estirose

There's one little bit of this novel that's always stuck with me: the mention of Arcie's people, handing in their Guild memberships, IIRC.

This story is about those people and them coming back. Due to the nature of the story, all the characters are OCs.

Her hands stopped just before they touched the cow. Esrella blinked, shook her head as if the whole thing had to be a bad dream, that she really couldn't be just getting ready to milk a cow in the countryside.

It's mentioned/implied that most of the "bad people" of the world found new professions in "respectable" industries - in Esrella's case, a farm. I think Esrella's name (as well as the other members) came from some googling on Old English names.

But if her memory was true, she'd been milking the damn cows - and been happy about it - for about a month. Some part of her had let out a faint squeak of protest, but somehow, the rest of it was happy to go to the countryside and become a milkmaid.

I wasn't sure how long Arcie and co took to save the world. That being said, Esrella was among the last to be affected by whitewashing.

Her? A milkmaid! Esrella laughed, the laugh that had branded her the cackler of the Thieves' Guild. Arcie, the guild head, would be laughing his head off at her being a milkmaid. That is, when he recovered from the shock of her leaving the Guild at all.

Something had happened to her. The days were light, the townspeople were joyful, and there seemed to be no point in being a thief anymore. She'd been a thief since she was a little girl, so the whole idea of her not being a thief was laughable.

And yet there she was, getting ready to milk a cow. In a dress and an apron. Nothing like the dark outfits she would have worn for her second-story jobs, the trousers, the sensible clothes. She'd never seen the point of dresses except as disguises.

I'm not too comfortable in dresses and aprons, either, which bled into her.

This time, the dress had hidden her true self. No, somehow something else had hidden her true self, that she'd slipped into this nightmare of complacency, of milk and cream and being a good girl with marriage prospects.

She didn't want that at all.

Particularly the marriage prospects.

So, she eyed the cow, cautiously patted it on the head, and went to tell the farmer that she was leaving. She had another job.

Her first job, the job she loved, but she wouldn't tell him that.

A cart got her into town, and she wished she had something other than her dress. But she'd given up her practical clothes when she'd been trapped in the oh-so-pleasant nightmare. Still, she tried to be as inconspicuous as possible, just a farmgirl seeing the town, as she headed back to the guild.

"Esrella!" Ualan announced. He was lounging about in one of the chairs. "What brings you here?"

"Same thing that brings you, I expect," she said. She remembered vividly handing her paper of resignation to the guildmaster, and wondered if she'd be welcome anymore. But then again, once a thief, always a thief. "Arcie hanging about, then?"

"Not seen him today, no." Ualan shook his head. "Figuring he's out, up to no good. Or he got hit with the worst of it and needs time to recover."

Ualan thinks that Arcie was one of those who got bespelled personally.

Esrella made a face, but it was true. The good folks (who hated people like her having their honest living) had bespelled some people; others had just… wandered off, like she had. Maybe with Arcie, they'd had to do the bespelling, because there was no other way to force him to be what they considered good. For all she, or Ualan, or any of the others joining them knew, he'd taken a longer trip, maybe to have a fresh start in another kingdom. She hoped he'd come back; he'd been good for the guild and its members, a good role model for new thieves.

"All," a third voice greeted, then stopped. "Is this all of us that remain? Surely even the Magic couldn't have…."

She recognized him as Arlyn, a superstitious one who carried far more he should, the better to stave off ill-luck. But his charms hadn't saved him from their enemies; he'd been one of the first to disappear, to turn into a cartsman. She swore she'd seen him since she'd ended up on the farm herself.

Arlyn's a bit stereotypical... but he was kind of fun to write.

"I suppose we are still all finding our way back, Ualan said easily."Can't have everybody realizing the guild's back in order, can we? A little knowledge is a dangerous thing."

"Maybe." There was a slight stutter in Arlyn's voice. "I thought I saw dark shapes when I was on the road… I wonder if anybody could see them."

Starting here, I used Leo and Kaoru's little trip around the city in one episode of GARO Makai Senki for inspiration. What Arlyn calls "dark shapes" are called (in the subs I have) as "Knots of Malevolence".

"By Baris and Bella," Ualan said, rolling his eyes, "Not everybody sees what you do."

"Mom was always telling me that I should be a priest… before she died, that is…." Arlyn was clutching at his cloak. "Maybe I've been blessed with being able to see. I saw the Dark Giantess of the Woods on the way back. She was smiling at me, her great, scary smile!"

The Dark Giantess was one of the Knots of Malevolence - a very humanoid one that smiles at poor Kaoru - who understandably scampers away.

"Oh, good," came a fourth voice. "There are some of us here, at least." Fina trounced into the room. "I'd rather hoped there would be, though I saw Arcie heading out of town more than a few days back… with that assassin friend of his, no less."

Someone had to say what happened to Arcie, which fell to Fina because I had forgotten to talk about that fact with the other three.

"Sam?" Esrella asked. Most of the guild knew of their friendship, but the consensus was that if it didn't harm the guild, what the guildmaster did in his own time was his own business. They weren't stupid, they were thieves, and whatever floated Arcie's boat was fine with the rest of them.

The people of the guild really don't care.

Ualan shook his head. "Well, if he comes back, I don't see any reason not to give him the guild back. I'm not a leader myself, I know." He leaned back. "But I'm not trekking into those woods after him. They're full of bears. And bees. I'd rather just have everything together for whoever ends up in charge."

Ualan is a bit lazy. Don't know about the others here.

"Or we could tell ghost stories," Fina said. "I know a good one, about this girl who fed a skull breakfast-cakes…."

Pancakes. One of my favorite ghost stories ever involves a classic "good girl does nice things for monster, gets rewards, bad girl does the same with a selfish motive and ends up with worse luck" story, which is the story Fina's going to tell.

Arlyn clutched at himself at her words.

"…Or maybe we won't," Esrella said, knowing Arlyn's dramatics. "I say we do what Ualan says. That way, at least we'll have this guild in shape. Something to be proud of. Where's that dratted broom?"

It's a good disguise - they could say they're tidying the place for the next occupants - while they get ready for Arcie to return. Because while they're not nice and not good, they know good leadership when they see it. That's why there's no coup. At least not at the moment.

It wasn't her duty. It wasn't her job. But she wasn't trekking into any woods either, and she wasn't sure that Arcie and Sam were coming back. She wouldn't mind being leader herself, but she'd give him time, and with the others, remake this place into something to be proud of. The guild would rise again. She and the others would make sure of it.

Incidentally, here's the inspiration for the Dark Giantess of the Woods: