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[These Accounts are written in a Leather-bound, untitled journal, in typically small and and neat Sylvan text]
Between Smoke and Fire; Behind the Masks; Within the Fire; At the Heart of the Flame; The-
TITLE IT LATER LATER, SAIDA!
[The text, large and clearly hurriedly written, is underlined three times]
Dear Reader.
I've known I was strange for as long as I can recall. I'd need only to see myself in the waters of the Rauvin or in a bucket of well-water to learn it. Later, of course, I could examine myself in little silverglass mirror, set in a frame of lacquered oak; a treasured gift from my Aunt 'Bella (Iarbella; I suppose I should try not to abbreviate for the benefit of future readers.) But long before that, I could still behold my eyes of shining gold with the tiniest spark of light dancing behind them. I'd need only understand that as soon as I could stand myself on my own two legs I towered over other elf-girls; matched the elf-boys, and soon enough began looming over most of them as well. I don't remember the first time I set something alight with my eyes. The first time I remember doing so the sinking dread of "not again!" came along with it.
I didn't notice, at first at least, that we got odd looks whenever we went out together: Ma, Pa and myself. I didn't find it odd that my skin was shades paler than theirs, that they both had rough tans from lives of outside living whilst my skin held a glimmering sheen that put my parents's skin to shame. I didn't find it odd that I was the red-haired and golden-eyed daughter of my ravenhaired, green-eyed Ma and my brown-haired Pa with his hazel eyes. Why should I have? They were my Pa and my Man. I might has well have ruminated on the fact that the sun rose every morning and set every evening; that grass was green or that the Rauvin flowed East-to-West.
I do remember the first time I was called a Bastard, though. I can't remember how old I was back then anymore; certainly less than forty, certainly older than twenty; but a lot happens in twenty years, and even then the years were beginning to blend together to some extent.
The three of us had just returned to Everlund for the year, down the Rauvin from Sundabar when it happened. So, it must have been mid to late Autumn. By "the three of us", I mean my Ma, myself and Sarnera; a dwarf woman who was my often Aunt, and Ma's long time friend, Oarswoman and all-around second-in-command (I would have written 'partner-in-crime', but that would have given the wrong impression, dear reader.) Perhaps I'll write more about my relationship with Sarnera at another time, but she's not that material to this story. Present, yes, but not important. Mostly, I'm only mentioning her at all because I wrote "We'd just" rather than "I'd just". My wrist is not particularly pleased with me about this tangent, but that's between me and her, dear reader.
Regardless of it all, we were all back in Everlund, and as had become the tradition, the four of us (that is my Ma, my Da, Sarnera and I,) had gone out to The Sunken Princess, the best tavern in Everlund, if I don't mind saying so myself. Should you ever have the opportunity to visit Everlund (as scant as that chance my be, given where we are, dear reader,) you must visit. Take yourself to the South bank of the Rauvin by the Knightbridge (that's the more Westerly of the two bridges) and wander along the docklands until you can spy the Gardens on the North bank. You won't be able to miss the eponymous sign; it's large, amusing and fastidiously maintained.
In any case, the four of us were there, eating outside to take advantage of possibly the last warm weather of the year. I was still wrapped up in a cloak regardless of course; I've always loathed the cold. The year had been profitable for both my Ma and my Da, and there was six months of events and gossip to catch up. We tried to be sat down by noon, and it was a rare that we left for home before sundown. We even got a bit of a discount, in recognition of it being a special event for us and as thanks for being such regular customers.
Of course, were food flows, drink follows. Exhilaratingly for young me, my parents' ideas on how much it was appropriate for me to drink tended to swell with their own bar-tabs. I'd been able to talk my parents (with Sarnera's assistance, a fact I remain thankful for) into buying me a glass of Waterdavian Manycherries wine. I'd tried to pace myself through it, (mostly so I could try to seem mature,) but my impulse control was even more feeble back then than it is now. By the time the glass was drained (far quicker than I'd intended) I was, at the very least, tipsy.
I wasn't the only one indulging, of course, and we weren't the only ones eiter. As sundown approached we decided to make our way inside, as we didn't want to go home yet and the 'proper' adults were finally agreeing with me on the cold. So we made our way inside, drinks in hand and in a right merry mood. Once inside, with cloaks off and hung on the wall (with the exception of my own, of course,) we looked around for a table. We didn't fancy plopping ourselves at the bar, given that we were together and would rather look at each other when we talked without craning our necks like weighted-down storks.
We looked around, but no four-person tables were unoccupied; it seems The Sunken Princess was popular that night. But there was a table that sat four comfortably (we would know, as I was fairly sure we'd used it the year before this one; at least, I think that's the gist of what my Pa mumbled,) with nut a single soul sat at it. Now, from the back of him he was clearly human, and from his way and raiment he was at least wealthy, if not rich, if that makes sense. His clothes were fine enough, there were rings on his fingers and his boots were well made. But he wasn't drowning in money, else he wouldn't be in a place like we were in without some sort of attendant or servant; maybe even a guard. If he wore any livery of House, Line or the like, we never saw any, at least to my meory. Some sort of middle-aged, as I remember it, but that may just be the years talking.
I remember clearly, though, that he was deep in his cups. Looking back, we probably should've known from the number of empty cups scattered around him that he wasn't a pleasant sort, or at least a pleasant drunk; clearly the barmaids didn't want to be near him any longer than absolutely necessary. And perhaps, looking back, we could have asked the Landlady for the night (the name escapes me, a half-elf woman with lovely long blonde hair and nice hips,) to intervene on our behalf. Especially as we didn't know him. Everlund felt like a small village sometimes, with everyone somehow knowing or at least vaguely recognising each other, and yet this one was a complete stranger.
Regardless of all this ruminating and should-haves, what we did do was walk up to him. Ma was leading the pack of us (as was her habit) and asked him that, given we were four and he was one, could he kindly move elsewhere and allow us to use the table?
Oh, but that set him right off. He slammed his glass, drawn to his lips whilst we were asking (I don't think he really deigned to look at us during the asking) down on the table, slopping some of the foam of whatever it was out the glass, splattering it across his hand and the table beneath. He then unleashed a string of invective at us generally and my Ma in particular. It was clearly meant to sting, as opposed to just being a quirk of his speech. Perhaps needless to say, the fact that the only one of us who seemed particularly phased by it all was Pa didn't improve his humours.
See, Ma and Sernera were sailors who'd been haunting the docksides of the Rauvin from Sundabar to Silverymoon for centuries each. Frankly, I can only imagine they viewed him with something between scorn and pity for his notions that his efforts were actually insulting. Myself, whilst I had been sailing some with Ma and Sarnera, mostly I just didn't like him. By now, I'd learned the skill of not having what I was feeling show on my face (at least if I put effort into it,) and I didn't want to give him the pleasure of seeing me riled.
I don't think I quite understood why he reacted like he did at the time, but I think I do now. See, when someone's angry, very often they're hurting. Anger, I think, at its core, is a response to and a salve for being hurt, for vulnerability. Anger, in its overwhelming thoughtlessness, helps protect you by dulling the sensations of other feelings. So if you're vulnerable, and someone says something to you that you don't like, by, say, asking you to leave your table, essentially implying that you're being selfish, being angry helps push that hurt, that feeling that you're being selfish, away. And how else does anger protect you? Why, it pushes you on the offensive. If you lash out, have other people recoil, you've gained control of the situation; and if you're in control, they can't hurt you. And it feels good, in some perverse way, to do so, at least in the moment.
So when that man could only see his blows having got their hooks into Pa, he focused his efforts onto him. "You little knife-ear lickspittle cuckold churl!" I remember the man roaring at my Da, standing up and stepping forward to loom over him. "Telling me what to do when you can't keep your own wife in line!" He thrust an arm towards me as he spoke. He probably meant to jab me in the chest, but he was drunk and probably not too deft at the best of times, and I was lithe and merely tipsy. His arm flew past me with index finger outstretched, stumbling slightly as he overbalanced. "Carting that slut's Bastard around like no one can't see-"
He stopped his yelling then. Ma had smashed a fist into his jaw. Sarnera, though, had gone a little lower. She was a dwarf, remember; she didn't have the height to get to his jaw. Instead, she viced a hand around his groin, brought her hand into a fist and yanked.
He didn't say much of anything much after that. He just screamed and whimpered in turns as a pair of the Barmaids dragged him out. I have this idea that they threw him in the Rauvin, but I could never swear to that.
The Landlady was mortified about it all, of course. It didn't hurt, I'm sure, that we were regular customers, and they knew this was our yearly event, and that little silk-shirt toerag had ruined it. We didn't have to pay a copper that night, but the night was ruined even so, we decided to go our seperate ways for the evening. Us three back to the house (Ma and Pa's house really,) and Sarnera back to wherever she lived. I don't think I ever went to her's, or even asked about it. For all I know she took an Inn room each winter. Much of the time she spent at ours, anyway.
Ma and Pa were sharing this odd look whilst we walked in silence, which I remember as being odd because between the two of them one of them was normally talking. Then they stopped us at the apex of the Knightsbridge, looking West along the Rauvin. I would say the view was nice, but it wasn't really. It was dark, few lights about, overcast night. And besides, the difference between 'River' and 'Sewer' for a city like Everlund is how far downriver you are, and the Knightbridge is the more Westerly bridge. Honestly, I remember wrinkling my nose from the stink of it.
But still, we were there. Ma and Pa, between them, somewhat fumbling and awkwardly, told me the whole of it.
They told me that they had an ...arrangement (pause, emphasis and all,) given that they were both away from each other so long, with such long lives. Whilst they were together, they were together. But while Ma was plying her trade up and down the Rauvin, with Pa in Everlund, working as a Tinker and Market Seller as he did, they could ...Indulge. Likewise with '...arrangement', I can still dredge up Pa using the word, pause and emphasis and all.
This, at least, I knew already, at least in part. Whilst I was and remain a fool, I like to imagine I'm not an idiot; I noticed how often when Sarnera volunteered to take me somewhere (or volunteered me to do something elsewhere,) it was after Ma had fallen into conversation with a pretty woman or handsome man. I'd never really asked about it before, though. It was just another one of those 'this is how the world works' things, foundational to my existance.
They hadn't worried about offspring such as myself, mind, because they'd been trying for many years before my arrival anyway, and nothing ever came of it. They'd concluded that one or the other of them was firing an empty bow (or had an empty quiver, as the case may be,) so what did it matter?
So one year, when Ma found herself in Silverymoon for Midsummer, she thought nothing much of participating in Hanali's rites to their full extent. (And yes, dear reader, I can attest from personal experience that are much as you might imagine them to be.) She thought nothing of it, of course, until she was heading upriver, halfway between Everlund and Sundabar, suddenly 'seasick' for the first time in her life. Sarnera, of course, was able to set her right; frankly, Sarnera was shocked that Ma hadn't cottoned on earlier.
So back to Everlund quick as they could (selling off a valuable cargo for coppers to the gold in the process,) and a number of months later, comes out me. Funny thing was, years proceeding me, they started having children that weren't me, and were clearly theirs' alone. (Ma became far more stringent about the herbs in her tea after I popped along, which is really something I really didn't need to know about her.)
They seemed somewhat embarrassed about the whole affair (pun, dear reader, not intended, but appreciated nonetheless.) I think they might have been afraid that I'd curse or reject them for it. And perhaps I would have; well, a different me might have. The me writing this account instead would like to give thanks to Sarnera. Amongst the many things I owe her, perhaps chief amongst them is the fact (and in retrospect, it is certainly a fact) that she had been subtly preparing me for this revelation for as long as I can remember.
See, Sarnera didn't get along with her own folks, when, she told me, family was meant to be everything to them. "But see," I remember her telling me, on some eternal, ephemeral spring-to-summer day, sailing and sculling The Fair Road (Ma's ship; call it a boat at your peril;) "family's never been about who you've got blood with, any idiot can tell you tell you that." I remember nodding along with a "or any fool, Auntie Sarnera," feeling right proud of myself for agreeing with a quip. "See?" She grinned. Sarnera's face was always much improved by her smiling, I remember that; she looked so stern most of the time. "You get it. No blood between us, but I'm still your aunt, no?" I nodded along again. "Family's never been about blood. Always been about who you are to each other."
I can't say if I remembered those words back on the Knightbridge, but the sentiment had stuck fast in me. I still think I took a moment or two of thinking before squeezing their hands tighter. (Ma's in my right, I think; but what does that matter, really?)
"You're my Ma," I said, squeezing her hand. "And you're my Pa." I squeezed his. "Doesn't need to be anything else to it." I was right then, to hold to that, and I've held to to it ever since. In all my years, I've never heard nor seen good reason to change my mind on it.
Until next time, Dear Reader.