Ysmerelda, Dawn's Rose's page

Life is seldom easy for an orphan. Discovering that one of your parents is a monster & almost certainly murdered the other never helps.

Wait, I'm getting ahead of myself here.

Hi there! I'm Ysmerelda. My adopted parents named me that because they thought it sounded Varisian & they first thought since they found me in a baby basket by the side of the road that I must be one. Varisian, that is. They...
aren't the smartest.
My parents that is.
I love them dearly, much of why I am who I am is thanks to them,
but if they were to take part in a contest of wits with a stunned fieldmouse, well,
they might have to go best two out of three.
Even then they had better hope the contest wasn't being overseen by a Druid if you know what I am saying.

I'm getting distracted again, sorry, it happens. Particularly when I talk about myself. Particularly when I talk about my past.
Professor Lorrimor always said the past can only harm you if you allow it to, of course he also said willful ignorance of ones past was giving tacit agreement to the harm done...
Still not quite certain what he meant by that.
I guess now I'll never know...

My parents, my adopted parents, were a couple of escaped Halfling slaves from Cheliax. They had managed to make their way all the way to the River Kingdoms when they found me, one morning, just outside of Pitax. Mama was barren from the harm done her back in Cheliax & between the pain they had both suffered there & other things they never talked about, well, I think neither of them still had the full set of wits they were born with.
But they loved me & raised me as best they could. It helped that Mama had been a nursery slave so she knew the caring for children almost better than she could care for herself. At least that is what Papa would say. Papa might have still had a touch more wits than Mama, but only a touch & only as it meant he could handle working out in the world a smidge better.
I think they kept hoping I would stay small, like them, right up until I wound up taller than either or even both together before I had my first 'time'.
That was about when I started having the nightmares. I could hear the 'not Mama' callin' me. She called me somethin' fierce. One time I might not have woke up if Papa hadn't taken my hand & drawn me back inside. I didn't wake until we were in the kitchen & Mama give me a cuppa, with a smidge of Papa's 'fortifier'. That burned going down it did. Still don't much know what Papa likes about it, but he says it's good for scarin' the 'memries' away.
Not long after is when the 'Skankey Woman' got run out of town. Folks said she was the Hag Queen's handmaiden or somethin' like that. Then they would always look at me funny & Mama and Papa would hurry us on out. Not long after that is when Mama & Papa started takin' me to see the pretty fella. I know his real name is Cecil Penshaw & he is a priest of Shelyn, but back when I first met him he was just the pretty fella for the longest time. He's just about the only 'big folk' Mama isn't scared around, 'cepting me. We first met him 'cause he saw me outside one day an' asked Papa if he could paint a picture of me. Well he said 'might' paint a picture. He always gets real fussy 'bout 'grammar'.
I got distracted again, sorry.
It took him some doin' before Mama & Papa would agree to it. Actually, it was him speaking up for us, me in particular, when people started sayin' those things about me & tha 'Skankey Woman'. How she was the one must have brought me & how she was going to switch all the other children with ones just like me. They never liked my eyes & called me...
bad names
Mama washed out my mouth with lye soap the day I asked her what some of those names meant, told me never to use that kind of language in her hearing again.
Anyway, Cecil, the pretty man, he spoke up for us & made everyone stop scaring Mama & Papa. Promised he would watch out for me. Not long after that I started 'modeling' for him. Mostly I would just put on some pretty clothes & hold a funny spear & then sit real still for a long time. Let me tell you, that wasn't the easiest thing in the world to do, not no-how! After I got so I could hold still long enough for him to draw the picture, we would talk about HER.
Cecil would call her the 'Rose without thorns'. I could tell he really loved her, which was kind of funny in a way, cause I could also tell he liked men. Well, I say I could tell, mostly I just saw him gettin' frisky with Jacob, the grocer Papa worked for, one afternoon when I got to Cecil's house early. I never saw anybody turn THAT red before!
The more we talked, the more I came to feel a closeness
a wholeness
with HER
Not long after that was when I saw the 'dirty fella'. I don't know his name, just know he had been seen around town for a while, always with things to trade & always not long after news of bandit raids nearby. Actually, I had seen him before that time, but that time was the first time I looked at him, really saw him. All the dirt & filth on his spirit. All the ugliness & pain he had inflicted on others. So much unlike Cecil. I just had to run up an' punch him, hard, right in the jaw. Sure surprised him it did, not nearly as much as it surprised me.
That was when Cecil told Mama & Papa I should probably go to school. Learn more about myself & the world than I could there. I didn't want to go, by that time I was takin' care of Mama more'n she was takin' care of me, but Cecil talked with Mama & Papa, an' they all agreed it was the best thing for me. On the bright side, school was where I met Professor Lorrimor & learned I was a Paladin!
On the dark side, Professor Lorrimor was the one who told me I was a Changelin', a Hag's daughter, an' my birth Mama had probably killed my birth Papa after she got what she wanted from him, maybe as she got what she wanted from him.
That hurt
The knowin'
Especially growin' up with Mama & Papa, an' knowin' just how much they had wanted a child of their own, one born free. Knowin' they took me in an' loved me just like I was their own born child.
I got a little wild after that, a bit angry. Professor Lorrimor & I had some harsh words said to each other. But he didn't call me names like they did back home & he stayed patient. Eventually I calmed down & we talked more. He didn't feel Shelyn in his heart the way Cecil did, but he knew so much. It seemed as though the whole time I was at school all I did was talk with Professor Lorrimor, but I know I did more than that.
It just doesn't seem...
The other parts of that time just don't come to mind when people ask me about school, at least not first thing, not like our talks. When Kendra. When Professor Lorimor's daughter wrote me, telling me of her father's death. I had to come here, to be here for her. I knew how much he loved her & wanted to be here for what comfort I could.

Standing perfectly straight, the stunning, though diminutive, young woman before you tops out at exactly four feet, ten inches tall and a svelte, muscled, four & a half stone (90 lbs.) Ysme's hair is a pale blond, while her skin resembles alabaster, the cheeks kissed faintly with a rosy blush.
In spite of these other features, it is Ysme's eyes that somehow first draw your attention. The left an ice blue so pale as to seem almost white, while the right is a dark, dark blue, like the depths of a cloudless night sky.
All in all, she gives the impression of a beautiful woman, recovering from a long convalescence.
She is not quite so delicate however, as the sword, it's blade nearly as long as she is tall, resting easily in her hands attests.

Bubbly, earthy and ribald. Quite often these are the first three words used to describe Ysmerelda, not unusual for a 16-year-old. She has the sunny good-nature almost stereotypical of Shelynites, coupled with a homey practicality not uncommon among Halflings. Hardly surprising considered she was raised by them. Her bawdy sense of humor would seem more appropriate to a follower of Calistria, save it lacks the cynical edge one usually finds among her worshipers.