Call Of Destiny

The Woman Of The Earth

The red digits flashed angrily on the clock beside Jana Fíníuna's bed as a furious, shrill beeping sound stirred the young redhead from her slumber. She wiped the rheum from her eyes with one pale fingers as she looked at the time on the clock. 05:00. Just as she had planned, she was awake in plenty of time to prepare to get to Beacon Academy. She didn't actually have to hit the road until half past nine, but she liked to make sure she wouldn't be late; giving herself four and a half hours to get ready and eat breakfast would make it nearly impossible to leave late. With a shake of her head, she sent most of the tight ginger braids that sat atop her scalp in the right direction as she set about dressing.

Getting dressed was something of a ritual for Jana, something that was likely a side effect of her upbringing learning the ways of the ritualistic Patchian druids. Her silver torc was already on her neck, where it always sat to ward off the evil spirits of Maedhbh. First, she'd change her underwear, then put on her olive green tunic, then a tartan jacket secured with a Grimm-hide belt. After that, she put on her leather trousers and boots. To cap the whole look off, an ornate headband of interwoven metals sat, ducking in and out of Jana's braids.

She slowly snuck past her mother's bedroom door, typically ajar, taking care not to make enough noise to wake her mother up with her rather heavy boots, whose soles were thick enough to make sure that, even if Jana did step in pig shit, she wouldn't have to clean up the leather. There were no stairs for Jana to deal with in her house, which was a traditional rock sídh; this represented a blessing on two counts for her. Firstly, it meant that she wouldn't wake up her mother with the sound of repeated clomping in her heavy boots. Secondly, the young redhead suffered with joint problems and would likely tire herself out just running up and down the stairs before she even got to Beacon.

Scurrying like a nervous cat into the kitchen, Jana opened up one of the oak cupboards and pulled out a burlap sack full of pressed oats that her and her mother, Beathag Fíníuna, had grown and prepared that season and poured them into a bowl. Over this she poured some milk from the almonds one of her neighbours had grown (Jana had vowed not to harm animals or consume their gifts as she considered them too much of a sacred vessel of the gods), and plopped in a few slices of apple. She sat down with her modest yet filling breakfast and found her eyes glancing over to the copy of the previous day's newspaper still left on the table. In particular, she was drawn to a story showing a huntress of a very similar age to herself, and detailing how she had become something of a celebrity by appearing on the retail box of a cereal called Pumpkin Pete's Marshmallow Flakes. One day, Jana thought to herself, I too will be so famous and successful that I will have my face emblazoned across some sugar-loaded cereal. In truth, Jana had never had Marshmallow Flakes. The Fíníuna philosophy had long been that it was pointless to spend money on a smaller quantity of lower quality items than spending it on creating a higher quantity of better quality items, whose origin could be traced from seed to mouth.

Wolfing down her breakfast like it was the first morsel she'd had for weeks, Jana made a quick mental note to scan the crowd when she arrived at Beacon to see if this cereal mascot huntress, Pyrrha Nikos, was anywhere to be seen. She got up with a heave and placed her bowl and spoon in the sink to be later washed up by her mother. Once I'm out of here, Jana reasoned with herself, I'll be out of her hair for a while, and by the time I come back, she'll have forgotten all about the minor annoyance of me leaving a bowl unwashed anyway. Grabbing a scabbard which held her weapon inside it- a druidic magic-imbued scian by the name of Spiorad an Domhain- Jana slung her leather backpack, that she had packed the night before, over her back and began to walk the couple of miles to her nearest boarding point for the ship that was due to take her to Beacon.

Jana's mother had, in fact, never been to Beacon herself, a fact that somewhat reassured the young redhead. Beathag was deceptively strong for a woman of her small stature and frame, and enjoyed a spot of the ultraviolet from time to time; her daughter felt sure that, had she attended Beacon and not spend her teen years working with a minority rights group active in Menagerie, that Professor Ozpin would take one look at the name Fíníuna and have his mind filled with abject terror at the prospect of more of the experience Beathag would have provided. On the other hand, Jana felt like she would have been slightly less anxious about going to Beacon had her mother been there previously and therefore been able to offer advice on what she was likely to encounter. Instead, her mother had just told her, "If a boy does you wrong, tell me and I'll rescind his kneecap privileges." Sure, it was sweet, but it wasn't what Jana was really looking for in terms of positive affirmation.

As she trekked across the fields to minimise her journey time- heading precisely in a straight line- she came across a spiked hedge. Without even saying anything, she felt her scian vibrate with power and the hedge parted to let her through, leading to the now-harvested field of potato crops that had been designated to pick up new Beacon students. Of course, Jana was early by at least ninety minutes.