- [!] Status Log - created 2012-07-30 as fiction for Lithmeria: the Endless Siege (Emily of Aspalaria NPC backstory) - Imported & updated for [[Verraine]] on 2021-11-30 Emily wants nothing more than to leave this cursed city, despite all of the lies and tears it took to get this far north. Even the air is black, gritty with soot and ash. It clings to her hair, dusting her vibrant locks with gray flecks. When the rain comes, it burns like acid on her skin. The ambient grime turns to mud and leaves her just another miserable face on the faded streets of [[Tal]]. A tower, stories taller than the building surround it, emerges from the haze and she steps up her pace, hurrying toward the sanctuary of its ancient halls. The stones are black, which does not surprise her, but the ebony glitters with a clarity and cleanliness that does not seem possible in this polluted clime. "Emily!" Once, the sound of her name in *that tone*, shouted by *that voice* would have stopped her in her tracks. She still feels the thrill of fear, but she keeps going, breaks into a run. She's through the archway now, footsteps heavy on [[the Collegium of Tal]] cobblestones. Her wet hair clings to her face despite the violence of her movements, but she barely notices. "Don't you do this, girl." He is close. The run, the miles of travel, have winded her. He is bigger, stronger, faster, than she will ever be. In her heart, she knows that she will not make it to the tower. It doesn't stop her from trying. Now that her mother is dead, she fears nothing as much as giving up. He grabs her arm a half-pace before the stairway. She cries out as the hard jerk he gives her sends her sprawling across the black jade. A *crack* echoes off the walls as her jaw connects with the corner of a step. Her eyes meet those of the guard who stands at the top of the stairway before the entrance. His expression is flinty; he will not abandon his post. Fingers dig into the soft flesh of her arm like a vice. There is nothing gentle about the way she is hauled back to her feet. "Poppa, please!" she sobs. Tears and pain obscure her vision. "You should've listened," he says as he throws her over his shoulder like a bale of hay. She kicks her feet and pounds on his back like an unruly child, to no avail. He takes three steps. "Put her down." Emily lifts her head and sees a woman's dainty lower half, clad in black. Her heart beats faster, hope and humiliation warring within her. As magic swirls around them, her father's muscles go rigid with protest. It doesn't save him from being made to comply with the arcanist's order. "You can't do this," he says through clenched teeth. "Your name is Emily?" asks the black-clothed woman. Even her hair is black. She is flanked on either side by a burly man in cloth-of-iron. %% chainmail %% Emily nods. She cannot speak. "I caught her before she made it!" her father snarls. The woman looks at him, as a god might gaze upon a bug. "You're trespassing," is all she says. Emily begins to hope.