Prompt 1: Foster

Many consider Gridania's main export to be its lumber. The vast forests, all well kept and managed by the local conjurers, allowed for a healthy logging industry. Others believed that Gridania's value lay in its herbs. Indeed the area was an alchemist's dream, with so many plants to pluck and turn into paste that it made the mind boggle. These too were tended to and documented, making them easy to find. Those in charge of tourism claimed that Gridania was truly great because of her people. The tried and true friendly forest folk were the true cornerstones of their secluded society.

Frieda presumed that it was a bit of everything, really. But her favorite thing about Gridania was that, due to the nature of it (quite literally), there were so many nooks and crannies to call your own. Those secluded spots where one was left with naught but themselves and their thoughts. Or so most tended to think.

The clearing she sat in now was one such place. The perfect place to practice the harp, as she had learned when she was much younger. It was the place she often found her brother during quiet summer evenings. Times when the tasks in the shop could be completed early or late, and there would be sun to burn regardless. Over the years she found him making the trek less and less, until inevitably he had ceased altogether.

She plucked on a string, considering such a moment. When the rocks and trees were so much larger, such that she could still hide behind them. The gentle, if unsteady notes her brother played, her head rested back against a tree, just out of sight. It had always felt like a game, to make sure that she went unseen. Of course, she always won, thanks to the fact that her brother never let on that he always knew she was there.

Just the thought of it fostered a sense of peace. She strummed another chord on her harp. Oh how such a simple feeling felt so rare. She had thought the act of being home would be enough, but she found only a hollow sense of the familiar in town.

The shops still ran, the streets still bustled, and yet many were absent. Marching off to war, as it were, for the fate of the realm. Such seemed to have been the way of things for so long. Even her family's shop hadn't felt right. Her mother and father, ever the charitable and logical pair, and shifted their focus from the shoes of everyday wear to the boots required for an army. They were helping with the effort to equip the Serpents, and when that quota had been met, they moved on to Flames and the Malestrom. Her brother helped as per usual, with little change in his life beyond the fact that the woman he had fancied had marched off to battle herself.

It was only with that serene sense of nothingness that she truly felt at home. At peace. She disliked it. Always had she craved some sense of adventure, of excitement, and to chronicle such. But as things were, all she felt was a pang of longing. The songs ill portrayed this feeling, she felt. Perhaps because many in a tavern's crowd already knew it too well.