Devastation
#1
The guild hall is a mess. Dried blood, overturned tables, cookie crumbs and leather scraps litter the floor. Sounds of a dozen battles filter in from the combat courtyard, and everywhere people are gathered, yelling and bickering, gesticulating at notes on the Totem and themselves, comparing their lives, their adventures, their opinions.

In the middle of it all, Coranda sits on the floor, scorchmarks radiating around her from a thunderstorm strike.

She looks around at the rubble all around her, pushed away in a rough circle, with footsteps marring the appearance of a safe space. Even this last-ditch effort to push everyone away, to interject herself in the middle of this latest fight, had failed and rebounded on her, leaving nothing at all, not even her favorite chair.

There are pages of random tomes fluttering through the air, quills stuck in the walls and ink splatters covering her face like spilled blood.

When the weight of everything crashes into her, overwhelming and suffocating as a wrong turn in the steam pumps - when it all sinks in - even that last bit of stamina keeping her upright fails, and she crumples to the ground, keening and covering her ears, trying to shut out the sounds of her world dying around her.

It seems like forever.

Then a hand reaches down, pulling her away from the floor. She looks up through bleary eyes at her sister, and starts crying anew. With an 'oof,' Toranda slings Cora over her shoulder, adjusts her pack, and strides out of the guild hall, walking off into who-knows-where.

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OOC: I can't do this any more. It's been three years since Cora married into the Tribe, and it seems like all I do is cause trouble.

When things first started, I tried to start conversations via PM, first trying to see if I was completely alone in my perspective (with a sample size of four, it looks like I generally am), then trying to hash out issues that were shared in a small group so that they would be presentable and useful for discussion in the greater debate.

In both cases, it only made things worse.

So I pulled back. I haven't even looked at the Totem (outside of the UCP) since I responded to the officer clarification post. I put my girls in stasis and tried to wait until things blew over.

Despite all this, my thoughts and relationships and friendships continued to destabilize things, and to bring down abuse for me and my friends alike. And for all I might be able to take it for myself (which is debatable, as no one has ever known me to be particularly strong), anything that harms my friends is unacceptable.

And as I realized the extent to which I was stretching, twisting myself, abandoning things I loved to avoid drama and stress, I found myself realizing that if I was the problem (or at least, a problem), I might as well remove myself.

If there were anything else I could do, I would fight to my dying breath to make things right, but with every argument, every misstep, every bridge burned, I realized that the changes were not only mine:

This is not the Tribe I knew.

This is not the Tribe Cora married into.

This is not the home of my heart, for all it resembles it.

I hope that it may yet be for some of you.

- SWC Coranda


If, for some reason, there should be need or desire to contact me, I can always be found, whether my account is active or not, at <!-- e --><a href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a><!-- e -->
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#2
((....you're leaving us?

I'm sad to hear it, Cora. I'm always around if you need me.))
[Image: AWOeJWn.png]
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#3
((Shame to see you go.

Even more so that you say that you haven't read the forums and seen the tons of work so many of the guild is putting into understand and solve the problems you brought up.

Be well.

- Phoro.))
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#4
Sensing what has happened, Eru'Adan reaches into the neck of his robes. He pulls out a tiny bell that was placed around his neck by Coranda. He flicks it once and listens to the soothing *ting* that echoes into the night. He looks up at the stars and says softly to himself, "I will never forget." He places the tiny little bell back into his robes and begins to remember...

((If this is in fact good bye Coranda, nothing makes me more sad. I have always appreciated your compassion and humor. You will be severely missed.

-Matthew))
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