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[cecilyvanrichten]

The sorrow didn't last forever though, and as Oatmeal's hooves rolled steadily beneath me, the years I wandered in my mind pressed onward as well. From simple beginnings of bringing my hunts to market, I soon found footholds in many of the villages and towns scattered throughout the wood. Where there were inns, there were travelers much like myself who sought shelter, food, and entertainment. I found myself on more stages than I could count- all of them small, and most of them welcoming- used my voice to fill my purse. Now, I often emptied that purse just as quickly. Living on the road or in the wilds was hard on gear. Repair, and even replacements, were often needed at every stop. I found, though I replenished my savings and made enough to eat comfortably each day, that being poor was still remarkably expensive. Waxed canvas tents only last so long, especially when your camp is regularly at risk of attack by goblins (or worse) who treat the side of one's tent with the same ire as they did me. Travelling with groups was rare. There was always at least one member (and sometimes it was me) that just didn't gel with everyone else. Often I found hate and bigotry, or found I'd fallen in with thieves or grave-robbers. I fully admit, I was a poor judge of character, and I often fear that I still am. With your heart on your sleeve, you find more and more people willing to stab at it for their own gain- but they mask their intentions so they can get in close. I fell in love, too- a wood nymph named Eltewyn. I'd become fast friends with her before anyone else, once I was alone. It was a few months of northwestward wandering from the pyre of my old life- a kind of slow death-wish as I pushed ever closer to the edge of the Darkwood. I slept beneath her ash tree, and the morning she woke me with a shower of leaves was probably the first of several lifelines thrown to me without either party knowing. She made me laugh and smile for the first time since leaving home. Told me about her mother- the very dryad of the entire wood, someone I'd only heard of in whispers- and how the two were estranged in their own ways. We bonded quickly. We shared each others company, both innocent and feral, in the privacy of the wilds, and I sank happily into love with the magical being- but it wouldn't last. As suddenly as she'd appeared in my life, she was gone- I woke to the deep chill of the emptiness of my arms, and despite wandering those woods for years after, I never saw her again. I resigned myself that whatever had called her away was more important, and simply prayed that the person I'd come to love was alive and well. In short, my naivety did me no favors, and once I finally decided to get out of that backwards place and time in my life, I was four years older since my mother's murder and embittered and distrustful of the world. Slaying evil monsters paid better than song, and bigger monsters were either in the Darkwood, or beyond the canopyline.

[cecilyvanrichten]

And so I began the long ride home- though this journey felt quite the opposite, as if I were leaving home for the first time. Dread sank like swallowed snow to the pit of my stomach and settled there, unmeltingly, for the remainder of my trip. At a steady pace on horseback ('Oatmeal', my favorite of the drafts owned by the Order, with a coat like crushed velvet the color of unpolished silver), it would take me a total of three days. If I pushed him, Oatmeal could probably make it in half that time. But the ice in my belly stayed my hand and heels, and Oatmeal was all too happy to take his sweet time, leaving me to my thoughts. The Order of the Silver Moon was the first place I felt like I was safe- a home at last, after several years of wandering. My mother's murder - a sudden, random, and senseless act by thieves - had put me on the road. - I'd been away hunting, and came back to both my mother and our meager cabin (where we thatched for a living) utterly gutted. They even took my savings, which had been buried beneath my bed, and cut her hair off to sell. When I finally finished wailing, I simply put fire to the whole house. I dragged myself far enough away from the blaze to be safe, laid myself down in the moss and the pine needles, and watched it burn. I couldn't bring myself to leave, but I didn't want to stay. Tears fell again and again and while the flames licked higher, I watched and stilled their tongues with cantrips to protect the forest around the little hut. Three rooms. Mine, mom's, and a living area/kitchen. An outhouse. Most of all I'd known, crumbling slowly in gouts of sparks and hisses and pops. She'd said I hadn't been born there, but we moved there soon after. All she ever said about my father is that he was "both regal and wild" and the description brought about in her a brief wistfulness that was always swallowed by bitterness, and she'd yield nothing else. "He was there to name you and naught much else- stop asking! He's gone and doesn't matter-" went the chorus. I slept when I was certain the pines around us were no longer in danger. Crying, I succumbed to sleep and nightmares and crying, I woke to the white-ash remains of the only home I'd known. I was 19. My stomach rumbled and my sobs finally ceased as I realized with dull horror I'd left my kills in the cabin. The deer and rabbits I'd brought back from my hunt burned with everything else. Cursing myself for my stupidity, I drained what was left in my waterskin and headed down to the river- And that was how it started. One thing at a time. Survival. I'd lived and hunted those woods 19 years then, so I wasn't afraid of dying from exposure. Shelter and food and water were plentiful there, and I'd spend the next several months wallowing alone in my grief out in the wilds like that. Aimless wandering.

[cecilyvanrichten]

Tobias and Cecily existed in tandem for some time, then. When I began to transition, Tobias/I did not bear the vertical scar, shown so darkly scabbed in the first entry. In fact, the picture on the left here is a rare image- a few months into my transition but still free of any curses- the image on the right mere two months later when it had finally healed... But we will get to the cause and results of that wound another day. Dr. Van Richten and I met regularly over the next several moons to adjust dosages of the delicate medicines, and discuss how to proceed with the Order and their bigoted rules. We settled on telling the outright truth, and while he offered to stand by my side as I came out to the commander and my brothers, I told him that this beast was something I had to face alone. He refused to let me leave his tower that day, though- "Not yet." he kept saying. "It's almost done. Stay the evening, there's a spare room next to mine. It will be ready for you in the morning. Besides-" his nasal growl failing to hide the compassion in his voice. "- you need your rest for the journey home, and should sleep on what you've decided before carrying through." I obliged, never one to argue with the sweet old man's direction- he hadn't led me astray yet. Little to my knowledge, as I slept, Rudolph was working tirelessly in secret with a wizard friend of his- someone he'd "saved from madness in the Svalich Woods," whatever that meant- on a gift for me. With heavier bags than normal beneath his blue eyes, he met me in the lawn of the clinic the next morning as I was saddling my horse, carrying a small wooden box. "A gift for you, bard- I worked with a friend to craft this for you." He opened the flat box in his hand to reveal a leather, pewter, and glass-jeweled circlet, finely wrought into shapes of twisting branches and blooming violets, with a large bloom in the center of lavender glass petals. "This circlet will cast "alter self" on you so long as you wear it, but with a very specific appearance- whatever you picture as your ideal self. It taps into your soul and listens... a stopgap until the medicine has made enough changes for you to go without. Then maybe you can find another trans individual to pass it on to." I cradled the box and its contents in my hands and was struck speechless, and as tears welled in my eyes, Rudolph wrapped me in a warm hug, the leather of his coat smelling smokey and coppery and musty against my cheek. I sniffled loudly as I fought breaking (so much harder for me now with these changing hormones), but he kept speaking- "Cecily... you are an incredible woman. You've lived through tragedy and heartbreak and bigotry and somehow manage to keep bouncing back- you keep a song in your heart and that heart on your sleeve and it's what makes you beautiful, but it's also what makes you fierce. I know, that with training and time, you'll be a stellar knight- a real hero that people can look to in times of darkness. As you know, like you, I lost my family to senseless violence. People like Ez, the Fatefinders, the twins, the other twins, Alanik, Arthur, and you? You're all I have left of family. I've... well my girl, I've come to love you like my own as well. I very much consider you a Van Richten now, what with all the beasts you've already slain and light you've carried. My name is yours to use as you please- I pray it brings you more joy than it's brought me." While I didn't and don't blame my chosen surname for the troubles I would find in the coming week (and consequent years), Rudolph and I would (eventually) laugh about it- the "third" curse. The one that was willingly given and willingly accepted, before claws or blood or betrayal- I was forevermore a Van Richten.

[cecilyvanrichten]

When I eventually brought the knocker down, he called from inside to enter. Dr. Rudolph Van Richten cut a more imposing figure than I’d expected. In the writings, and among the order, he’d been referred to as a ‘small man’- I supposed they meant in musculature, as he was frail-seeming, but a few inches taller than myself in his bizarre boots. To wit, all his clothing was quite peculiar- as though from another country, or perhaps even time. I would learn, eventually, that he was from “a deeply cursed place called Ravenloft, a collection of Dread Realms controlled by the Dark Powers.” This made very little sense to me at the time, but adventurer, I suppose if you are here, reading this account, I assume you do not need to be brought up to speed on Darkon, Barovia, and the like. I encourage you to read Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft to learn more if you are unfamiliar. But the strange movement of time within that realm, and the realm itself, perhaps explained his odd garb. Furthermore, the man’s resting face is one of intense scrutiny, and when you don’t know him better, it comes across as doubting your every word. This did no favors for my nerves. But while I would come to learn the man was paranoid in his own ways, it was mostly that his face just looked like that now. He was, in actuality, an effective and helpful physician. As I stammered through my rambling explanation, his brow lowered, its creases softening. He took quiet notes, nodding and listening, always returning to the intense stare, like he was looking INTO me. Finally I got it all out. He handed me his handkerchief- a meticulously clean thing embroidered in red and yellow with VR on one corner- to dry my eyes with. “Now,” he said, that distinct nasal, gravelly, growl bringing back my worry once more, but only briefly, “you introduced yourself as Tobias. What’s your real name, Miss?” Once I stopped crying again (it took an awkward side hug from the old man, who chuckled with his own relief when I choked out that they were relieved tears), I told him at last. “Cecily, sir. Just Cecily.” He nodded, some indecipherable emotion passing briefly like a flickering candle behind his eyes. “Cecily,” he repeated, sitting down and taking note of my spelling. “Cecily, Squire to the Order of the Silver Moon.” My gulp must have been audible. “We will deal with them and their outdated misogynistic code later. For now, I want you to focus on you- you’ve told me what you want, now lets discuss your options...”

[cecilyvanrichten]

My name was once Tobias Thatcher, and this was his face. I was born in the wrong body, and to the wrong parent- not that the other blood option was much better- and I grew up within that wrongness. Lived a good portion of my adult life in that unwitting lie to myself. Then one day, someone called me “pretty boy” and something changed. I recognized within myself an intense paradox of emotion: joy and disgust. But why-? The ‘pretty’ felt so, so good to hear, but I was suddenly and randomly hyper aware that the “boy” in that genuine compliment from an adventuring companion felt deeply wrong. Soon after that moment, it was as though I turned to find a trail of breadcrumbs laid out behind me- a trail that I left but did not intend. Moments where I had thoughts such as:  “I wish I was a woman sometimes” and “I want to wear dresses” and “I wish I was a lesbian-” things that are now comical and obvious- not breadcrumbs, but what should have been shining prism stones, demarking my thick-headed journey to womanhood. and in the privacy of my meager squire’s quarters at the Order of the Silver Moon, I came to realize that I needed to transition. I’d heard of such magics- often referred to as “cursed” magical items that could change one’s gender if worn. I’d always silently wondered how having that ability would be a curse- how useful it would be to shift to a form that felt like one’s mind felt! There were also temporary spells, things like “Disguise” and “alter self” but their time was limited to hours or even minutes- things like “polymorph” were beyond me, and remain so now. Complicated spells that I could not pull with emotion and music never worked well for me- I suppose my magic is more sorcerous in origin, like most bards. No, I needed permanent change. And altering one’s body should always be done with extreme care, so I sought out the only doctor I knew-  Famous for monster hunting and revered in the hall of the Order, Dr. Rudolph Van Richten was an easy choice. And I was in luck- his clinic and dwelling, which he’d dubbed “Safe Haven,” was currently settled only two days ride away- a single day, I knew, if I pushed my mount. There was an issue, however. One that had raised my hackles when I first signed up to the order- a tenant of their order, outdated and discriminatory, which was upheld right up until their deaths: “No women shall be brought to battle among the Order of the Silver Moon- nor shall they be knights, nor shall they be squires. In truth, with the exception of crones to cook and clean, there shall be no women within the hall of the Order whatsoever.” Could I trust this old monster hunting doctor with my truth? Even if he could, would he even want to help me? What would the Order do to a squire already among them becoming a woman? I did not know. But it was my only option. I told the Order I was visiting the good doctor to bring him food from the galley, and check if he needed any other supplies, or even had reports of monsters in the area we could help with. I left at noon that day, and I arrived with the sun the next morning, thanking my horse and giving him all the apples I’d brought for Dr. Van Richten. Never, despite the horrors I’d already faced to that point, had I been more afraid than when I raised the knocker of Safe Haven and paused before bringing it down.