(I figured I'd start writing the occasional little vignette about some of the NPCs from our campaign and our characters' histories. Shelly, don't read this without having kleenex handy!) My mommy loves me.
I know, because she says so. She says it to me all the time: when I wake up, before I run errands for her, when I’m playing behind the bar or under the tables, and always always always before I go to sleep. “I love you, Osol,” she tells me, with her kind, pretty eyes and her face that scrunches up when she laughs. Mommy laughs a lot. I like it when Mommy laughs.
But sometimes Mommy gets mad. Like when I stole a sip of Mister Thunderbrew’s brandy and got dizzy and threw up a lot. She yelled at me a lot then, and when I ran into her to hug her and knocked over her drink tray. I cried sometimes. But Mommy always sat me down later to tell me why she was mad, and it was always because she loved me. So I guess I like it when she yells, too!
And today, I saw Mommy cry. There was a big shadow over the square in the village, and the big monster came: big and white and scaly, with mean blue eyes and big sharp claws! And it froze stuff with its breath — houses and people and animals and the grass and stuff. Mommy and Daddy grabbed me and they ran! But the big monster landed in front of them and hit Daddy across the face with its claw. Daddy fell down and I didn’t see him moving anymore.
Then the big monster reared up and Mommy hugged me tight, hiding me from him. And all of a sudden it got really cold. Really, really cold! Colder than night time, colder than winter, colder than the mountains. My Mommy was warm but it was so cold…so so cold…
I stopped feeling cold and started feeling warm and sleepy. I looked up at Mommy’s face and saw her eyes squeezed tight, ice on her eyebrows and tears coming out her eyes and freezing on her cheeks. I touched her face, and she opened her eyes and looked at me.
“Don’t w-w-worry, Mommy,” I said, even though it was really loud. “It’s g-getting w-w-w-w-warm n-now…” And then I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore. I was falling asleep, but I know it’s okay.
It’s okay because I love my mommy, and my mommy loves me.
