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DF Community Games & Stories / Twisted Ways
« on: August 28, 2010, 09:09:53 pm »
"S'not right I tells you and I should know."
Not again. Against my will I looked up at the old wrinkled dwarf shackled to the bench beside me. He'd been trying for days to engage me in conversation. For the past hour he'd finally grown silent and I had allowed myself high hopes that finally he'd given up. Yet here he was at it again.
One must forgive my lack of civility during this time of personal tragedy. Normally I strive to not rub my breeding nor my vast intelligence in the faces of those less fortunate. I believe that if we hope to help the common-folk to behave with a modicum of civility and logic, then those of us who are gifted must each seek to elevate those lesser beings with gentle yet firm guidance and teach through our example. However, the circumstances of the time led me to believe such an exercise in charity would be pointless in the extreme.
Despite all this and against my better judgment I decided to respond to the old man's fears. Perhaps he only needed to be soothed and would return to his new-found habits of silence and introspection.
"What isn't right?" I asked.
"Wait for it..."
CLANG!
"That!" he said triumphantly and a little too loudly right into my ear.
The clang repeated every so often and I heard shouting and cursing going on outside the confines of the brig. Eventually things seemed to calm down. Thankfully my neighbor drifted off to sleep and I was left in relative peace for a few hours. The endless droning of the dirigible's rotors lulled me once again into a languid, dreamy state.
When the explosion happened, my heart skipped a few beats and I found myself screaming along with many of the other prisoners on board the air ship.
One ought not to judge me too harshly for this lapse in control for had I not recently been made to be put through much in the way of injustice and unfortunate circumstance?
For the crimes of necromancy and miscellaneous unsavory deeds I'd been given a sentence of transportation to one of the new penal colonies far to the east, beyond the boundaries of the civilized world. To think one such as I, Hope Constantine daughter of the late Doctor Victor Constantine could fall from such heights and be shackled alongside the common riffraff to serve out the rest of her days in obscurity. It would fill any sane mind with a sense of tragedy and rightly so. But do not shed a tear for me, I beg you, for I am not one for wallowing in self pity nor even for taking comfort in the well meaning compassion of others.
The events which followed the explosion are jumbled and ragged in my memory like pages torn from a book. There was fire and blood, black smoke which choked and blinded and there were screaming pleads for help from the dying. I try not to dwell on the negative events in life and indeed despite the crash of the air ship and the end of many lives, fortune shone upon me that day.
I found myself laughing amongst the destruction and with my new found sense of destiny, it was hard to mask my glee from the other survivors. I'd been given a second chance in life and this time I would do things right.
Not again. Against my will I looked up at the old wrinkled dwarf shackled to the bench beside me. He'd been trying for days to engage me in conversation. For the past hour he'd finally grown silent and I had allowed myself high hopes that finally he'd given up. Yet here he was at it again.
One must forgive my lack of civility during this time of personal tragedy. Normally I strive to not rub my breeding nor my vast intelligence in the faces of those less fortunate. I believe that if we hope to help the common-folk to behave with a modicum of civility and logic, then those of us who are gifted must each seek to elevate those lesser beings with gentle yet firm guidance and teach through our example. However, the circumstances of the time led me to believe such an exercise in charity would be pointless in the extreme.
Despite all this and against my better judgment I decided to respond to the old man's fears. Perhaps he only needed to be soothed and would return to his new-found habits of silence and introspection.
"What isn't right?" I asked.
"Wait for it..."
CLANG!
"That!" he said triumphantly and a little too loudly right into my ear.
The clang repeated every so often and I heard shouting and cursing going on outside the confines of the brig. Eventually things seemed to calm down. Thankfully my neighbor drifted off to sleep and I was left in relative peace for a few hours. The endless droning of the dirigible's rotors lulled me once again into a languid, dreamy state.
When the explosion happened, my heart skipped a few beats and I found myself screaming along with many of the other prisoners on board the air ship.
One ought not to judge me too harshly for this lapse in control for had I not recently been made to be put through much in the way of injustice and unfortunate circumstance?
For the crimes of necromancy and miscellaneous unsavory deeds I'd been given a sentence of transportation to one of the new penal colonies far to the east, beyond the boundaries of the civilized world. To think one such as I, Hope Constantine daughter of the late Doctor Victor Constantine could fall from such heights and be shackled alongside the common riffraff to serve out the rest of her days in obscurity. It would fill any sane mind with a sense of tragedy and rightly so. But do not shed a tear for me, I beg you, for I am not one for wallowing in self pity nor even for taking comfort in the well meaning compassion of others.
The events which followed the explosion are jumbled and ragged in my memory like pages torn from a book. There was fire and blood, black smoke which choked and blinded and there were screaming pleads for help from the dying. I try not to dwell on the negative events in life and indeed despite the crash of the air ship and the end of many lives, fortune shone upon me that day.
I found myself laughing amongst the destruction and with my new found sense of destiny, it was hard to mask my glee from the other survivors. I'd been given a second chance in life and this time I would do things right.
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