pyrrhicPachyderm

AC: 16 | HP: 51/51 | HD: 8/8 Animal Friendship: 1/1 | Misty Step: 1/1 As soon as they draw near the outpost, Callie goes skipping ahead of the group to give a rap at the door. "Merridy!" she calls through the door. "We're here!" She stands ready to wrap Merridy up in a big hug as soon as the door opens.

AC: 16 | HP: 51/51 | HD: 8/8 Animal Friendship: 1/1 | Misty Step: 1/1 Callie smiles, warmly and patiently. "I'm looking forward to it too. I've recently discovered a taste for seafood,"—she gives Jacoby a conspiratorial wink—"and don't forget to have a story of your own ready! Alright, see you soon!" Callie flashes him a broad grin, then turns and skips off to catch up with the others, almost in time for Jacoby to miss a bright red blush spreading up her cheeks. She seems in high spirits as they enter the badlands, and it's not just that she has a date. To be treading in Her very footsteps... it's something Callie has long dreamed of. Maurice's trowel is out of her pocket once again, as she twirls it in one hand, while her other hand holds a small flower bulb. "A year or so. It would be sweet to bring her home at the same time as Corrin. She used to have a huge crush on him, and, well... I think he's still available." Callie blushes again as the thought of playing wingwoman for her brother and her friend recalls her mind to her own recent romantic endeavour. "But it feels like giving up..."

AC: 16 | HP: 51/51 | HD: 8/8 Animal Friendship: 1/1 | Misty Step: 1/1 Callie had seen the question coming; she wasn't stupid. And she'd been intending to decline. The Mother Abbess' story had been a keen reminder of what happened when two people were called to different homes. And it was not entirely coincidence that Callie's own story had ended with just another of her ties to the temple at Vanaris. Perhaps it was Jacoby's profession that had made her assume he was bound to the river, or perhaps it was his ears. But is he was willing to travel, and he'd said so... Well, he'd already know how to assuage the first of Callie's concerns. It's a moment before she meets his eyes, but when she does so, it's with a smile on her face. "I think I'd like that. Perhaps you can regale me with a story or two of yours."

AC: 16 | HP: 51/51 | HD: 8/8 Animal Friendship: 1/1 | Misty Step: 1/1 Callie isn't looking at Jacoby as he's looking at her. She's gazing at her lap, where she's turning a battered old trowel over in her hands. She's silent for a moment at Jacoby's prompt, meditative, and when she speaks, it's to the others. "Did you ever see Maurice's spiderwort? Behind the temple? It was rather unassuming most of the time, but once each year, for just a day, it bloomed with the most beautiful flowers." She finally looks at Jacoby, to catch him up on the details. "Maurice was our temple gardener, until he passed away a few years ago. His wife, she'd brought the spiderwort from her homeland, a long way away. She... she died young, and they never had any children. He once told me the flower was all he had left of her." "A stallion got out one day. Tore clean free of my grip. I jumped on it, but it took me a couple of minutes to get it under control, and not before it had gone bucking all across the garden. Made a right mess, and... it completely trampled the spiderwort. Turned up that whole section of flowerbed. Maurice never said a word against me for it... he never said a word against anyone. You'd almost think he took it in stride. But I saw his face when he saw what had happened... I had to do something." Callie pauses for a while, taking another glance down at the trowel in her hands. "I remembered the story my brother had told me, of the wise woman who lived in the woods, and how she knew every plant that grew there. She wasn't hard to find. Lived in a small hut, in a clearing. I asked her if there was anything that could be done, and she said she could make a potion that would bring any plant back to lie. She just needed three ingredients. I had to fetch them for her, of course." "The bezoar was the easiest. I managed to pick it up in the market, though it certainly cost a pretty penny." Callie raised one finger, counting the items off. "The toadstone was much trickier. Turns out you don't find those in normal toads, only giant ones. In the stomach. And the first one that I managed to get swallowed by didn't even have one." Callie raises another finger. "But the Tumtum seed was the hardest one. It took me over a month to even find a Tumtum tree, nevermind getting the fruit." Callie pauses, looking awkwardly down at the trowel again, her finger-counting forgotten. "But that's a story for another time." "So I took it all back to the wise woman's hut, and she said she'd need three days to make the potion. I should've guessed that she'd be gone when I came back for it. But I was younger then..." She sighs. "Not a trace of her, or her hut. Just a clearing, covered in grass like it'd been growing there for months." Another sigh. "I hadn't even told Maurice what I'd been up to, and it had been a couple of months by then. Didn't want to get his hopes up. But at that point... I was out of ideas. So I went and told him what I'd done. Thought maybe he'd know where to go next." Unexpectedly, a gentle, nostalgic smile spreads over Callie's face. "He didn't even say anything. Just smiled that wry smile of his and led me behind the temple. And poking out through the soil, right amidst the trampled leaves, was this little green shoot. He'd managed to save one of the seeds, and managed to make it grow. Always could work miracles with the plants, he could." Callie looks up and meets Jacoby's eyes, still with that slightly sad smile on her face. "He hadn't told me he'd been trying it, 'cause he hadn't wanted to get my hopes up. It seemed he was almost more upset by how distressed I was that I'd ruined it. Was kind of funny... kind of silly, neither of us telling the either what we were up to." "That spiderwort's still growing there today, flowering so beautifully every year." She flips the trowel over in one hand, grasping it by the handle as though she were about to stick it into some soil. "And I'm still looking after it." Her eyes break from Jacoby's, linger on the trowel for a couple of seconds, then drift off into the middle distance.

AC: 16 | HP: 51/51 | HD: 8/8 Animal Friendship: 1/1 | Misty Step: 1/1 "Callie." Callie suddenly blurts it out, realising they completely forgot to introduce themselves. "And Argus, and Barris." She gestures to the other two as she says their names. "And... you've already met Aurelia and Calar." Introductions done, Callie doesn't make any immediate move to start her own story, instead looking at Aurelia and Argus. The two of them had surely accrued some fascinating stories in their time, and Callie was herself excited to hear them as well, leaning forward intently in her seat.

AC: 16 | HP: 51/51 | HD: 8/8 Animal Friendship: 1/1 | Misty Step: 1/1 Callie flashes Jacoby a smile when he glances at her, but she's not sure if he catches it with the way he looks away. "Oh c'mon, you skipped the actual story there!" Callie's clearly dissatisfied with Barris' tale, mostly economics as it was. "What'd you do? Get into any good chases with the guard?"

AC: 16 | HP: 51/51 | HD: 8/8 Animal Friendship: 1/1 | Misty Step: 1/1 Callie blushes beet red. But she still smiles. "Oh. Um, thank you. That's very kind of you say." Callie's clearly embarrassed too, shuffling her feet a wee bit. Honestly, the compliment alone she could have taken, but everything else... well, that just made it more awkward. "Um, right. Yes. Best get moving." Callie quickly forces herself to stop shuffling her feet, but still, she's glad for Jacoby to go and put a stop to the embarrassment. Or at least a pause to it, as she suddenly became keenly aware that they'd all be sharing a small raft together soon enough.

AC: 16 | HP: 51/51 | HD: 8/8 Animal Friendship: 1/1 | Misty Step: 1/1 Callie is a little quiet over dinner, though her smile is broad as she enjoys the food, savouring the seafood once again. She considers trying to entertain people with her "magic" tricks again, as she had in Barrow, but it didn't feel quite appropriate. Hester had actual magic, after all, and Calar seemed to have Jessa well entertained. Instead, she tries to strike up a conversation with Wilsy beside her. "A teacher, eh? You're good with your letters, then? I never had the patience for it myself; never even learned most of the scripture. I'd much rather be working with my hands. But"—she gives the girl a big smile—"it's an important calling. Someone had to teach the kids like me anyway. perhaps you could ask Barris for some advice." She points over at the wizard. "He's a big scholar."

AC: 16 | HP: 51/51 | HD: 8/8 Animal Friendship: 1/1 | Misty Step: 1/1 Callie shakes her head with her smile. "No excitement necessary, thanks. Though if all seafood is this good," by way of demonstration, she holds up a scallop on its way to her mouth, "then I could do with some more of it before we go!"

AC: 16 | HP: 51/51 | HD: 8/8 Animal Friendship: 1/1 | Misty Step: 1/1 "Can't say I've tried it much. My ma mostly cooked up the stuff from our farm, and I guess I've been eating much the same since. But," Callie grins, "I'll give it a try. Thank you! I'll have the same as Argus, thanks!" She defers to the older man's apparent expertise in the matter.

AC: 16 | HP: 51/51 | HD: 8/8 Animal Friendship: 1/1 | Misty Step: 1/1 Callie's eyebrows immediately shoot up at the revelation, but it's a while before she processes it enough to form any kind of reply. "There's really no cure? There's... nothing we can do? But..." Callie really just doesn't have the words. She wants to do something, to be doing something about it. Normally, when there was a problem—damaged equipment, a unruly horse, weeds in the garden—she just got to work and solved it. This pilgrimage had forced her to confront so many problems that she couldn't just solve, but at least in Barrow she'd been able to do something. To put some work in, and make the situation better, even if there was no solution. But here... Barris seemed to have just accepted it. "How... how long do you have?" she asked lamely. "Perhaps She can... when we..." Callie speaks quietly, then trails off. She would certainly be praying for Barris, but she knew that to hope that some reward or salvation awaited them at the end of this journey was foolish.

AC: 16 | HP: 51/51 | HD: 8/8 Animal Friendship: 1/1 | Misty Step: 1/1 Callie nods at Calar's words. "Aye, it's hard to find the time. Or to meet anyone! We hardly get any fresh blood at the temple." She pauses before continuing, figuring she probably ought to give the old man at least a bit of gossip. "There was this one bloke last summer; he came to help on the folks' farm. I thought we were getting on well, and he was definitely flirting. But it turned out I was second choice..." She sighs. "It's almost enough to make a woman choose to settle for the single life." In truth, she knew it was partially her fault things didn't work out: she hadn't been able to find enough time to give him. But he could have been far kinder in how he broke it to her, so she didn't have any compunctions about laying the blame on him. Her frown vanishes quickly enough as another thought passes her mind, however. "Oh, that reminds me! Don't let me forget to tell Merridy that my brother's headed back to Vanaris. Those two were always... Well, there was something there."

AC: 16 | HP: 51/51 | HD: 8/8 Animal Friendship: 1/1 | Misty Step: 1/1 "It..." Callie starts to reply to Aurelia, but then stops for a while, considering the question. She'd just been walking and working, not stopping to consider how she felt about it. "It's sad to see the state of... well, everything. But it's been good to help. Good to be out here helping, not just out the temple. And I'm looking forward to seeing the end. I mean, not to being finished, but to seeing the site where She fought." A grin splits Callie's face, even as she stumbles slightly over her words. She sits silent for a moment, contemplating in a way she hasn't done much in a while, before she breaks the silence to turn the question back on Aurelia. "What about you? You say it's different than before, but... are you enjoying the simpler times?"

AC: 16 | HP: 51/51 | HD: 8/8 Animal Friendship: 1/1 | Misty Step: 1/1 "Break it up!" Callie leaps into the fray, trying to push the kids off one another, or at least prevent any of them getting hurt. The children were the same size as she was, but she'd spent most of her life wrestling with creatures much larger than herself. This shouldn't have been hard... except there were a lot of them. And she had a number of five-finger donations to give at the same time. After a few moments of tussling, Callie shouts out, "The rest of you, check your pockets!" She's taken advantage of the distraction, best she can, to distribute more coins. "There's one for each of you!" Assuming that manages to quell the fighting, she makes sure to be quick to produce a few more coins, distributing them into the hands of any children whose pockets she couldn't reach during the fight. "And I don't want to see anybody taking anyone else's share!" She gives a stern glare around the assembled children.

Och, I'm sorry to hear this, but I totally understand. Writing sure is the least fun part of science. I hope things get better for you. And again, thanks. It's been a great and long game, and I'll always be glad to have played in it even if we don't get to wrap it up. Looking forward to seeing you again in a few months, whatever the result might be.