Nuark
My mother always told me that I was born
late at night. About 52 years ago, late in the evening of the 24th day
of Shorka in the 325th year After the Victory of Lanival. A child of
the night, she always said to me, that I was. Why then, did I end up
how I did?
332 years after the Victory, I was playing
with my best friend. As boys often do. I, dreaming of becoming a Steel
Dove, like my mother, strong, full of the Inner Fire. We had been
running along the rooftops in the more dilapidated southern districts
of the
Crystal City, Shard. Such fools children can be. Such delightful fools.
My friend, the addle brained idiot he was back then, misstepped as
he was running. Slipped and fell off one of the roofs along Sapphire
Street. It must have been raining the night before, and he was lucky,
landed legs first into a puddle. He was not so lucky, in that moments
later, when I reached him from the rooftops, and to this day, I still
do not know how I got down so quickly; I found him with a broken leg.
We were both frightened. I reached out to console him, his cries of
pain quickly bringing folk from the nearby houses and shops.
Suddenly, though. He had stopped crying. A feeling like fire, washed
with a winter's chill shot through my leg, and I was the one screaming.
His pain had become mine, and my Empathic Gift had awoke. The city
was spinning about me as everything went dark in the moments following.
I awoke some time later in the Infirmary in Stormwill Tower. K'miriel
Lystrandoniel standing over me, a small smile upon her face. My parents
were behind her. Looks of Stoicism, reproach, and anger, mixed with
fear played plainly upon their chiseled Elothean faces, as K'miriel
turned to them. "An Empath, Nuark is." She said to them,
"No more childish games for him, if this gift is to be managed
without causing more lasting harm, he must begin his training immediately!"
"Training?" I thought, "But... I want to be like my
mother!" The most traumatic thought for a young boy, is that
he will never get to see his deepest dreams fulfilled. But for years,
train is exactly what I did. I trained both in Stormwill tower, and
the Great Tower. Under K'miriel and Edenlaen. K'miriel had thought
my Empathic Gift one of the strongest she had seen. Though, my training
was not to last forever, time waxes on, and boys grow into men.
In my early twenties, War broke out in Kemoria, as the Gorbesh began
their march northward. My parents, fearful for me, and not wanting
me involved sent me to the Asemath Academy in Crossing to complete
my education. My parents, though were both strong soldiers, and wanted
to fight.
In my last season at the Academy, came the news that the War was over,
and that my parents were dead. They died finding ways to sneak into
the Gorbesh Fortress near Shard, in a final effort to get a toe-hold
against them as the Gorbesh entered Crossing for the last time. I
formally joined the Empath guild soon after, though I felt crushed
and defeated.
Advancing quickly in the guild, I returned to Ilithi and Shard, and
quickly began practicing in the Infirmary in which I was born, and
raised for most of my young life. At the same time, I was re-learning
the joy of hunting Trolls to the south of the city, as I had as a
lad with my parents. I quickly learned my role as a Battle Empath.
Shard had reached a rennaisance about this time. I had many friends,
and I was quite happy for a long time. But time waxes on, and young
men, grow into adults. I married, and adopted a daughter. Soon after,
though, hardship hit, and my wife seemed to feel that other pursuits
were more suited to her, and she left. I joined with Seihjin in the
Li Timbre Mir as rumbling of Shadow overtook Kemoria. War had come
again.
In truth, I am a peaceful man, and have always lived by the letter
of my oath to the Verdant Lily, but when my home is threatened, I
cannot sit idle. I was involved with more than one defeat of Sorrow,
and that war came to a close the following year.
After Sorrow's War, when I returned home, tired, broken, I decided
upon a break. But, I came out of retirement not too long ago, as more
rumbling came of war. I joined the Infantry as aide to Daxlynn. The
'Outcasts' came, though I refuse to call them that. The sand pitdwellers,
is what they are. They swept over my home like a fury. Killed my beloved
Ferdahl. Left me with a true hatred for the first time in my life.
Now, I struggle to keep hope alive for Ilithi, and to teach those
whom are perhaps too young to remember a truly free Shard, what the
city was, and whom the compassionate, kind, and wonderful Ferdahl
was as well |