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                                                Find out about Jenifaire here:


              


                

                      http://www.gracecentered.com/christian_forums/rpg-character/jenifaire/




                          
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       Jenifaire comes from the Provence of Rulande'. A beautiful land thick with trees. However, not the trees you may see on other worlds, no! These trees are as slim as a blade of grass...well, at least that is what is said about them, (as Rulanden has no such grass). Also as tall as a mountain! However, what makes them so wonderous is how their shiny stalks will sway in unison...as tho they are dancing to music no one can hear...altho the Ciag Naparstek produces a sway that cannot be replicated.

It has been told for centuries why they grow so closely together, as well as how strong each stalk is. Yes, they are wonderful to hide and keep safe in...but there is another reason.


The Rulandens themselves have never come to the end of finding out about all of the extraordinary things the Rule' trees can do. However, one of the provisions are the roots. The root system is a wonder to behold. They come in every color imaginable and each color of root has a very different distinct taste, characteristic and nutrient value...which, needless to say, is why they have become the main food source of the Rulanden people. The deep brown roots create a strong immune system...and the redder the root, the more strength and vitality it gives. Then, the deeper the purple, the more it helps with intellect and the ability to learn. The favorite root however among most Rulandens is the bright yellow roots. The taste is rich and sweet...and contributes to a highly atune sensory system. A sensory system that includes being in tune with the One who is the Creator of everything.

However, the trick is...how to harvest the roots! In fact, there is a special way to harvest any part of the Rule' trees. This is a very sacred and protected method...but, never hoarded or hidden.

It was necessary to tell about the Rule' Trees 1st, as this is where the Rulandens derive all of their sustanance from.  Their food, their homes and their safety...among other things.


  

http://www.gracecentered.com/christian_forums/rpg-character/kindra/

Kindle had to shush her Wolf.  He has ceased his howling as he felt her approach. But now the soft sound of music was all but inaudible beneath his whimpers and excited panting.  Where was it coming from?  There was a path, revealed only by its deeping shades of green. For once, wolf indicated that she should lead the way. One plaintive whimper spoke of his urgency.
It was a small grove to which she lead wolf.  There was a stream, running clockwise in full circle, and yet undaunted by it's twining into itself. Strange flowers grew alongside it's bank.
And then there it was.. an opening. Kindra felt her very blood tingle in her veins. Time was fleeting now! Soon the way would become once more unseen.  And, finally, she had found it.  
"Good wolf she whispered," entering the cave.. knowing that as she did so that her long journey had prepared her for just this.  The physical changes felt strange.. she did not consider them unpleasant, either for her or for her companion.  Alterations were very slight and very natural.  She exited upon the other side.. a different world. Wonderous! But it was the soft music that drew her steps forward.  Then, she saw in the midst of a glade, a young woman..quite lovely, steping lightly along and emersed in the notes of her own thimble-string.
Her wolf was beside her, brushing against her leggings, his pantings quieted.
 "I believe out meeting has been understood," she spoke to the apparition...

Moments passed in which Kindle ate the sweet cake as delicately as possible.  Wolf had gobbled his greedily, and now law down at the young woman's feet snoozing in contentment.  The memories had indeed become clouded. Too many generations, and then the diluting of a pure blood.  She knew the word thimble-string had applied to the young woman's small musical instrument. "cCag naparstek." But the words she spoke, hard to distinguish from the wind and the trees were otherwise meaningless.  The world around her was both familiar and unknown.
What she sought was a way through.. a way back. She sat now, upon a mossy low boulder, in the company of one of the race of ancient gate keepers. She looked down at her hands, upon finishing the last crumb of the sweet cake, and saw a new translucence to her flesh.  Proof lay all around her. Struggling with her thoughts, one seeming certainty emerged.  She must trust that all mysteries would be revealed.
"Aspa't z marzeń," the words came to her even as she accepted that truth. It was a word from ancient memory, and an ancient knowing of a destiny.  "Dreamwalk," it was a ritual of becoming, a way of the ancients to gain their sense of self worth.  She caught the young woman's startling gaze and spoke the words of her memory, hoping as she did so to see recognition in her eyes.

Kindle felt herself shrink back as the young woman sighted her bow.  Her herbs and powders suddenly seemed petty things in what was true battle. Wolf, she knew at that instant, did not understand what it was that grew into existance before them. Remember! Remember!  But she could not.  She shut her eyes and sent up a single word of prayer, intoned toward all that was good and which would hear her.
"Prevail."  And then following that, "I am sorry," unvoiced. She could only think that the ancient word she had spoken aloud had somehow brought for what might be calamity for them all. She opened her eyes then, in resignation to what was to come.
Wolf shifted in that moment. It was more than mere movement as he rose to his haunches.  She saw as a blur that which was within him, as only once or twice before she had seen.
 

"Hah!" Kindra clapped her hands together in delight, then brought them to her lips to quiet a laugher than persisted.  It was fresh laughter, the sort she was unused to, and quite different from the near cackles that swept through her from time to time.  Then she shook her head at her own foolishness. For this she had been so afraid!

Getting up from the mossy stone, she approached the slender figure.  Once more wolf had provided his own peculiar method of seeing to what needed to be done.  With a word and a gesture, she indicated herself by name. An introduction.  "Your's," she asked the woman, pointing to the shaggy creature still bent over in his silent communion with Wolf.   Her companion shook her head softly, not understanding perhaps.  At least they held the gesture in common.

"Jenifaire," she spoke, bowing slightly.  "Wilk," she nodded to the creature.  Then she smiled, "Rulande" She gestured to emcompass the world around them. Kindra nodded her understanding. Rulande was their home. They watched for a brief moment longer, as the Wilk stood erect and began to move back towards the woods.  Wolf moved to follow, giving Kindra a small start of alarm. But then he looked back, catching her worried gaze and gave that little jump she knew to be his way of reassurance.  He would be back.

The young woman of Rulande returned to her own seat, glancing first between her companion and the place from which the two creatures had departed.  She spoke a word, giving a slight happy shrug. Willing to allow for what was to come next.

Kindra sighed. Wolf's timing was his own.  She began to explore the forest about them, first searching with her eyes. Then she began to touch and draw scent from the plants and flowers. Some were familar, and she sought to find their deeper essence.  Picking a leaf, she put it to her lips, watching Jenifaire for any warning as she did so. Yes, it's essence was the very same.  Then she continued the process for a little while, amazed that those things which lent themselves to healing grew in such abundance in this place.

Finally, realizing that the small bow which Jenifaire carried was done so for a reason, she gathered a few of her tools and set off further into the woods.  Old bones or not, what she needed was a suitable staff.

The hours passed pleasurably. They shared a small but nourishing meal, supplemented by berries, and then Jenifaire built a small, smokeless fire as night began to fall. Here the differently colored and many faceted crystal like stones that Jenifaire had taken from her knapsack burned from within and then glowed a white light. Radiant heat. It was a trick of allignment. Or, more rightly, it was a peculiar harmony which emerged as Jenifaire taped the final stone with a small silver rod.  Jenifaire had strummed upon her thimble string to make the lesson clear, voicing sweet notes as she did so.
The word she used came to subtitute that one from Kindra's old memory. "Piosenka", she now knew, meant "song."
They slept, awoke, and began once more to glean knowledge from one another.  Twice, Kindra sensed an essence within the living things of root and breath that appeared to bring a new meaning of purpose to her companion.  It was in the mixing of two or more such essencences that a revelation occurred.  Jenifaire observed, studiously, ever agreeable when Kindra made the connections that were known to her.
For Kindra, the more words Jenifaire shared in her own tongue the more quickly the old meanings resurfaced, and then knit themselves into a newer understanding.  Another day passed, and another night.  Kindra worried that she might awake and find that the young woman had departed. But she remained.  Always in good humor. Always eager for whatever was next, however simple the effort. By the middle of the third day, they held in common a rudimentary language. And Wolf returned, bloodied and wounded from battle.

...staggered a few steps sideways and settled back on his haunches. Kindra lurched once more to his side, reaching out her hand.  Wolf seemed fine, nonpulsed though dark gray fur seemed to glisten, silvery tips of light.  She watches as his eyes, cleared of pain and then briefly glowing silver as well and settled on her in calm regard.  Then his expression turned to one of Wolf-like amusement.
"What did you!..?"  Kindra found herself nearly shouting the words as she faced her human companion.  But Jenifair's  own posture bade her silence. The Rulenden woman's head was one more bowed.  Her violet-blue eyes when she met Kindra's gaze had deepened to a startling hue.  She held out the stick wand for Kindra's examination.
"Not how. But what?"  Kindra left the words unvoiced. She raised her own hand in a gesture of refusal, and she turned her gaze aside. Some part of her held on tightly to the thought that Wolf was alive.. well. Another part wondered at the cost of his recovery, and the nature of this strange slender creature who had given them cakes and taught her the ways of her forest.
"Rule," she heard the woman whisper, prodding, and still attempting  to teach. Kindra swallowed the word which was on her own tongue, a word of accusation.
"Dziękuję," Kindra managed to mutter as she climbed to her feet, nodding her thanks. It was a difficult word in the new speech.  She heard it come out too coursely from her throat.
"Chodźmy!"  "Let's go!" As she headed toward her belongings, resolute in voice and posture.  One trick of forgetting that a thing had occurred was to keep moving.  It was moments later along the road that she realized she had bidden her strange companion to join them, and without thinking.

.. oddly enough, she began to laugh softly. First, a short, quiet "Hah!" and then a chuckle.  But the gaze she turned towards a somewhat perplexed Jenifaire bespoke weariness.  Jenifair shook her head in confusion. She did not understand the all too sudden humours of other land stranger.  
Kindra shook her head as well, then sighed a moment later, moved and sorrowfully resigned to the task as the entreaties continued.  
Kindra pointed to Jennifaire, then gestured to their surroundings. "Rule"  Then she placed a hand to her own heart.  "Ashes."  She knew immediately that it was a sorry attempt for a beginning.
Jenifaire's eyes widened as she drew back and shook her head slowly, further confusion.  Kindra felt a deepening chagrin. She had no words to express an interium time, nor the others that her own people had then encountered. Their ways were not of Rulande. Instead they tainted all that they touched, through their magics, and through the bloodlines.
And yet Wolf had come to them and to her, taint or no. The elders then shared with her old stories, promising that would revive the memories. And now the kinship between Wolf and this strange land were proven true, beyond all doubt.
Wolf, did not truly belong to her afterall. It made her feel..so very tired.
  
"Nr." Jenifaire pronounced suddenly a firm disagreement, and actually scowling. "Nr! Nr Popiół."
Kindra watched, half in amuzement as the young woman made an effort to continued, struggled now for other words. "Nr," she repeated finally, shrugged and pointed to Kindra's chest. Then her confusion slowly abated as she held Kindra's gaze. The scowl faded, and light returned to her gaze.  
Jenifaire jumped lightly down from her boulder perch. She gathered her belongings to take out her thimble string. Then waving an invitation forward, she played a lilting tune as she continued down the road.  
Kindra sighed, pondering the moment, decided that the explaination had been sufficient. But there was much the Rulanden woman did not know, and likely could not imagine.

Of course the meeting was meant to be. But was this the meeting the elder's stories had intended?  Kindra considered the slim form before her, bent over and weeping and the Wolf who now stared up at his human friend.  Wolf had already become less like Wolf. He now hovered between the two of them constantly. How long since he had even hunted?
She had expected, perhaps, a council of elders, standing vigil over tombs of knowledge. But those were things of her own people before the few survivors had become wanderers and had taken to the sea. After that had come the plains, a brief encounter with the Gate Keepers themselves, and then the forests. For a long time, there had been peace. The Others had shattered that peace.  Now, after decades of journeying. she wondered if her people even remained.
  
Even after such a short journey together, she would have expected to have come accross some signs of portent.  Some sign of passage on the road, which truthfully look more like a wide trail gracefully yielded by the forest itself. Some portent!   No wood smoke, of course.  No real fires.  No sounds of industry anywhere. The small creatures they had encountered never shied away at their approach.  

Why was she crying? And what was she doing on this road? How young was she really? Wolf growled low in disapproval.  Kindra growled in return, and thenmuttered under her breath, less from annoyance than discomfort. Tears!  Rulanden tears to boot! What to do?
"Jenifaire?"