In my younger years, my mother would always tell me how strong of a man my father was. He was a warrior, finely trained, strong and merciless, but only when it meant protecting the forces of justice. His life was lost such that another man might live. I was too young to really understand what the stories meant, but I know now that it must have been some greater purpose than himself or his family that he served. She told me he was a God-fearing man and that I, too, should fear, respect and love my Lord above my own life.
Had I known him, I imagine there is much I could stand to learn from my father; but there is so little time to spend wishing the past to change. Things are the as they are for a reason, perhaps the Gods have willed it, and fate took my father from my mother and I when I was only the young age of two.
My mother taught me my first lessons with a weapon, and with honor, and the true meaning of might and destiny. At the young and frail age of six, shield in arm and a small sword in the other, I trained along my mother in the ways of warfare. She told me once that the sword was not intended for self-protection unless it also protected justice from harm. She said, some see the world as a dark and miserable world, void of mercy and faith. I, however, should not fall into such apathy. She said the world is weak because men do not understand the necessity of destiny. As time passes, men have lost contact with their Gods and have become disenchanted. The world is in need of strong men who can lead them to find their own strength – and with it, their destiny.
A man cannot tell another where his destiny lies. It is only with their own strength that they can show others their own destiny and the conviction through which they serve it. Through their wisdom they can lead others to find their own destiny. Such is the way of strong men – the way of my father.
I am told the man my father saved still lives to this day, though I have yet to meet him. I supposed that if destiny leads me to him, then there is much I could still yet learn. I can only assume that he has learned a valuable lesson about the meaning of life from my father.
Were I a weaker man, I suppose I would feel that fate has been cruel to me, taking my father at two, and then again my mother at eight, when orcs attacked our small village. I fought bravely to protect my village and my mother, but being only a small boy, I proved very vulnerable. Only seconds before an orc charged headlong into me, my mother stepped before me and fired her bow point-blank into its chest, taking upon herself the attack meant for me. The bow broke and my mother fell. I dug my sword into his chest and pulled it out with rage I’ve never before felt.
Being such a young boy under such extreme circumstances, I vaguely remember what happened thereafter. I awoke the next day with a large bow in my hand, covered in the blood of Orcs and three rather serious wounds. A cleric was tending to the wounds and cleaning me, but said I wouldn’t let go of the bow all through the night. My grip was as firm as a man three times my age and with every touch of the bow I would scream out in my sleep for my mother. To this very day, the bow reminds me of my mother, lost that day forever more.
I was called a “young hero”, which I had never intended – I had saved the village. A few people told me off how I fought, bringing nothing back into my memory, and that they had never seen such bravery. I had protected the village from a horrible fate and yet I was unable to protect my mother.
There is an adage, I suppose as old as the Gods themselves, which goes to the nature of, “that which does not kill you makes you stronger”. For a moment I had lost all faith, but in time I would find strength through adversity.
I had to leave my hometown, alone. After many nights of solemn prayer, fate had lent me the decision to move forward from my small hometown, to experience the real world, to find what destiny really had in store for me. It had toyed with me for so long, and while it never made a promise that I would no longer feel pain, I felt the future calling for me. I knew that I no longer belonged to this village and that as the young man I was growing to be, I owed it to the world to move past all the pain.
Alone in the wilderness for the first time of my life, I felt a strange sense of insecurity I had never felt before. It was as if the world that my mother had so long taught me to trust and believe in had for some reason forsaken me. I was but a boy, never meaning to do it any harm; and yet I was lost, without a family to call my own, without a home, and without that subtle warmth in the night.
As the days past I struggled to keep each foot before another. Weakened by pain, sorrow, and long-lost grief I strode on with a slow, simple pace, as though I was blissfully aware that destiny itself had turned its back on me.
It wasn’t until I was only moments away from surrender that a young, mysterious woman came to me as though she were a dream. That woman’s name was Elana.
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