Evangeline (Kore)

Evangeline Latendresseteaux, 27th of Twelthmoon. I was born into this fledgling city. I grew with it, my roots intertwining with its own as those who came before began to tend to us both. My sunlight became its sugar, its commerce has become my lifeblood. The first bone I broke was my leg, playing in what was the outskirts of town, which became Underfoot territory. There were two Goblin girls there who I would play with often. Pokey inherited the house when her parents passed, she was a charming girl who wore a rose in her hair. She passed it onto her child, a quiet man named Mrrik who grew up and married a Hobbit named Reed. They had nearly half a dozen children who each went off on their own path. The youngest, Twyn, traveled east on the waves in hopes of finding those new lands everyone was screaming about, she still writes letters to her family every other month. Then there was Brrik, he traveled around Falnorian and came back here a few years later, saying the tunnels all lead him back here. He’s held in high esteem with Underfoot now, he just got married a year back. The middle child, Pygalion, is still out there, it’s hard to follow where, but she’s made quite the name for herself. She’s a part of this traveling band of bards that tell tall tales. She never does shows here though. Whenever she’s back she just spends time with her family. The second oldest, Neett, ended up settling down in Eldar. They always loved animals and met someone there who fostered wild animals that were abandoned, injured, anything of the like. They send drawings of these critters every time they bring in a new one. Then there was the oldest of them. They named her Pokey, after her grandmother. She was always the spitting image of her. She carried a rose around with her always, a pop of red pinned up in her vest. She carried that same light around her too. She’d walk into a room and everyone would smile. Things would get lighter. We got along swimmingly. I am not one to spill myself out to anyone, but she could always get me talking. We talked about everything big and small, I spoke about the city and how much it changed, she’d speak about how she wanted to change it more. She saw the path that it was going down and wanted to bring something lighter. I spoke of how her grandmother and how proud she would be of her. She got married twenty years back. A week before me and Sasha were wed. I even caught the bouquet at her ceremony, and before I married Sasha I talked to her for hours. She told me the bouquet was a sign and that even if my heart wasn’t sure. Something did. The city did. After we both got married we talked a lot about what we wanted out of the future. She said she wanted to have 5 kids just like her mom and spread her roots and share in all of that joy. I told her that I’d sooner sell The Rabbit’s Foot than have a child. At the end of that night of conversation after bantering back and forth I told her that if she wanted so many kids that I would curse her with triplets. 8 months later I met Lerin, Babu, and Treein. I have not cursed anyone since, I fear my own power. She managed to change my mind about the kids. I had mostly been around children in Kirizak, but how Pokey raised them was different. In Kirizak not much changes when you have a child. We all change, but slowly, imperceptibly almost. Pokey’s life was immediately another beast. Her and her partner, LeeBee, worked tirelessly and dropped everything for these kids. Devoting themselves to them and they were bad at it, but they learned and got better. They grew, and their children grew, and suddenly those dreams we spoke about sitting in the house where I broke my leg were real. She had brought her light, her grandmother’s light, and she had carried it down to her children. They were beautiful. LeeBee was a transplant into the city. They had some distant family who were a part of Cracked Roads and came here to make roots with them, but then met Pokey and they fell in love. Even still, LeeBee still would help Cracked Roads here and there. Working around in the tunnels and helping wherever they could. They were there that day. Helping out on something they probably didn’t even know about when they were attacked. Their nails ripped out of the beds with morganti. Their eyes gouged out and a blackened smile left scarred into their lips. This was enough to send the triplets into a rage. They begged the elders to do something about this. About the attacks. The elders didn’t listen. They decided to take matters into their own hands… Last week I helped pack the last of Pokey’s belongings into a cart headed to Eldar. When I got to that spot where I broke my leg I looked up at the sun bleached house. Like the older brother that I never had, always keeping these memories safe. I could see the scars he had acquired over the years too. The blackened splotch in the wall where Pygalion tried to do some on the spot pyrotechnics for his first ever show, the window boarded up with wood in two places where Mrrik and Twyn both broke it tossing a ball through it when they were each little boys. The pathwork gutter hanging half a foot away from the wall where me and Grandma Pokey had been all those years back. She lost her balance on the roof and I barely managed to pull her to safety, falling off the side and tearing the gutter off of its place as I plummeted down. Grandma Pokey had planted a rose garden right in the spot where I had fallen, she told me it would keep all the little girls who were trying to help out safe. It would catch their fall. The roses have all wilted now. And Pokey hasn’t worn anything but black since the first attack. With all the shifting and turning as this city has been built, territories have changed a lot as well. That house that used to be in the center of Underfoot was now barely on the outside of it. An Embermoss family just moved in. I don’t know what compelled me, but when walking around with Eto I found myself on that street again, walking by that house, feeling an ache in my knee as I stopped outside. They had repainted, fixed the windows, even the gutter. That garden of wilted flowers had been torn out and a picnic table sat there instead. I smiled wistfully, trying to put those memories I had in this place to rest. This city has always moved too fast to try and hold onto silly things like this. Right at that moment, a little Illion Elf girl ran up to Eto and handed him some berries the family had just harvested. Her parents called out to her as she bombarded Eto with questions, they said “Come back inside and stop bothering him, Rose!” I wish I could end this with some message I’d like to impart. But I cannot turn my friend’s pain into a heartwarming message to the future. Keep Rose safe. This can never happen again.