Den
of Rudo
Candidate at Xidaver's Gryphon
Nest!
Name: Rudo of Chagga
Gender: Female
Age/DOB: 13 at search, currently 25
Origin/Species: Human, Alskyr / Paniya / House Chagga
Family: Father Ricart, mother Dorne estranged, half-brother (mother's side), grandmother dangerous;
Other: Landed coffee plantation and trading families
Height: tall both for a woman and her age, nearly 6' at maturity; Build: slender and strong
Hair: brightly blond, straight, now to her hips
Eyes: icy blue
Appearance: freckled pale skin, enjoys blue and teal clothing of fabric rather than leather
Genetic Abilities: possibly T-Power dealing with plants or even healing
Her mother is a fiercely competitive woman, and places value on things ... other than her daughter. Rudo's father loves her mother, but cannot maintain his relationship with her. She's a trader, and he is a coffee plant grower.
Rudo's education is adequate, though she would love to learn more than she's been given so far. Her love of science and medicinal herbs (the other plants around her father's house) has grown to an obsession, and when she is old enough she hopes to attend guild classes.
However for the moment, she remains with her loving father, and in dire fear of her grandmother - on her mother's side, the women seem to be a bit... domineering.
Perhaps she will inherit that feature when she's older, but for now she's apt to remain sweet.
Besides, Rudo had other plants to tend. Those in her bedroom loft were growing nicely and she wanted to see if any of them had gone into bloom yet. If one of them would only show its colors, she would know if her instincts for cuttings and transplanting were right on.
The tall girl swept into the house, and almost tripped over one of the servants who had been sent to see if anyone needed drinks. Rudo helped the older woman gather the wooden cups and laughed as the servant tried to push her hands away.
"Girl, you're a landed Lady, you don't need to help the likes o' me." She said, voice ancient before her days.
"Paloti, you know I can't let you stoop over like that, your back always cracks and complains so!" Rudo said, laughing and helping the woman up. The tray of cups was set to rights, and Rudo ran back to the kitchen to refill the pitcher with water. Paloti gazed at the girl and shook her head. In her day, servants were treated like servants. But at least this girl was easier to deal with than her mother...
***
When Rudo arrived at her room at last, after helping pass out drinks and conversing with the workers, she discovered that two of the plants were indeed blooming. Excitedly, she clapped her hands and giggled. "It's perfect! The guild masters will like seeing that!" She primped at the leaves which were on one side of the plant a very red color, while the rest were a dull furry grey-yellow. On the red side there was a single dark colored blossom, one which she was aware could cure a burn quickly, and make itches vanish.
When prepared correctly, of course! She glanced in her book of herbs, and checked the list. "Yup, it'll need to be dried and powdered, and mixed with a neutral paste. I think aloe would do it good though... Let's see..." She flipped through the pages until she realized that her father was standing at her door.
"Rudo, you've been at that book work and those plants all afternoon, it's dinner time." He said, sighing. He'd seen his child go from plant to plant for hours without pause, it worried him. But still, she was brighter than she was pretty, and that would save her some grief. He wasn't planning on trying to marry her off as some lords would - his line had already prospered in the House below.
Rudo's freckled skin and typical build came from him, he knew that. But her straight blond hair and her icy blue eyes came straight from her mother's side of the family. Her half brother, a boy that Ricart hadn't sired, looked almost exactly like her only without the freckles, and with a lanky and angular build. At least she'd been spared being sparce on the flesh - her mother was none too curved, but she... Ah well. She wasn't here.
Rudo went to the table and was served by Paloti and the other home servant Dreen. Rudo's questions for her father were typical of the dinner table - how did the workers perform today, did you bring anything from the House, do you think the plants could be brought to the Guild.
"You're too young to head off to the Guild, Rudo," Ricart stated, toying with his meal. "I'm sorry, and I know you're quite good at the work, but you're just too young. I ..." He looked at his daughter, the only remaining blessing in his life other than what grew out of the ground, "I worry about you. You'd be the youngest girl there, I think, and it's not safe for young ladies. For me, Rudo, just wait another year."
"But you won't stop me from going, if I were accepted?" Rudo asked, her eyes wide and face round with excitement.
"I cannot, you're so attached to those plants, I wonder if you could spare a moment away from them to say goodbye to me..." He waved his fork in the air. Rudo giggled, and ran from her side of the table to his. She hugged her long arms around his shoulders, and smooched him on the cheek.
"Father, you're wonderful. I won't leave you yet!"
***
The day was crystal clear and warm, even early in the morning. Rudo was already up and tending her plants when she heard a commotion outside in the front of the homestead. The land there was terraced, with the plants growing on small sections of ground and then joined by steps leading all the way down to the main road to House Chagga. On a day like today, the steps warmed up and one had to run down them to avoid getting a bit blistered.
Rudo hoped someone didn't need her herbal paste yet, it wasn't quite done drying...
"Rudo! Come quickly!" panted Dreen, the dull-witted servant girl looked so intense Rudo hoped someone wasn't more seriously - "there is a dragon!" She pointed frantically at the air, and then dove into the room to clutch at Rudo.
"What's -- Dreen, what's wrong?" Rudo asked, trying to get the girl to face her.
"They're scary, they're big... I don't like them!" Dreen said, still trying to bury her face in Rudo's shoulder - even at thirteen, Rudo was almost 5'10 and would grow taller yet, matching her mother's statuesque form at adulthood.
"Dreen, they're not going to hurt you!" Rudo said, trying to maintain her composure. But it was hard. "Okay, look, stay here, and don't worry about the dragon. I'll ... I'll chase it away for you. Okay?"
Dreen nodded and then went to Rudo's closet where she wedged herself into the dark folds of a winter coat. Rudo shook her head, and went outside.
Her father was speaking to the rider of the black colored dragon that had somehow managed to balance himself on two terraces. Rudo's first concern wasn't that the dragon had crushed any people - it was if he'd broken any of the plants...
"Here now, you're scaring the servants!" Rudo called, waving her hand. Her father looked up at her as she descended the hot steps toward them. "Dreen is beside herself."
"Dreen's always beside herself," Ricart groaned. "They're here on bond search, Rudo." The tone of her father's voice changed so much that Rudo perked up. She was concerned.
"Father?"
"They'd like you to come with them," Ricart said. He slid his jaw around, and then looked at his daughter seriously, with some sorrow in his dark green eyes. "Rudo, I can't keep you here forever... But I can't say no to them, and neither can you. If you're to stand on the dunes you'd make me very proud."
"But I've... Got my work! And the Guild!" Rudo said, turning a circle. Finally she looked at the black dragon, and though he towered over her, the dragon himself looked a little small. For a dragon. "Which Caer? Where is this place?"
The rider, a fairly handsome man, tilted his head and gave her a little salute, saying, "it's on the other side of the world, miss, a place called Xidaver isle. There are dragons, gryphs and all else - Tyrin we call them there. We've got a very unusual clutch on the dunes, and there are sure to be some beautiful Tyrin coming from it."
"But I'm an herbalist, well, I want to be anyway. I want to go to the Guild." Rudo said, flatly.
"You might be able to do that while you wait, we've got our own guilds. And your gryphon, if you bonded, would be able to help you work, I think." He paused, and looked over the young tall girl. "You've got talent in your hands, do you think that the greenery here grows the way you want it to just because you read a lot of books about them?"
At that, Rudo lit up. "I ... never thought about it that way." She looked at her hands. "So, you think I'm talented enough for a gryphon, what did you call them? Tyrin? To train me?" Then the little girl in her took over, as she realized just what was going on. "And oh, there would be travel, and other isles and caers to visit - and Guilds! I could take medicines to people far off and --" She got progressively more excited, until she looked like the young girl that Ricart would miss the most.
Laughing, Ricart held his hand onto his daughter's shoulder, "Rudo, perhaps you should pack up and bond first, instead of planning your next delivery..."
***
It was a storm filled day, when the eggs in Xidaver's nests began to hatch. The mother of this delicate clutch was very snippy but Rudo hardly blamed her. After all, her babies were important.
None more so than the beautiful morning-glory patterned female came toward Rudo with a pleasant headbutt to the girl's leg. They had to wait their turn a bit, before being announced and bonded fully.
It was odd, because Rudo wasn't sure how they worked this thing. A girl was there who helped the new hatchlings pair up with their partner, mentally. They announced each other - Rudo's gamma ranked plant controller was named Arrel.
My name is Arrel and I know you will take care of me just like one of your flowers, the tyret said. They were given room to show off, and then went to their nook to rest and eat.
But we need to get out, and ... Eventually I will fly. I will!
"Not until your wings have got feathers on them, silly Arrel!" Rudo laughed.
They did eventually learn - and well, but not quite well enough to be considered for a fighting squad. That suited Rudo of course, because the only think she could think of was that her garden needed this gryphon to help tend it. The maze and the trees, the coffee plants... Everyone would love this tyrin!
Arrel and Rudo flew over the lands and seas - gracefully if not very high. Arrel was more apt to sweep low over the trees and try to cause them to stir. Not just with the wind from her wings, but because she could control plants more strongly now. It was great practice.
Rudo, laughing, called out loudly to her bond, "go to the east, just a bit more, and we'll be home! See that great bay!"
I see it, my friend, and there are so many ships! Where should I go?
"Up on the hill," Rudo said with her heart pounding, "there with the crafted maze and terraces! That's my home, our home!"
An excited call came from the servants down in the trees, they could see a brightly colored gryphon and that meant one thing. Rudo was coming home at last! She'd written letters to some of the servants, knowing that a couple of them would have to have theirs read to them by more skilled readers. But they all knew that she'd bonded a Tyrin, this lovely black and floral-colored Arrel.
"This must be... Arrel?" Her father said, pronouncing the name as best he could without having heard it before. They landed easily on one of the terrace ledges, and Arrel began preening.
"It is, she is!" Rudo called out and lept from her gryphon's shoulder to the ground. She hurried into her father's warmly waiting arms - but noticed that he was a bit hesitant. "Mother's here," she whispered and he nodded. "Did she - she's never written me back, is she..."
"She can answer you herself," said her mother, in a curt voice from the house. "Come inside, and you -" she ordered one of the local servants, "bring us some hot tea." The blond haired woman turned on her heel and disappeared into the house.
Rudo had grown a bit in the year and a half that she'd been gone. She matured quickly, now just over fifteen years old. And she was bonded to a beautiful Gamma Tyrin. She was hardly going to follow her mother until the woman at least acknowledged her presence properly.
Arrel agreed, and with a creeling call, nearly broke the house's windows. Rudo saw her father wince, but then he cracked a weak grin when her mother shrieked from inside the house about the noise.
"Dorne," Ricart called, "perhaps you should come and congratulate our daughter on a job well done at the Caer."
"Aerie," Rudo laughed, "I went to the Aerie." She and her father waited side by side, with Arrel looking down onto the man's slightly balding head. She was going to pick at his hair, she would do that to people she liked, but Dorne came out from the doorway a moment later. She looked furious.
"Congratulate? For what? Bringing a stray animal home with her?" Dorne said, and Arrel bristled.
"I will have you know I am no animal, and you should speak with more respect to my kind, human!" Arrel said out loud. She very rarely spoke aloud, prefering the mind contact with her bond. Her big wings shifted around, and she was so irate that the nearest shrubs suddenly shriveled.
"It - it spoke!" Dorne said, suddenly growing pale. She backed up a step.
"This is Arrel," Rudo said, calmly. "Arrel, this is my mother, she's a bit ... abrupt."
Unkind, Arrel thought, but Rudo hushed her.
"Mother, I learned a lot while I was at Xidaver. Tending their gardens and working with their herbalists. I will be attending another few classes at the Guild here before getting my journeyman's credits, but Arrel here has powers that help me a lot. I can use them too. I wish you would be proud of me. Of us."
The expression on her mother's face changed from fear through disgust, anger, and finally to a calm mask. "You should have asked permission before going anywhere. You know that I planned on having you with-"
"Mother, you can't use that old excuse," Rudo snapped. "You never even bothered to answer my letters. You knew very well where I was, all this time. You could have come to visit, it's not that hard to book passage. But you know what?" Rudo glanced at her father, who was a bit shocked at this - since Rudo had always been a bit more shy and tame before leaving, and then she looked at Arrel, who proudly sat down on the path. "We don't really care what you wanted me to do. Arrel and I are a team, and we'll do what we will do. I don't want to be a merchant, I never did and you know it."
"You listen to me-" Dorne began, but Rudo again cut her off.
"No, you must listen to reason this time," Rudo spoke in a dangerous tone quite like her mother's. "I cannot possibly go with you, you barely even know me. And you hardly respect my bond, she'd eat you if given half a chance. Especially after insulting her like you did. So," Rudo snapped her fingers, "you go on your trip, and say hello to some of the nice people - even though I know you won't. And I will go to the guild and learn more. But don't you dare insult me or my Tyrin again."
Arrel nudged Rudo's shoulder lovingly with her beak, and Rudo absently scratched the gryphon's neck feathers. Dorne turned another shade of green, then went into the house angrily.
"Maybe this time she'll leave for good," Ricart said, half happy and half pained.
"She doesn't love you," Rudo said.
"Not any more. But... say - what's that up there?" He looked beyond Arrel's wing, and the Tyrin and rider both turned to look into the sky. Another gryphon was coming.
He was a dramatic shade of black and grey - with markings on his wings.
Yareesel, interesting... Arrel said.
"Did you hear about the frenzy at Tripaldi?" The starry-marked Tyrin said. "Come along! It will be fun!" Up in the sky they could see another creature, almost like a tyrin but ... with a horse's back end instead of feline. He didn't seem interested in coming down.
"Can we go?" Arrel asked, then turned to the other gryphon, "I will go, is it now? Must we leave right away? We just got here!"
The black and grey gave her information for where and when - and then left. He seemed so excited, they would have a good time in the air. Rudo scratched her head and said, "Well I guess so, but if it can wait until tomorrow that'd be great..."
I believe so - we will go when you are rested and packed up. And I want to see your garden!
"But Arrel, it's in my room, and it'd be --"
"We would hardly let your garden die while you were gone, Rudo," Ricart said, "And besides, she can look in the window - she's ... quite tall enough!"
Excitedly, the pair went into the house, while Arrel trotted behind, and wove around to the back, where she could indeed see into the rooms. She gave Dorne a glare, before moving on to Rudo's window...
Bond
Name: Arrel
Gender: Female
Size/Shoulder/Length: medium-large 13" s / 45' l / 60' ws
Colors: Morning Glory Black; body deepest void, all feathered parts dramatically marked periwinkle, blue, black, and paler blue
Breed: Xidaver Gryphon / Tyrin
Features: as shown, grow into adulthood
Powers: Winged Flight
Telepathy and Verbal Speech
Gamma Ranked Plant Control
Parentage: possibly Black/Silver Stella + Black/Gold/Tan Tyarce
Origin: Xidaver
Art By: Kless
Other Info:
|
Lineage Unknown but surmised to be Stella/Tyarce's clutch, or perhaps there were more than just a couple special hatchlings.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Mates and Descendants
|