"Don't bother the gods and they won't bother with you." She said. However, in back memory is one lost to both time and other things, is a time when she did see the inside of an old, run-down, temple as a little girl. She rescued what she thought was just an old person stuck in the rubble. They were deeply grateful for her kindness.
From - @internutter/challenge-03353-i065-the-ravelld-threads-of-fate -- A New Guy
The building was old and falling down and Magnolia Oxbrydl had been told not to go there. Those without homes of their own or places they belonged tended to shelter under the rotting remains of its roof. It had once been a house for gods, but the gods had long since fled. She was better off staying out of it for her own safety, Pa said.
This day, the roof had caved in. Magnolia, aged four, had gone to see if the absent gods had helped anyone in their old house.
There were no rootless people left. Not at first glance. A low groan that may have scared off any other child came from the rubble. Magnolia tip-toed in to see what it was. He was no ghost. Not yet. A withered old tatter of a being caught under some fallen beams and unsuccessfully trying to dig himself out.
He stopped to catch his breath, which was seemingly faster than he was at all times.
He was also an Orc, or a half-Orc. Green of skin and long of tusk. And also grey of hair and weak of body. He had white in his pupils, but still managed to see Magnolia.
"Can you run and fetch help, little one? Find someone... willing to take pity... on an old soul?"
Magnolia knew what the people in her life thought of rootless people in general, old wanderers in specific, and Orcs of any kind in particular. There was nobody else to take pity on him. At least, not the kind of pity that would have him seeing another dawn. "There's only me," she said, and tried to work things out.
One of the beams stuck out catty-corner to the lot that held the old fellow down. Balanced as it was, it might be able to push the rubble up long enough.
Old rope, old pails, and a lot of rocks made the important end of the beam heavier. The last tip of this scale was Magnolia herself, jumping on the very end of the beam. To the point where she fell off and hurt herself.
Nevertheless, it was enough to move the rubble, and free the old rootless Orcish man from his prison. He healed her hurts with a pat of his gnarled old hand and said, "Bless you. May you have what you need when you need it."
She never saw the old man again. Good riddance, Pa might have said.
In her sunset years, she learned that the gods and goddesses of Destiny liked to test their heroes at an early age. And gods truly loved to disguise themselves as otherwise helpless, destitute, and needy souls.
Now calling herself simply Ma, she faced the deity who had once blessed her. She folded her arms and frowned in judgement and said, "A pair of working knees would have been nice, too."
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / Anke]
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