Interactive Quest there is healing and there is hate,

a desire to reach for miracles

The little black filly is crying, the fur of her cheeks stiff with the salt of tears, but it fades to just sniffles when she sees the boy.

“Please,” she says, her voice thick and dark eyes glimmering with water yet unshed. She steps closer, shyly, thinking she would have hidden instead if he weren’t so young (as young as her) with such softness in his eyes. “I’m hurt and lost. Will you help me?”

It is hard to see just how she is hurt, with the long summer evening fading at last into night, the crickets and whip-poor-wills singing there at the edge of the city. But there is the smell of blood faint on the air; nothing serious, nothing deadly, a scraped-up knee and a bruised shoulder and a long cut that winds between them both, clean and deep as though made with a piece of glass, or a knife. It stings and frightens her, and she is too afraid to go home, not when she is sure she will be punished.

See, it went like this:

The day had started out fine, and she had gone with her basket of mushrooms and little trinkets of soapstone and wood from her home at the edge of the forest down to the marketplace. Her family were half-gypsies, traders and sellers, not so strange for Denocte but still distrusted - as she found out from the dock-children that ran in half-feral gangs among the stalls and alleyways.

It was her first trip alone, and she was so excited to be trusted with the job. It went well, at first: most of her wares were sold for pieces of copper and silver signos or traded for wool and grain. She bought herself a honey sticky-bun as a reward and ate it within sight of the beach, laughing at the seagulls and sandpipers that circled ever-closer, tossing them bits as a reward. It wasn’t until she began to head home, when the afternoon had slipped into evening thick with sunshine and long shadows, that the trouble came.

She doesn’t know how many of them there were, altogether. At least five. At first the other children and scraggly-lean yearlings only called after her, teasing and jeering, but then the first one ran up and knocked her basket out of her hands. She lunged for it back, but they set on her quicker than gulls, quicker than crows, quicker than the little dragons that wound like bright ribbons through the marketplace. One boy knocked her down, laughing. And when she told them Stop and that she would tell on them, he grew serious and pushed her down again (that is when she cut her leg).

You’ll say nothing, he said. You didn’t see us at all. You’re only a clumsy girl who lost her basket.

The look in his eyes told her better to protest. And then she got up and ran, without looking back, tears stinging her eyes and blurring her way, panic making her lost in the alleys that eventually turned to hills and dirt tracks until she found herself here, alone and hurt, in the growing dark.

But this boy, he looks so kind. She wipes her nose on the inside of her foreleg and looks up at him and again says, “Please.”

@~~Kibou~~ will be walking through the markets when it might feel the scratch of eyes down his back. Or perhaps he doesn't notice the girl until she's peeking out at him from the darkness between two booths. Will he feel the need to help her? Will tend to her wounds or like his mother will he seek to find the boys who hurt her and bring them to justice?

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This quest was written by the lovely @griffin

Enjoy!

RE: there is healing and there is hate, - Kibou - 09-20-2019

It is late and he should be home, but Kibou is too busy exploring Denocte and learning about all it has to offer. The weanling is still so new to this world, so innocent in the ways of evil that he has no fear of what might happen to a young foal out all alone as the sun is setting. Instead, he has this sense of confidence, knowing that he will be fine and nothing can hurt him. After all, his mother was the champion of battle. Who would hurt her only child? His mother would surely have their heads if they dead. So perhaps the foal was a little over confident, testing the boundaries and seeing just how far he could push those boundaries until eventually his mother disciplined him.

As the crickets began to chirp in the evening sky, Kibou was down in the markets just wasting time. He wanted to be a rebel. He wanted to stay out past his curfew. And what better way to do that than to look through the stalls of the markets to see what the vendors might have left behind.

At first he does not see the other foal walking amongst the shadows. He only pauses when he hears the soft sniffling. He knows that sound all too well for he has shed a tear or two before. He pauses his progression and looks around him, trying to see if he can figure out just where the sniffling is coming from.

And then he hears the soft voice of another that sounds almost as young as he is. He steps closer to the voice and is rewarded when she steps out from between the stalls. Eyes look at her curiously as she explains that she is lost and hurt. At first he cannot see the injuries against the darkness of her coat, but as he steps closer, he can smell the scent of blood.

As he comes up on her, he can feel something stirring within him. It makes his body feel warm and tingly, like his feet have fallen asleep but he feels it everywhere. He tries to look brave, to not be scared, but in truth he’s terrified of what he doesn’t understand. "Let me see…" His voice is soft, but hesitant as he comes up to stand just in front of her. He sniffs at the scrapped knee and as his lips touch the wound, something extraordinary happens. The wound will begin to tingle as the cells begin to spontaneously heal. Where once was a bloody, stinging wound, was nothing but healthy skin that looked as though it had never been touched. Kibou cocked his head ever so slightly as he tried to fathom just how this was possible. But ever the curious creature, he knows he should try it again. And each time his lips touch a wound or a bruise, the same tingling happens and turns broken skin to healthy skin. And in a matter of a few moments, the filly is left completely healed.

Kibou steps back, his eyes looking down at the little filly with a smile that encourages her to try to test out her legs to see if they feel better. "Does that feel better?" He might not fully grasp what has just happened, but he’s smart enough to know that he is the one who has healed her. His mother once told him his father was a great healer. Perhaps this is just one more thing his father has left him. "Come on, my momma will know how to help you get home." And with a gentle nod of his head towards the east, he steps, hoping she will join him. His mother will help her find her family, he just knows it.

@Random Events