Sisters of Rail

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Dreamtime 3

A lesson for girls of the Pure: take care to wear clothing demure.  If you show off your face, and not buttons and lace, then trouble you need not endure.  If little attention is paid, and shoulders or ankles displayed, when going outside for a walk or a ride, then beware an attack or a raid.  To hold back your choices from error, stay under your father's umbrella.  When you act on your own, disaster is sown, and your steps lead you only to terror.  Your conduct is never a game; to move without notice your aim. If you draw wrong attention, expect apprehension, and only yourself can you blame.

A warning to all of the sun: from dwellers of darkness just run.  Do not get involved, this problem is solved, by patrolmen this duty is done.  But if their foul forces are spread, do not allow fear in your head.  Keep distant from all, and by space not just wall, and mark out the region you tread.  Each other must keep well away, to not allow evil to play.  The forces arcane are to life such a bane, so do all that the clerics might say.  But those who were touched by the curse, must leave without wallet or purse.  This may seem abrupt, but they could be corrupt, and evil within could disperse.  So even if numbers grow fewer, your primary goal is stay pure.  You must live off the land, fed by only your hand, for survival is equal to cure.  And if a dark tool be discovered, or from a deep dweller recovered, it ought to be treated with metal so heated, and poured all around until covered.  But if a true relic be found, when you travel or dig in the ground, the clerics must take it, to the Maker forsake it, when messengers next fly around.

My daughter the time has arrived, to consider to whom you are wived.  Look to the way to prepare for that day, for thus has the Maker contrived.  For this is the way that we live: a girl is her father's to give, to the husband correct, who will lead and protect, and whose wallet is not like a sieve.  Now daily devoutly prepare, with habits and attitudes bare.  If you let it be known into whom you have grown, then your father will make the right pair.  Whomever you bless as a wife, bring a clean and a well-ordered life.  Give him children and peace, and from trouble release.  Make order not worry or strife.  Take care of the way you are seen, and always be tidy and clean.  Use all you have earned, and retain what you learned, in the course of your winters fifteen.

One day in the late part of spring, the bell to the farmhouse did ring.  Some clerics were here, through belongings to peer, and to judge and consider each thing.  From the house was each resident moved, and their noninterference was proved.  Then the clerics did look at each shelf and each nook, but never a worry was soothed.  Now the children were ten plus two more, and the eldest girl slipped through a door.  For she'd taken some looks at her brothers' old books, and had hidden them under the floor.  For she wanted to learn all she might, regardless of if it was right.  In her brain was a burning for logic and learning, so she studied whatever she might.  And she felt her exclusion was sad, and to learn less than others was mad.  So she crept like a mouse (through the barn, not the house), as her try at concealment was bad.  As she'd left them the books would be found, so she took them far up off the ground.  With the books on the roof she felt safe that the proof would be safe and her crime not unwound.  Then she climbed with all stealth to the floor...

...and woke up with her arm and head sore.  For she'd slipped off the ladder, crashed down with a clatter, which had knocked her asleep by the door.  The passage of time she knew not, but she knew that in trouble she'd got.  For a cleric looked down, on his face was a frown, and her chance of escaping was not.  But then with a grin and a wink, he asked, "Do you know what I think?  It's a secret so small, not a problem at all, with no reason to raise up a stink.  It was merely a childish mistake.  Of no evil I saw you partake.  Reading books is alright, so forget this small fright, and just say that you tripped on a rake."

So the girl then accepted the deal, and in time all her bruises did heal.  But she still felt the guilt of the lies she had built...

...and the whole thing did not quite seem real.


Extra: Current Wilison Family Details

The Parents

  • Robert James, 42
  • Bellona Flora (née Aviga), 38

The Sisters

  • Charity Marion (prefers Mari), 17
  • Chastity Gertrude, 14
  • Chynella Sara, 10
  • Chyley Blythe, 7
  • Chyler Floriana, 7
  • Cherish Taylor, 1

The Brothers

  • Charles Robert (married), 20
  • Channing James, 19
  • Champion Brendan, 18
  • Chadwick Virgil, 11
  • Chester Tyrone, 9
  • Chace Alexander, 5

Edit: Oops, I missed the character with middle name Aura and age 15, but I'll leave figuring out who that is as an exercise.


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