3. Illyana Kosef

Illyana Kosef

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    Character name: Illyana Kosef
    Player Login: mirrorpool

    ((Apologies to Kerby, Vilehelm, or whoever has to read this. Like everything I touch, this just kept growing longer and longer…))

    Spring

    Illyana Bregovic rushed over the green hill, stretching her short legs as far as she could. Petals fell in waves from her braided hair. Cyclamen, hyacinths, daffodils twirled and tumbled in the wind. Birds chirped their springtime joy from the budding trees, but to Illyana, they sang the song that played through her mind:

    April, come she will
    When streams are ripe and swelled with rain
    May, she will stay
    Resting in my arms again

    Down the hill she rushed toward the creek. A solitary figure in dull leather sat on the bank watching a motionless fishing line. Illyana threw her arms around his neck, nearly sending both into the muddy water.

    “Guess what!” she cried.

    “Illyana!” he gasped. Caught up in her excitement, he tossed his fishing pole aside and tugged her onto his lap with a laugh.

    “Peter, I said guess what!” she demanded, holding a finger to his nose to stay his searching lips a moment longer.

    “Your father is sending you to the Endless Wastes to marry an orc chieftain?”

    “No, you oaf! Mara Edell accepted me as her apprentice!”

    “Congratulations!” He kissed her cheek and stared into her eyes, his own filling with admiration. “You’ll do well to pay attention to every word she says. No sleeping at odd times of day. And none of this sneaking off to see irresponsible young men.”

    “She only has one good eye,” Illyana says, pouted playfully. “What it doesn’t see won’t hurt her.”

    “Seriously, love, you’ll learn more in a week from her than I could teach you in a lifetime.”

    Illyana groaned, sensing a lecture was coming. She contented herself to take his hand into hers and study the shape of his face, the flip of his red hair, while he rambled. Peter meant well, she assured herself, he’s just a natural teacher.

    “Chauntea has blessed her with more winters than any human for miles,” Peter continued. “My father swears by the Tears of Selune that she has elf blood in her. She doesn’t look a day older than she did when he was our age, he says.

    “You’ve made a good choice, love,” he continued, “to devote your life to the Grain Goddess and study with her most devoted priestess in all of the Great Dale. It will put your father in a good mood.”

    “And why does he need to be in a good mood?” Illyana asked, fully knowing the answer. The two young lovers had all but eloped in recent months, but they had too few coins between them to do anything daring. That Peter was the third son of a second son would mean that the couple would never have more to spare than they did now. The Kosefs had even sold some land recently just to make ends meet. Illyana’s father – known to never sell a bushel one grain over weight - would never willingly allow his daughter to give her hand to Peter. Unless, of course, they caught him in an exceptionally good mood.

    “Soon, love, soon,” Peter whispered.

    Summer

    June, she will change her tune
    In restless walks she’ll prowl the night

    “Two days!” Illyana said, staring into the blue sky. The months had come and gone, but the excitement she felt never faded.

    “You’ll go blind if you stare at the sun too long, child,” said Mara from behind the gaping girl. The old priestess came to a rest near Illyana and balanced her forearms on her knotted wooden cane. Her milky, blind eye stared at the horizon while the other focused on Illyana. “And you’ll need them for many more years still. What have you found?”

    “These,” said Illyana. She handed Mara a selection of leaves. Each leaf bore holes surrounded by an oily black substance. “It’s spread from the grapes to the squash and potatoes.”

    “As I feared,” Mara sighed. “Come, let’s take these back to the cottage. A spot of tea might calm you down and help us think.”

    Mara lived in a humble cabin. The walls and floor were bare wood, decorated with a few ancient rugs and dull trinkets. The older woman sat down at the table while Illyana saw to the tea.

    “Have you tried the dress then?” Mara asked.

    “Yes, Mother’s taking it in as we speak. She wants me to keep it. Seems a shame, but I suppose she won’t need to wear it again anyway, I suppose. Not that I will either.”

    They sat down and sipped their tea while Mara studied the collection of leaves. She hummed to herself in thought.

    “I’m afraid I will have to miss the wedding, dear.”

    “What! Why?”

    “Vercinax has called a meeting about the blight. Two days from now in Lethyr. It will take me more than a day to get there, and it seems to me, now, that I should go.” Mara looked up to catch Illyana’s expression. “You can sacrifice this much for the land, can’t you?”

    “Of course, but I’m worried about what will happen without you. What am I to do?”

    “Oh, you’ll find plenty to keep you busy, child.” Mara smiled reassuringly. “Here, let me read your tea leaves, let’s see if that will comfort you.”

    The older woman stared into the drained cup. Her expression grew cold as stone. Her eerie eyes settled on Illyana, who shifted uncomfortably under that state but couldn’t escape.

    “Child, I have told you this before, perhaps I will tell it to you again, but listen carefully. We read fortunes not to tell the future, as some would ask. These leaves can tell me nothing more about five years from now than you can, but they can tell me something about you. We read fortunes to clarify the past, child, to explain the present.”

    “W-what is you see?” Illyana asked, timidly.

    “Run home, girl. You have many happy days ahead of you. Spend every moment in bliss with Peter and worry not for me. I will return before you know it.”

    Illyana decided to stop at the Kosefs’ fields on her way home to see Peter. When she came over a hill she saw a group gathered together in the fields. Something about their posture and the tone of their speech unnerved her and she ran toward them as fast as she could. When they saw her, a few moved aside and she could see in Peter in the middle of the group, being lifted to his feet by his brothers.

    “What happened?” Illyana cried, rushing to Peter’s side.

    “He fainted,” his brother said.

    “Hello, love,” said Peter when Illyana put a hand to his forehead.

    “You’re burning up. Let’s get you inside.”

    “Funny timing, isn’t it?” Peter said before erupting into a coughing fit.

    Autumn

    That linkage of warnings sent a tremor through June
    as if to prepare October in the hardest apples.

    When the wedding was twenty seven days passed, Ilyanna was sitting on a stiff wooden chair as she had been often in that month. Peter lay on the bed, exhausted from one of the waking-nightmares he’d been having daily. Ilyanna dabbed a cloth along his jaundiced, sweaty brow. Nothing she had done had cured his illness in all these weeks, but she had managed to ease his pain, though it was constant.

    Mara had never returned. There was no news from the council except that they were “looking into it.” The higher druids were secretive of what they had learned, even to Illyana.

    The blight had never passed, only grown worse. The villagers, taking it and Peter’s illness as a sign of Chauntea’s displeasure, grew distrustful of Illayana, the only druid remaining within the immediate area. Illyana’s faith never wavered, but their distrust made her tasks more difficult until the point where she gave up and locked herself inside the room with Peter. She only emerged for those chores that were necessary.

    On that night, the twenty-seventh since they were wed, just as she began to drift into uneasy sleep, Illyana stirred with a start. No noise woke her, rather, she was conscious of a sudden silence. She sat down on the edge of Peter’s bed, pulling the covers up to his chin.

    “My love,” she said, begin to sob silently. She leaned over and kissed his cold lips.

    Winter

    And the leaves that are green turn to brown
    And they whither with the wind
    And they crumble in your hand

    The bells of the caravan’s leader’s horse jangled as he set off. Illyana hugged her father one last time. When she finally pulled back he held her at an arm’s length and brushed his tears. He saw how the past year had been unkind to her, how she seemed to age beyond her few years.

    “Write to us. Your mother will worry if you don’t.”

    “Every day I can.” The tears welled up once more. “I’ll miss you, all of you, so very much.”

    “We know. Illy, we know,” he said, one hand lightly massaging her shoulder. “Now go along. The Rawlins is too dangerous these days. You won’t want to fall behind.”

    Illyana’s father had arranged for her to travel with a gypsy and merchant caravan to Norwick. Escape from the crowds, if only for a year, seemed the best decision at the time. Besides, he guessed, Illyana could use a change of scenery to get her mind off the troubles, the village’s and her own.

    Amidst the songs and tales along the way, lllyana’s attention was drawn to one quiet traveler and what appeared to be her two companions or servants. They were all dressed in ragged gray and green cloaks. Bright tattoos outlined their faces. Though the rest of the caravan, even sad and weary Illyana, at times laughed and joined in with the singing, these three stayed silent save for when they whispered to each other.

    Once when the caravan stopped at a stream, the leader of the three quiet travelers approached Illyana. She spoke in a raspy whisper, like a broom against a floor. “Her Most Debilitating Holiness wishes you to know, it was nothing personal.”

    The stranger smirked, winked, and before the words registered in Illyana’s mind, she was gone into the woods with her two companions.

    ((quotes taken from “April Come She Will” and “Leaves that are Green” by Paul Simon, and “Red Poppies” by Tess Gallagher))


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