for a long time.”“I understand,” Dranko says.  “We have to leave in the morning, but we’ll come back and visit you from time to time, I promise.  And I’ll look into getting you some help, someone to do chores and look after the place.  I owe you that much, for… er…  past transgressions.”Dranko and Morningstar turn to go.  As they reach the doorway, Cormin says quietly, “Thanks for forcing your way in.”  Dranko looks sheepishly at the busted latch on the front door.  “I’ll get that fixed tomorrow before we go, I promise.  I’ll make sure that…”“Mellendiel.  I didn’t mean the door.  Good night.”…to be continued…</blockquote>

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