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Username: Sosiqui
Quest Thread: http://www.gaiaonline.com/guilds/viewtopic.php?t=11496945
God Name/Information: The Norns of Norse myth - caretakers of Yggdrasil, those who see and weave the fates of men. (For my purposes, as discussed with Silvy ahead of time, the Norn speaking with Svana will be Verthandi - Skuld and Urd are acknowledged to exist but they will not interact with the godling or any other gods in any way. They are a three-aspected deity and Verthandi is the spokesperson, as it were.)

Links for your edification-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norns
http://www.pantheon.org/articles/n/norns.html

Godling Name: Svana Ming Aesir (Svana means 'swan' in Old Norse, Ming means 'life, fate' in Chinese, and yes I do have an IC reason for the random Chinese in there - see history.)
Gender: Female
Appearance with Godlike Features:
1.) White skin/hair/everything but her eyes. WHITE. Like ivory.
2.) Tufts of swan feathers at the tips of her ears, and drawn through her hair.
3.) Also included in her hair - white ash leaves.
4.) Threads (silver?) drawn through her forearms, running under the skin, able to be pulled forward out of the flesh to twine between the fingers.

How do these features apply to your god?:
1.) One of the duties of the Norns was to water Yggdrasil from the Well of Urd/Fate. As the epic Prose Edda states: "It is further said that these Norns who dwell by the Well of Urdr take water of the well every day, and with it that clay which lies about the well, and sprinkle it over the Ash, to the end that its limbs shall not wither nor rot; for that water is so holy that all things which come there into the well become as white as the film which lies within the egg-shell." Thus, I think it would make sense for Svana to gradually pale and become pure white as the godhood takes her. (I'm leaving her eyes sharp ice-chip blue because I feel like it. >> All white eyes are freaky.)

2.) Swans lived in the Well of Urd as well, made white by its waters; the two swans that lived there were holy to the Norns and were supposedly the parents of all swans on earth, who in some sources were called the eyes of the Norns to espy human fate. Hence, feathers. (Also see powers, below.)

3.) Ash leaves, pale as well of course, for Yggdrasil. The World-Tree, traditionally, was Ash.

4.) The threads are the most directly significant thing on this list besides the paleness - obviously, they represent the threads of human fate drawn from the Well and Yggdrasil, spied through the eyes of swans and the purity of water. They would also be used for abilities - see below.

Potential Powers:
1.) Minor - Perfect Timing. Svana frequently has... well, perfect timing, in the sense that she's excellent at walking through the door right when they're ready to give a hundred dollars to the next customer, or showing up exactly when she's needed. However, this also works the other way around, like walking down the street just in time to get squashed by the falling piano. (Well, hopefully that won't actually happen...) More good things tend to happen then bad, but the bad is still entirely possible.

2.) Major - Swan Shapeshift. Er... this basically speaks for itself.

3.) Most Major, probably ramping up through the course of the game - True Wyrd/Scry. Svana can see flickers of possible futures and fates. In the beginning this would probably be visions caught completely randomly, and ONLY in liquid - in a puddle, in a glass of wine, in a bowl of soup. The purer the liquid, the better the vision. As she grows, the ability will become more controllable; if she gains those threads spoken about in possible features, she'll be able to cats-cradle weave those between her fingers and scry in that web she creates. (Another idea was being able to pull fate-threads to read directly from the bodies of other people, though obviously that'd be way advanced.)

The fates or wyrds she sees may not be accurate, may be from a future entirely unrelated to her own reality or timestream, may be a choice of many possible futures, and so on. The accuracy and ability to dial in on a person/place/etc. will increase with age as well.


4.) (Possible, I hadn't decided about this one yet): Call up water from the Well of Urd and use it to stave off aging/to scry in/to heal with, by packing it into mud poultices. in the beginning this power would be VERY minor, like summoning up a very shallow small puddle's worth of water, just enough to see a vision in. Or to soak a paper towel in.



(Another possible, but minor: Affinity to ash trees.)

How do these powers apply to your god?:
1.) Seems like it'd be fun for a trio of time/fate goddesses? XD This one doesn't directly derive from the source, it's more like a fun side effect, honestly.

2.) See the above in features for explanation of the swan-thing. Yep. Same thing. I figured it makes sense because swans were eyes of the Norns on Earth, and Svana is also a manifestation on Earth, so... yeah.

3.) This should be fairly clear as well. The fate-scrying of the Norns was alternately said to be done in threads (which is possibly an influence over time from other fate/time goddesses like the Greek Moirae) and from the Water of the Well of Urd itself.

4.) Again, Well of Urd - it would make sense for her to have access to the water for making her all pale, and the healing bit is explained in the part above about the paling. The Norns also used the water from the Well of Urd together with dirt to make poultices with healing properties. And, as mentioned above, to scry in some legends.

Personality: Svana is very uncertain, good at second-guessing herself. She sees things, you see, things that nobody else sees - little flickers out of the corners of her eyes, flashes in the mirror or the shop window as she walks by. Sometimes they come true. Sometimes they don't, but she hides under her bed afraid until the time foretold has passed with no ill effects. Because of this, Svana is a nervous and anxious child. This gets worse after every vision; anticipatory anxiety, if you will. She keeps this a secret because nobody she's ever mentioned to has understood, yet because her visions have shaped her so much, she tends to be withdrawn from others, quiet and not social in the least. She doesn't angst about what she sees so much as be silently afraid. She's developed a stoic front to hide her fear and her strangeness from others. When she must interact with others, she does her best to be perfectly good and not give them a reason to interact with her, or even notice her more than polite pleasantries require.

Svana has silenced a great deal of her own personality under her anxiety and her fear of what she sees; but the one truly positive thing her fear has allowed is the will to protect and prevent the flickers from being true. She doesn't always succeed, and when she does, she's never sure if her success was legitimate or just... the vision not being accurate. Still, this has given her a strong protective streak, and a grim determination. All of this is tempered with her relatively young age; she is not incredibly mature, just withdrawn and afraid.

If given freedom from her fears, or at least a decent understanding about why she sees what she does - and what it is, exactly, that she's seeing - Svana will blossom out into a bright young girl. She'll never be hyper or loud, but her other interests and further aspects of her personality will resurface once her anxiety is calmed.

(In case you're wondering, I'm basing this on actual anticipatory anxiety, a problem I've had personal experience with. It's not fun, but it is an interesting problem to play with in fiction, and one you don't see very often.)


History: To understand Svana, you first have to understand her family.

Svana grew up and still lives in Harbor South, one of seven children living in a Crowd neighborhood that backs up onto the warehouse district. Her father and mother are both alive. They're not super well-off, but they're not poor either. They get by and have a bit saved up, and everything manages to work. Usually.

Svana's father is not around very often. He's a deckhand and cargo loader, taking jobs on various ships going in and out of the harbor, and Svana sees him maybe a day or so every month (the longest she can remember him staying home at one time was three weeks when one of her siblings was born and there were complications). He's a stolid man, not very expressive, but a good person. Svana doesn't know that much about him, though, simply because he's not around enough to really get to know.

Svana's mom... well, she's had a huge impact on her daughter's life. Her name at birth was probably something much more sane, but now she's called Aether Moon Aglaia.

... Yes. Aether Moon Aglaia.

As you can see, Aether is a bit of a kook, a New-Agey-hippie type who gets high on odd things inside hookahs and names her kids random things. Once she left her parents' house, Aether decided the best way to stand out in the Crowd was to really forge her own unique identity. Aether fancies herself a cosmopolite, a member of all cultures due to her utter mutt heritage, and makes a big deal of it; one of Svana's six siblings is named "Hoshino Starlight", which honestly makes "Svana Ming" seem frankly normal. (There is a strong suspicion that poor Hoshi was named while Mom was on some particularly good crack.)

Aether brings in some extra money by doing 'fortune telling', all of which is complete nonsense, but it makes her happy and she does have a fairly regular clientele, for some reason. She wears very bright nail polish, an absurd number of bangles on her arms such that you can hear her coming a mile away, and has filled every doorway in their house with cheap plastic bead strings. Indeed.

Anyway, back to Svana - Svana's personality describes a lot of her history - nervous and easily frightened, anxious and scared. For a while, her mom thought she was just shy and tried pressing her into social situations to fix it, which did about the opposite. Currently, her mom's trying the "smothering" tactic, giving Svana lots of attention at home and keeping her inside a lot. That's not working too well either. Svana does love her mother, though, and Aether knows the most about Svana's visions, although she doesn't really understand them or their source. She keeps trying to fix Svana's problems and failing miserably at it.

The rest of the family is similarly strangely named, and the kids range in age from 24 to six months. Svana is not terribly close to any of her siblings; with such a large family, it became surprisingly easy to go unseen when she wanted to be.

Svana's home life isn't abusive in the least, but it is REALLY REALLY weird and Aether has little idea of how to properly relate to the girl. Honestly, though, Svana doesn't much care, though she's agitated at the start by being kept inside, away from being able to prevent her visions from coming true.

Overall, nothing of incredible note has happened in Svana's life other than those dratted visions - I'm not going to go into detail here, all you need to know is those flickery visions sometimes had grisly and nasty ends, and that one of Svana's young siblings died when she was five, and it took Svana a long time to convince herself that it wasn't her fault. The details aren't important for now, unless I want this response to be ten times huge. >>; (As if it isn't already. Urk.)


Anything else you would like us to know about your godling: She's about eight at the point of entry into The Game. Young. (Appealed to Skuld, I guess.)

Her current appearance is fairly unremarkable, with no particularly distinctive features. Her skin is somewhat tan naturally and her hair is muddy brown, due to the genetic goulash that runs through her veins. (Or, er, something.) She does, however, have bright blue eyes, a nice recessive throwback, but that's not unique to her family; her mom also has blue eyes, as does her oldest brother. The one odd thing about her at the start is that she has white hair in bits throughout her brown hair - nothing as dramatic as a streak of white or anything, but just a single white hair for every hundred brown. She's always had that, since she was a baby. (She may develop an additional small odd feature for her entry into the Game.)

Svana looks like she'll be tall when she hits her growth spurt. Her physique is wirey and a little bit scraggly, but not too much. She also almost always has dark circles under her eyes, largely because she doesn't get enough sleep, and because she's worried and stressed out almost all the time.

Also I envision that the goal of the Norns in The Game is not to rule THEMSELVES, but to replant Yggdrasil and have it subsume the world under its roots, forging a new world in its branches for them to people at their will before returning to their eternal task as caretakers.


Prompt Number: Prompt 1
Prompt Response:
Your god has sent their prophet to fetch some flowers from Persy. What kind of flowers? Why? How does your Godling react to such a request? Do they actually wind up getting the flowers?

Svana padded quietly through the streets, not paying much attention to the people around her, who barely noticed her in return. She smiled, though, as she watched them go past and around her; a small, secret smile.

She had a god in her head. She was much more special than they were; the real kind of special, not the too-loud kind that her mom liked so much.

So do other people. You never know who can hear the divine, Verthandi said, warningly. Don't drop your guard. Anywhere.

Svana made a face. More people than just the ones with gods in were dangerous; didn't the goddess understand that? She was fairly sure the man the police arrested two days ago for rape didn't have a god in his head. She reached the street corner, then, and stopped; someone nearly tripped over her, but she ignored them entirely.

... The florist is this way, Verthandi said, after a long pause.

Svana made a face, and tilted her head up; even though Verthandi seemed to be in her head, gods lived up in the sky, didn't they? Otherwise, it felt too much like she was talking to herself, like one of the crazy people that marched around and muttered nonsense from dawn until dusk. "It's way over there?"

We're two blocks from your house! What do you mean, 'way over there'?

"That's far away!" Svana folded her arms and gave the sky a sharp look. "I'll get punished!"

There was another long pause, as if the Norn couldn't quite believe what she was hearing. Do... do I understand you correctly? You don't want to go any further because you're afraid you'll get punished?!

"Right!" The girl nodded, pleased that the goddess had cottoned on so quickly. "So we'll have to get flowers by the docks, okay? I'm allowed to go there."

You're my avatar. I daresay you're allowed to go wherever you like, and that I outrank your mother. Verthandi's voice turned impatient.

"What's wrong with the flowers by the dock?" Svana insisted, loud enough that the people passing paused, looked at her, and then altered their paths enough to give her a wide berth.

They're not - it's not about the flowers, Verthandi sputtered. She hadn't been expecting this kind of resistance. And it wasn't that Svana was being bad; quite the opposite. She was being good, and she was following orders - they just weren't her orders! The flowers are an excuse. Something for you to tell other people. We're going to see another person 'with a god in their head', as you say.

"I'll get spanked!"

Who cares about your mother swatting your bottom with a hairbrush?

Svana made a face. "I do. It hurts. You don't have to feel how it hurts."

True, but you'll need to get used to pain, Verthandi said. There was sympathy in her voice, but no give. It's inevitable. Now, move.

"Hey!" Svana squealed as she stumbled in the direction of the curb. "Stop that! You're not the... er..."

Hmph. I think you'll find that I am 'the boss of you', as you say. Now, move.

Svana hesitated one more moment, then sighed stuck her tongue out at the sky and moved, because it was better to do it herself than be forced. "You'd better make the spanking not hurt. And I DO want flowers! Pretty ones! We'd better get some! Got it?"

Fine, fine, we'll buy flowers. Just... go. If the price of getting Svana to Persy today was an impudent lecture from this mortal child - and a bundle of violets - then so be it. That would all change in time.

They went.

















Svana chewed at her lip as she stared out the window; it looked like rain. Rain meant puddles. Puddles meant visions.

She did not like the rain.

This really isn't acceptable. If you fly inside the second a cloud crosses the sun, you'll be a poor player indeed.

She did not like the voice, either. For all that Verthandi understood, for all that she'd explained, at the moment it was too little, too late. Where had the distant, echoing voice been when Svana had failed to stop a train accident? (She'd been six and a half. There was nothing she could have done, young as she was. That knowledge didn't make her feel much better.) Or any of the other times?

Svana!

The girl sighed. "Whaaaat?"

The Norn sighed, exasperated. You are going to get over this silly aversion, and you're going to do it now. The last word echoed with the ring of command, and Svana found herself shifting to stand up before she was even aware of it.

She put her hands on her hips and tilted to glare in the vague direction of the sky, somewhere past the ceiling - that was where gods lived, right?




Svana's parents have an open relationship; it's tacitly understood that Svana's father may well be screwing around when he's away, and that Svana's mother probably does the same, but they never bring that issue up. Any romantic interludes with other people are kept firmly away from the children. Svana isn't entirely sure if her dad is really her biological father, but she has so much else to worry about that this particular issue doesn't come up often.

Dark Side of the Moon

Cricket was dimly aware of Ethan getting up; the mare roused a little, and opened her eyes just enough to see the stallion padding away from her. She didn't make much of it at the time, just closed her eyes and drifted back to sleep; Ethan had a million reasons to get up in the middle of the night, and most of them certainly didn't involve her in the least.

However, a good hour and a half later, Cricket was stirred awake again by the hooting of a nearby owl. She opened her eyes to check on Ethan, just in case, and found him still absent. Cricket got to her feet with a whuff of surprise, then nosed around where he had been laying. The grass was cool now; he had not returned.

Where is he? "Ethan!" Cricket hissed, hoping to catch his attention without alerting unsavory night creatures to her presence. "Ethan!"

Nothing. No reply, and no sign of him.

The mare's ears flicked back, and she shifted uneasily. Where on earth had he gone? She shook herself, gathered her courage, and padded in the direction she had seen him go earlier.

Here and there were hoofprints, the odd three-pronged left forehoof marking them, unmistakably his. But where on earth had he gone? Cricket slunk through the darkness, every night sound and wind rustle making her flinch. Had something happened? What was going on?

Finally, after a good fifteen minutes, she heard a sound on the wind - his voice. Ethan! And not a cry of pain or anything, either. Her heart lifted, and she trotted briskly towards the source. There was another voice on the wind, too, but she didn't care that much. All she cared about was that Ethan was here, apparently safe and happy.

It was only good luck - or bad luck - that she saw them before they saw her. Ethan, and a mare she'd never seen before, deep auburn with stunning barred wings. A new friend? What were they do-

Oh.

Oh.

Cricket stared for a moment, then slunk back into the shadows, unseen, numb.

Oh.

She crept slowly backwards, her hooves making barely a sound on the grass, until she judged herself far enough away. Then she turned and ran, full-tilt, her ears pinned back, as if something terrible were chasing her, stunned and more than a little scared of the sudden intensity of feeling inside of her. Her heart was pounding, and it felt as though it had fallen into a cold pit.

Ethan...

She stopped on the edge of a hill that was too steep to safely run down at that speed, her head drooped, foam flecking her sides. He'd crept away from her and-

But she was his best friend-

First friend-

Nobody, except his mother, knew him better than she did-

Except for that mare-

Cricket tossed her head wildly, trying to shake the thought out and away. She folded her legs under her and curled into a small ball of hurt, as best she could.

Why did she care so much? Ethan could do what he wanted-

But up until now, he's always wanted to stay with me.

Cricket swallowed, hard, and pressed her eyes shut tightly.

Trials of the Physical / Retconned

"Ow, ow, ow, ow!" Illumin winced with every pathetic, mincing step he took, his Aoidei trailing him with concerned expressions. Damn this... this overly physical form! Gods shouldn't have leg cramps and sore muscles - the very idea was patently ridiculous. And the pain in his legs hadn't had the decency to stop after the Grigori pursuit. Far from it - now his legs were stiff and taking every opportunity to take revenge for the abuse he'd put them through, to say nothing of the rest of his body.

Completely, utterly ridiculous.

"A long soak will help, Radiance," Eibhilin piped up, trying to be encouraging. Illumin gave her a withering look and limped the rest of the way to the bathroom. The promised bath steamed invitingly, and Illumin let his robe slide off his shoulders before slipping down into the hot water with a sigh.

"By your leave, I will tend to your wing," Eibhilin said quietly, coiling her long tail to perch snakelike on the edge of the bath behind her Lord. Her long fingers were delicate on the gauze, but Illumin still flinched away, involuntarily. "Oh..."

Illumin sighed. "I'm sorry. Please continue." He forced the injured wing to stay in place as she tentatively plucked at the gauze again. "Who tended to it?"

"I did, Radiance. There were some useful references in Lady Medicine's things - under the circumstances, I thought it wise to seek advice."

"Hmph," Illumin grumbled, after a moment. He didn't like the idea of anyone fiddling with Panacea's possessions, but the goddess probably would have approved of Eibhilin's intentions. If she'd been here, she probably would have done it herself...

He sighed again. A fine opportunity, lost.

"I applied a healing poultice to the edges of the wound, Radiance, then lightly laid strips of gauze over it. The poultice itself served as adhesive," Eibhilin continued. One of her hands dipped into the water next to him; a moment later, Illumin jumped as she poured that water over his wing. "This type of injury... was not in her books, I admit... but I did what I could."

"It wouldn't be," Illumin said, pulling his knees up to his chest, with effort, and bending to rest his arms and head on them. "I doubt anyone has sustained this type of wound in Age upon Age."

Eibhilin paused. "What happened, if I may be so bold?"

"A Grigori. One of the inhabitants of the Ashlands... his claws, if you could call them that. He injured Hunt as well." Illumin shook his head, then tried fruitlessly to look back at his own wings. "Is there sign of healing?"

"Not yet, Radiance," Eibhilin said, after a moment.

"Hmph." Illumin went back to sulking. He might well be able to compensate for the loss here. If not... ugh. What a terrible thought. If only Pana were here, surely she would know how to repair it...

Hmph.

When Eibhilin finished, he ordered her away, then turned and flopped into the tub, on his belly, keeping his wings carefully above water so as not to dampen the new poultice. Really, this whole situation was not at all as he'd expected. They'd gone so far, done so much, been hurt - and was anyone waiting for him, save his own Aoidei?

No.

No accolades, no praise, no red carpet. Nothing. It was as though nobody even noticed he was gone, let alone that they had returned with a priceless piece of Creation's salvation!

Hmph.

Illumin sulked.

The Brightest Light / Retconned