It's funny what you remember from your youth (not funny ha ha funny weird). Like I can't recall my fathers face, but I remember his smell, he always smelled of grease for some odd reason. He spent untold of sums for fine perfumes to cover the smell, but always it would return, that underlying sickening smell of grease. He wasn't even a large man or someone who ate a lot of greasy food. So I guess the smell was pennance for just being a jerk (of which he certainly was).
I tried to remember as far back as I could, just in case I start to lose my mind after living this long (its a possibility, I've never been the sanest even without the threat of the corruption), I was able to remember to around when I was five. It was a fuzzy memory at best, something about my mother, a dark skinned woman with really black hair, I remember her hair because when I saw her last it was the only thing of her that wasn't sickly as she laid on her funeral pyre. My next clearest memory will probably take a few days to go through as there were many parts and it ultimately lead to me leaving the place where I was born (A small island in the bay area between Ronewrath territory and what at the time was The Kingdom of the Red Hand, the Red Hand of course are now no more).
Ok so I was born on the island to my father (A thin slightly dirt colored man who of course smelled ike grease) a small territorial leader of a crappy little trade tribe (we were in a prime position for boats loading up to either area to stop in, get ship supplies before moving on to their final destination). He was the kind of self made rich person who thought everyone should be self made, including his one son (well the one that lived with him, I would come to find my father also "traded" himself frequently and I had a lot of half brothers and sisters). My mother was actually a pirate or so I was told, she had come and gone as she pleased until she died of her illness when I was around seven, I didn't really know her very much, in a way it hurt me back then, but I tried not to let it show. I grew up in the servants quarters of my fathers stickwork hut near the water (Seriously I lived a servant in my fathers own house). My father had two servants: Borla, a light skinned cook who always seemed so exotic because of her skin (everyone else on the island was brown), And Rondo a shortie (oh I forgot to mention there are at least two races of humanoids on this rock, basically shorties and normals, I'm a normal, shorites are of course short there is your brief description, also shorties due to being smaller are usually laborers/slaves to normals, because they are short) cleaner/fixer/everything, Rondo was my Dad's most trusted associate, and Rondo hated the man with every fiber of his short self.
I'd like to say that the servants treated me nicely, but they didn't. I was seen as much of a burden to them as I was seen as a burden to my father (you can see a pattern here I'm sure). Back then I grew my hair out, and it was fire red (ha ha a pyromancer with red hair, you can see why I keep my hair bald and dye my beard grey, well you would if I gave you a description of what I looked like), I was always a tall gangly child, all limb no weight. Which was hard on island life because most of the other people were stockier, I got into and lost a lot of fights early on. Reading/writing was a skill of the elite back then, so I learned none of that, I barely spoke or had any skills other then running (a skill I utilize to this day). The one thing I did have was my magic, I kept it from everyone having seen a prior user in the village be burned alive (and not from his own magical ability), that kind of thing sticks with you as a kid. I practiced in secret, burning things for my own personal amusement (never anything living in case you were worried, just leaves, twigs, the occaisional shoe of a nasty bully, they aren't really alive), I liked to think I was proficient in it, and that one day I would join one of the Red Hand's supply convoys as a guard and leave my father and his greasy smell behind, alas.
I was the ripe age of fourteen when my father drug me out of bed on a sunny day and presented me to someone who smelled worse then he did. I was in my sleeping shorts and bleary eyed, but I could sense this other man in his rough hewn armor and variety of weaponry was not another trade associate of my fathers. The armor looked to be of various animal hides sewn together by a very poor tailorer, the weapons of which I could see three, were all of a different type, one sword, one mace, and one small handaxe. Whoever this guy was, he clearly had seen more combat then just the bullies on the island.
"Well Grengor, this is the boy." That was my name to my father, the boy, or my boy. I think my mother named me Trezlan.
"He seems too skinny Randle." Grengor talked in a husky voice, like he'd spent his life inside smoke filled dens.
"He'll toughen up or he'll die Grengor, you asked me what I had for trade and this it." I had the sudden impression I was being traded (you know after my father directly said that). Grengor grunted and came close, the smell was overwhelming, like body odor combined with cheap liquor, it wasn't so much coming from him as it was an aura. He inspected me like I'd seen my father look over animals. In the end he snorted, snatched me by the arm told me to get my things and that he would be waiting outside. My things in this case were just clothing (never really had toys or anything of note really), my clothing wasn't even good for bad weather as the island never really got that. All the same I remember being excited! I had never liked the island, and this new guy was a warrior of some kind? I fancied myself a warrior as well and this would be my chance. I hit the porch running and Grengor was true to his word waiting for me. He had with him a simple labor animal (like a mix between a horse and an ox, I want to say they called them hoxen, I have no idea what they are called as I haven't seen one of those in years), on it was heaped more gear, I sought to add my simple pack to it but Grengor shook his head and actually took some stuff off it.
"Buddy is mine as are you boy, you'll carry my stuff and your own, if you can't I'll leave wherever you give up." He handed me the heavy whateverthehell it was and made his way for the docks. I followed my burden holding me down, but still kind of happy. I figured I was going to become some kind of squire or something, it was a lot better then being a servant to my father. If I knew then what was about to happen, I might have been a little less happy to be Grengor's servant, but as the black path priests are fond of saying "When we look behind us we see with pefect clarity all of our mistakes, just in time to make new ones". Yeah I don't really get it either.
No comments:
Post a Comment