Chapter 1
BACKGROUND INFORMATION & Summary
This is the back story of my player character, based in the Souls-like setting of Rotgrind within the world of Tyne & in the large metropolis of Outset. It's a splice-of-life of what it's like to live a world of chaos and all-round scary stuff all the time through the eyes of a child Tala Mayari to a young medical resident from the University of Outset. It's written in journal entry style so you get a sense of her character and growth as a character. You see it from a child's eyes(11 years old) all the way to an adult's(her current age is 26) all the world that she's in and how she sees the world from the eyes of someone who is used to the danger and chaos of Outset. Naturally, the writing is all intentional and so are the errors. They're there to indicate that this is a personal piece of writing from a character and it also indicates their voice and writing style. I hope you enjoy it.
The Baya Tribe are a group of people who migrated from the costal areas into Outset and other cities around Tyne. They are a matrilineal and matriarchal culture due to their worship of a Goddess. You'll learn more about their culture from the journal entries.
-Tala Mayari's birthday & astrological signs (if you're curious about that kind of thing when it comes to characters): March 23rd, 129, 978 Moons at 1:03 AM; Aries Sun in the 3rd House, Taurus moon in the 4th House, Capricorn Rising in the 1st House, Pisces Mercury in the 3rd House, Taurus Venus in the 4th house, Pisces Mars in the 3rd House, Capricorn Jupiter in the 1st House, Pisces Saturn in the 4th House, Aquarius Uranus in the 1st House, Capricorn Neptune in the 1st House, Sagittarius Pluto in the 11th House, & Cancer Lilith in the 7th House
-Kinil Tubigan's birthday & astrological signs: June 28th, 129, 978 Moons at 10:55 AM;Cancer Sun in the 4th House, Pisces Rising in the 1st House , Sagittarius Moon in the 9th House, Gemini Mercury in the 4th House, Gemini Venus in the 3rd House, Gemini Mars in the 3rd House, Capricorn Jupiter in the 10th House , Aries Saturn in the 1st House, Capricorn Neptune in the 11th House, Aquarius Uranus in the 11th House & Sagittarius Pluto in the 9th House, Leo Lilith in the 5th House
-Muna Arawun's birthday & astrological signs: August 17th, 129, 978 Moons 3:46 AM; Leo Sun in the 1st House, Cancer Rising in the 1st House, Virgo Moon in the 2nd House, Virgo Mercury in the 2nd House, Cancer Venus in the 12th House, Cancer Mars in the 12th House, Capricorn Jupiter in the 6th House, Aries Saturn in the 9th House, Aquarius Uranus in the 7th House, Capricorn Neptune in the 6th House, Sagittarius Pluto in the 5th House, Leo Lilith in the 1st House.
-School year for Kindergarten to 12th grade: June 3rd to February 28th,
-School break: March 1st-June 2nd.
-College and university school dates: July 22nd - October 5th for Fall Semester, February 1st -April 30th Spring Semester, May 1st-June 30th for Summer Semester
-"Moons" are equivalent to "year of" in the Baya calendar. Their people has been around for 10,000 years. Since that time, they've been counting how many moon cycles it has been since their tribe first formed.
Tala Mayari, 6th grade Outset Middle
March 23rd, 129,989 Moons
This is the summer before I'm officially in middle school and I just turned 11 years old today. Wow, I graduated a week ago from elementary school on March 16th. So did Muna and Kinil. Wow, we're really starting into this new world. I'm scared because everything is gonna be so new. I think my old friends will go to the same school as me and at least it won't be as bad as I'd imagine. There's been a lot of talk about the buildings around the oldest parts of Outset being all spooky haunted and falling into disrepair. There's been a dare or challenge for 11 year olds like me to go do something really scary by going to that area. Since we live in a 5-bedroom 3-bath house in the suburbs of Outset, we're kinda far from all the collapsing buildings and big scary pot holes that are all found across the downtown areas. We're far from all the condemned apartment buildings that are hanging on their last support beams by the oldest parts of Outset. I heard that people actually live in those buildings even though they shouldn't, a lot of them are hanging over a pot hole the size of a mountain and if any of those buildings fall down into the underground dungeons they'll all be dead. How very scary is that! A lot of kids say that bandits, outlaws, and all sorts of scary people live and hide there since people don't like being around that place. You can smell the dust, the gas, and the oils from the area even in the suburbs. It's badtown in the downtown as the cool kids at school would say. I'm not gonna go over there to prove that I'm some big kid now. I'm eleven, not stupid and out of my mind. Some people have fallen in random pits and potholes to their deaths. They say that their bodies remain in the underground catacombs of Outset. Like they say, Outset is on top of thousands of years of older versions of Outset. So nobody knows how deep the catacombs go since some of the records got lost in how much Outset has changed from the time it was first around. It's all hazy, but then again it is grotesque to think how many people's dead bodies have remained there since they fell in the last 300 years. I imagine it's all skeleton, bones, and rotting bodies down there now. How nasty is that. I don't think we should go down there. Crazier yet treasure hunters risk their lives for the possibility of lost treasures out there. That seems a little bit much for some treasure in my opinion. Wherever you go by the area, it reeks really bad. Maybe it really is all the dead people down in the pits! Ooooooooh, scary!
June 3, 129,989 Moons
Wow, this is something else. Kinil told me today that we were gonna be middle schoolers now. Muna wanted to celebrate graduating from elementary school by asking our family to give us horse-riding gear. We can ride horses to school now, but my mom says she doesn't know if we can even get any stable space. It might just get crazy. I didn't want to ride the school wagon to school to see all the same doofuses and I had to explain to my dad as to why I never wanted to be stuck in there. My cousin came to my defense, you could say Baya girls stick together as sisters. My dad thought I was exaggerating but still got his only daughter whatever his little girl wanted. My dad also said that middle school kids were a totally different type of kids. I am joining them now. I actually didn't know what he meant by that. How different were they to other kids anyway? He called us "tweens" and yeah, we are tweens. My dad said sarcastically that he was looking forward to all the tween drama from my Outset Middle school years. Whateves, there's always drama and there's people who make drama then there are those who try to avoid it by avoiding people. He might not enjoy the drama, but he always seems to want to hear the drama every time. Cut the crap, dad, he enjoys it just like the rest of us. Kinil told me that being tweens was a really big deal. While Muna said that we were just between being a kid and being a teen. So yeah, I guess. We're ten and over now. We've been tweens since we all turned ten, but I guess according to Kinil it doesn't count because we were still seen by our tribe as kids. Aren't we all kids though?
June 28th, 129,989 Moons
Wow, today is Kinil's 11th birthday. He's 11 now like me. My birthday already passed months ago before school started. He walked into my cousin's and mine's shared room to say that he wanted to spend quality time with just me today and Muna shrugged, not forcing the issue. Not too sure what's going on with school and Kinil. I'm kinda confused about it. He has continued to act strange. It's honestly a bit comical. I guess my mom says it might just be puberty and his hormones, but who knows what is going on inside a boy's mind. It could be both and him trying to fit in, which was something my mom brought up when I complained to her to be heard. Today, we sat together by the observatory balcony overlooking the bog and swamplands. I confided in him about my nerves about school and how afraid of change I was. When he sat next to me , placing his left hand gingerly on my right shoulders he told me that it was okay to be scared because he was scared too. It felt so comforting, so familiar. I could tell that he wasn't kidding or trying to trick me, his face and his voice really said it.
Whenever he was being earnest and genuine, there's this tone his voice would take. It would sound soft and warm, melodic. I don't think he notices it but he definitely does it. Whenever he's trying to say something with his whole heart his tone is exactly the same, but slightly warmer sounding than his tone now. His voice always sounded so comforting and it's strange because his voice is really beautiful especially when he sings. I always admired his musical skills. I looked into his shining golden brown eyes, his ebony tightly wounded curls that softly bounced across his soft expression as he met my expression, and his gentle face smiling. He put his bronze, sunkissed arm on my shoulders and I gently put my head on his arms. He asked me what I was worried about and I told him that I felt like I was growing old so fast already. I asked him how he felt about being 11 years old in Outset amongst the weirdness of Outset culture. He smiled brightly, he was telling me how anxious he felt about being a tween boy pulled between two very different worlds. He went on, saying that suddenly the free and caring environment he grew up in was too weak for a boy like him according to Outset boys. He said he was embarrassed to talk about how growing up we could play dress up and wear whatever we wanted whenever we played pretend. Or the times we played with dolls and how the boys would've probably make fun of him for all that.
I looked to meet his eyes, I nodded and told him that I could see how badly boys would react especially if it's something they don't understand. I told him that it looked like he was scared of their judgment and it can be pretty scary to be left out, to be pointed out. I told him that this was all real and valid fears, it doesn't mean what they said about him was true. A boy as caring and loving as him is gonna be different and that's okay. It was gonna be hard, I believed and trusted in him. Most importantly that no matter what those people said, I still care about him and still love him as he is even when he felt like the world was really hard. After I said all that to cheer him up, he asked me how could he be the same caring boy if the world around him constantly expected him to be some kind of brutish boy who did what the other boys did and was expected to lay waste to everything he touched. Something about the way he said those words, he sounded so hurt, dejected, and trapped. It deeply pained my heart. Tears had streamed down his face when he finished his sentence. Tears rolled down my own eyes. I was deeply heartbroken for him, yet I didn't have an answer for him. I told him that with our own culture and this one, I didn't have all the answers either.
All I knew was that he's brave to be himself, to be true to himself even when everyone wants you to be someone else. My dad always said nothing was easy in life. I took out the tissues from my pocket of holding and offered him some to gently wipe his hot tears from his face. I told him that he was gonna figure it out too like I am right now. Not that I had it all figured out, far from it actually. I turned to gesture for a comforting embrace and he took it. When he did, his body fell as he sobbed dejectedly. I gently placed my right arm on his upper back and my left one mid-back. I gently rubbed his upper back with my right hand to comfort him. I felt like I was with him in that moment. The loss of freedom and the heaviness of what people say you're supposed to be or how you're supposed to act or how you're supposed to be dressed. It was all so heavy and sometimes it all felt too much. Sometimes grown ups don't know how hard it is to be a kid.
Maybe we should take a walk and shake it out. We did and after that, we spent the day together just doing whatever he wanted because it's his day. At the end of his birthday, he thanked me for spending the day with him and for standing by him by having his back. I nodded and smiled. We were trying out my emerging powers and we took the moisture in the air as our ride back home. It was really weird, but we did it and we got a whole lot of laughs about it on the way. He put his arms around my waist as we were sitting crisscross applesauce mid-air on what looked like nothing, as if we were riding a bicycle. From people's reactions to our own absurd[ist] sense of humor. It was like riding a moisture magic carpet. After returning home, my mom asked me about my day and I told her that my day was really good. She nodded and ushered me off to bed since it was getting late. I went to bed that night having Kinil's dilemma still hanging in my mind.
September 16, 129,989 Moons
Is middle school supposed to suck this bad? When will summer come? A big tween emergency is at foot in Outset Middle. As my mom would say, an epidemic. All I can say is: EWWW! All the boys in the school wagon spray that strong, disgusting Tomahawk body spray and they shower in that stuff. ICK! Even Kinil said it was something boys had to do. I told him to his face that it was actually gross and no girl wants to be in his vicinity. I told him that boys spray it because they don't know how to shower. Which is totally gross. That's why Baya boys are told how to shower because it helps us stay clean and healthy. That spray sticks onto you like a cloud and you can still smell it even when you're not there anymore. Someone said that it's because the fragrance is charmed so that the smell sticks around. I'd rather gag. You'd suffocate if you walked by the boy's bathroom. Some people have never heard of deodorant either. Boys are so freaking nasty.
My cousin agrees, in fact she's way more skeptical of Kinil than I am, saying that he should know better yet doesn't. She said it was the biggest heartbreaking things to happen yet, next to becoming a tween. Kinil wants to be just like them and I told him that I hoped he would be different. Those boys are really gross, but he just wants to be "like one of the boys". I told him "who cares, those Outset boys are really nasty and reek of serious B.O." He laughed because it was supposed to be his job to keep Baya tradition and that trying to be accepted by the Outset boys was not one of them. I already told him my mom would get mad at him for not showering and not putting on deodorant. He told me that his goddessparents shouldn't be so judgy. Muna can barely stand Kinil's presence most of the time these days. She always complains that he absolutely REEKS of Outset TWEEN boy disaster. I secretly agree, seeing as I'm not enjoying any of it either. My aunt says that Muna might be acting like a difficult tween and uncharacteristic of a young Baya girl, but I have to disagree.
My cousin is just aware of what she likes and dislikes, she's also not afraid to tell you when she's not okay with something. She's aware and sensitive about herself, as well as someone who is one of the most earnest people I've known. Sometimes people see her as difficult, but she's not. I think she's misunderstood and she says that she likes my mom better than my aunt. My mom hasn't tried to make her perfect like auntie has tried to with her. My mom doesn't like it either and has tried to talk to her about it. My mom told me that maybe she's doing that because she's ashamed to take my uncle's name rather than keeping ours. She's constantly trying to prove that she's still a good woman for doing so. Muna's mom aside…Well, at this point they're like HIS parents too and he's like my brother. He wants to be like them, but I hope he doesn't. He'd become a clone of those nasty boys too. Oh Lady, why would you even do that? I really don't understand boys sometimes. He says that he can't understand girls either. According to Muna, Kinil is just giving a totally cop-out answer and he's really just giving in to peer pressure. She can tell that he's just playing all coy and that he's a smart guy. My own rebuttal to Kinil is that: Well, excuuuse me but being a girl is not that complicated. Maybe if he'd actually listen to girls then he'd get it and we argued about it for hours. My dad came in to break up our argument and thought that he could talk his goddessson down, but my dad doesn't know what kind of boy he's dealing with. He's determined and sometimes kinda reckless. Well, he told me that maybe I'm kinda stuck up since I read all these fancy books and talk like a grown up. What does that have to do with anything?
He doesn't have to be stupid. He's not actually that dumb…is he? Maybe hold his funeral because if he keeps trying to argue with me Kinil Kaduguan Tubigan is gonna be dead to me. All the girls told me that Kinil would probably commit homocide for me or something. That's kinda too crazy, he barely knows Eskrima to fight against the crazy bandits around Outset. He says that we're eleven, so what? We can be super cool too at age eleven. He doesn't think so. Whateves, he can be a debbie downer while I'm gonna be the girl that can finally open up the gates between us and the Great Mother, praise be. Will we survive middle school at this point? It's only 6th grade, it's gonna be a really long year. My cousin Muna said that I'd get hurt in hoping that Kinil won't be like the other gross boys our age. Maybe she's right, good thing there's someone else there as a voice of reason.
March 10, 129,990 Moons
Summer 129,990 Moons here we go! After everything that has happened in 6th grade, well it wasn't too fun. People made fun of us for being the new kids, but then again you can't be new forever. Being in middle school is kinda weird. I'm the person who doesn't really care all that much about the popularity contest that I've been seeing in school. Today, I just found out that Kinil likes to write in a Diary, just like me. I didn't tell Muna about it either, otherwise she'd record it on an orb. She's just too curious for her own good at times. She's like an investigative bureau on her own, this girl knows how, when, and where to get information. She's extremely thorough, I always saw her as the incredible girl detective. I wanted to leave it alone, but there was no way I didn't want to at least take a quick peek. I'd then pretend as if I never laid eyes on it. I swear, I'm usually not the type to snoop. I can't help, but be curious what's been going on inside that brain of his. This school year has been a crazy ride so far and he's been avoiding me. What happened? I'm really curious now. Let's take a quick look, I'll write down the dirty details. I didn't look at the date that hard on there though so I don't remember when he wrote it. It's just so that I'll remember for later!
"Today, a lot of things happened between me and Tala. She's been really difficult since she can be a bit of a firecracker sometimes and we feel more distant lately. I've kinda missed her, well a whole lot actually. I see her all the time, but I've been avoiding her lately. I feel really crazy actually. Anytime she's around, I can't really think straight. My heart beats really fast, my hands sweat, and I found it hard to breathe too. I can feel my cheeks burning anytime I have to look her in the eyes. What's going on? What's wrong with me?! All the boys are telling me that it's probably because I have a huge crush on her. I do not! Why would I like her like that? Not like I like other girls anyway. I just wanna say that she's basically my family at this point. That's kinda gross. It's basically like liking your sister. Isn't that forbidden in Outset culture too? Besides, I'm not supposed to put her over my job as a culture bearer. I know that better than anyone.
Yet, something inside me feels trapped and it feels like the heaviest burden in the whole wide world. I asked my Godessfather about it, without including his daughter in the conversation and he told me that I may have a crush on someone. He called it 'puppy love', something that won't last. So I don't need to worry, my real feelings for her will go away too. Did I really just admit that out loud? It felt really good to say aloud and on paper. It feels good to get it off my chest. How do I deal with her now? I've been avoiding her for months now, ever since I started feeling this way about her. She hasn't said anything about it to me, maybe she hasn't noticed. Or so I hope, Tala isn't stupid. She's not like the girls who can barely be asked to care about anything else but boys. She reads fancy books that high school and college people aka old people stuff that they can read. She's always talking about philosophy, spirituality, and all that stuff. That's not even the thing that kept me from her.
It was my heart and my feelings for her that scared me away from her. I wanna be with her all the time, the feelings I have made me dizzy that I can't be comfortable around her. Maybe I have to treat her like a boy, but that won't really help either. Even if she was a boy, I'd still really like her. Just as much as she would be as a girl that she is now. Whether Tala is a girl or a boy, I still really like her. It doesn't really matter all that much to me. She's always the person who saw me for me. She made me realize that being loved is different than being someone on the backburner. She never made me feel like I was ever alone, even when my other friends did. I always felt like I could tell her anything, she would care about all of me even if she didn't agree with me. How she made me feel when I honestly told her all the things that was bringing me down on my birthday, how she looked at me and the way she heard me. I felt so safe. When I saw her shining tan face her bright smile with her straight obsidian hair blowing against the beautiful sunset at the top of the observatory, she looked so lovely. Right then when she held me as I let it all out, my feelings for her were cemented. The way I feel about her, is something I've not felt for someone else. I know exactly how I feel about her. She made me feel… wanted, she made me feel like I belong like I actually mattered as a person. As much as I wanna say that I'd rather be mean to her so that I'd stop liking her so much, I really can't make myself be cruel to her.
I would rather drown in the ocean than to do all that. I love her for who she is and I can't really explain it, she's not perfect yet she's so real and honest. It almost feels as though she can see through me without trying and it seems like I can't hide anything from her even if I never say a word. I feel almost naked, vulnerable whenever I talk to her. She can see right through me like glass. I can't hide anything from her and one way or another she has ways of prying it out of me. She's the only person that can weasel information from me the way that she does. There's something about who she is that I admire. All I want is the courage to tell her that I love her so deeply and I want to stay by her side even if it's against the tenets of our tribe. It's way deeper than she'll ever even realize. All I've done is act like an idiot so she thinks I'm in some weird phase boys go through. I don't know how I'm going to deal with my really strong feelings about her, all I know is that I'll do anything to keep her from getting hurt and all I can promise myself is to look out for her. Especially from me..."
I stared at the long passage on Kinil's diary. I nearly dropped it from the shock. Good thing my cousin didn't see it or we'd both be in trouble. She'd snoop deeper than that, in fact she'd look to see the exact moment he had felt that way about me. I don't wanna be a snooper so I put it back where he had it, exactly how he had it. You know the old saying, "be careful what you wish for or you might just get it" or "curiosity killed the cat and the information brought it back"? You could say, I wish I didn't see what I did. I felt kinda sick, felt like it all made sense but it wasn't the answer I was expecting. I'd rather forget about all this. Except, I can't and I'm too chicken to actually confront him because then I'd disappoint him. I know about how he feels about me and I don't even know when it started because I rushed to snooping mode. I wanna act normal with him, but now that I know he like-likes me it's hard. My cousin could tell that something was afoot, but she knew better than to pry. She knew me too well and she gave me some space today. She was out all day due to her dance and bardic after school extracurriculars.
Maybe it's not as bad though, someone out there loves me. That counts for something. I think the way I define love and the way he does is different. Even though my mom told both of us growing up that loving someone means caring about them and accepting them as a person even when they're flawed or they make mistakes and hurt us sometimes. She told me that sometimes when people are really mean and hurtful to us, we have to walk away because they'll keep hurting us and keep trying to make us feel bad about ourselves. My mom told me that people will try to make you feel bad about yourself and she said that it might be hard not to believe them, but it's our choice to believe them at their word or not. When we believe them then we feel bad, but if we don't then we won't feel bad. She said that it takes a long time to realize that people do that because they're not doing so hot and it's not our job to make them feel better. It's their own job to do that. I asked her why it still really hurts when they said all that stuff and she said that even if we know it still feels hurtful because someone out there really treats us badly like that. She said that what we think and how it makes us feel are two different things.
She even told me that you can feel bad by what someone said to us, but it's because we feel like what someone said is true. I'm still confused, but when she said that it hurts because we can't believe someone would be mean to us like that really hit me. She challenged me by disbelieving someone when they tried to make me feel bad or guilt tripping me or when they tried to talk smack about me about how I felt about myself afterwards. She said it's a challenge because it's really hard to do. She told me that I was finding myself because I'm young but that I knew my current self better than anyone else. She told me that she trusted me. That one day, even if I didn't understand and was confused on what she said now that when the time would come I'd understand. Maybe she's right. I'm a novice at life and yet, who isn't or wasn't? I didn't ask about what to do when someone likes you and what to do about it. I was just really embarrassed. Maybe this is one of those things I have to figure out on my own. Actually, I'm not mad at Kinil for like-liking me.
I just didn't think it would happen. Aren't we basically like siblings since we grew up together? I'm surprised that he got a crush on me and not my cousin, Muna. We all grew up together in one house. Muna kept telling me that she could tell that Kinil liked me a lot. Muna and I share the same room and she told me that whenever I was gone, she'd sometimes see Kinil stare at a picture of me sighing like some "forlorn lover" who was waiting for me to come home from the war. The way she'd say that would crack me up because she was such a hopeless romantic. She's a dreamer, I am too in a different way. I can appreciate her insight as the only other girl my age in the house. It feels like she's the only other person who understands what it's like to be eleven, a tween stuck in a big city like Outset where every corner was dangerous for someone as young as me.