"Elisel Uprooted"

Log Date:
	12/12/02

Log Cast:
	Kiralee, Oriolle, Rillwhisper (emitted by Oriolle)

Log Intro:
	The challenge of what to do with a captive Firstborn along with the
maiden he's driven mad with his magic has been a huge one indeed for the
healers of Lostholt and Sorrow's End. Indeed, most of the focus of Savah and
Djhala has been upon how to handle the threat of a mad Firstborn, while
Rillwhisper and others from Lostholt have been physically guarding the 
cocoon that holds him and keeping curious villagers away from it... but in
the meantime, Ree, made marginally coherent by the ministrations of Leetah
and Mender and Ynderra, has been struggling with her fractured memories 
more or less on her own.
	There is one other healer in Sorrow's End, though, one who has a knack
the others lack: the healing of minds. And now that she's been made aware
of the troubled maiden who's come into the village with the visitors, Kiralee
takes it upon herself to do what she can to help... even if it means using
strength and force to pull broken memories back into place rather than 
gentler healing....

----------
East Courtyard: Visitors' Residence(#668RJL$)
This walled courtyard is paved with several sizes of circular tiles scattered 
  in seemingly random patterns. Between the stones moss and thyme grow, 
  creating a pleasing contrast with the cream and brown colored tiles. In the 
  center of the court, a small live-oak grows, gracefully sheltering a small 
  fountain and pool. Planters full of bright colored flowers alternate with 
  wide stone benches along the edges of the courtyard. Clinging vines of grape 
  and wisteria veil the walls and along the south edge of the court the 
  covered arches of a shaded pavilion beckon you out of the sun.
The village goes about its everyday business, villagers tending the fields and 
  working at their crafts. 
Please check the '+lhelp' if you are new to this area.
The starry outlines of the Human Hunter begin to come out as the dimming red 
  light of sunset fills the cool autumn skies.
Contents:
Kiralee
Blue's Tent
Bearlancer's Tent
Temp Guest Cottage
Lilac Cottage <lc>(#9847AHJes)
Obvious exits:
Crossroad<W>

Kiralee
==============================================================================
        This elfin woman is a study in contradictions, features that seem 
  nearly opposites put together onto a single woman. She stands in at about 
  4'2" in height...not so tall as a Glider, but taller than your average 
  Wolfrider or Sunvillager. Her skin would claim her as a Sun Village 
  resident; it's the deep coppery bronzed hue of a woman from the desert 
  domain...and yet her hair is a pure, silvery shade, not at all the dark 
  browns and russets common to the Sorrow's Enders. It's exceptionally long, 
  as well...probably something that she hasn't cut in dozens of turns, falling 
  in a mass of curls all the way to her calves; if wet, her hair would be 
  longer than she is tall. Her eyes are a violet hue, with long silver lashes, 
  and expressive...sometimes less than a benefit, for it seems she often is 
  troubled, and it shows most in her eyes. Beyond that, she is 
  attractive...shapely and feminine, her form is that of a mature woman rather 
  than a child, but yet another departure from the norm; her bustline is 
  frankly enormous for an elfin woman, larger than that of most troll women, 
  and looking rather out of place on her otherwise athletic form.
        She's garbed in clothing that most likely comes from the woodlands; 
  rather than the smooth, often diaphanous fabrics common to Sorrow's End, her 
  apparel is soft doeskin...a pair of shorts in a violet hue, which hug her 
  hips snugly, coming to a position halfway down her thighs. A top of matching 
  material has been fashioned into a top that doubles as a sling, halter-style 
  strap about her neck coming down to criss-cross over her breasts and ties in 
  back, supporting from beneath the feature that nearly makes a caricature of 
  this beautiful elf maiden. Her small feet are garbed in a pair of simple 
  leather sandals, with straps that wrap about her legs till they finally tie 
  behind her calves, the better for walking through the desert heat. Beyond 
  that, she seems oddly unornamented for an elfin woman...she lacks even a 
  single piece of jewelry, and similarly bears no weapon.
==============================================================================

The half-Glider girl finally stirs. That work was -exhausting-. She hasn't 
  worked so hard since clearing Aroree's mind of Winnowill's little...astral 
  vampirism. She runs a hand through her hair, and decides that walking is 
  just not in the winds today. While she usually walks on principle...today, 
  not so. She takes to the air, gliding through the Village as she looks for 
  some sign of the other elf.

It's not too terribly hard to find the one the Wolfriders from Lostholt have 
  been calling 'Ree'; she has yet to wander too terribly far from the cottage 
  claimed by the one who was once chieftess of Willowholt. For one thing... 
  the village is _huge_; for another, it's full of strange faces, most of whom 
  baffle Ree immensely. Torn between the allure of the cocoon Rillwhisper is 
  guarding and Rillwhisper's stern insistence that she must not go anywhere 
  near it, Ree is left to her own devices... which lead her, inevitably, to 
  the tree in the courtyard.
She huddles under it now, one hand touched to its base almost tenderly, 
  murmuring to herself.

Kiralee finds the woman at the base of the tree. She sighs. She thought her 
  healing power had chased back the tree impulses. She lands lightly, 
  crouching near the other elf maiden, and asks softly "Are you all right?"

What has been chased off or not is not immediately apparent. But what _is_ 
  apparent is that even before the daughter of Aroree touches to earth, Ree's 
  green gaze snaps up in startlement, going unerringly to the floating she-elf 
  and widening in apparent shock at what she sees. She watches Kiralee land, 
  blinking, and up close another thing becomes apparent. Her silver braid has 
  come loose again, letting half-undone tresses spill all over her thin frame; 
  moreover, her cheeks are flushed with the heat. "It's hot," whispers the mad 
  one, mournfully. "Need shade."

Kiralee looks sympathetic. "Come with me?" she asks. "We'll get you some 
  water, and out of the sun? I would like to see if I can help you more." her 
  voice is soft; concerned.

There comes a barely audible footstep at the door of one of the nearby 
  cottages -- and Ree's head whips in that direction, plaintively. "Tell 
  Rillwhisper," she mutters.

"Rillwhisper knows," comes the reply from the doorway. A much smaller elf than 
  Ree, the Wolfbringer glances tiredly out into the heat of the day, sizing 
  Kiralee up from where she stands. To her, she adds, "Look after her, healer? 
  She needs more than I can give her, myself."

The silverhaired elf nods. "I'll do what I can." she says, seriously. "She 
  shouldn't be left out in the sun's heat, though." That can bake the brains 
  of elves who aren't even mad to start with. She reaches out to try and help 
  ease Ree up to standing.

"I know." Rillwhisper eyes Oriolle with genuine empathy that makes it through 
  her stoically, stubbornly borne weariness. "But I can't let her too close to 
  the other one we've got in wrapstuff in here. If you can send word over to 
  Savah and Djhala, my mates and I would like to know when they want him 
  moved, huh?"

And Ree, in the meantime, blinks guilelessly at both the erstwhile chieftess 
  as well as the healer. Childlike, wide-eyed, she lets Kiralee take her hand. 
  Pulling her to her feet is trivial; there's barely any substance to her.

Kiralee nods. "I will try." she says. She sounds tired. It's been a matter of 
  some challenge to find any time at all to rest of late. But she manages a 
  smile, if a tired one, as she looks to Ree. "All right.." she says. "Shall 
  we go get you some water?" She concentrates, taking a "step" back up into 
  the air, and extending her gliding about Ree to bring her along. Maybe it'll 
  help...who knows; give her something to focus on.

It certainly seems to seize Ree's attention, that's for sure. Clutching a 
  thick handful of her own hair close to her breast, she stares up at Kiralee 
  in what can only be wonder. "Flying," she mumbles. "Sky is freedom, but it 
  makes Kestrel sad... shines, though...!" These words spilling softly from 
  her, she doesn't move at first, but then she gets started, seeming as 
  inexorably drawn to the gliding she-elf as brightmetal is to Skywise's 
  lodestone.

Kiralee smiles. "It can be..." she says. She floats through the village, 
  heading back towards her hut, floating Ree along at her side. She approaches 
  the hut, landing before it. "Don't worry..." she says softly. "I'll help 
  you."

[And with Kiralee's guidance--and magic--very shortly Ree finds herself in
 a new corner of the Sun Village...]

Kiralee's Room(#876RJ$)
==============================================================================
        This room is a simple one, bearing little in the way of personal 
  decoration or trappings...it accurately reflects the fact that the occupant 
  is new here, and hasn't had the time to make any homey touches to her 
  residence. Thus, the room itself is nearly empty..a bead curtain hangs over 
  the window to keep out the harsh direct light of the Daystar, and there's a 
  small, single, much-used sleeping fur in one corner. As of yet, though, 
  there just isn't anything else -in- here, though that will no doubt change 
  as time passes...as long as the woman that lives here actually stays in one 
  place, something which can often be hard to achieve.
==============================================================================
 
Contents:
Kiralee
Obvious exits:
Out

Her reaction to being lifted by magic is unmistakable. Ree's eyes go even 
  wider and she loses her grip on her long disheveled hair, her hands dropping 
  down to spread out beside her as she seems to struggle for balance. 
  "Uprooted!" she squeaks, before a stunned sort of bliss steals over her 
  features and she looks raptly over at Kiralee, seeming almost mesmerized as 
  she is pulled along. Only when she is brought in for a gentle landing does 
  she totter over, swaying, hands windmilling clumsily as she tries again to 
  regain her balance.

Kiralee steadies the other elf with her gliding, as she comes inside. She 
  tries a simple one. "What's your name?" she asks.

Simple, one would think, though it seems to give the other maiden a moment of 
  pause. Ree draws in a breath, her brow furrowing, before she finally manages 
  to blurt out, "Ree... yes, Ree... remember that. We--I-I'm Ree." She doesn't 
  move from where she's gotten to her feet, though she peeks out through her 
  tousled hair at her new surroundings... and draws in a strangely amazed sigh 
  as the brush of gliding magic feathers across her, coaxing her to be steady, 
  to stand straight and tall.

Kiralee smiles a little. "My name is Kira." she offers. "Let me get you some 
  water, all right?"

Timidly, Ree nods. Water... the notion seems to bring a spark of something 
  like pleasure into her gaze, though her expression is so hesitant, almost 
  languidly so, that it's a little hard to tell. Water is good for thirsty 
  trees--
Except no, wait a minute, she's _Ree_, she remembers...--
And she abruptly shivers a little, rubbing near-skeletal hands along her arms.

Kiralee pours a mug of water, returning it to Ree, offering it to the other 
  woman. "Have a drink?" she asks, encouraging. "Come sit down?"

The mug is accepted with what is apparently ready gratitude, though her 
  childlike demeanor remains as Ree wraps her fingers about the mug and begins 
  gulping the water down as a cubling might. From the relief that washes 
  across her eyes, it might be easily gleaned that she's been wandering around 
  in the sun for a while... and indeed, as she drinks, a little noise of 
  pleasure sounds somewhere in the back of her throat. Still in evident 
  fascination she peers again at her current benefactor, peeking shyly this 
  way and that, perhaps in search of where she should sit.

Kiralee sighs deeply. She gestures to the fur pile. It's about all she keeps 
  in here. "You shouldn't stay out in the sun like that." she chides, softly.

Obediently Ree sinks down onto the very edge of the furs, her knees pulling in 
  to her chest as she squats there, still cradling the mug. "Like it," she 
  whispers. "Like the sunlight."

Kiralee nods. "You know..." she says, softly, reaching out to tug Ree's legs 
  out so she can't curl up. "You're not a tree." she says, directly.

She doesn't answer that, not immediately. But her face does crinkle up, even 
  as her too-thin limbs are pulled out away from her. Ree's begun to turn 
  sunburned... and not surprising, if she's been wandering around under the 
  desert Daystar. Silently her mouth works, until she finally manages to get 
  out, somewhere between a whimper and a groan, "Know. I-I-I know. Others say 
  it too. Outside and in, but... I... _remember_!"

Kiralee nods. "But you only remember because someone has muddled your mind." 
  she says, softly. She reaches out, meaning to touch the other woman's 
  temples, letting healing energy flow. "Relax..."

To this, Ree offers no argument. But her face crinkles up further, moisture 
  beginning to trickle into her eyes, as she murmurs unhappily, "Won't let me 
  talk to him. Won't let me send. He misses me. Told him I wouldn't leave, 
  told him!"

Kiralee nods. "Told who?" she asks, softly. "Tell me what happened, Ree. Show 
  me. Help me." Her Sending reaches out. ** Show me. **

That seems to startle Ree -- has anyone actually _asked_ her to do this? One 
  might conclude not, or at the very least that she doesn't remember having 
  done it. Enormous green eyes blink as though the request is entirely new to 
  her, even as the healing flows into her frame. Ree goes still, eyes 
  unfocused, and sending uncurls from her like a vine uncurling for 
  sunlight... clear and steady, despite the skewed slant of her thoughts. ** 
  <Jumbled memories> <Some recent, very strong, very clear, seeming _real_ to 
  her for all that they speak of the tree-dream that someone has forced across 
  her mind: her roots sunk deep, her leavse spread high. Interspersed with 
  these, a pair of beautiful blue eyes, sad but kind. Hands upon her -- bark? 
  And power flowing, rich and heady, like wine, till she is conscious of 
  nothing else.> <Other, older memories, in bits and pieces: she had hands 
  once, like she does now -- or did she ever lose them? She isn't sure...> 
  <Wandering alone... though that memory is oddly dual, a far older echo 
  barely detectable under a far younger recollection... and seemingly at odds 
  with scarcely remembered faces of... Others> **

Kiralee closes her eyes. Mindhealing is never easy work...it took -days- 
  non-stop to heal Aroree, and drove Kira to the point of death doing it. But 
  one has to start somewhere. She grabs onto the memories that -aren't- the 
  tree-dream, strengthening them with Sending and Healing, as she strikes at 
  the tree-dream, with surgical precision.

Work has been done there already; that makes it a little easier. And Ree seems 
  a compliant charge, her mind yielding liquidly and without conscious 
  direction to the power pouring through it... as easily and unthinking as her 
  breathing. Her eyes drift closed, while her thoughts come forward for Kira's 
  consideration.
** <A glimpse: a gentle-eyed, small someone calling her Ree. _Ree_. Someone, 
  perhaps, has already brought this memory out of her> <Another glimpse, 
  disjointed against the first -- her dam? Hairballs. Her dam tossed her out 
  of the den as soon as she was old enough to toss a spear on her own> <The 
  sky... that's familiar, the wide boundless blue, though it's a softer blue 
  than the sun-drenched expanse that is the sky above the Sun Village--> 
  <--and yet, there are older, fainter memories of walking hidden forest paths 
  as well, where there is no scent of elf but herself, no Other but her mate 
  at her side--> **

Kiralee would love to separate the two sets...but right now, she'll have to 
  settle for getting the tree-dreams looser. She keeps doing her best to slice 
  bits and bobs here and there; to loosen it from her psyche. Essentially to 
  gather it up in one place.

** <It's dream... but not entirely. There are physical memories there, too 
  real to be anything _but_ reality; Ree's body remembers, her skin wrapped 
  close in vine and bark, the feel of blossoms against her skin, leaves in her 
  hair. And peace, a blissful, formless, quiet peace that eases all doubt out 
  of her mind, takes away the burden of confusion of her too-full skull and 
  reassures her as to what and who she is--> <But no. There is a name 
  connected to that, Elisel, but it has less substance than the Ree-name that 
  has bubbled up out of older memory. And the bliss of the tree-state begins 
  to fade, overshadowed now by the palpable reality of the healing soaking 
  through her... and reaching that tangled core of Selves inside.> **r

Physically, Ree begins to cry... though whether it is from pain or relief, one 
  might not say. Somewhere within her distress flares up as the memory of 
  horrible confusion returns... and the sense of a too-crowded mind grows 
  stronger.

Damn it. All right. She closes her eyes, and says softly "Forgive me." Please, 
  High Ones, don't let this break her. She aims for the tree bits she's 
  gathered...and then -attacks-, her Sending lashing out at it. It's too 
  strong on its own...but if it's broken, the elf-selves can recover.

An audible gasp escapes the mad one, and her head snaps back in mindless 
  reaction: _uprooted!_ she thinks, wildly, and the fear of it spills through 
  her sending, even as something else, _someone_ else, seems to growl in what 
  might almost be approval. One shaking, sunburned hand presses hard against 
  the furs as Ree tries to support herself, sobbing in earnest now, while the 
  wolf-sense half of the roil within her digs in its heels, and holds on. ** 
  ......... <anguish> <pain!> <relief> <surprise> <despair> <confusion> 
  <relief> **

Kiralee isn't about to let up. The wolf-self...Kira's learned over the years 
  to trust in the strength of Wolfblood. She uses her healing this time, to 
  shield what she finds in the mind of the elfself, and blasts relentlessly at 
  the treeself. This, she's surprisingly good at. Winnowill made for a good 
  teacher, even if it was of necessity.

Odd... there _is_ no wolfblood in her. Healer's senses can determine that, 
  without question. But half that tangle of souls within Ree is either 
  wolfen... or else as lupinely determined as any she-wolf. That sense within 
  her grows stronger, making the maiden's body physically hunker down against 
  the power now blasting through her and setting her fragile form to violently 
  trembling.
Traces of something else, old traces of something within her system, dissolve 
  into nothingness at the healing fire... and with it goes much of the power 
  the tree-memories had kept upon her mind. What remains is...
Memory, nothing more. Memory, and a silver-haired she-elf crying desperate, 
  exhausted tears.

Kiralee slowly lets up, looking over, concerned. "Ree?" she asks. Please, High 
  Ones...let her not have done more harm.

"Remember," Ree mumbles, despondently. "I-I-I-I remember..."

Kiralee lets her healing become just that now...healing. She tries to soothe 
  and smooth the mental state now. Even if somehow it's two rather than 
  one...it can just be two, rather than two thinking they're a tree. 
  "Shh...it's all right..."

[End log.]