Tressa 'Junior' Felf
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PC: Tressa 'Junior' Felf
Login: TheBenBenTressa sat at the dinner table pretending not to eaves drop on her parents as they yelled at each other. Her dad always slipped into gnomish when he was angry, and right now he was furious.
(Gnomish) “You want to let her run out for adventure because she had a Gondamn dream? The Arvoreen isn’t going to change the fact that she’s skinny as a farking twig and only has ONE ARM!”
The reminder stung. She never felt like a cripple unless people told her she was a cripple. It was worse hearing it from her dad. He always used to tell her she could do great things. She kept her face masked in innocent obliviousness while her mom unleashed a reply.
(Gnomish) “You were just as skinny when you joined the Legion. And you were blind!”
Score one for Ma! She did her best not to smile as she watched her dad sputter.
(Gnomish) “I’m not blind… I’m … sight challenged!”
She tucked her face into her elbow to muffle a laugh. Although she had her hopes and dreams riding on this argument she couldn’t help but find it funny how they still slipped into speaking gnomish as a vain attempt at sheltering her. It was absurd that they still treated her like a child.
(Gnomish) “Benji, gods know she’ll never be able to lift a sword…”
Her first and only attempt at wielding her mother’s longsword was a painful and embarrassing memory. With all her strength she managed to lift it a few inches off of the ground then lost her grip and dropped it on her foot.
(Gnomish) “… and she probably won’t be able to wind a crossbow, much less carry one…”
Another painful memory. For nine months before Tressa’s 13th birthday her dad spent his time locked in the workshop working on an ‘ultra secret super invention’. When her birthday arrived he unveiled the most horribly misshapen, yet beautiful, crossbow she had ever seen. He called it the Automatic Quarrel Loader and Looser Contraption. The words ‘Junior’s Justice’ were chiseled into the hilt. They went to the target range immediately. After 30 minutes of one armed winding she was ready to loose her six automatically loaded quarrels. Her dad hefted the crossbow onto her shoulder and steadied her. He held his hand on the stock waiting for her to shoot until she whispered “It’s okay daddy, I can do it.” He took his hand away and nodded embarrassed. She took aim, just like her dad had taught her, then squeezed the firing mechanism. The force of the crossbow's kick knocked her flat on her back. There was a sharp crack as the crossbow landed on top of her. She felt searing pain in her ribs, but didn’t cry until she looked around her and saw all the gears and wires and broken bits of crossbow lying around her. At that moment her mom and dad snapped out of their daze and ran to her. She screamed and wailed. She blamed her dad for not building a better stupid crossbow. She blamed them both for having a child with only one arm. They carefully carried her back to the tent to have her ribs looked at by a healer. It occurred to her that she never found out whether or not she hit the target. It also suddenly occurred to her that her parents were silently staring at her.
“Huh?”
“Junior, your mom wants to hear about your dream again…”
“Oh, uh…”
She nervously scratched at the tied sleeve on her left shoulder.
“Well… I was just kind of … watching. It was mostly about you two.”
“… and?”
“… and you had a bunch of metal stuff stacked on a stone table. You were kneeling in front of it.”
“Like we were praying?”
“Yeah, I guess…”
Her dad rolled his eyes. He had never been very devout.
“Then what?”
“Then dad said … uh …”
Tressa hesitated for show.
“… ‘Don’t let this be one of my fark-ups.’”
His look of incredulity vanished. She continued.
“Then a voice said … ‘That's your responsibility.’… then I woke up.”
He blinked. He looked like he had seen a ghost.
He leaned in close to her mother and whispered quietly with her. She picked up a word here and there, but couldn’t understand much of what they were saying. Finally they turned back to her and he spoke.
“Junior… I know you have your heart set on seeing the world and having your own adventures. That’s mostly my fault for telling you all those bed time adventure stories of mine…”
That was probably true. Her earliest memories were the epic stories he used to tell before bed. Her favorite was the one where Mommy led a group of heroes through hell itself to save Daddy from some kind of pit fiend who wanted to use him for a coat rack. To hear him tell it Mommy sliced the monster’s knob off with an up cutting swing. She assumed knob meant nose.
“But I figure you’ll just run out and do what you want anyways because you’re stubborn, like your mom.”
Her mom elbowed him. He coughed.
“… so tomorrow we’ll take you to meet Miss Scutum Hedges. If Miss Scutum can’t make an adventurer out of you then you have to PROMISE me that-”
Tressa blurted before he could finish.
“OKAY!”
And thus began her life as an adventurer: Five long years of toiling under Scutum Hedges as her crippled apprentice.
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Reviewed, XP Pending!
