------------- Tales of the Raptors – Wose

The two warriors chuckled and swigged another gulp of their ale. One tapped the other and pointed to something in the corner. The other looked and saw what his compatriot was pointing at and broke out in a deep bellowing belly laugh.

“What is that? It cain’t be no elf, too damned short. Tain’t no dwarf, neither, less I miss my guess.”

“That must be one of them thar dwelves. I heard o’ them once. Glensheim, the ole king o’ Foxmoor, he was one of them half-breeds.”

“Yeah, well I heard they was all dead.”

“Well, maybe they is, and maybe they ain’t. We oughta go check that thing out fer ourselves.”

They tromped across the dark, Rangershome bar, oblvious to the imminent ass beating that was coming their way.

“Say, you, runt,… what the hell are you?”

The strange figure merely sat where she was, ignoring them and swigging on her own ale. One of the ruffians reached out and pulled the cowl from her head.

“Hey, we’re talkin’ ta you runt.”

That’s when they noticed several things. First was a face beautiful enough to stop traffic in downtown Carellon, if she ever stopped scowling. Second was a mass of hair that seemed very oddly tinted, like someone had painted her head with camouflage colors. Third were the characteristic broad shoulders of the Pouarr. And lastly was her fist, transformed to solid oak and sprouting several knobs and spikes, like a living morning star.

Lenara Wyrwood came from the Driders Woods when they were still called that, before the Second Orc Wars and the fall of the Kingdom of Farston. She remembered the Orclands where the Pouarr lived before they became the Pouarr Nation. And she remembered her mother, a dryad, dying at the hands of Orcs, burned from her grove. Her father, a Pouarr Warrior, had taken her in and raised her as his own after that. She grew up fast, always on the run from Orc raiders and their machines of war. In time, she began to build a reputation of her own. For even though she was small, just over four and a half feet tall, she had the strength of the Pouarr in her veins, and a natural way with animals that few others of the Wild Elves possessed. The Fey in her gave her an innate understanding of magic and the plants of the world. So, her eventual expertise arose, a Beastmaster and a Plant Elemental Master.

To the assorted travelers of the western plains and the mountains of the new Pouarr Nation, she was called Wose. But to every Orc and Ogre, every Goblin and Giant she ever encountered, she was called Slayer. The two thugs in the Rangerhome bar that day were lucky. Neither had any Orc blood in their veins. It is said that Wose can smell if your great-great-great grandfather was Orc. And if that is so, she’s less likely to let you leave with all your body parts still attached.

------------- Credits Lenara Wyrwood - Xanna for V4 – DAZ & kaposer. Brigida for Courageous – DAZ. Claw Blades - War Shadows – DM. Quiver & Bow – Wildenlander V4 – DAZ. Set Cyclorama – DAZ. Various – DM. ------------- Thanks and please comment.