Story building #4b

     An hour passed and the warmth of spring woke Alisa Fellgreen, the ward and apprentice of Claude. She peeked her blonde hair and angular face around the curtain to see that her second cousin was asleep on his mattress. For indeed, Claude’s cousin had been her mother, until disease took her mother away from both of them. This was more than ten years since, Alisa had been nine at the time. In the years since, she had come to love Claude as her father, and teacher. In spite of those years, however, she was still amazed by how soundly he slept even in the light of morning. He didn’t as much as stir as she dressed nor did he even shift when she knocked over the milking bucket. Alisa left the tent to attend to their cows, and gather wood for a cooking fire.

        Alisa was a half-elf; her father had tired of her mother when she was very little and left them both. Her mother was Mira Pythian, and by extension Alisa herself, belonged to a small family of scribes. When Alisa’s father left, Mira took refuge from rejection by joining a merchant caravan and working to write contracts and translate gnome and elf contracts. When the time came, and Mira knew she was to die, she contacted her cousin and asked that he be her guardian. This decision came because half-elves have almost twice the lifespan of most humans, and Claude was the one person who might understand how she would have to live. Claude was a soothsayer; he arrived a day too late to speak to his cousin but in the years since her passing had cared for her daughter, his second cousin, with the love and attention of a protective father. As a result, Alisa has grown into a kind natured, well-traveled, and clever young woman. Much to Claude’s pleasure, she was also a promising soothsayer apprentice.