Collected Stories of Fadra Derethoi

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TheFox
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Collected Stories of Fadra Derethoi

Post by TheFox » Sun Jun 23, 2019 9:52 pm


Image owned by the author, drawn by Nicoy Guivarra, copyright and publication rights reserved.
~
I wish to tell you a story.
~
This is not a story of love; nor indeed is it of hate, or fear, though there is plenty to find in my society of merit enough to move a pen; not a story of wealth, though that comes too, in its time. It is not a story of cleverness, though that finds its place within these pages well enough, in the margins. Nor is it a story of gods and goddesses, though those come to play their own parts, not only in my own life, but in the lives of others.

It is all of these, and yet none of them. It is a story filled with stories - a dozen stories, a hundred stories to take their turn upon parchment - a story of drow, of humans, of gnolls and goblins, of beasts beyond count and the women and men that house them. It is, in short, my story - I, Fadra Derethoi, the Iceheart Ssin, companion to villain and hero alike, and all within their turn, tell it to you as it was told to me, and I write it so that it, in all of its extravagance and sorrow, in its suffering and joy, in its great pain and its greater victory, shall be remembered.

This will not be a history. Nor, in fact, will I make an autobiography of it. You will receive nothing about my past and where or how I gained this most rare of skills, and the only speculation you might gain from these pages about my future, my plans, or of the secrets of the Ssin will be just that - for we lowborn Ssin do not easily share our secrets, nor the secrets of others. Or, at least we do not do so for free.

But what this will be, is a window - a porthole - a peep into a world most noble drow scorn, and common drow and surface castoffs relish. Why? Not only because it is I who write it - but because they are the experiences, mine and others, that I have selected to share in writing. And herein, I have tried to remain true to their account, though names may change, and places, and dates, and sometimes even people. That is not important. Read this with your mind's eye, and imagine yourself taking whatever part you will in the sordid play. After all, if you are reading this now, perhaps it is you that I have wrote of, after all.

But who am I to talk of others, when you know so little of I, myself? That is a fair question, and here is my answer;

I am a thief, within these pages; a fellow Ssin told me only today that one of her paintings had been stolen, but that she paid it little mind. The best form of flattery, they say, is imitation; what more, then, does it mean to outright steal those things which you find interesting? And so I have done within these pages, taking what I wished to take from those who wished to tell.

I will walk you through the stories, and give you the clothing to wear - and all I ask is that, for a few moments, you will believe me when I tell you of the life you gain from donning them.
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TheFox
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Re: Collected Stories of Fadra Derethoi

Post by TheFox » Mon Jun 24, 2019 6:57 am

~

Stolen Knight

~
He awoke surrounded by Duegar; manacled, helpless, and not entirely certain of where he was. He only knew where he had been.

In the Sunlight, on the surface, there is a country called Cormyr.

It is sheltered deep within the boughs of trees, which appear on the surface world as commonly as ripplebark does in cavern rivulets. Any drow who sees them upon the surface would think them strange, and so think I, too - green and brown, taller than many of our cavern pillars, they dot that alien landscape as thick as a rothe's hairs. Beneath those is a grass, a plant, which covers the entirety of the ground. Above it stretches, as one could expect, an endless nothingness dotted with sun, stars, clouds, and all of the myriad bodies and lights which lay beyond them.

Within these forests live a kingdom of men, ruled by what was related to me to be a “just and righteous king.” Whether he is foolish for being so I cannot say, only that the story I tell you now is of that foolishness, and of the ruin of this single man, whether he is one of many or one of few.

Each human household keeps a regular contingent of them, like our own Quellar. These are called "Chapters", and the greater bulk of these forces are referred to as the "Purple Dragon Knights", when they are all together and under the direct command of their leaders. As our cities come together, to fend off outsiders and invaders, so too do the kingdoms of man do so. So too the humans give their children to training in these Chapters, and it is considered as common as our own sons being sent into a city's Melee Magthere. Such is the surface world's peculiarities. And the Knight had been part of one of them, the son of a minor merchant House, who had drawn the ire of another more powerful – the Huntscrown.

They, too, vie in an eternal dance for preference, though it is that crown they dance for as opposed to any god so venerable or so cruel or fickle as our Spider Queen. But in the human realms, conquered houses are not destroyed entirely, but their belongings are split and divided, counted into coins, their lands ransomed, and their servants bought and sold by others who take that profit. Coins and coins alone move the world of surface males; and with it, they seek to buy their lusts.

In this case, this man vied for his sister; something which the unforged Knight could not abide.

It was late, and dark, and motes of water fell from the sky thick as sporeclouds and chilly as the fells when he snuck from his barracks, with sword buckled tight beneath his cloak, and justice – or vengeance – weighing heavy on his mind. For, in the sunlands so ruled by men, females may be bought and sold like cattle, to strengthen the bonds between their houses, or they can be stolen to ruin them.

And that she was to be stolen on this night that the young Knight knew, for he had resolved to steal her away, himself. There were Clerics whom she could be taken to, orders which she could have joined, or lessons that she could have taken far away from their forested fastness, and so have been kept safe from the intrigues of the nobles of Cormyr and the men who coveted his father’s wealth and his sister’s beauty.

But when he arrived there, and when the daystar crested the endless abyss of the horizon, he found his hall burning, and his father slain, and the mercenaries hired by Huntscrown picking through the rubble for his family’s valuables.

He tried. He drew his steel, glittering in the morning, and he strained his lungs and spurred his horse to gallantry.

And he awoke surrounded by Duegar; manacled, helpless, and not entirely certain where he was.
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