<div class="floatleft">(https://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/7/79/Defesede%2Bused%2Broll%2Bpicturedefesede%2Brolled%2Bimage%2B_93eec0496897e847771b6ff402b415eb.jpg)</div><strong><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 11pt;">Godwine ༄</span></strong>(http://link to the post with your character's sheet)<br/><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 8pt;"><strong>HP:</strong> 30/30; <strong>AC</strong> 14; <strong>Initiative:</strong> 2; <strong>Saves:</strong> Str +0, Dex +2, Con +2, Int +1, Wis +5 (with adv), Cha +1; <br/><strong>Resistances:</strong> Any psychic damage; <strong>Immunities:</strong> Any effects that induce dreaming; he's severed from dreams.<br/><strong>Senses:</strong> Dual Mind, Mind Link; <strong>Passive Perception</strong> 17, <strong>Passive Insight</strong> 15, <strong>Passive Investigation</strong> 11<br/><strong>Notes:</strong> n/a<br/><strong>Tagging:</strong> Open<br/><strong>Mentioning:</strong> All</span><br/><hr/><hr/><div style="text-align: justify;"><br/>Sir Arawn Avan, hailed from Avanil like his court wizard Victory... while their ginger leader with the red dragon birthmark was not the mysterious type, he certainly had a strong magnetic pull. It was not magical or of extraordinary difference to him. It was simple and familiar, an earthly boldness of character. Godwine saw nothing more than an honorable, earnest knight with every intention of ushering in fortune and providence. Taking on the Giantdowns, Sir Arawn had to be a careful gambler, was he not? <br/><br/>Surprisingly thoughtful too, asking them why they were joining this expedition. <br/><br/>Why? Godwine recoiled, having never really thought of it. <br/><br/>Wynne's answer was he already had a mark where they were going. Godwine shook his head, amused with his wily initiative. Sarek was going to get his hands on anything, and he could not fault him that. Life out here was all about having nothing to start with and to end with. It was the journey, not inventory, that paid off. Nach's answer got him chuckling. The half orc was not challenged by mere beasts anymore. Godwine swirled the dark ruby wine in his goblet. Whether if he was orphaned or abandoned, why? Why was he <em>this way</em>, guided through wilderness by those who saw and nurtured the potential in him, to this moment, to this cause? Fate was all he knew.<br/><br/>He did not care for the past, like Victory had said, despite that it seemed his domain. As for the future, he could imagine any path from here and it was neither different nor more real than what was recalled each night. Sure, he was a hedonist and certainly a fool who belonged nowhere. He put one foot ahead the other, making the most of the present as soon as it quickly came and went but had done so only to escape. So then, what did he care about? Godwine pondered this. What did he want out of the Giantdowns? <br/><br/>When the answer came, it came clear, and judging from the glow in his face, a welcome surprise. <br/><br/>"I would like... a house, a land to call my own," he said plainly with an easy set smile. He never told anyone this so he was slightly embarrassed at showing his soft belly. His forlorn eyes looked off elsewhere with a rum twinkle, as if he could see it. "Of course, one would say I could have any house or any land as I'd please, but be not confused... When I say I want house and land, I mean the peculiar ones. The weird and clever which have not yet been made."<br/><br/>Godwine tried not to check if anyone was staring at him. They were. But not likely for the lifelong reasons he forgot to fear. These desperate bystanders' ears were simply perked to pick up anything useful in their daily court espionage, secrets or weaknesses to use as leverage but nothing more malicious. He had not intended to sound cryptic or speak so openly in such an eavesdropping scene. So far, he expressed himself safely. He was warned, after all, that Kalashtars were still hunted. Any one of these dancers and nobles could be a puppet assassin, occupied by one of the countless shadowy nightmares, hellbent since thousands of years to finish what they started. Godwine had sworn he would see to it that they don't.<br/><br/>Darcassan grinned at the group, enticing them to dance. Godwine said playfully, "I have danced with fairies older than your trees." <br/><br/>He dreamily smiled at the warband, their knight, and his court wizard before he set down his drink. Perhaps it was irony, perhaps sarcasm, but either way Godwine glided from them, luring them to come lose their minds with him, "Oh look. I drank up all my inhibition."  He swayed hips around in a tight circle, which lifted his shirt a little to reveal his chiseled navel. He gave an animalistic look before disappearing behind the spins and curtsies. The music was not bawdy or tinny; it was grand and swelled with glamour. He swung his head to one side, letting his platinum pink hair strands fly with the crescendo of all the instruments the Baroness had to provide. He arched back his shoulders, rested wrists on his bowed head, and danced like he was lonely and without a care in the world. Sometimes he opened his eyes, just to anchor himself back to Sonnelind.<br/><br/>Other taverns of humble beginnings were much more chaotic than this serenity. Out there they were raucous, deafening, wall to wall with vicissitude, irreverence, and thieving. Tonight was something else entirely, hushed with a quiet settlement, polished and ordered. There were mixed spices and fragrances. Regalia, religious motifs, certified cultures, traditional sayings, and manicured fingers. That did remind Godwine of his quilted remembering where for a passing moment he was among fey in their court. <em>(A pastel watercolor glimpse of foggy fireflies and will-o-wisps, and was that a blink dog that phased through? Hollow metallic clicks turned into humming pitches, as if there were musicians rubbing fingers around the rim of their glass. Even he felt no human body to experience with, and there were many gaps in his knowing. Monumental hills or halls that rolled and sailed by transmogrified color saturation too frequently he could not really understand anything in that frame of second. It took him years of rearranging the mosaic mess of his oneiric ancestor. What nebulae he saw were as real as a breath of outdoor air but rendered meaningless, a frustrated artist tearing away a page, constantly starting over their work.)</em> He never once thought he would be standing here one night in the aristocratic scene, especially in the castle of the Baroness. Wynne's own mother ... when Godwine had assumed the wayward Wynne belonged to schemers and profiteers out there on forest roads. Life surprised you, sometimes. Persons and creatures who had puffed out their chest and kept their eyes fixated on their drinks, immersed in only thought and future, would loose intense knowing looks like arrows across the room. They were privy, mirroring cheeks, whispering things, chuckling at inside jokes, and realizing the intonations and inflections of dull yet precisely crafted statements. <em>"You must try the ale. Fear not. It isn't cider."  "Have you seen the warhorses lately? Rather bone thin, if you asked me."  "More to add to the ledger tonight, I suppose."</em> <br/><br/>Godwine drowned in the music, the body heat, and the spiral of human movement. All this privileged pompousness and nonchalant flow will have gone in the morning. Now was now, but not always. Here was here, but not forever. And if he belonged to no place and no time and if no one will have him, then escape he shall until he is one day real.<br/><br/></div>