Pickles' Story

Pickles’ Story

It was a hot night, about twenty-five years ago, in August. The hay barn in the village a few miles ahead was on fire, and the scent of smoke filled the lungs of the few travellers that dared enter the open roads at night. ‘Do you think we will make it before the sun comes up?’ asked a young woman with a blue cowl covering her blonde curls. ‘I don’t know. Can’t tell yet. Now shush, or you will wake the baby.’ The long, broad man looked sternly into the improvised baby bed on the trek cart.

Three years later the baby girl had grown up to be quite a fierce toddler. Her mother, the woman with the light blue cowl, had passed away a year before. The man, whose name she would never know, had saved them from their homes when it was raided by a group of unbound rogues, led by the fierce Masked Nobody. That night three years ago, they were chased into the night, away from their save homelands, on to the seemingly nothingness of the world. Her mother saved her, with the help of the unknown, man with the piercing gaze. Now, three years of old, everyone that had known her mother could see that the small Pickles didn’t look anything like her. Brown eyes, instead of blue. And dark hair, straight, no curls what so ever were present. If there were people there that would have known her mother, that is. At the age of three the man left her with a family that agreed on caring for her, in exchange of the few gold coins her mother had left her.

She grew up on the farm where the stern man had left her. Her foster parents were not interested in her, they were glad she came with gold and thought she would be a nice way to secure their old days. Someone to care for them, little more then a slave. She grew up learning not to feel compassion, because she was shown none during her life, except maybe when she was a baby, times she could not remember. Her life on the farm was one of harsh, hard work.

When Pickles reached the age of nineteen, she began to think of herself in a different way then she used to. She had questions. She had always known that her foster parents weren’t her real mother and father, and she didn’t even bother calling them thus. She had questions about her calling. For a few years she had felt that there should be more to life then this farm, the hens, the boars and the cows. She felt she had a calling, but she didn’t know where it came from. When she was nineteen, things began to fall in to place. She decided that she wanted to know more of her real family then the farmer and his wife could tell her. All she knew is that she was brought to the farm at the age of three, by a man that looked like he meant business. Her foster parents told her on more then one occasion they had paid for her, so she had to obey their orders and do as they command. Of course, poor Pickles never knew it was she herself that paid for her own upbringing with the only gold she inherited from her mother.

And so it began. Pickles wanted to know why, how and what. Why was she on that damned farm? How had she ended up there? And, above all, what had happened to her real family? She was fed up with all the sneers and snide remarks she had to endure when she apparently hadn’t done her work the way she was expected to. That night, she sneaked out of her bed. An improvised bed, made on the hay-loft from some rags. She was fed up with that bed, as well. And Pickles was angry. A rage burned inside her like the inferno she was about to unchain. She stole some flint and tinder from the kitchen, and went back to the place where she had spent so many nights. She set the hay-loft on fire. Then, she took the horse that was starting to panic at the smell of burning hay and wood. She calmed it down. It was a mare, a white mare with grey legs. You and I, we are going to get out of here’, she whispered. And then, she set off, into the hot night. When she was a few miles into the lands, she looked back. She could see that the farm was burning like a torch. She could smell the fire, and it reminded her vaguely of some other night, a long, long time ago…

Before she left, she had grabbed a knife that was used to clean the hooves of the cows and horse. She grabbed her hair that she usually wore in a ponytail, and started sawing it off. She didn’t want anyone to start asking questions, anyone that might have seen her around the farm while working.

Pickles and the mare, that she decided to call Mary, rode all night on end. When the sun started to show, she was close to a little village. She had no idea where she was. She never got the chance to study anything but horse-dung and chickenfeed, so it was no surprise she had to ask the guards of the small city where she had ended up. ‘You don’t know where you are, miss? Well now, that’s strange… I should say I thought I knew every fair looking gal around this area, but I never seen one by the looks of you!’ Guard Parker frowned, and looked at her a second time. Pickles gazed right back into his blue eyes, and she decided he wasn’t one of the smartest around. She said: ‘if you can tell me where I can find the nearest town, ill bring you some lunch!’ Parker seemed to think of this for a moment, and said ‘well okay… but be careful, this place is dangerous, and when you cross the bridge you should be on your guard.’ Pickles decided to believe him, and set off to the direction he pointed her. ‘Stormwind… ‘ she mumbled. ‘What a strange name for a city…’ She had fed Mary the Mare in the village that was called Redridge, and set out due west.

Although Guard Parker had warned her to not wander off the roads, she decided that he could go and get his own lunch, and set straight off into the woods. It was getting darker; she had spent too much time in the small village. At nightfall, she reached the walls of what looked to her as a tremendously big city. ‘This must be it...’ Pickles had finally reached Stormwind. Exhausted as she was, she decided to walk into the city anyway, and let Mary the Mare graze in a patch of green.

When she stumbled into the city, she could think of nothing but sleep. She found an inn, but the hostess, ms. Allison, would not let her in because she had, of course, no gold to spend. She walked on, and was on her last steps after riding for a day and a night without any break except for Redridge. The only other place she could think of, was the church. She followed the big church spire she could see from the trade district, and when she reached the stairs of the Stormwind Cathedral, she fell down on her knees and crashed into a useless lump of human.

She woke up for, what seemed to her, several hours later. She was inside somewhere, apparently the cathedral. A young woman stood next to her bed –a real bed!- and introduced herself as Shaina Fuller. She talked on and on about how she had found Pickles on the cathedral stairs and got her carried inside by the altar boys, and she claimed to be an expert in First Aid. After a ranting about how she would sew up and bandage Pickles, that same Pickles had enough of it and got up. Thank god she was okay. She walked into the church, leaving a fairly flabbergasted Shaina behind. ‘Hm. Nice church lets see what we can find here…’ she mumbled to herself. She walked into a man that seemed quite agitated. He introduced himself as Arthur the Faithful and told her about how he was hoping she would show up one day. Pickles had absolutely no clue what he was talking about, but she let him go on and on and after a few minutes an inkling of recognition started to grow in her mind. She always had the feeling that she didn’t belong on the farm. She always knew that her path of life would be different then that of many others. And now she was here, and this man seemed to know all about her. Pickles dropped to her knees. ‘Lord, please help me. I am uneducated in your ways, the ways of the light. But I would like to learn, for I am still young. I feel my life has been a laugh so far, and I want you to teach me how I can change it.’

The man laughed, and pulled Pickles up form the ground. ‘Dear pickles’, he said ‘if anyone would be teaching someone, it would be you who will teach us. One day. But for now, I will show you the way.’ And from that point, her education began.

After a few long years, Pickles was considered to be one of the fiercest paladins of the human race. She was a quick learner, and as Arthur the Faithful had predicted, she was teaching young ones herself pretty soon. One night, she woke up with a startle. She had had the dream again. The young blonde woman with the blue cowl was in it, the woman she believed to have been her mother. The dream was rather unsettling, as it touched everything that was hidden in her heart, and she wouldn’t even let herself look into it out of fear what she might bump into. She decided that she was going to take revenge. Kill the people that murdered her parents, her family, and her home. And find out who the man was that brought her to her foster parents. Yes, that sounded like a plan indeed. And again, Pickles set off In the middle of the night. This time, she was prepared. She still wore her straight black hair short. It was easier now, for when she was wearing a helmet. Long hair could get stuck between the several pieces her helm existed off. She grabbed her mace, and walked off. She didn’t have to say goodbye to anyone. She never got married; in fact, she never really understood what the other girls liked so much about men. They are sweaty, smelly, and hairy, so she thought to herself pretty often.

When Pickles rode out into the night on Mary II, a mare of the same colours of Mary the First but with shiny armour to protect her from harm, she could only think of one thing….

Revenge…

(Very nicely written)

Several years later, Pickles had grown hard and resentful. She had ridden months on end, met a lot of people, not only humans, but also dwarves, gnomes, elves and even an occasional orc. A few times she had returned to the city of Stormwind, to consult her former teacher and mentor, Arthur the Faithful. In those episodes she also met with the woman that found her on the steps of the cathedral years before, Shaina Fuller. Like Pickles, Shaina never got married, and seemed to have the same distaste of them. In this, they found each other and spend time together on several occasions.

One day, it was in the spring and Pickles had just smashed the brains of a young deer for her lunch, she ran in to a young, dark-skinned warrior girl named Timmie. She shared her meal and they began to talk about things in general. Pickles found out that Timmie was, like herself, a savage and brutal woman that took pleasure in the killing of several horde races, no matter how experienced or big they were. They decided to travel together, because it was saver, and more comfortable, to not roam the plains on your own. Many adventures followed, but if I was to describe them all here, I might as well go write a book and sell it to the Stormwind library.

One day, Pickles and Timmie walked into a village filled with men and women dressed in scarlet red. ‘Ah no, this must be those darned Scarlet Crusaders they told me about back in the city!’ Timmie exclaimed. They stood with their backs against the walls, but fought for hours on end, and at the end of the day all there was left of the village was a huge pile of dead, scarlet bodies. Scarlet because of the blood that is, the clothes were unrecognizable in the mess. They walked to the inn of the village together, laughing; they thought they had some jolly good fun that day. They had grown hungry and wanted to see if there was any food left in the village.

After a small but nice dinner, they decided to take a nap upstairs. In the guestroom was a big bed, and they could comfortably lie upon it with the two of them. Before they went to sleep, pickles rummaged a bit in the trash that was littered over the floor. She stumbled upon a cedar chest, and tried to open it, as she had a curious nature. Timmie helped her, cracking open the lock with a bang of her sword. Inside there was, at first sight nothing valuable. Pickles sighted, and then she began to look through what appeared to be letters of some kind. ‘What is it?’ Timmie asked. ‘I am not sure…. It looks like letters but… I don’t know…’

Timmie walked over to her and examined some of the letters. ‘Why are they carrying the seal of the king?’ she asked. ‘What?! No, give me that let me see!’ Pickles marvelled over the letters that appeared to be royal correspondence between some king and…. The handwriting was to sloppy to see who signed the letters. ‘These letters appear to be really old’ Pickles said. ‘I wonder what… wait... does this say king.. Terenas? Wasn’t he like the last king of Lordaeron?’ ‘hm, could be… ‘ said Timmie. Together they spend about an hour reading five different letters. The subject was all similar… The man that wrote the letters seemed to have been a close friend, or maybe even a relative to the king. All of the writing seemed to be about a woman he’d met, and how he could not stay with her for reasons he didn’t dare to express in the letters. In the letter dated the last, he wrote about the woman giving birth to a daughter. It was clear that, how ever he did not write it down like that, he was pretty sure the girl was also his daughter. Why it worried him so much, and why he wrote it in a letter to the darn king of Lordaeron, did not become really clear. ‘Here, look at this!’ Timmie said, ‘He signed with initials here. U.L.? who could that be?’

Pickles was dead silent for a few moments. Then she grabbed one of the letters they have read earlier and her eyes flew over the paper. ‘He is talking of a son here…. Feels like a brother…. Harsh words are in it, too… Son…. Son of king Terenas?’ An inkling of recognition started to dripple into pickles’ mind. Terenas had a son…. Arthas! Arthas, who is now better known as the Lich King.. She had read about it when she was studying the ways of the light in the cathedral. But then…. U.L…. it must… ‘Oh, my, dear, holy GAWD!’ She exclaimed, ‘It MUST be Uther! Uther the Lightbringer! No but that’s…. impossible… ‘ Pickles started to laugh, a high, shrill laugh with a twinge of hysteria to it. ‘Uther can’t have a kid! He was the leader of the Order of the Silver hand, for crying out loud!’

Timmie looked at her as if she was going mad. ‘Uther? Arthas? Pickles, what is this all about! I know those names, of course, but… If Uther had a kid, she must be about… well... our age now!’

At that point, Pickles stared at Timmie. ‘We have to find her. If Uther really has a daughter, it is of the most importance that she is found. It must…. Gawd, it must be the most skilled young woman there is around! If she inherited anything of her father, that is…’ Pickles was agitated. She didn’t know what to do, and where to start. ‘Relax,’ Timmie told her. ‘Here, take a chillpill.’

They slept in the inn in the massacred village that night. Pickles had some trouble falling asleep. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but she had the feeling she was in a dream. Whether it was a good or a bad dream, she couldn’t tell yet. The next morning they left early, eager to get away from the smell of the corpses, which were beginning to rot. During the ride they talked about what they had found out, and tried to make a decision on what to do. For Timmie, it was easy enough. She wasn’t a paladin, and to be honest she couldn’t care less if some great man had a daughter or not, and what that would mean for the world. Timmie wasn’t all that into politics. Therefore, she told Pickles that if she needed help with anything, she’d help, but that she was not going to take any important decisions on this, as she knew very little of the consequences this could have.

Pickles was in doubt. She wasn’t sure what this meant. Should she tell anyone? And who? There still was something left of the Knights of the Silver hand… her old mentor, Arthur the Faithful was even a member of it! But then again, what did it mean? Would it change anything? And if so, what would it change? In the end, she decided to go and find out who this girl was, if she was even still alive, and if she knew she was a daughter to the greatest paladin that ever lived.

Timmie decided not to follow, but to visit some of her old pirate friends in the Daggercap Bay. They kissed each other goodbye, and promised to stay in touch. Pickles rode out to the south, and Timmie to the west. They didn’t know it would take a whole lot of time longer then expected, that they would meet each other again. And they didn’t know things would never be the same….

“How can it be that Uther has a daughter… impossible... I have to find out who she is! Before that, I can’t tell a living soul… oh I hope Timmie can keep her yap shut…

She must have been conceived around the time the king died… possibly right before… It would explain the letters….. It said that he was in trouble, and he was coming to see the king… Not long after that Arthas came back, I am sure of it… And Arthas killed Uther, too, when he was trying to defend the magical urn carrying the king’s ashes…

So much to do, so much to think about… And I still have to figure out my own problems as well! I have to get to the people that killed my mother and burned the village… All that damn foster parents could tell me is that I came carried by a man that said he was not my father… but then who was he? And who was my mother? And if that man wasn’t my father, then who is? I studied a lot when I was in the cathedral… I think I know what happened to the village where I was born… in the old books it says that it was wrecked, raided, burned by a group of ordinary rogues…. But why? Why would they do that, for obviously no reason? All I can think of is that someone must have sent them, for some reason…. The books also speak of an abbey near the village, that was run by a monk. The monk disappeared after the raiding, and he wasn’t found amongst the bodies. Maybe that was the man that saved my mothers life, and mine… But that can’t be right, if the man that left me at the farm was a monk, they must have noticed that… although… It wás three years after the disastrous fate of the village… He must have worn different clothes… yes, that makes sense…

Ugh, why is it so hard! I wish I could just remember everything since when I was a baby! Maybe I can track down people that survived the massacre at the village… that should work…. I’ll just stick to that plan for now and I’ll see about Uther’s daughter later. It shouldn’t be in that big a hurry anyway, she has been there for about… 26 years? 28 perhaps? She would hold on a little longer. I don’t think she even knows… Poor thing…”

After thinking long and hard about it Pickles set off to what she thought used to be the village burned down when she was a baby. It was little more then a hamlet, in these days, and now all there was left was one little farm. ‘Ugh. Not a farm’, pickles thought. With a grim look on her face she rode up there, and banged on the door. ‘Open up, I have questions and I want them answered! Open up, now!’ Pickles was not known for her subtlety. An old man came to the door. He was walking with a stick, and crooked like a banana gone bad. His grey hairs flew in all directions, and when he started talking, Pickles almost fainted because of his terrible breath. ‘What do you want!’ The old man bellowed at her. He had remarkably strong lungs that produced the shout, for a man of his age. Pickles went into the house, uninvited, and sat down on the nearest chair she could find. That the old man had to keep standing didn’t interest her one bit. She was there for answers, and she knew she was going to get them, what ever the cost.

After three hours of interrogation –the old man wasn’t as bad as he seemed at first sight- she knew a lot more. This indeed was the village that got burned down around the time she was a baby. Even more, the old man could tell her who her mother was! When Pickles heart this, she sat up straight and peered into the man’s eyes, as if she wanted to make sure he was telling the truth. ‘You see’, the old man said, ‘I used to be the blacksmith around here. That horrible night I hid behind my forge, there was a secret spare space there in case of emergency’s. The only others that survived, but me, were a woman that I saw running past with a small bundle in her arms, and the village’s priest. He also ran some abbey a few miles ahead..’ Aha! Pickles thought. So it hád been the monk! ‘The woman! Who was she!’the old man grinned ‘She was one of the prettiest young ladiest I had ever seen. Unlike you, I must say’. Pickles snored. ‘She had blue eyes like forget-me-not-flowers, and her blonde hair fell in curls on her back.’ ‘That’s fine!’ Pickles was now almost shouting at the man, ‘But who WAS SHE!’ ‘No need to yell, I may be old but my ears are still fine, young lady! I will tell you who she was. She was pretty, and everyone in the village knew her. Her name was Caila. One day she appeared in the village, she must have been about… 28 years old? She was pretty knocked up, I can tell you that. No one knew where she came from, or who the father of the baby in her belly was. She wouldn’t tell anything, either. All I know is that she showed up here, pregnant and apparently without a husband, but with enough gold to live happily ever after. If it wasn’t for those rogues….’ Pickles had heard enough. She stood up, thanked the old man, who was glad he could get back to his own chair, and left. To Stormwind. She had to ask Arthur the Faithful if he knew anything about a Caila… When she was there, she might as well show him the letters too. He could be trusted, she decided.

Arthur saw her coming with a smile on his face. ‘Ah Pickles,’ he said, ‘It’s so good to see you again. Do you know why your name suits you so well? You are sweet and sour, at the same time. Just like a pickle’. He was always full of crap like that. Pickles didn’t care. She was on a mission, and needed answers. Unlike with the old man, she took the nice route, here. After all, Arthur had been her mentor for years and maybe she didn’t want to admit it, she had grown caring about the tutor.

He grew very serious when she told him about her mother. ‘Pickles,’ He said, ‘I know it is hard for you, but you have to let this go. Who ever burned down the village has done that for unknown reasons. I can’t imagine they were after your mother and you’. Pickles looked startled. She hadn’t said anything about that, in fact, she hadn’t even considered the possibility! Why did the old man say that? Would anyone be after her mother back then? She got confused, and decided to leave the subject to rest for the moment. She showed Arthur the letters. The man, that was growing very old indeed, turned to a whiter shade of pale when he read what was in them. ‘Pickles I… I don’t know.. I have to sit down a minute… give me a second… I… I think I need to tell you something that I maybe should have told you a long time ago.’ Pickles watched him and grew concerned, not only because of his words, but also because he was trembling like a leaf in a summer storm.

‘Where did you find these letters?’ Pickles explained to him where she got them, and what she thought that they meant. Arthur nodded. He looked a bit better now, but he was still as pale as a ghost. ‘Pickles, dear, what I am going to tell you now is a long and complicated story… or well, maybe not. Let’s keep it simple. Uther did have an affair. He did knock someone up. These letters…. He gave them to me, and I was to deliver them to the king. They never arrived there. I got attacked by a gang of knights dressed in red… We know them now as the Scarlet Crusaders. They must have kept those letters, for some reason… Anyway, Uther was in love with this girl… She got pregnant. Because at that time, Uther had to leave for the king, and tell him what Arthas was doing, he had to leave haphazardly. He promised her he’d come back though, and he gave her enough gold to last for a lifetime. Just in case. You see, living the live of the world’s greatest paladin isn’t without dangers, as you might understand. As far as I know, the girl took the money and moved to a small village, where no one knew her, and she waited for the day Uther would return. As we know now, he never did. Not long after he got to the castle, Arthas came back, and murdered his father. Uther had serious business to attend to. I am sure he never forgot about the girl, though. When he got to the castle, I tried to tell him about how the letters never reached the king. He wouldn’t listen, was too busy arranging stuff… And before I knew it, bang, he was dead. Arthas tried to get to the urn of his father, and killed Uther in the process. I don’t know what became of the girl…’

Pickles had grown very silent, but her face was red hot and contorted with something that looked like fury. Then she began to scream: ‘What was the name of the girl! TELL ME NOW OLD PALADIN,OR YOU’LL REGRET YOU EVER LIVED!’

Arthur sighed, he had seen this moment coming from miles ahead. ‘I am sorry Pickles. Her name was Caila. After what you told me about your mother today, I believe you knew her?’

Three days later Pickles still couldn’t grasp what she had learned that week. She was confused. A boat set out to Northrend later that week, and she decided that a change of place was just the thing she needed. So she could think about what had to happen now. If anything had to happen, that is. Arthur had sworn to her he never told anyone the story before, and that he never would tell a living soul without her permission. Because it would have been harsh to take her horse all the way to the cold plains of Howling Fjord, she left her with a stable keeper in the city.

When she got to Northrend she bought a new mount. One that could handle the cold, and one that seemed to like her. She called him Manny. Manny the Mammoth.

After months and months of wandering around, exploring new area’s she could finally allow herself to think of the touchy subject once more. She knew now why she always had the feeling she didn’t belong on a farm. It was sheer luck that she ended up as a paladin though… although… well, no one would ever know that.

She also now understood that the ones that stole the letters form Arthur must have sold that information to someone that didn’t want Uther to have any inheritress. That’s why the village got burned, and she, her mother and the monk had to run for their lives. Well, she was just a baby, so she never had to really run, but she got carried and that was bumpy enough, allrite.

Pickles decided on that day that she would take revenge, as she had decided the day she left the cathedral for the first time. But now, she knew who she would take revenge on. There was only one person on this planet and the next that would want to slay the beloved ones of Uther the Lightbringer. Many had known him as Prince Arthas. Pickles thought he wasn’t worthy being called thus, so she decided she would only call him by the title he was using now: The Lich King…

She swore she would slay him, and all of his minions if needed, in the name of Uther the Lightbringer, her father.


~THE END~

(( Very good... seemed that you got yourself in a pickle ... sorry i had to ;( ))