Post by Gwendriel Gladerider on Jun 10, 2016 20:23:01 GMT -5
At the time of Gwendriel’s birth, there wasn’t much uproar within the small city walls she’d one day grow to feel a confining presence from. Many generations ago her people had split from the high elves’ prison they were held in to the south and with the resources afforded to them in the thick forest they chose to claim as their own, they built. Over a few decades their numbers grew, taking in elves and humans alike that had migrated away from larger cities. They were all welcome in their tribe and while they had no city to peak its towers and roofs out from above the treetops and though it didn’t house that many, the people living there took good care of their encampments. They were nomadic, though their territory did not stray much further than the forest they called home, the mountains to the north and the rivers to the south as they mostly followed the herds they hunted. A working system began to develop, everyone had a role to play to keep their friends and families safe and taken care of and while it did resemble elven society in many ways, it was their own. They could finally live free of the rules and obligations and magic imposed on them by the high elves.
Years ticked by and the wild elves eventually found themselves at peace and safe in their sense of community and family. As they traveled, some of the terrain they frequented proved harsher than others but they adapted. Elves had always been a resilient people and the wild elves were no different. They found their magic again, mostly tethered to the land and earth they traveled upon but some found magic in beasts and elements. For many years they thrived and were happy in the way that they lived.
Every once in a while elves from the cities would join their tribe. Some of them would only stay temporarily, a stop along the way until they found a permanent city to settle in once more but a few stayed and made families, integrating with the wild elves and humans in the camp. It wasn’t common for them to be welcomed happily as wild elves were still fairly suspicious of outsiders but that wasn’t the case with Gwendriel’s parents. Her father, Aeneryth, was a city elf who’d struck out on his own, trying to prove his merit during a hunting party. However if he’d stayed with the rest of his party he might have known about the snow storm that was heading their way. While the rest of them went back to town, he was left stranded, wandering the woods and mountains near the wild elf camp. Eventually he happened upon it and bartering for lodging, few would allow him to use their homes except for Gwendriel’s mother, Volanya. The rest of her family had moved on or passed like her parents and she offered him lodging for a few days in exchange for the game he’d hunted, until the storm passed of course.
That storm passed, shaking the trees beneath its howling winds and leaving snow banks in its wake but even after it had cleared, Gwendriel’s father stayed behind. He seemed smitten with Gwendriel’s mother and continued to hunt for game in exchange for a bed. Eventually the two fell in love and had a union together and while Aeneryth hunted, trading it for better gear and repairs with the other wild elves, he always made sure to save the best kills for Volanya. She took care of their home and whenever the camp settled for a while in one place she tended fields, mostly growing medicinal herbs for herself as she had a gift for natural healing that she shared with the rest of their tribe.
Their lives were simple at first and eventually they did have children. Gwendriel was the eldest, though two more daughters and a brother came after her. As the eldest, Gwendriel was expected to help care for her siblings even from a young age. She quickly learned her way around the camp, originally helping with the cooking whatever game her father brought home but also tending to their worn out clothing. She learned she didn’t have the best talent for these things but she tried her hardest. As she got older, her role shifted more to babysitter, watching her younger siblings more than tending to the domestic things they needed to take care of. In fact, she was relieved when her sisters showed more promise than she had with that. It wasn’t until she was ten that she found what she thought was her calling. Her father gifted her a sword, too big for her at the time but she had a while to grow into it. He began teaching her self-defense, eventually showing her how to use a bow as well. If ever there was something to be good at, she supposed fighting was as beneficial as anything.
As she grew older, the hunts became her favorite pastime. Every morning she’d wake long before her father or brother did, she’d go to fetch their weapons and ready their leather and by the time she was done her mother would usually have breakfast in the pot and her family would finally be awake. As soon as the sun would come up, the hunting parties would be off. Together with her father and brother, they’d take down a good kill for their tribe. Usually it was a deer or elk but sometimes the weather wouldn’t favor them and they’d have to settle for a number of smaller prey. But they’d always bring home enough to fill the bellies of their family as well as many others in their tribe. The hunting parties were almost always successful and their small village was well taken care of by everyone within it.
At just sixteen, she was as bold and capable at taking down prey as any hunter in her tribe but at nineteen her life wouldn’t even resemble the one she once cherished.
During the migration her tribe always took for the change between fall to winter, they came upon another wild elf tribe. At first her tribe was a little wary, they did have a few humans in their midst and other elves weren’t always so welcoming of outsiders. In addition, neither was their tribe. But the other tribe was friendly enough and while they maintained so distance, each agreed to accompany the other on hunting trips to maximize the payload and help each other out for the season. During the first hunt she met a young fledgling hunter from the other tribe. At first, Gwendriel was averse to even taking him along on the trips, feeling he would slow the operation down. But her father pressed her to take him under her wing, perhaps seeing something there that she couldn’t.
He was clumsy at first, not in his movements or confidence but in the way he handled weapons. Gwen would later learn that he was nervous, having seldom used weapons before he didn’t want to make a fool of himself in front of another tribe. He was a craftsman mostly and spent his days making armor out of the hides they brought back from their kills but he’d very seldom been away from the camp. Under Gwen’s tutelage, he became decent at using a bow and better at using a spear. He could throw with a good degree of accuracy at least and she honed that into his hunting talent. And over the next few months as their tribes worked together, the two created a bond. She helped him develop his hunting further and he asked for her hand. Eventually she admitted her feelings and aside from her family, he was the first person she let her walls come down for.
While a nomadic life had its advantages for a free spirit like Gwen, it was filled with danger and cautionary tales. Even though she had helped her betrothed become a hunter and he’d learned to wield a spear with the best of them, it wasn’t enough. Nor were the years her father and brother had spent hunting either.
The day they’d left for their hunt the clouds had rolled in but they seemed to be hanging in the sky, overcast but not raining. So the hunting party still set out. That was perhaps their first mistake. Their second was trying to take down a pack of wolves that had been following their travels and cleaning out their prey from the forests around their encampment all at once. They had tracked the wolves to their den but as soon as they spotted the beasts the skies bellowed and cracked open, catching the hunting party in torrential downpour and alerting the wolves to their presence. A few of the younger wolves were taken out easily, omegas weren’t much of a challenge for decent hunters, but as soon as the betas joined the fight things took a turn for the worse. Most of the hunting party focused on attacking the wolves from the front and pinning them in their den. It would have been effective if not for the ferocity of the den mother. However, Gwen was the one to spot a beta returning from a kill and as it circled the den, so did she. With its attention focused on the rest of the party, she was able to get one good clean shot off before the wolf’s attention snapped to her. She hadn’t realized how large it was until that moment and as it lunged for her and tackled her, she lost her footing and both Gwen and the wolf tumbled to the bottom of the hill.
As soon as she fought the wolf off and scrambled to her feet she realized then that she could no longer hear the fighting from the hill top. There were also no cries of victory nor any howls or whimpers of defeat. Finally making her way back to the top of the hill, bleeding and limping, Gwen was aghast at the sight before her. There were only two other survivors in her hunting party, one was her brother, the other a girl from the other tribe. The other five hunters who had accompanied them were motionless, mostly torn to pieces by the wolves. Her entire life had crashed down before her and there in the rain, she wept.
When what was left of the hunting party finally returned, they were a changed people. Gwendriel especially was more cold and aloof than before. And although some kind of peace settled on the tribes as they parted ways, for much of Gwen’s tribe a great hole was left that her father had filled. He had always been a leader and while she’d been poised at one time to follow in his footsteps the loss of both her betrothed and him had crippled her emotionally. It would be years before she could even confront her own feelings about the incident and she only did so in the presence of her mother.
Nearly a decade later, tragedy would strike again. They had noticed animals growing a bit wilder and strange occurrences were happening more and more frequently. During a rather hot and muggy night, her tribe was attacked by things that she could only describe as walking plants. After getting the women and children to leave, panicked and wandering toward the nearest town, the hunters they had prepared to fight. Without knowing what they were she and the other hunters fought them off as best as they could but they were overrun, and Gwen was left unconscious during the battle. When she finally awoke her tribe had been decimated. Many were dead, few hunters remained around but most had gone off searching for their families. The threat seemed to have receded though and while their tents and homes were largely destroyed, Gwen’s thoughts lay with her family. She set off to find her missing family members after the attack, searching through every town she came across, making her way down through Newport, Winterrend, down through Swiftshore. Gwen has continued to search, hoping eventually she’ll find her family.