The EQ Alternaverse ((PART 2))

Vaeri has the awesomest speculations!

Man, I would give over one of my livers to be used as foie gras to see Ruffel back in a shell, and just to see Pool's expres​sion(dead or not).

hey i'm pretty sure i've been wrong in my speculations! for a while i was musing Grayling might become chief of New Blood, but he just ended up joining it.

yeah Ruffel coming back would be....quite the tasty icing. XD so many possibilities...but then, i keep thinking about the possibilities in general of Melati being able to craft new bodies! what if somehow, she was able to bring back Kit's long departed sister, Crescent?! how would Crescent adjust to how much the world has changed from her tiny tribe in the Father Tree?

what if Joyleaf could be brought back? oh the tearful happy scene between Swift and Joyleaf as they are reuinited, and one again the Wolfriders of old gather, united once more in howls of celebration!...ahem anyway. XD

oh oh oh, my latest coolest what if? WHAT IF RUNYA WAS BROUGHT BACK TO LIFE?!! i mean just IMAGINE the emotions we'd see from Winnowill, Haken and Chani!i can't even..it'd be the complete family again!!! and ya know, i could imagine with his gliderishly stubborness and courage, he'd fit perfectly in Haven.

also, it would be pretty cool if some of the old High Ones were ressurected...like Mura!! can you imagine the uproar in Green Moon Bay when she comes strolling in the village from the Palace?! or Skywise's delight in a new best buddy in Sefra, and Chani's pleasure at seeing her stepmom once more! oh oh oh ADYA! ADYA PEOPLE!! can you IMAGINE just how many fricking loops Timmain would be sent through if ADYA of all people was brought back?! come on, we got the first elf born on Abode back...let's really shake things up and bring back the first elf who died on Abode! mwahahaha!!

...i'm going to stop before my brain completely melts down...XD see what you started zadzi?!

Vaeri, you need to write, girl. You have some amazing ideas and I love the way your brain works

It's always such fun to see the speculations you guys come up with. You're pretty close with one of your guesses, Vaeri  
Also I'm sure you thought I forgot I was gonna dollz these two - it took a while to finish all the detail (as much as I could do that small!) and then I kept meaning to post them and forgetting. But better late than never I guess? Chani and Haken dressed for Blue Mountain, as designed by Vaeri

...oh jeez, i am the freakin Wingthing Expert arn't i? XD well i'm remaining on my bet of it being Winnowill as the most likely and logical.

and omg! omg! omg! look! it's Chani! and Haken! and velvet! and fanciness! oh oh oh oh! they look so amazingly sungirl, thank you thank you thank you! i can't even....! eeeeee!! omigosh this is just exquisite!

Kindredsoul wrote:

Congrats to wingthing for having the most popular thread in the forum!

Congratulations to wingthing and the fans of the alternaverse!   You add a most lively facet to the Holt.


Amazing dollz, sun girl! These laborious details are incredible.

alright Zadzi, you asked and i had to do it. XD so here's a little quick worldpool tale i wrote up specially for you! i hope you guys like it.^^

https://fathertreeholt.forumotion.com/t678-vaeri-s-dabbles#26707

so i had a thought at work the other day...we're going to be seeing stories about Tamsin right? but i just realized, her name and Swift's soulname are extraordinarily close.

so curious...if someone started saying Tamsin's name but is cut off at "Tam-!" would Swift react? or what if someone tried calling Tamsin Tam as a nickname, like how Quicksilver is shortened to Silver?

it would be a very very very bad thing i presume if anyone in the tribe outside of Rayek or Skywise learned Swift's soulname.

I.... will have to admit to worrying about that a bit myself. I'm gonna Word of God it that the way you kinda bite off the end of the M if you get interrupted means "Tam-" won't trigger Tam in Swift's head. But... yeah, it's a good thing elves don't abbreviate too often.

I dunno, maybe you have to intentionally "speak in bold" to trigger "soul name mode". The way that you have to intentionally "Speak! In! Exclamation! Marks!" to trigger "This is Sparta Mode!"

Otherwise Swift is gonna have spent some very very nervous years until it was clear that Tamsin's name wasn't gonna get abbreviated.

Heh. I used to daydream about treating Cutter to the Scottish ballad "Tam Lin" just to watch him twitch.

So yay! I got some time to start work on the next fic. As promised, it's about Tamsin. Here's the first teaser. Part One should be ready to go up by the weekend.

“We have to do something, chieftess,” Dewshine insisted. “This cannot continue!”

Venka sat cross-legged on her daybed, hands resting on her ankles. Her expression was one of mingled concern and skepticism. “And what would you have me do?” she asked her chief huntress.

“Talk to her,” Dewshine begged. “Tell her she cannot just hide in there forever–”

Venka held up her hand. “I compel no one, Dewshine. You know that. You know the rules of the Holt.”

A momentarily flash of anger blazed in her cousin’s eyes, a wolf’s desire to challenge, though
Dewshine had given up her wolfblood long ago. But then the huntress regained control of herself. “‘No harm, no judgment,’” she quoted. “But she is doing harm – to herself.”

“What does Tyldak think?” Venka asked gently.

Dewshine hung her head. “He…. We do not agree on this. He doesn’t see the danger I do.”

“Danger?”

“The way she is isolating herself. Neglecting her duties, her friends, her family. Hiding inside the Palace–”

“I understand she is learning a great deal.”

Dewshine bared her teeth in a sneer, quite out-of-place on her delicate face. “She’s not doing anything! She lies in bed all morning, and then she wanders about the Palace like a sleepwalker all night. She sits watching Sunstream turn the Scroll, and mumbling about the beautiful colors. This is the child who used to be up in the trees from dusk to dawn, racing the treewees across the canopy! Who’d only come home for a daysleep after her muscles screamed for mercy. Now she sleeps more time than she spends awake. She used to pride herself on catching and dressing her own kills. Now she only eats what others bring to her!”

“My brother doesn’t hunt or howl,” Venka pointed out evenly. “He eats what others bring him. Does that make him worthy of scorn?”

Abashed, Dewshine flushed. “No, of course not, chieftess. But Sunstream is… Sunstream! He’s Master of the Palace! Tamsin is a Wolfrider huntress. Her place is out in the world.”

“She’s not a child anymore. She has a right to find her own path.”

“And if she was choosing from her heart, I’d support her,” Dewshine insisted, perhaps a little too vehemently. “I would. But she hasn’t chosen the Palace out of any desire to become a magic-user. She’s running from her grief!”

Venka nodded. “Russet’s death was a great blow to her.”

“And she needs to heal. But what comfort can she find by forsaking the Way? You remember how she walked away from the howl!”

Venka did. It had been a hard day for them all. The first rains of the wet season had pattered down on the Holt as they gathered in a circle to bid farewell to the beloved old wolf.

Wolf-friends came and went, their lives burned out so quickly by an elf’s reckoning. Yet each death was a little wound on the heart of their elf-friends. Time healed them, but could never quite banish the scars, even after so many wolves had come and gone that most elves would be hardpressed to remember all their names.

Russet had been different. Born the season before Tamsin, in the bleak aftermath of the Year of Ashes, he had been, like her, a symbol of rebirth.

The immortal wolf Starjumper seldom mated with his mortal kin anymore. He spent all his time in the Palace with Skywise, and after hundreds of generations, the red wolves of the Great Holt held little appeal to Timmorn’s brother. But after the Holt had burned down, the wolfpack had taken refuge in the Palace for months, and a meek female had caught Starjumper’s eye.

She’d given birth to a litter of five pups – two of them stillborn, three larger and quicker than their red-coated cousins. One had left the pack after a lost challenge, and another had fallen afoul of some forest predator. But Russet had grown to adulthood, and though he had never permitted any elf to ride him, he had chosen to follow little Tamsin as she explored the newborn forest. She had never known another wolf-friend.

Starjumper’s children were always long-lived, but never immortal. Rain the Healer had learned how to heal almost every wound, but not old age. From visitors to the Holt, Tamsin had heard whispers of a healer in Oasis who could create beasts who never died, but those were only constructs, Windkin insisted, not real beasts with real souls.

Everyone agreed Russet had been blessed with a long, full life. His death had been long anticipated and quietly accepted, by all but one.

“It’s all part of the Way,” Dewshine had tried to comfort her daughter, the day of the howl. “Life, death – everything comes full circle.”

But Tamsin had pulled away. “Then what is the point of it all?”

She’d walked away from the tribe that day, seeking refuge inside the Palace. Now the rains had receded, and she had yet to re-emerge.

Nice. It sounds like Tamsin is trying to find herself and trying to reconcile "The Way" with real life. Then again what do I know. I've been wrong so many times before.

Whoa! She's turning into Moonshade!

whoot preview!! and it's for a part one! yes, multiple part story!! *fist pump* hmm...yah Tamsin is totally pulling a Moonshade...except without the wolfblood removal...XD it'll be great to see bits of Dewshine and Tyldak again!!

and whoot, more elf/wolf crossbreeding! Russet...i actually thought at first it was her lifemate. XD

so i'm guessing perhaps my theory she would start a domino effect is being more likely...but it is possible for winnowill to still make an appearance. hard to say what time this story takes place in yet...though it is possible it takes place earlier in the time line, if Russet has died recently, a year or two...meaning this would put it a handful of decades to a century maybe after Year of Ashes.

which would mean no Winnowill yet, or Navigator...or i could be underestimating the wolfs lifespan, and it has been a few centuries.

I thought it was a lifemate too, Vaeri!
It's funny, Dewshine's response about 'hiding from grief' and having no interest in magic is exactly what I thought about Moonshade initially LOL. It sounds like Tamsin is trying to understand something in the midst of her grief too. You know what's funny, the whole incident reminded me a little of Greenflame in a weird way and when he initially didn't understand the concept of death and was raging against it.

well considering Tamsin is very much like Greenflame in the fact this is their first and only wolf friend. oh god now i've got images in my head of if THEY recognized...XD Carrun would not be pleased i imagine. wolf challenge!

but that's the kind of world Oasis and the Great Holt live in now, death is a rare visitor. most of the newer generation has grown up without really knowing it, and now it's royally biting them in the ass so to speak. or leg if you wanna get literal. :p

I thought about them recognizing too, and it was really weird.

*prowls hungrily to the Jaw's theme* >.>....<.<.....>.>....

*walks out on deck with chum bucket to feed the sharks* http://www.janesenese.com/swiftverse/dream.html

... I saw "chum" rather than "nice fat tuna" because this is really just a taste. The real fun will start once we go into Tamsin's dreams.

yeeeeeees!!*leaps and sinks teeth in*

hey it's a new story, so i'm happy as a guppy right now! now i can settle down with some tasty dinner and enjoy some reading!!

*fist pump*

Hmm. Shades of Aroree's story from "Dreamtime" I think.

Sunstream is being a wee bit naive, I think. Not surprising, of course. But he comes off as somewhat defensive when his reality is challenged. But I think Dewshine's hackles are up for a reason, and Venka confirming it makes it slightly scary.
Tamsin sounds like she's getting high on dreams but there's something addictive about it that's also systematically depleting her. I guess there might not be any chance since she doesn't have a direct connection to it, but do you think the crazy tree is influencing her in some way, sabotaging, seducing, etc.???
In general, it would be awesome to see her at the college....I wonder what Aurek would make of her!

Also, Yay Rayek!

Zadzi wrote:

Sunstream is being a wee bit naive, I think. Not surprising, of course. But he comes off as somewhat defensive when his reality is challenged.

He IS his father's son, after all!

I love getting to show the Rayek hiding in Alt-Sunstream.

Haha, true.
I'm glad Alt-Sunstream has daddy influence actually. And he's also certainly done a helluva lot more in your world than in FQ.