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From WikiWatch

Taraiha had never believed herself to be particularly complicated. There were many who roamed the land with tales of tragedy and woe, mystery and intrigue. She was not one of them.

She often sat at the Tavern, listening to the tales of sorrow and wondered why she didn't have any. She would hear the stories of those who felt their powers inferior or who had set themselves a course of self-improvement not for the feint hearted; the ones of demons and shadows and being tormented by evil and wonder how it was she was happy with her lot.

Not that she didn't try to improve, of course, but she never felt the need to be the greatest or the most invincible. She simply learnt as she went along. And although she believed wholeheartedly in evil, she had never seen it up close an personal. It was the thrill of being somewhere new and talking to adventurers who had been to places she hadn't that caught her interest, not how many trolls they had killed or how many times they had nearly died. Everyone had nearly died at some point afterall, and it didn't matter to what, in her book, if you were still walking. The only time it mattered was if you actually got dead. Then whatever had killed you became a matter of concern.

She came from a perfectly normal family where no one had disappeared under curious circumstances or been killed by an all-supreme enemy or banished by an evil monarch. She had been shown how to summon minions and fight as well as cook and clean and make a fire, and had even studied reading and writing. She had enjoyed her upbringing, in a relatively peaceful land, with a loving (if somewhat large) family, learning what everyone else learned and making the most of what she had. Her need for adventure aside, she was a very normal gnome, cheerful for the most part, overly optimistic at worst and generally at peace with the world and herself.

It was only the need for adventure, an in-built curiousity, that had made her leave home at all. She had felt no need to go rushing off to war-torn lands to wave her flag with the heroes. Never once had she had the desire to search for anything, other than new people to talk to. She had neither a desperate purpose nor a life or death struggle to contend with. She hadn't left home because she hated her family, in fact, she still wrote her mother once a month by way of the courier in town, sending her some of the pretty trinkets and necklaces she found. She had never felt the need to go and find herself. She knew precisely where she was and when she really wasn't sure, she got out her map. She was perfectly happy.

And it was this that troubled her today.

Sitting on a rock above the Falls, she leaned back on her hands, dangling her overly large feet in the spray, daring the water to splash her shiny blue boots. She had only bought them that morning and had walked up to the Falls to break them in, but it had turned out to be unecessary. The crafter who had made them had done a fine job and they fit her perfectly. The boots had been intended to cheer her up when she had woken up in such a perturbed mood, but they hadn't. That is, they had cheered her up - shiny new boots always cheered a person up - but they had not lifted the mood.

Still, they came in handy for holding up in the sun and admiring the shiny on when she got so lost in thought she wasn't entirely sure what she had been thinking about in the first place.

She sighed to herself, more in admiration of her footwear than from any of the thoughts running through her head, reached into a tiny duffle bag beside her and pulled out a paper bag, filled with cookies. Immediately, a small Imp, who had been sprawled out face down on a rock above her sunning himself, flapped out his wings, jumping down beside her and whipping the bag out of her hand in one smooth, practiced movement.

"Hey! It mine! Gimme!" she squealed at the Imp, leaping to her feet.

The Imp, evidently not caring who it belonged to as long as it was in his hands, stuck his face into it, investigating the contents. Taraiha stamped her foot, then marched up to him and yanked the bag off his nose, throwing cookie crumbs over both of them. She reached up and whalloped him across the snout.

"No stealin my cookies!" she said with a frown, waggling a finger at the Imp while holding the bag behind her back with the other hand. "When I's havin cookies you gets cookies. But no stealin or no cookies."

The Imp pulled a contrite face, but kept his eyes firmly fixed on where the cookies would be if only he could see through her. She backed away, turning from him and sneaking a cookie out of the bag. The Imp, unperturbed by his ticking-off, leaned his head over her shoulder, eyeing the bag greedily. Taking two more cookies out, she turned and held it out for him.

"Here" she said "Now go away. I not got no more."
The Imp grabbed the bag and sprinted back to his rock, gobbling up the remaining contents.
She sat down again, smoothing out her pretty dark blue kilt and placing the cookies reverently in her lap, then picked one up and began to nibble on it demurely. Periodically she stopped to flick away crumbs from her matching jerkin, then carried on munching. Every so often, her face wrinkled in thought as she continued to mull over the woes of others and why she didn't have any.

She watched as the sun made its way across the sky, making the waterfall sparkle red and gold, but was still no nearer an answer.

As evening fell a great shout went up from some picnickers nearby and they fled, scattering food and tankards as they went. Curious, Taraiha turned to see what all the fuss was about. Running toward her was an elf, bow in hand, breathing heavily and in hot pursuit behind him, a chimerian hatchling. The elf waved at her.

"Run! Get out of here! It'll eat you alive!" he screamed, evidently more scared for his own well-being than hers.

Taraiha stood her ground, taking a hands-on-hips stance she had seen her mother use many times. The elf ran past her, blind panic in his eyes. The Imp, vaguely interested at the scene, got up and wandered over to stand behind his mistress' shoulder, arms folded.

The chimerian hatchling screeched to a halt.
It eyed the gnome and her companion for a moment, then laughed. "I will eat you tiny one!" it bellowed triumphantly, waving it's huge talons ferociously in the air, high above Taraiha.

Taraiha cocked her head to one side and pointed to her armour. "See dis?" she said defiantly. "Dis useta be onna yous. Now. Wher yous fink I gots it?"

The chimerian hatchling made a noise as if clearing its throat, looking first to the Imp, then Taraiha, then back to the Imp. The Imp, arms still folded, looked at Taraiha, then at the hatchling. He shook his head at the hatchling.

The chimerian hatchling hesitated for a moment, then sidled away, sure that it could take the Imp out in one fell swoop but evidently uncertain as to the outcome of a battle with the gnome. Taraiha went back to her rock, smiling to herself.

A giggle echoed around the rockface and another gnome in a pale blue outfit appeared. "You showed him!" he said with a grin, climbing up to sit beside her.

"Course I did. We gnomies tougherun we looks" she said, grinning at her friend. "But.... I's sad today Swifty" she sighed, shaking her head so that her purple pigtails fell down over her shoulders.

Swiftpaw's eyes grew big and concerned. "What up? Why sad?"

"Well, cuz I happy." she replied simply. "And no one else is. So I'm wondering why I's happy an everyone else is sad"

Swiftpaw scrunched his nose in thought. After a while he smiled triumphantly.

"Well, it obvious silly" he said with a shrug. "You's a gnomie."

"Oh" said Taraiha flatly. She thought about it a little longer. "Oh...." she nodded, with a bit more understanding. "So.... gnomies is special. And I's a gnomie. So I's special. And only special people don't have no problems. An that's why I ain't got none?"

Swifty nodded slowly and reverently. "Yep. It sounds right anyways. An if it sounds right, likely it is."

Taraiha sighed heavily with relief. "An here I wuz all worried!"

She lifted her leg, holding it up with both hands. "Like me new bootses?"