Anwar Fin Jorag

A human ranger from Argusund.

Forests are not quiet places. The wind sings through the pines in quiet duet with the birds. Animals rustle the blankets of needles and send up buzzing flights of insects. Yet there is a still a quietude that lurks behind these sounds, as if all of them are unintentional. The makers of the sounds are believers in the silence of the forest as well. For them it is a living silence that treats the sounds around it like an indulgant parent with a child.

Understand this and understand the forest.

Jorag had said this, for the longest time it had not been understood. That time was long gone now, like Jorag.

Winter lays heavy in the forest now. Deep snows had fallen, leaving the last of the free ground covered in shin-deep white. Normally the snow couldn't reach the ground though the forest canopy and to a normal hunter the obscured trails would lead only to starvation and cold. Anwar could have walked the trail with her eyes closed, snow or no snow.

Twenty years now, she had walked the forest paths and lived off it's bounty. At fifteen, she had been noisy and clumsy. The forest had been vast and strange, filled with unfamilar noises and smells. Yet, it had comforted her and quieted her busy mind. Jorag told her that the forest didn't accept those that could understand its way but it would be good to those that could learn.

Anwar had learned. She learned that a forest is not rushed, nothing here was fast or hurried. Even the frantic run of a chased caribou or the frenzied flight of the trapped ptarmagin yeilded before the quiet walk of forests.So following on the Jorag's heels she learned the ways and duties of the ranger. The forest became her home and the 30 year old ranger became her family.

For 5 years she walked behing her mentor. In that time she came to possess the skills to walk the ranger's path alone. The culmination of her training was celebrated in Huld with her agemates, all of who had also completed their apprenticeships. The feast was enormous with the kills of the newly proven master hunters and barrels of mead saved by proud fathers for just this day.

During the feasting and revels, Jorag took Anwar out to he family's longhouse. They didn't speak. People of the forest have no need for words. Her appreticeship was over and she was a woman grown. The marriage was quiet and small. Rangers marrying their apprentices isn't uncommon and age is nothing next to skill.

For ten years, she walked beside her husband. Their love was quiet and patient as the forest and for years they were each other's entire lives. Such love cannot be understood by those who do not understand the forest. It is the reason that eagles mate for life and swans die without each other. They loved with age of the mountains and the grace of the wind.

A storm came, the valley flooded. Roots ripped from the ground and Jorag was taken.

Jorag brother, Fronuluth, and his wife, Riean, lead Anwar away from the fold embers of Jorag's funeral pyre. Her pale blue eyes were dry and empty for do tears could wash away his death. She didn't eat and didn't sleep. Her few words fell into an everlasting silence. Riean lead Anwar like a child through the long winter and hoped that with spring Anwar would awaken.
But that winter was colder than most and it seemed to freeze her heart. When spring arrived, Anwar's heart lay as a spike of ice in her chest and under the cover of dark, she slipped into the forest to find peace.

For five years, she walked alone. She would only accept the duties that took her into the woods for great stretchs of time. Her few soujourns into Huld were marked with abruptness and desire to be gone. Slowly the forest healed her. She began to think of going back to the town. Jorag had been her town for so long that she had thought she didn't need other people. Perhaps she had been wrong. Perhaps

Alignment: NG

Race: Human

Place of Origin: Argusund

Anwar Fin Jorag is a member of the Fellowship Of The Crystal Tear

View the journals of Anwar Fin Jorag.

Contributor: Erica Marks