Completed Her Father's Day

[Ireth Telemnar]

Summer 11, 513 A.V.

At first it was orange. A deep orange, perhaps like paint. Then more red, like some of the flowers she’d seen imported in from the mainland. The orange and the red molded together, dancing and fusing. The sky was light, perhaps a purple-tinged blue? More blue. The sun reflected off of the lake, bouncing its colors off of the waves and into the air. Then yellow, the sun added yellow to its palette. The clouds grew crimson, like fruit, followed by pinks and purples. Ireth let out a sigh.

She sat perched on a support pillar on one of the docks that stuck out into the lake. She wore her cloak, but the wind pranced a bit with it, giving her goose bumps and shivers. The long dark-blonde tresses she had also cavorted with the breeze, unbound. Her pack sat beneath her, thrown against the pillar where she could watch it but not where it was in her way. She wasn’t too concerned about it though, what was there to steal?

Ireth felt like she’d awoken really early this morning; and perhaps it was true, waking before the sun came up. But she had drug herself from beneath the covers of her bed, thrown on her tunic, and wandered alone into the docks. And the docks themselves, they had been steadily growing busier since before the sun made an appearance. The sailor-folk needed to be up early too, preparing for fishing and for trips to the shores of the mainland. And other than a couple of courteous old fishermen saying good morning, not many people paid attention to the simple flutist perched on the pier pillar.

A tiny tear faintly glistened from her left eye, though the wind caressed it away before her hand could. Today… today was a day long branded into Ireth’s mind, into her very being. Wistfully, she threw a faint smile at the sun. ‘Has it really been three years?’

Three years… Three years ago, a member of the Black Sun who had been a friend of her father’s had shown up at Ireth’s house. Taking her mother by the hands, the man spoke of Ireth’s father, a fisherman, who had been caught by a storm alone on the lake. The single mast on the ship had been broken by the gales, crushing her father.

Ireth had been fifteen.

[Ireth Telemnar]

The lake water lapped at the dock and the support pillar, creating a beat that she’d been listening to all morning. She hummed a tune and watched the water, turning to gaze at the ships after the sun grew too bright for her to watch much longer.

His name was Zhidynach Telemnar, a man far from where he grew up. He was a sailor by trade, though the salty water of the sea near Nyka flowed through his veins, not the water of Lake Ravok. A dirty sailor, he’d call himself, never fit to marry a beauty like Ireth’s mother, Birine Gha'wor. They’d met in Nyka, where she’d been visiting family. He’d fell in love at first sight, taking her out dancing in a tavern the night they’d met. She’d needed convincing though, a cautious woman from the heart of Ravok. Any man that could hope to marry her would have to love her city as much as she did. Deciding that life on the lake wouldn’t be so bad with a beautiful woman in his arms, Zhidynach had signed off from his position as First Lieutenant on a large ship to move to Ravok. There he bought a small fishing boat, married his love, and had six children with her: five boys and one daughter.

Ireth had been the apple of her father's eye. She smiled now, remembering the happy days when all eight of them lived in a medium room of the NHC. Her five older brothers would go to school, and Ireth and her mother would go to the market or to visit friends or to attend Temple. Zhidynach never openly confirmed his faith in Ravok, nor did he deny any. Ireth couldn't even remember if her father'd ever attended Temple. There was one day, though she didn't quite remember when, that her father had taken her and her oldest brother out in the boat onto the lake. Perhaps the goal of the day had been to introduce her brother to the fisherman's trade, but Zhidynach had spent most of the day teaching her brother to fish and teaching Ireth the old sea shanties of his youth. Ireth remembered spending the next twenty days after that voyage singing nothing but shanties. It had driven her mother crazy, but her father'd loved it, wrapping his arms around her mother if she was near and danced with her.

Singing sea shanties was still one of Ireth's favorite things to do, though she didn't like to play them much on her flute.

Her flute...

The flute was one of the few things salvaged undamaged from her Zhidynach's fishing boat. Birine had made it for Zhidynach out of a piece of driftwood he'd brought with him from Nyka. Made silver-white by the sun and the salt, the flute was smooth and splinterless from use and care. There were six holes for fingers, and a larger hole partially covered by a totem. The totem helped control the air flow through the two-chambered instrument, and was carved in the shape of a pigeon. The totem was tied onto the barrel of the pipe with a length of soft leather cord. Zhidynach had loved the pipe, playing it religiously every day to lull his children to sleep. When that acquaintance of her father's found the flute among the boat's wreckage, he swaddled it in cloth and presented it to Birine. The pipe was in turn gifted to Ireth for a birthday, partially because her mother couldn't play and partially because Ireth's brothers wanted Ireth to have it.

[Ireth Telemnar]

A pair of Ravokian Black Ducks flew over Ireth's head, their simple wings tapping out a beat that was unique to ducks. Using their classic webbed feet, they skied a bit over the lake water before sitting in it, bobbing a bit in the waves. They quacked and crooned while they wriggled their fluffy tails and headed out onto the lake, past the ravosalas and the ships, into the clear blue water that glistened beneath the brilliant morning sunshine.

Zhidynach had once rescued a Ravokian Black Duck that had been hit by a ravosalaman. The bird had suffered a broken wing, but after three months in the tender care of Birine and her children, the duck flew off into the skies of Ravok happier and a bit heavier.

Around Ireth, the docks were building in business and crowdedness. A handful of men dressed in weathered clothes and old boots bustled down the pier supported by the pillar Ireth sat on. They were laden with metal objects and great wooden chests. They called to each other in the rough accents of the Ravokian sailor-folk. One of the men, a middle-aged fellow with a graying beard of black, nodded at Ireth politely, soundly cuffing another who let out a suggestive whistle. The sailor-folk were great company in the mornings, before too many of them began to drown their sorrows in drink and women. Zhidynach loved to bring Ireth down here to the docks, to practice her talents before crowds of folk that he knew and trusted. Not many a lone girl would wander in and loiter around the docks. But the dock-folk never really paid Ireth much heed, remembering the kind and gentle man that Zhidynach Telemnar was.

With a final smile, Ireth climbed down from her perch on the pier's support pillar. She always felt closest to her father here in the docks, and today was a day to remember him and his love. Retrieving her pack, she walked off of the pier with an image of her father waving goodbye to her in her mind.

[Abstract]

Grade Awarded!

Ireth

Skills

~ Observation - 2

Lores

~ Remembering Father

Other

N/A

Notes

Not much to give... but a wonderful thread! I loved all the thoughts on Ireth's history, her father... It's fun reading your threads right after Kit, as well. The bad side of Ravok... than the happy side.

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