>>5782876You looked all about you then—everywhere but at Izirina Henzler. You really perceived all these worldly wonders, not as a child out for an evening of fun and mischief, but as someone who would soon be an adult, and a mage, and have to make a choice about what that meant to YOU.
And then you looked down at Muffins, you new chimera friend. A ‘natural chimera’… Who even thought such an implausible creature could exist, let alone a stable population of them?
“I want to travel the world,” you said, finally. “Hawksong is nice, of course, and there’s a lot of stuff here… But Sometimes I think about how neat and tidy it all is sometimes, you know? Out in the Sylvan—uh, you know, the Silver Realms—there’s all different kinds of stuff. Stags the size of bears with antler spreading ten feet wide! Fairy-winged flying squirrels! And in the South and the East, well… There’s yokai parades or whatever you were telling me about, and all kinds of strange animals and beastmen and things maybe we’ve never even HEARD of!”
“So you want to be an adventurer?” Henzler asked, her tone strange, her expression neutral. “Or a Field Researcher?”
You remember your fairy friends, on the hill amidst the lowed-flat farms, forsaken. Who in this area would think that some knotted old maple tree was home to a tiny demigod—a member of the True Fey, and a whole court of his fellows? And if they knew—if some DO know--how can they not CARE?
“Maybe,” you said, then “No, not… Not quite. Not just someone who goes and kills stuff and brings back its pelt for taxidermists, or to sell and get rich and famous as a monster-hunter. I want to find the weird things in the world and… I don’t know, make sure they’re still there. Keep them safe, maybe. Or at least make sure people don’t just… Forget about them, or stop caring. I'd bring back wonders, and show them off, and MAKE people care!”
“People are terrible sometimes,” Henzler said quietly, bitterly, lowering her head and nodding along. “I’d go far away too, if I could. Away from all these 'normal' people, and the abnormal ones too. Somewhere safe.”
