My occupation is as a Sentry for the King's watch within the capital city of Imrees. My station is at the Central Gate, that leads directly into the palace grounds.

Notice, I didn't say common Sentry, and if you were to ask others of our contingent, I am sure that you'd get many different answers as to what my status exactly is. I report to our captain in the usual way, but sometimes I am called upon to report directly to the King in special circumstances.

When there is magic misuse, or magical involvement in the certain aspects of criminal activity. Then my skills often come into play in keeping the peace of our fair city. The mages of our Citadel don't care much for such common intervention. They say it is not our pervue, and an abomination to allow the magical gifts to grow and develop outside their towers and schools. That is their problem. Our new King doesn't seem to be as tractable as they had hoped he would be. And I grant you that he is young, but he is smart, and most of all cunning in dealing with them.

It is all of my honor to serve him and the city, which has suffered greatly within the last cycle of plague. Our populations are decimated, and lawlessness will run riot if allowed, and it is always the weakest who suffer in such situations. Something that I, my fellow sentries, and the King cannot allow.

Sometimes you report directly to the king, huh? What sort of event would cause him to have you report directly to him, instead of through your Captain? Does he turn to you for protection? Or is it something else?

1) What is your favourite colour, and why?

2) What was your mother's name?

So here goes. (Slips into Wendulu mode.) He sips at the hot coffee and grimaces, deciding he does not like the sugar he put into it...

Ah yes, I have many favorite colors. The first would be the color of the light when the morning sun first hits the waves of the sea. I also like the green of the kittle pods I buy at the street market for breakfast. But my most favorite color is the shade of brown of the baker's daughter's eyes when she hands me a fresh roll all dusted with Cinnamon. It is enough to melt a man's heart and fall to his knees in a marriage proposal...

My mother's name was Anawhali. She was one of the first to succomb to plague when it first descended upon our city and has now been dead for two ten-years. May her spirit find the solace with our ancestors.

I'll defer the statement of the contest to my authoress. She will know better than I of such things.

Mommiller here...Don't fret for my family. My husband plays the Great Highland Bagpipes. (referred to now as the GHB), believe me, any defeatist attitude on my part is very short lived...

I think it is important to answer each of your questions, although some of them are so closely related, I think a bit more of my background should be sufficient to answer them.

The mages are a wily bunch, and not used to hearing, "no," for an answer. They came for me within days of my mother's passing, when word of my conjury of her ghost was gossiped to them. When my grandmother and uncles refused, they sought to kidnap me to help with their decrease in their ranks due to the plague's ravages. A patrol squad alerted to my disappearance stopped them at their gates and I was freed. That was my first encounter with the King's watch, and it so impressed me that I joined them when I was old enough to do so..

As far as my particular gift goes, ghost watching runs in my family, but occasionally skips a generation, my mother had the gift, for instance, but my grandmother does not. Uncle Rudy might have the gift, or something akin to it, but it is not discussed

Citadel mages are mainly those who have the ability to learn magic, it can be taught to anyone, you see, only a few are able to, 'learn,' it and put it to use. Those with natural gifts can become mages, great ones even. But often at the cost of the inherent gift.

There are 'others,' as you say. Healing is the most common one that I've come across among the Sentries of the Watch. Ghost talkers can acually hear what the ghosts have to say. Some hearth witches, have the gift of languages, being able to understand, and be understood by any foreigner. Others can hear the truth, even when it is encased in lies, but that gift is rare, as it can easily lead to madness.

These are trying times for the kingdom, although with the decimation brought about by the plague, there is little of the population left outside the city. The old King's (may he rest undisturbed,) death led to an immediate power grab by some of the most noisome Mages. They sought to instill a weak heir from the countryside on the throne as their puppet. King Dhalh is neither weak nor a puppet. He suspects the mages of amassing certain illegal books from the looted derelict houses of the dead nobility, and practicing magic that is at best questionable.

It was his edict that allowed us witches within the Watch to practice openly. Anything having to do with illegal magic is reported directly to him and this is understood with our captains.

The King's protectors are another group of sentries all together, called the King's Guard. They are part guardians, part diplomat, and even some say, part assassin and spy. But I would not know none of these things.

Wendulu pauses, thoughtful for a moment and sips at his black coffee which now has grown cold.

Because I lack a wife, my grandmother weaves the shells and beads into my braids ever two tendays. They are a mark of important things. The first one, this gold, represents the death of my father at sea, during a storm that arose and awashed half the fishing fleet. I was only an infant when it was braided into my hair. These others mark my passing into manhood, my first audience with the King, and so on. When I marry, I will cut my hair and the beads and shells put into a box for my son. When my first child is born, then I will have two new blue beads woven in if it is a boy, two silver for each daughter, and so it goes, more and more until I die and am buried with them. This is a custom long in practice among the fishing villages along the swampy southernmost edge of the city...

He is waiting for his writer to finish loading this thing she calls the washing machine before sitting down with the aptly named Lap Top.

Ah, yes, here she is, with her own cup of coffee.

"You ask whether or not I'd give my life to the king? Well, that remains to be seen. doesn't it? Hopefully it will not come down to something as serious as that, because this new King is not like the others in the past, content to live their lives behind the palace walls.

This new King is from the sands of the Eastern deserts, a daughter's cousin's son. As we like to say. It is said the he stole the Mage's horse that came to seek him and rode it back to our capitol. Disguised as a pilgrim to the Shrine of our Lady, he got past the guards and rumor has it walked our streets for weeks unknown and unknowable, so perhaps I already have. I did fish a rather sodden young man from the main canal after he was knocked in during a brawl taking place at a bridgeside tavern. That canny culprit slipped my grasp as easily as a greased cat.

Either way, our new king didn't bother to reveal himself until the mages returned, all bumped and bruised from the ox cart ride back. I would have loved to have been working the West Gate that day, my sides would have split, I tell you.

So if it came to us both having our backs against the wall, then yes, I would defend him with my life.

Now for the mages, that is a tiger of another stripe, let me tell you. For the most part no. I would not defend them if it meant my life in forfiet to one of their shriveled hides. They are a mean lot and secretive for the most part. I've not ever forgiven them for my kidnapping after my mother's death. But like everything else there are a few exceptions to the lot and they do work closely with the KIng, but I'd rather not divulge their names and endanger their existance within the Citadel.