From The Jackals To The Shepherds 11: Nine of Hearts

The Woods: The Map: Dave – Taylor Help The Show On Patreon Riverhouse Games Website Twitter Subscribe on iTunes (5 star reviews read on air!) Subscribe via RSS! Riverhouse Games Thanks You! Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & … Continue reading From The Jackals To The Shepherds 11: Nine of Hearts

The Woods:

The Map:

Dave – Taylor

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Riverhouse Games Website

Twitter

Subscribe on iTunes (5 star reviews read on air!)

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Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon:

Nyssa MacKinnon, Jalyn Euteneier, Rohit Sodhia & GamersPlane.com, Alec Walker, VJ Brown, Paul Bennett, Amanda Coyle, Rob Abrazado, Tobie Abad, Vi Brower, Rob Day, Patrick ‘The Tyrant of Boredom’ West, and Emmeline Duplois, THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames

Battlebards Tracks used:

Elven Dirge – Farewell – Score Music – Philippe Payet

Heavenly Plane – Caelum – Score Music – Maria Milewska

Elven Dirge – Journey To The Silver Isles – Score Music – Novak Cuic

Transcription:

For a long time, we were at war with The Jackals. But now, we’ve driven them off, and we have this – a year of relative peace. In this moment, there is an opportunity to build something.

A week has passed.

Living in the community is a girl who has been with us a long time. We can’t quite remember where she lived in The City, but we’re glad she’s with us now. She carries along with her that old doll that Yuen found in the river, tied to her belt, and speaks with a voice like flowing water.

The river grows ever more full as the mountain melt increases. White petals fall from the trees and float down the river, as waves tumble them under. How fast the river flows in these late spring days, the waves thud like a great beast stamping, but at the bank where the children play it is smooth and the current is light.

Daily she takes Yuen & Ezekiel to splash and muddy their clothing. Yuen says that this curious girl who has been with us a long time always knows the best places to find frogs in the river weeds. Ezekiel tells us that the muddy girl who has been with us a long time has an encouraging voice. She laughs with them, and splashes water onto the head of her doll as if to bathe it in the river waters. It feels like more than a week goes by with her watch, it feels like she’s been the children’s guardian and friend forever. We wonder why we haven’t asked her to watch them before, since she’s been with us for such a long time.

As they walk to the river, Yuen and Ezekiel skip ahead and talk to one another. As they pass the town square, many people stop to chat. The day is warm and the square is busy. Fresh from his project of repairing our homes, Drach hoists a bustle of firewood gathered from the surrounding woods, and as he passes them he nods to the girl and she nods back, pausing to adjust a loose branch about to fall. He carries the firewood down to the water. The approach of summer warms the woods, and as the days grow long we celebrate around bonfires near the river’s banks. Where air meets water, and water meets earth we build a fire to bring the elements in harmony.

Today she watches Yuen & Ezekiel as they play in the river. She brought them to the bank this morning, saying her morning hellos to Eileen and giving her a knowing wink. Last night they spoke at length about Eileen’s work with Llyana to prepare the farm. Llyana praises the hardworking girl who has been with us a long time. Eileen is grateful, too. As they have worked together on the field, she’s grown closer to Llyana, noting how the summer sun plays off of xir shoulders. The river thrums quickly, and the three of them often spend an evening at the banks, lying on the grass, looking upwards. It seems to Eileen as if the whole world were flowing and curving — on the earth the trees, in the sky the clouds. she looks up, through the trees, into the sky. The clouds lose tufts of whiteness as the breeze dishevels them. If that blue could stay for ever; if that hole could remain for ever; if this moment could stay for ever.

Yesterday she suggested to Clovis that the spray of riverwater would do well for his lungs. The old man shuts himself up in his shack with nothing but his personal garden to keep him company these days. Figueroa tells the observant girl who’s been with us a long time that he wishes Clovis would be more active in his age. The two of them are the community’s oldest members, and as elders they have a responsibility to be seen in the community. It takes surprisingly little to convince Clovis, however, and as he and Figueroa walk down to the river’s edge he tells his partner how the discerning young girl who has been with us a long time convinced him to move past his fear of quick moving water. The two old men totter determinedly down to join the rest of the community. The current is too strong for their old bones, but they enjoy our mirth.

His brain always whirring, Clovis begins to sketch in the dirt plans for a building near the river’s edge. With the fish farm soon to finish, and the plowed fields ready to sow crops, we plan on bidding farewell our hungers, and a place to store food will certainly come in handy.

Celebrating near the fire, on the bank of the river, and splashing in its waves, it seems as though we’ve forgotten already any fear we may have gathered from preceding weeks. As the calming girl who’s been with us a long time plays with us in the river, the doll she carries sits propped up on her clothes, dry on the river’s bank.

And a week passes.

Eileen:

My dearest Llyana,

Time sure flies by, doesn’t it? Having work to do with your hands makes time pass in an instant. Drachs always talking about putting yourself to work when you’re trying not to think of things and while I miss Jules & Gerrard still I’ve tilled my grief into the ground. You and I’ve become so close over these weeks, and you’ve taught me so much about healing. Not just healing of the heart, either. Real healing with medicine and herbs and soul.

We spent hours plowing those fields talking about what we left in the city when the Jackals came and while I can’t imagine what it’s been like for you to lose so much I thank you for opening up to me. You’re always welcome in my home and in my heart.

I know that despite our being close, that last week was the hardest. After everything that’s happened recently I know it must be stressful for you, but I’m so glad that sweet girl who’s been with us a long time stopped by to chat and help with the fields. If it weren’t for her we would never have finished with enough time to splash in the river together. Before we left the fields you said “that hardworking girl who’s been with us a long time gave us a gift today” and you were right. I’ll never forget how that riverwater made your hair sparkle. I could have just told you this in person but she suggested writing it in a letter for you to find. She sure is something, that sweet girl who’s been with us a long time.

Yours by the river,

Eileen

Thank you for joining us for the eleventh episode of From The Jackals To The Shepherds. If you like this show please give us a rating on iTunes, tell a friend, or share us on social media. As always the intro for the show was read by Dave Lapru, who also provided additional voices this week, and is our mapkeeper. You can find Dave on twitter at plantbird, and I’m at leviathan files. Please consider supporting the show on Patreon at patreon dot com slash Riverhouse Games. Music for this episode was provided by Battlebards dot com. Until next week, I hope your week goes well.