"My mother had a good sense of humor" - Gleh'wiethruh'lia Arkh'del

Here I will be updating things worth mentioning about Glenn and her life.

Gleh'wiethruh'lia Arkh'del
Age: 19
Notable things in her body: Tattoos that appear to cover her from wrists up, all the way to her upper biceps and back. The tattoos, or should I say tattoo, appears almost vine-like, though occasionally there can be patterns and small words understood. Any skilled maker would notice that the patterns in her body hold would be very hard to made with the usual technique that is known for making tattoos.

A string of dark pearls is always, at ALL times, hanging from the right side of her hair. She seems to enjoy fiddling with the pearls, as if it would calm her down. Though with closer inspection, one would see that some of the pearls are wooden, though quite skillfully made.

*****

Trees were interesting things to rest in. This is something she had decided a long, long time ago. Being one to travel a lot, there were few things she could complain about. How long had she travelled? Nine years. Yes, that had to be it. Nine years of inns and forests, stones, trees and kind old monks offering beds in their monasteries.

Nine years of walking, talking and getting glances from people, glances that would make one think they saw the Black Death itself walking in their village.
She grinned at the memory of the old madam in that one tiny town.

A howl stopped the line of thought, a howl from a cub. It was a baby howl, the howl telling her ”I AM HUNGRY!” Glenn sighed, then smirked, looking down at the miniatyre wolf, that would one day be a big boy. ”If ye be hungry, den go 'n' find sumthin' ta eat!” She called down at the creature, then snapped her fingers towards the bigger one, Dek she had named him. ”Ye two, go off already! Yer gunna need sum foods if yer gunna live.” She then waved her hands dismissively at the two, watching them trotting off into the darkness. She could not tell why, but somehow Glenn felt like the wolves understood her partly, along other creatures in the forest. Not that she complained, though. It was rather nice to sleep knowing someone guarded your being.

Wolves seemed to be a particular intrest of other people around here. She had heard the stories of wolves and undead roaming around, seeing even a few herself. Or atleast they seemed dead. And walking... so... walking... dead and practically dead but still not dead... undead, what a fascinating word! She had also confirmed that undead do not sparkle. She would have to tell that old man about it, if she ever met him again.

She had also met some interesting personalities... one was this.. Zach person.. then was the woman who liked hugging, too pity that she could not afford much hugs in her own state. Also, the two Viktors... the one that spoke little, and the one, the elegant one with red and black clothes. Glenn's right hand flew to rest upon the string of pearls hanging from her head, the memory of the apology one of the Viktors had made. She caressed the pearls with her fingers. ”It must have been an unfortunate event.” Isn't that something he said? Was it? Wasn't it? She closed her eyes tightly. No, she could not remember the exact words right now... but she could remember the topic, the reasons behind it... the past... the 'nine years ago'.

Usually, in this sort of stories it would begin with dark and stormy night. I suppose that's a bit of a cliché, nee? But this story, no... this story, it begins with a beautiful summer day. Flowers were at bloom, birds were singing. From a simple cottage, near the river, a young girl walked out, closing the door behind her. She lifted the bucket resting by the door, making herself towards the forest surrounding their home, the forest that was split in two by the flowing river.

The girl made her way through the paths, through the bushes and past the trees, humming softly as she made her way towards the end of the forest. Before walking past the small gate, as she called it, she halted in her step, looking up into the two trees that bend over the path she had walked so often. Her small mouth opened, first in awe, then to pronounce the words she had said so many times, every single time she had walked past this point.

”Guard me as I come,
guard me as I go.

Please protect all at home,
because I love them so.”

She curtsied to the twin trees formally before rushing her step towards the market. Quickly, almost like a ghost, t he girl made her shoppings of simple items, counting carefully the small amount of money she had to spend. She then turned on her heels as she rushed back into the forest, her round face beaming with happiness. She curtsied again at the twin gates before rushing past into the depths of the forest. But she could not go home. Not yet.

The girl pondered as she stood in the middle of the forest, her eyes darting around warily. Why could she not go home? ”The well”, a voice in her head said. Her own voice? Who was it? ”Oh yes, I had to visit the well!” The voice exclaimed merrily. The girl giggled. It was her own voice, definitely! She dashed towards the well that was waiting her, just a mile or two from her home.

When she arrived at the clearing where her home was settled, she immediately felt it. Something was wrong. Something was absolutely, definitely wrong. She forced her stiff body to walk towards the door of her precious home, the precious place that no longer felt so much like it. She walked up to the door, then opened it carefully, peaking in, then stepping further.

She dropped the groceries.

She froze.

She ran.

Glenn opened her eyes quickly as the suffocated memory attempted to surface from her thoughts. It was true, there were some things even she did not want to remember. She smirked faintly, looking towards the dark sky and the many stars, her right, ungloved hand still fiddling with the pearls hanging from her hair.

There was no blood.

Glenn's eyes fluttered open the slightest amount as she heard a soft thud from somewhere near her. From her blurred vision, she could see something big on her diagonal left. She sighed, then tilted her head to the right, her right hand stopping the ministration it had been doing for the past hour. She stilled the hand upon the little cub's head, then looked down at the creature. Or not so little anymore. Her wolf-friend had grown fast, as animals had the habit to. She could no longer carry the cub inside her coat, wrapped in the comfortable warmth he so much seemed to enjoy. No, now he was too big for her to do that. The cub let out a whimper as he looked up at his... friend? Yes, friend was a better way to describe the relationship between the two, better than 'master' would. The cub glanced hungrily towards the sight Glenn had earlier seen from her blurred vision. This time she turned her head to fully look towards the sight.

Dek, her other wolf-friend, was standing behind a big, dead and hairy boar. Blood was flowing from the boar's ripped jugular, and it looked like the animal's neck was broken. Dek stood with a proud face behind the dead animal, even though his head was directed down and he was panting quite heavily. Dragging the carcass from wherever it had been hunted down must have been quite the job. A challenge. And Dek, she had learned, seemed to enjoy challenges.

The huge wolf gave Glenn and the cub one more pride-filled glance before he dug in. And what bigs do first, do the smalls after. The cub figdeted impatiently on his place, then gave Glenn a glance. This made the young woman give a toothy grin at the cub. She raised her hand from the cub's head, then nodded towards the large wolf and the carcass. ”Off ye go”, she simply spoke. It took less than a second for the wolf pounce off from her to the carcass, and dig in hungrily to the prey he was still too young to hunt himself.

Glenn watched the pair enjoy the feast for a moment before leaning back against the tree she was resting against. She closed her eyes as she let her thoughts fly. Pictures past her eyes, sounds past her ears. She knew not how long she sat there, rested there and thought of things of past, present and future, but for some reason or another she found herself returning back to the melody she had heard earlier, to the sound of the boy that had so eagerly sang to her and pleased her ears with the song he had to share. How old was the singer again? Hmm... Twelve, yes... twelve. Joné would be sixteen now, four years older than this little Prosper. A small grin appeared on her face as she slowly returned the image of the singing boy into her mind. Actually, he reminded her a bit of Joné. The same, delicate features, rather skinny. Very pretty boy. Joné's hair was just auburn-red and messy, similar to her own hair. His eyes also matched her hazel ones. Anyone could tell from the first glance that the two were siblings.

Joné would not sing his riddles to her anymore. Never again. He would not play with her, roll with her in the mud or stick his tongue out as she made a wreath from the flowers she picked from the field near their home. She could not listen to him anymore as he told her stories of the fox he had seen in the forest, or a pretty stone he had found while playing in the mud after it had rained.

For Joné would not tell those stories anymore. Never again. He could not do that anymore, for he could not speak. His skin would be pale if seen, if there even was skin on his bones. Glenn felt her body flinch at the thought of the rotten body of his little brother. No, no. Could the creator of everything destroy something so beautiful and perfect? Or maybe it was beautiful only in her mind. As the old proverb goes, time gilds the memories of the past.

Glenn felt the need to return back to the singing boy she had met. He had sung her that pretty song, a story of a knight. How did it go again? Glenn began to hum quietly the tune, though her own voice was not able to reach the marvelous tune the boy had sung with, it was hardly a shadow oh the voice. But in her mind, in the secret place she let no one walk in, she heard her quiet tune being replaced by the boy's beautiful one, and once again she could hear the heavenly sound ringing in her ears:

Glenn opened her eyes slowly as she felt something soft and furry press against her. It was dark already, or darker than it usually was. As she glanced to her both sides, she saw her two friends pressed against her body, keeping her warm for the coming night. She gave a slight smile to the animals, then closed her eyes. Before the sweet dream overtook her min and body, one last through ran through her mind: ”He would have liked that song...”

//I wish to thank ProsperS for the inspiration of this post and for the song that appears in it.

Glenn had decided a long time ago, that if daily patterns kept on repeating and repeating themselves in the same way, day after day, it would be deadly boring.

How fun it was that the word 'deadly' was used just now.

For it mattered not wether Glenn would have wanted some things to go otherwise. There were always some things that went exactly like they had gone before. These certain things had that one, clear pattern. A pattern that would always happen and repeat itself, no matter how Glenn would like to change it.

This pattern just now was one of those.

Glenn had been through this pattern before. It started usually with a tough hit, or something that led her falling on the ground. It continued with the warm feeling of blood trickling down somewhere in her body. This was just the first phase, though. But this very easily, atleast when she was walking alone, led to the second phase.

With the second phase came the paralyzation, unless it had already come with the hit. The feeling how her body stopped resisting, the feeling how she lost the control over her own limbs, becoming a puppet with no strings attached. The second phase also washed off her senses, atleast most of the time. She could not hear, feel nor taste anything. She was simply... numb, yes, that would propably be the correct word for how to describe her state of the moment.

The third phase was actually one of her favorites. The Oblivion. The feeling when one's body fell down, into the deep blackness, whiteness, spotness... depended on the person, maybe? In Glenn's case, it was also phased. First, she fell through the deep blackness, blackness so thick and deep she could almost feel it caressing her skin. Then came the bright light, the whiteness. Like you had been spitted out of a pipe's mouth. The whiteness was wide, almost fresh and breathable. It was comforting, even in a scary manner. It was just something so... big. Bigger than she had ever seen during her life traveling. When she fell into the white she could no longer feel herself falling. No, in the whiteness she was floating, like you would be a bubble floating around on the water, waiting for someone to come and poke you off. In the whiteness, it was serene and still.

That was until the voices came.

Oh yes, the fourth phase, the Voices. The whispers, the calming sounds of serenity that lingered in her ears. This was actually the most interesting phase, because it was parted in two. For now, she had always went this phase with the same pattern aswell, but something inside Glenn told her that this was the crossroads, this would be the spot where her fate would be decided. The vague whispers of the beings around her seemed to unite, until the Choir of Three, as she called it, once again came into her line of vision. Every time, they would be on the same spot, lingering above her and every time they would be three. Not two, not six and half... three. Three bright lights united as nearly one, moving over her head and creating a type of warmth all over her body as her senses returned, lingering vaguely in the depths of her body. Then the three would speak, their voice as assuring and calming as always, almost like a mother or father speaking to their child that had seen a nightmare, comforting them.


Those six words would be all she'd hear, all that would be said before the fire would consume her. But the fire was not bad. On the contrary, it was the good fire, if one could name it such. Because the fire told her that she was still alive. The fire told her that now would begin her trip back into the world of the living, into the world she so longed to investigate before the voices would come back again, and that time the voices would not deny her the entrance into the world of eternal death. No, they would greet her, tell her it is finally her time.

And they would take her. The fire would no longer consume her body, nor make her reborn like in the old stories she had heard during her journey. She would simply disappear, and she would be glad, for she would welcome it as her old friend instead of an enemy so many seemed to see it.




She could most certainly feel the power, the fire burning in her arms and back, healing her. The vines that decorated her body, as a sign from that unknown power within her. She could not claim that she was able to control that power given to her, but she did her best in the regards of the subject. Gloves, clothes that covered her, her staff... it was all to control it in a way. But the ones that blessed her, they must have had something in mind. ”Everything that happens to us, happens for a reason”, wasn't it like that? She had heard that from some old seer when she was on her way to the ship. Did he know that she would eventually crash? Did he know that she would end up... here?

Slowly, the fire died down, and she felt new again, like she always would after all the phases had gone past, and she had returned back to Life. She mentally went through the points in her body, bit by bit, but found no flaw. The fire had once again done it's job, and she gave it credit for that. She pushed herself up from the cold ground she had used as her resting place, only to be greeted with her companion's face.

Yes, the phases were very interesting in their way. Perhaps some things did not even have to change. Atleast for now.

//I thank the character Conrad and the adventure he and Glenn had for being the inspiration for this post.