Angel of Myrken

[Jirai]

After Rhaena had lost her hand she had, with the encouragement of Glenn Burnie, begun making redresses for the wrongs she had done while under the influence of the rings and the drow. While she had never, ever shirked her duty to her family's business, her own money and time were invested in Myrken Wood.

She had started small, at first. Food taken to a family that had fallen upon hard times. Medicine bought for a sick child. With small steps she built up both Myrken and her own connections to its people, so that when farmer Bonello took that bad fall and broke his leg, she knew that Jos Raybuck had his hands full keeping his sons from each other's throats and would be happy to send one of his lads over to help out.

As her resources, both monetary (for she was a Trader, was she not?) and personal increased, so did the work she did. She had a small office and a tiny staff. The last of the dragon-damage had been fixed, buildings rebuilt. Roads had been improved, better herbs and medicines sent to the Rememdium.

The school had not been built so much as it had been created. Space in a building had been donated. Teachers had been found, the funds provided to pay for their work. Funds had also been found to pay for meals for the children, for this school was not a place for the rich and well-connected. It was a place for urchins and orphans, for the children of the poor. Those for whom a promised meal would be incentive enough to learn something, to learn enough that they might find jobs and apprenticeships as they grew older, to learn enough that -their- children would not suffer as they had.

Two years it had been, since the slice of a blade had severed both her hand and the twisting of her mind. Two years, in which Rhaena cared for two things very well - the first was always her family's business, but the second was Myrken Wood. And it had been two years, almost to the day, when Rhaena walked down the streets of Myrken with two hands and only one thing left to care for. She could not go but a handful of paces without someone claiming her attention; a new baby to be admired here, sincere thanks offered from there, and a grubby child pressing a tattered flower into Rhaena's hand. One shop was even selling veils now, made in imitation of Rhaena's own.

This was her family now.