CARAAMON: CARAAMON moved page Ambika's Story (book) to Ambika's Story

2015-01-05T08:08:03Z

CARAAMON moved page Ambika's Story (book) to Ambika's Story

← Older revision	Revision as of 03:08, 5 January 2015
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CARAAMON at 08:07, 5 January 2015

2015-01-05T08:07:41Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 03:07, 5 January 2015
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	==Ambika's Story==		==Ambika's Story==
	By An Anonymous Wanderer		:By An Anonymous Wanderer

	As I travel, I'm often asked if I can share the life		As I travel, I'm often asked if I can share the life
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	offering a little lesson in skills. You don't have to		offering a little lesson in skills. You don't have to
	tell her I told you that part.		tell her I told you that part.
			{{Cat\|Books}}[[page type is::book\| ]]

	[[Category:Book]]

Maintenance script: Book:BxxAS moved to Ambika's Story (book)

2007-11-19T03:08:18Z

Book:BxxAS moved to Ambika's Story (book)

← Older revision	Revision as of 22:08, 18 November 2007
(No difference)

Maintenance script at 03:29, 7 November 2007

2007-11-07T03:29:15Z

Maintenance script: New page: ==Ambika's Story== By An Anonymous Wanderer As I travel, I'm often asked if I can share the life stories of certain members of our fellowship. It seems to me that so many of ...

2007-05-06T22:39:45Z

New page: ==Ambika's Story== By An Anonymous Wanderer As I travel, I'm often asked if I can share the life stories of certain members of our fellowship. It seems to me that so many of ...

New page

==Ambika's Story==
By An Anonymous Wanderer

As I travel, I'm often asked if I can share the life
stories of certain members of our fellowship. It
seems to me that so many of us, upon joining the guild
of shadows, gave up the associations that others take
for granted that perhaps we make something of a family
of our own from what we know of one another. I've
been asked before about the lady Ambika, but have
always hesitated to speak overmuch about her. She is
a private sort, and not interested in having the
details of her life carelessly spread about.

Ambika Seordmaor was born into a family of craftsmen
and artists -- comfortably off, though by no means
nobles. Her parents' only girl, she spent most of her
free time in the company of her brothers, who never
bothered to coddle her. Her mother, tired and
distracted from contending with four children, a
household, and trying to help her husband run his
business, was generally just relieved to send the
whole flock off together. As a result, Ambika learned
more of hunting and fighting than she did of more
'ladylike' pursuits.

Her father was a kind but rather absentminded
craftsman -- a maker of bows and crossbows who lost
himself in books as often as his work allowed. He
loved his children in an evenhanded but distracted
way, doling out affection and teaching in equal
measure to all. Her father gave her the same lessons
her brothers received; in his gentle and rather
muddled way, he simply chattered about and taught
whatever currently interested him to any of his
offspring who happened to be around at the time.

Ambika, rather to her own surprise, found she had a
natural talent for bow-crafting, and in particular for
the short bows and lighter crossbows that seemed to
demand less of strength and more of her own agility
and accuracy. Before too many years had passed, her
skills had surpassed those of her father, and she
derived a profound satisfaction from making a crossbow
that was not only pleasing to the eye but a well-
balanced and lethal weapon.

As Ambika moved into young womanhood, her mother grew
increasingly anxious. Her only daughter was masterful
with a crossbow, could quote philosophy, calculate the
effects of wind speed and direction on the trajectory
of a bolt, and could wrestle two of her three brothers
to the ground. Somehow, though, she had not developed
many of the more genteel skills her mother felt
appropriate to a young woman who by all rights should
be considering marriage soon.

Her mother was utterly appalled at this realization --
she had ambitions of arranging a good marriage for her
only daughter, and being a skilled hunter and maker of
crossbows didn't fit that picture. She insisted
Ambika learn a more ladylike skill. Her mother was
both stubborn and wise; she realized that if she tried
to restrict Ambika too much, her headstrong daughter
would rebel and perhaps even leave. She presented a
compromise: Ambika would apprentice to a jeweler in
the next town in exchange for teaching the jeweler's
two young sons how to read and write. She didn't
confess to Ambika that she also hoped her daughter
might have a better chance at making a marriage by
taking up work that was more delicate in nature, and
by moving to a town where she wasn't seen as quite so
rough around the edges.

Frustrated at her mother's demands, and yet intrigued
at the possibility of leaving home, Ambika conceded.
It was quickly clear that the jeweler had minimal
interest in teaching her. He'd seen the opportunity
to get his sons some easy schooling, and little else.
At heart an opportunist, and naturally skilled, Ambika
managed under his grudging tutelage to learn basic
engraving and gemsetting. Her own natural talents
helped her further develop her eye for color, texture,
and design. The news of her father's death came while
she was still apprenticed to the jeweler. Devastated
by his loss, she quickly realized that her brothers
would be inheriting his business, and that her mother
would be frantic to find her a husband. She was
unclear as to what she wanted to do with her life, but
utterly certain that she wasn't going to let herself
be married off and tucked away in some little village.

Young men did, in fact, begin to find excuses to
loiter around the jewelry shop. They all seemed
rather pallid and monotonous, and truth be told, they
bored Ambika silly. When her day's work was over,
she'd run to her room, slip into hunting leathers, and
head for the woods with her crossbow. The only real
enjoyment she got from her hapless suitors were the
times she'd invite them to accompany her and then slip
away, leaving them in some unfamiliar glade while she
disappeared laughing into the shadows. She preferred
hunting alone, though she had an ugly experience with
Enoch, the local innkeeper's son. A mean-spirited
brute, he found her one afternoon in a little meadow
and tried to force himself on her. He nearly
succeeded -- he was a big man. But her ability to
move like quicksilver saved her. Still, it took the
sight of her crossbow leveled at his heart and the
cool determination in her eyes to send him away with a
muttered curse and threats of future retribution.

Late one winter afternoon, the little shop was
crowded. A holiday was approaching, and townsfolk had
gifts on their minds. The jeweler was appraising gems
presented by some locals for purchase, and Ambika was
working at engraving a set of bracelets when two
unfamiliar men stepped into the shop. This was hardly
an unusual event -- the gem shop was well known, and
travelers often stopped in to trade or haggle.
Glancing up, she was shocked to see the taller of the
men nonchalantly slip his hand into a customer's
pocket and take some coins. She drew a deep breath to
shout, but at that moment the thief somehow realized
he'd been spotted. Brilliant green eyes met hers, and
he flashed her a wicked smile so engaging that she
stopped, silenced, and simply gaped at him. Her mind
was racing. There was more life and excitement in
that single moment than she had experienced in most of
her young existence. The cloaked thief and his
companion stepped close to another customer, made
another grab, and slipped out the door. With another
flash of emerald eyes in Ambika's direction, they were
gone. Luck was not with them. One of the customers
discovered his loss before they'd been gone more than
a few minutes. A shout went up, with the outraged
victims demanding justice. The thieves managed to get
out of town, but given their unfamiliarity with the
surrounding woods, their chances didn't look good.

The jeweler, feeling his reputation was at stake
because the theft had occurred in his shop, shouted
for help and joined the hunt, telling Ambika to mind
things while he was gone. Disconcerted and filled
with conflicting feelings, she paced for a few
minutes, then, not quite sure what she planned to do,
grabbed a crossbow from the back room and ran out the
door. Following the sound of raised voices into the
woods, she came upon a grisly scene. The jeweler and
Enoch had cornered one of the thieves. He was already
dead, or nearly so -- impaled through the chest with a
pitchfork. A storm of emotions swept Ambika. She
felt half-sick at the sheer bloody mess of it all, and
half-frightened. Yet she found herself exhilarated
and nearly swooning with relief as she realized that
the dying thief was not her smiling man. With a
slight rustle of leaves, the shadows behind the trees
moved and he was there in the clearing. The dark ebb
of blood down his side showed that he was seriously
injured, but he seemed calm, standing quietly and
holding nothing but an oddly delicate little blade.
The only sound was the ghastly choking of the dying
man.

The jeweler ripped the pitchfork from the doomed
pickpocket's chest, while Enoch laughed and,
brandishing his cudgel, started to move toward the
cloaked man, making an obscene comment about the
diminutive size of the blade he held. The thief
grinned at that and stood toying with his dagger in
such a casual way that he looked almost at ease,
though the blood constantly welling from his side
didn't bode well.

With the merest flicker of motion, the little blade
flashed through the air and buried itself in the
jeweler's throat. He dropped the pitchfork and fell
to his knees, choking around gouts of blood in a
horrid echo of the fate of the fallen pickpocket.

Enoch flashed Ambika a venomous look over his shoulder
as he swung his cudgel and started to lunge at the
cloaked man. "Don't just stand there, you stupid
cow!" he hissed. "Shoot!"

Shoot she did. She drew a deep breath, emerald eyes
met hers for an instant, and without even pausing, she
leveled her crossbow and sank a bolt through Enoch's
chest. In the tiny space of time it took for bolt to
fly, her life path was determined.

The thief graced her with a courtly though somewhat
shaky bow, and smiled at her almost gently. "Well,
lassie. It seems you've more of the outlaw than of
the village in your heart. You can go back to town
and pin both deaths on me, if you wish, but that's
your bolt in his chest, and something tells me you'd
be better off to come with me now. Somehow I don't
think 'hearth and home' will be very welcoming to
you."

There was really no question in her mind. She turned
her back on all she'd known, took his outstretched
hand, and walked away. The following years were good
to her. Her emerald-eyed man was a lifelong rogue,
one of a band of thieves who were devotees of Damaris,
and who dedicated their work to him. A skilled and
tight-knit group, they traveled about the lands,
specializing in gem thefts. Petty pickpocketing was
pure recreation for them, though after the incident in
Ambika's village, there was heated discussion of the
need to remain low-key in future escapades, and to
focus on risks that brought greater rewards than a
mere handful of silvers.

Ambika's ability to craft fine crossbows benefited
them greatly, and they gladly taught her the finer
points of everything from basic pickpocketing to the
myriad of skills required to pull of a complete sweep
of gems and treasures from a guarded estate. She
finally learned to wield a dagger, though she
preferred engraving them to using them. Her first
murder with a crossbow was not to be her last; she
found she had the innate ability to make cool-headed
decisions when the question came down to life or
death.

Her smiling thief is still in her life as I write
this, though she steadfastly refuses to marry him.
She's not sure why; the whole notion makes her
skittish somehow. My own opinion is that for her,
marriage harks back to the kind of life her mother
wanted her to have, and that's enough to cause her to
shy away from it.

Her knowledge of gems gave her shadowy family access
to some exclusive collectors who were interested in
the finest jewels, and not interested in asking where
they came from. As a result, Ambika will frequently
make little sorties on her own, scouting out a town
and its prospects for future business -- whether the
business be gem theft or backroom sales of contraband.
The crossbows she crafts represent an easy and
legitimate source of income, and give her the chance
to investigate a city and its denizens under cover of
her merchant role. She is dedicated to her god, her
craft, and her family of thieves. She is a lady I've
been proud to know, and if anything of her story helps
or informs you, then I deem this work a success. I
simply ask that you keep this within the guild, and
not spread idle chatter to those who might wish her
harm. If ever you chance to meet her, do me the
kindness of telling her I've tried to do her justice
with my poor words. And -- watch your pockets. She'd
give her life for another thief, but she's not beyond
offering a little lesson in skills. You don't have to
tell her I told you that part.
[[Category:Book]]

← Older revision		Revision as of 22:29, 6 November 2007
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	for granted that perhaps we make something of a family		for granted that perhaps we make something of a family
	of our own from what we know of one another. I've		of our own from what we know of one another. I've
	been asked before about the lady Ambika, but have		been asked before about the lady [[Ambika]], but have
	always hesitated to speak overmuch about her. She is		always hesitated to speak overmuch about her. She is
	a private sort, and not interested in having the		a private sort, and not interested in having the
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	door. Following the sound of raised voices into the		door. Following the sound of raised voices into the
	woods, she came upon a grisly scene. The jeweler and		woods, she came upon a grisly scene. The jeweler and
	Enoch had cornered one of the thieves. He was already		[[Enoch]] had cornered one of the thieves. He was already
	dead, or nearly so -- impaled through the chest with a		dead, or nearly so -- impaled through the chest with a
	pitchfork. A storm of emotions swept Ambika. She		pitchfork. A storm of emotions swept Ambika. She
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	give her life for another thief, but she's not beyond		give her life for another thief, but she's not beyond
	offering a little lesson in skills. You don't have to		offering a little lesson in skills. You don't have to
	tell her I told you that part.		tell her I told you that part.

	[[Category:Book]]		[[Category:Book]]

Ambika's Story - Revision history

CARAAMON: CARAAMON moved page Ambika's Story (book) to Ambika's Story

CARAAMON at 08:07, 5 January 2015

Maintenance script: Book:BxxAS moved to Ambika's Story (book)

Maintenance script at 03:29, 7 November 2007

Maintenance script: New page: ==Ambika's Story== By An Anonymous Wanderer As I travel, I'm often asked if I can share the life stories of certain members of our fellowship. It seems to me that so many of ...