Ysolte

Name: Ysolte
Age: Young Adult
Charge: … a frying pan??

Ysolte’s Search took her all of 15 minutes. She found a frying pan, but was not satisfied with it being her Charge. She tried to forget about it, and find a new, more worthy charge. When she had failed that, she realized she was stuck with the simple frying pan forever. Trying to pick it up to get a good look at it, she dropped it onto the hard stone floor of her cave, and broke it. She had attempted to fix it, to no avail. And thus, she would mourn the pan, and her failure to protect it. One day, she put the pieces into a satchel, and embarked on a new journey, to find a clan willing to accept a guardian saddled with the shame of failing to protect her charge. This is how she came to be with her current clan - a band of misfits, some riddled with the guilt of failure as well.

Ysolte took one last look back at the entrance to her cave as she embarked on The Search. She had heard grand tales of guardians taking part in the search for decades, desperately wandering all over Sornieth looking for their charge. As it would turn out, she needed step no further than her clan’s kitchen.

There it sat. A noble frying pan, used to cook many a meal for the clan’s residents. The clan’s head cook was about to use it to cook up an egg when Ysolte yelled out, “Stop!”

The cook froze, nearly dropping the egg in the process. “What’s with you?” she asked.

“I… I think that frying pan is my charge,” explained Ysolte, sheepishly.

“Oh..” the cook began. “I’m terribly sorry. Take the frying pan, though it was my best. Take good care of it.” The cook left to grab another pan to cook with.

And so, Ysolte took the frying pan back to her cave. It was so stupid. How could her charge be a frying pan, of all things, when other Guardians were tasked with looking after entire places? Even people? Palaces, lakes, entire clans, kings and queens, partners… she looked down at her frying pan charge and wanted so desperately to change it. She wished she had never embarked on the Search, had she known she would end up with something as embarrassing and insignificant as a frying pan.

So the frying pan would sit amongst her hoard, neglected and forgotten. Ysolte would glance at it once in a while, but even she too, would try to forget about it entirely.

One day Ysolte had had enough. She realized that no matter how much she tried to forget about it, the frying pan would be her charge forever. She felt it in her soul, which ached to protect something. She dug through her hoard looking for the frying pan, and once she had it - it slipped out of her grasp.

Ysolte watched helplessly as the frying pan clattered to the hard stone floor of her cave. It bounced around, making a harsh metallic sound. And suddenly, when it had stopped clanging, Ysolte realized something terrible.

The handle had fallen off, and there was a big crack in the pan.

She looked at it remorsefully. Perhaps, if she hadn’t been so caught up in her own head, the pan would still be intact. She gazed down at the dented pieces. It was shameful. A guardian’s purpose in life is to protect their charge, no matter how small.

Ysolte felt rather stupid, then. She tried to patch up the pan, and fix the cracks and dents in it. She tried reattaching the handle, but the threads for the screws were ruined. She now had to live with the guilt of being a failed guardian. She had neglected her charge, and that ultimately ended up in its destruction.

She placed the leftover pieces of the frying pan on a shelf in her cave. She ended any attempts at finding a new, better charge that day. She would let it be a lesson.

After a few days of sulking had passed, Ysolte carefully gathered the remnants of the frying pan into a large satchel, and zipped it closed. She affixed the satchel around her waist, and she set off to find a new clan which would not judge a failed guardian. Eventually, she found sanctuary here. She remains here to this day, welcoming those fellow guardians who have been beaten down by shame. She still carries the satchel too, a reminder of her past.