backscene: drove through ghosts to get here Who: Arya Oros and Paeral Tharelle (NPC) What: Arya explores the alienage of her childhood and struggles to remember what her family was like. Lucky for her, their neighbor still lives next door to their old house. When: 9:45, 5 Nubulis Where: Denerim Alienage Rating: E for everyone? Probably going to get sad.
Fifteen years. She'd been gone fifteen years, and she couldn't even tell what had changed. Sure enough she could trace the outline of where a wall had been repaired or rebuilt, point out a structure amongst the shacks that looked newer than the rest. But all of this seemed new to her eyes as though she were seeing it for the first time rather than coming home. There were scattered pieces of memories - the tree in the center of the alienage, jumping onto it from a rooftop since there weren't any low-hanging branches that she could get to. Or a street corner where she'd counted as high as she could, before turning 'round and starting to look for where her brothers and other playmates were hiding. One thing that did strike her was the size of the alienage - she remembered it being, well, bigger, and now that she was here it surprised her at how many elves could be stuffed into so tight a space, though it shouldn't have. She'd seen more, in more cramped situations, but she didn't want to think about that right now.
Shianni had pointed out where her parents had lived - a small shack near the back of the alienage, on the ground floor. There were apartments above it, though all of the housing was tiny to begin with. What had once been her parents' home had been commandeered by those still alive and needing the space, which Arya tried not to begrudge. It'd been some time, after all, and in a space this small there was no reason to let housing go unused. She remembered a room she'd shared with her brothers, and her parents had had a room...a small living space in the center that had doubled as a kitchen... But there were no details, and of course the people that had been a part of those memories were just ghosts. Arya stood nearly in the middle of the street, staring at the house; other elves were starting to give her looks and she moved out of the pathway, closer to the house as though she might go in. She wasn't about to invade the privacy of others though.
She saw an older elf heading down the street and when he started upwards to one of the apartments above the shack, she didn't even realize that she was moving until she'd called out to try and give him pause.
"'Scuse me...but I was wondering...do you remember who used to live here?" She motioned at the shack she'd been staring at for the last fifteen minutes, hoping the man would remember. He looked like he'd have been old enough to.