Post by Lady Frost on Aug 6, 2010 18:31:43 GMT -5
The night air was very refreshing considering the warmth of the summer day and with not a cloud in the sky, the shrine was well lit. Overall, she couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful setting. However, even as serene as the night was, the bright moonlight created a single problem – shadows.
The shrines shadow, the merchant’s building’s nearby shadows weren’t the problem though. Over the past month or so she had become increasingly uncomfortable with her own shadow. She wasn’t sure exactly why, it never did anything anyone else’s shadow didn’t do – at least not that she knew of – but something just felt unsettling, like it watched her. She did her best not to think about it, which wasn’t too difficult considering all the other unusual circumstances revolving around her. Worst and most distressing was her memory loss.
The lack of her ability to remember back past that first day in the desert had become her mission to overcome. There were too many strange – very strange – circumstances around her memory for this to be something as simple as, say, getting hit in the head, most notably, the headaches and blackouts when attempting to recall her past. Blackouts so bad that, so far, nobody has been able to wake her from them and, at times, lasted days. Blackouts that brought dark & terrifying nightmares of such unbound chaos that they could hardly be understood and were nearly impossible to explain. In fact it was not only her blackouts that produced these nightmares, they were quite frequent anytime she fell asleep, intentionally or not. Often she woke in heavy sweats and more exhausted than when she went to bed. She wasn’t sure how long she could keep it up so nearly each day, and for most of the day, she spent her time studying and praying.
Shaestra choice to pray to Selûne was, at first, strictly out of necessity. The night she awoke in the Anauroch had been cold and having no memory of any of the circumstances that had brought her to this situation left her scared and vulnerable. She had turned a desperate and begging look to the moon, silently pleading for guidance – an action that resulted in a feeling to head south. Throughout her journey the moon and its light continued to bring her slivers of comfort and eventually guided her – through both hints in her nightmares and ones while conscious – into western Cormyr where she found a guide to lead her to Immersea, a place she had slowly discovered to be her destination. Upon arrival to Immerea, she believed she understood the reasoning; a beautiful shrine to Selûne had been built atop a rise overlooking the city where it sat open to the moon in all directions. It was here she pledged herself to the Moonmaiden’s clergy.
For a month or so she continued to believe the reason for being guided to Immersea was the holy shrine. However, eventually, something else began to pull at her senses. Deep in her nightmares, she began to come across hints that something in her past may have happened in or around Immersea. So her search for information began – something that might spark a memory or thought.
For months she spent most of her time searching books and scrolls to no avail. The guidance she so desperately sought seemed to fall silent while her nightmares grew more potent to the point she would force herself to go days without sleep. It wasn’t uncommon for Shaestra to pray for answers to certain questions for a few days then switch and pray for other answers to other questions whether she had gotten an answer to the previous one or not. One evening, under a full moon, during a nightmare stemming from a blackout while reading a borrowed book at the shrine in Immersea, the Midani words “Dgi domi uw Blopiwah Dehic” had torn like lightning through her mind interrupting the chaotic horror of her nightmare and brining her to consciousness. As her eyes sprang open she found herself covered in a blanket – something the shrine-keeper commonly did when she passed out while near the shrine – looking at a picture from a nearby book illustrating a woman holding a newborn child. She lay there a minute recalling what she had been praying for before she fell unconscious – her birth – when, where, something about her birth. She continued to stare at the picture focusing her mind on the words… A few months back language had come up in conversation and Shaestra had mentioned that she was able to speak a language that was unknown to her. It turned out that two others nearby happened to know the language and identified it as Midani. Working the words in her head she believed she had closely translated it as “The time of Priding Tales”. This time was unknown to her and after receiving a shrug and uncertain shake of his head from the shrine keeper, Shaestra quickly got up and made her way to find someone that could tell her when this time was. A task that proved more difficult than she would have thought.
To her surprise nobody seemed to know when this time was. On numerous occasions she replayed her translation and each time concluded she had translated it right. Finally, while failing miserably at following a lead, she happened across just the elf she had been seeking. After a brief introduction and explanation as to why she was directed in this elven male’s direction she learned that she had actually translated it wrong and that there was a year with the name “Prideful Tales”. In the following moments Shaestra’s mind had quickly digested the figures and almost instantly her brows furrowed and her mouth hung open in staggering confusion…
The year was 1219 Dalereckoning.
The shrines shadow, the merchant’s building’s nearby shadows weren’t the problem though. Over the past month or so she had become increasingly uncomfortable with her own shadow. She wasn’t sure exactly why, it never did anything anyone else’s shadow didn’t do – at least not that she knew of – but something just felt unsettling, like it watched her. She did her best not to think about it, which wasn’t too difficult considering all the other unusual circumstances revolving around her. Worst and most distressing was her memory loss.
The lack of her ability to remember back past that first day in the desert had become her mission to overcome. There were too many strange – very strange – circumstances around her memory for this to be something as simple as, say, getting hit in the head, most notably, the headaches and blackouts when attempting to recall her past. Blackouts so bad that, so far, nobody has been able to wake her from them and, at times, lasted days. Blackouts that brought dark & terrifying nightmares of such unbound chaos that they could hardly be understood and were nearly impossible to explain. In fact it was not only her blackouts that produced these nightmares, they were quite frequent anytime she fell asleep, intentionally or not. Often she woke in heavy sweats and more exhausted than when she went to bed. She wasn’t sure how long she could keep it up so nearly each day, and for most of the day, she spent her time studying and praying.
Shaestra choice to pray to Selûne was, at first, strictly out of necessity. The night she awoke in the Anauroch had been cold and having no memory of any of the circumstances that had brought her to this situation left her scared and vulnerable. She had turned a desperate and begging look to the moon, silently pleading for guidance – an action that resulted in a feeling to head south. Throughout her journey the moon and its light continued to bring her slivers of comfort and eventually guided her – through both hints in her nightmares and ones while conscious – into western Cormyr where she found a guide to lead her to Immersea, a place she had slowly discovered to be her destination. Upon arrival to Immerea, she believed she understood the reasoning; a beautiful shrine to Selûne had been built atop a rise overlooking the city where it sat open to the moon in all directions. It was here she pledged herself to the Moonmaiden’s clergy.
For a month or so she continued to believe the reason for being guided to Immersea was the holy shrine. However, eventually, something else began to pull at her senses. Deep in her nightmares, she began to come across hints that something in her past may have happened in or around Immersea. So her search for information began – something that might spark a memory or thought.
For months she spent most of her time searching books and scrolls to no avail. The guidance she so desperately sought seemed to fall silent while her nightmares grew more potent to the point she would force herself to go days without sleep. It wasn’t uncommon for Shaestra to pray for answers to certain questions for a few days then switch and pray for other answers to other questions whether she had gotten an answer to the previous one or not. One evening, under a full moon, during a nightmare stemming from a blackout while reading a borrowed book at the shrine in Immersea, the Midani words “Dgi domi uw Blopiwah Dehic” had torn like lightning through her mind interrupting the chaotic horror of her nightmare and brining her to consciousness. As her eyes sprang open she found herself covered in a blanket – something the shrine-keeper commonly did when she passed out while near the shrine – looking at a picture from a nearby book illustrating a woman holding a newborn child. She lay there a minute recalling what she had been praying for before she fell unconscious – her birth – when, where, something about her birth. She continued to stare at the picture focusing her mind on the words… A few months back language had come up in conversation and Shaestra had mentioned that she was able to speak a language that was unknown to her. It turned out that two others nearby happened to know the language and identified it as Midani. Working the words in her head she believed she had closely translated it as “The time of Priding Tales”. This time was unknown to her and after receiving a shrug and uncertain shake of his head from the shrine keeper, Shaestra quickly got up and made her way to find someone that could tell her when this time was. A task that proved more difficult than she would have thought.
To her surprise nobody seemed to know when this time was. On numerous occasions she replayed her translation and each time concluded she had translated it right. Finally, while failing miserably at following a lead, she happened across just the elf she had been seeking. After a brief introduction and explanation as to why she was directed in this elven male’s direction she learned that she had actually translated it wrong and that there was a year with the name “Prideful Tales”. In the following moments Shaestra’s mind had quickly digested the figures and almost instantly her brows furrowed and her mouth hung open in staggering confusion…
The year was 1219 Dalereckoning.