keystone moments:

- roughly 70-80 years ago, weaver's family immigrated to port ////.
- weaver struggled in school and was held back multiple times, never quite fitting into or able to keep up with a peer group of mostly-humans; their far more rapid development ran circles around him.

- one day, weaver saw a man with eyes like bunches of champagne grapes, crammed and bulging from the sockets.
the man smiled at him in passing, and weaver found himself magnetized to the sight of him.

weaver watched black ichor begin to stream from a thin-lipped mouth as the stranger talked to a mother and child. why did no one else act as if they could see it?

then next thing weaver knew, he and the stranger were alone at dusk. he could feel rough pavement grinding into his knees. the bunches of grapes were all burst, his hands were stinging and raw, and blood and ichor covered weaver's clothing.

nothing like this had ever happened to him before.

- weaver decided to become a teacher, and has taught in a pan-family school for over 30 years.

 - the name in his notebook (aka display name) is "a man wandering in twilight" though when you read it in HIS actual book it says nuid'siothosa tyoar in. uh. THIS script:

if i replace this with slightly different lettering some time and you notice no you didn't

 <sub>[ at the home of the Cult at Gorfuin,
in the depths of the Skittering Wood,
there is a weathered temple on a hill, shading a copse of small, twisted trees, and a trickling creek with a bed of gleaming black stones.

it is some years before the arrival of GllChk the Fair. the cult is newly fifty strong, but fast on the heels of cause for celebration, so too arrived cause for despair.

A member of the cult died, and their number fell again to 49.

it was meant to be, and of all days, to be now, whispered the God to its priest. a hole in his heart, from the moment he was born-- the God of Fate could (or would) defer it not.

It came down to the priest, that for the first time, he would need to perform a service for the dead.


He enlisted the service of a grave digger.]</sub>

[content warnings for - minor reference to self harm]


The youngest of four children, Rennuid Tathviel often felt he had a lot to live up to, to show himself as a worthy person to match his elder siblings. That is why he placed a terrible importance on the rite that would mark his passage into -- physical, only, mind you now -- adulthood, the Ylthuun-Aut'torr. He went to great lengths to create a bow for the rite, that would be unmatched by any other - though he did not go entirely unaided in his endeavor.

Shortly after his 70th birthday, on the ancient founding day of the Tathviel clan, Rennuid Tathviel performed the Ylthuun-Aut'torr - and was met by a wave of susurration from the audience. For the secret kept from those who had yet to perform the rite was that when a true heir of the clan fired an arrow into the ancient Uunbanthe'adai tied to their name, they would suffer a phantom pain to match that felt by the living vine. And Rennuid? Why - he hadn't even flinched.

His mother approached him. "Rennuid, dear. You don't have to act so strong. It's fine to show you're hurting." The plea in her voice was terrifying - and telling. He hadn't known the secret of the rite. And he hadn't felt any pain at all. But Rennuid was clever - though as would become evident later, perhaps not terribly wise. He bit his tongue, and smiled at his mother - showing blood covered teeth to the many murmuring adults. Many of the whispers were satiated, and a proper celebration ensued.

Of course.. many does not mean all.

The secret to why Rennuid went unharmed - he knew not at the time, but he was protected - for the strange presence that had guided him in the crafting of his bow had seen the nature of the rite, and knew that if Rennuid suffered the pain inherent, he would not be able to keep his promise: to bring the bow to the temple where they had met. For the bow was magnificent indeed - and where no other arrow had done so before, had pierced to the flowing heart of the Uunbanthe'adai.

Rennuid's arrow had tapped into his family's lifeblood... who knows what might have happened, had the vine's vengeance struck home?

Rennuid, that night, brought the bow to the temple where he had met the strange presence. For the first time, he climbed to the top of the stairs leading to the temple's mouth -- and there, finally beheld the physical form of his benefactor.

It gave him a gift, after accepting his bow - a trinket, really, made from four eyes it plucked from its very own mouth. It told him to wear it as he pleased - but only here, at its temple, or only when alone.

By his 80th birthday, Rennuid's hair seemed... darker, didn't it? Perhaps it's a mere trick of the light. And a strangeness had settled on him, though not one anyone could name... but isn't that normal, in itself? For one to change and even grow awkward, as they truly come into themselves?

By his 90th birthday, it was a gamble where you would find him on a given night - sleeping safe at home, or gone again, on another sojourn into the depths of the forest? One could not deny he had lost the particular cloud gray hair he had been born with. It was something of a more foreboding sky, now...

Some precious little time after his 100th birthday, after which is when an elf may truly be called an adult, should they decide so -- Rennuid came home for the first time in over a week, declared that he had found a lost god - and been named as its new priest.

It was understandable, wasn't it, that he'd be living at his god's temple now, instead? It would be a hindrance to have to make the journey all the way from Aldua'denac every time he had a duty to attend.

Now, he openly wore a hairpin adorned with four -- orbs? They weren't jewels, surely -- and his hair was as black as the depths between stars.