Starting A Journey...

by **Valdoran** on June 5th, 2014, 8:31 am

3rd of Spring 506 AV

"You ... Valdoran, you're gone from this place, leave my sight!" Valdoran's father wasn't the most nurturing of parents. Albeit quite hard to nurture for a son with a bad case of Kleptomania and a thirst for danger, somewhere Valdoran understood that he wasn't exactly the ideal son either, but he still felt that his father was being very rash about all of this.

"Father please I ..." A rush of panic set in, but this is what his father often said when he was upset at Valdoran for some reason, he had been saying it since he was around 8, general things like 'Sometimes i feel you should go down the chasms with the trash' or 'Why did your mother have to die for such a disappointment'.

In truth all of these hurt his feelings and mostly made him block it out and remember his old antics. Climbing to the top of the stalagmites the houses were attached to, jumping from them and landing on the houses, sometimes only just managing to hit them and grab hold, he always did things near the brink of death because he felt that was where you felt most alive.

Stealing was a huge problem of his too, he felt this entire incident was because only 3 days ago he broke into someones house and took some of their food because he was hungry and too far from his own house to retrieve it.

All his reminiscing stopped however when his father spoke up with a screaming tone "No I've heard enough, I canot live in a world where my son is going to become m-, nevermind, a dirty criminal!"

"So you want me to go to the wilds, get killed by Zith as i try and find a new home because my father can't stand to look at me?!" Tears began to line Valdoran's face at it began to dawn on him that his father was serious about this decision.

"I'm deathly serious son, you NEED to leave ... get out of the city, go far away, dont come back" Valdoran then slumped, knowing that it was not going to change, seeing his fathers steely face made him only understand this more. He waited for quite a time only to look at him and say simply

"When?" His father glinted a small smile at this, little did his son know that things for is father were going to take a grim turn.

"Tomorrow ... Before dawn, you can sleep and pack tonight, but by the morning you are gone ... understand?" Valdoran simply walked away and began packing his things, a simple set of clothes, a bedroll, general items that would be required, he packed light however, had no money and no weapons or food. He turned to his father to tell him but then frowned as he saw him already crawl into his sleeping alcove in their home, and he did the same.

by **Valdoran** on June 5th, 2014, 8:48 am

The next morning Valdoran awoke abruptly to his father shaking him, quite violently i might add as he thrust the backpack into his chest, Valdoran rose, stone faced and solemn as he knew what was coming, the good old 'get out' from his father, his father looked him over and frowned. "What're you using to protect yourself?"

Valdoran shrugged at the question, he didn't have anything to say to his father, not anymore, it was only when his father tore away a piece of silk covering an alcove he hadn't seen before and handed him a weapon harness with a rope dart attached to it already, a small set of what looked like prayer beads and a pair of empty scabbards attached to the harness at the back that were too short for long-swords but seemed huge for daggers, another thing that he never expected to receive was a small pouch that had a set of thieves tools in it, which he didn't really think about. His father gave him a large canteen of Bruka and a water-skin also.

It was odd that his father had to hide things from Valdoran, but in Valdoran's depressive state he didnt think about it too much being completely honest with himself, he was being thrown out and this was the best thing his father could do to say goodbye? Valdoran didnt bother trying to cry his way out, he simply didn't speak to his father.

Valdoran didn't really know how to react to the gesture his father had given him, he didn't know whether to thank him or hug him or say anything at all, not that his father let him make the decision, hurriedly rushing him up the wall to the entrance to their polyp shaped home and forced him down to the main road, pointing him to the entrance to the cavern. and said "Go ... before i have to kick you down there too"

Not willing to test his already touchy father, he turned and began walking, he wasnt happy about his decision, but he began to question some things in his head about what was said, playing it over in his head 'turn into m' who? Who could the M be, did he know an M? or was his dad going to carry it on much further, this scenario was playing out in his head for soome time before realising that he had stopped moving altogether, to which he began to skulk once more and left dwelling on what was said until a later time.

Valdoran clambered slowly over all of the silk strand roads, trying to take as long as possible to reach the exit, the cavern in it's ever same twilight status but not active due to the earliness of the hour, Valdoran all to quickly realised that he had hit the point where the cieling began to curve away into the wall of the cave, down to the floor, he turned around and saw from his upside down standing that the ouses from this angle looked like strange fungi, dwelling on that for a moment, he then began to turn back and clamber as he had to down the high walls to the floor.

He did this slowly, looking down to the dank dark floor but always turning around to see the city get smaller and smaller, as if it were slowly falling away, even though it was Valdoran decending down into the depths, some time later, her reached the point where e felt horizontal and saw the glimpse of light that looked like the exit. The brightness hurt his eyes however and he looked up at his now distant city, seeing it as small twinkling specs. He hadn't seen the night sky, but he imagined that it would look like an infinite Kalinor stretching across the darkness.

He made his was to the mouth of the cave, a large fissure that looked like the toothless mouth of a great beast, he smiled at the thought of the Symenestra living like parasites in this great beast like the insects they are often attributed to being like as he stepped out into the open air.

by **Valdoran** on June 5th, 2014, 9:18 am

Almost instantly Valdoran was battered by brisk, freezing cold winds that ripped at his thin silk shirt, it was then that he noticed the building that was used to accomodate the merchants that wished to be carried up to Kalinor was right there, he ran to it, freezing slowly while being buffeted by high winds, finding it much harder to travel through than the near weatherless cave he'd lived in his entire life.

Enentually breaching through the wooden door, hands and face numb from the cold, he stumbled into a room with a roaring hearth and men huddled around it still wearing their winter coats, despite how hot the fire felt to him at this moment in time. A set of the merchants who were just leaving the city and had spare wares to sell had decided to dote on this young boy and gave him a winter coat to make use of, for a couple of hours he sat by the fire and many of the merchants rose and left to head up into the underground city, he chose this time to carry on also seeing as he was recovered from his shock to the cold and he had become so very warm in this room.

He followed out the Merchants and noticed one of them was incredibly cold and pulling a mule with a rickety cart, on the back of the cart were what looked like clothes, however a large rock in the road revealed a leg for some leather armour underneath the linen. Valdoran began sneaking up behind he man and cart, using the noise made from the cart to mask his own he grabbed at the leather armour and pulled, sadly, he pulled it so all of the clothes above it fell too, the old man must have felt this happen as the cart seemed to lift a little when the mass of clothes was removed.

Valdoran looked at the man and dropped to his knees, and moaned softly, his sixteen year old self trying so very hard to mimic the acts of a younger child that had broken something "I am so sorry sir, I saw your leather and wanted to see the whole suit".

The old man smiled and laughed at the boy, and began to load the clothes back onto the cart, after loading all of the normal clothes Valdoran took the leather armour and the merchant turned and smiled at the boy as he offered it back, he'd caught Valdoran and that meant he needed to play it off as though it had just fallen off, luckily for him the old, very cold merchant just said "Keep it kid ... you'll need it more than me if you're headed in that direction".

This surprised and confused the Symenestran boy as he smiled at the man and said simply "Sir, i thank you for this kind gesture, now can i ask you point me to the nearest city?".

To this the man laughed openly and loudly as he thought the kid was joking, until he saw the serious look on the shivering child's face he pointed to a distant mountain path and said "Sultros is the nearest city, but you're better waiting for a caravan, much safer way to travel".

Valdoran turned and bowed his thanks to the man then ignored his last comment about the caravan and set off in the direction of Sultros, away from the safety and security of his birth city and his home that his father cast him out of, not sure wether to feel sad or resentful of his father for what he did, but now all he felt needed to happen was to put one foot in front of the other and achieve solitude outside of what he was usually considering home.

Valdoran wondered what Sultros was like and how big it was going to be, but then he thought again and stopped at the beginning of where the path branched out away from Kalinor, since he realized this was the furthest he'd been from his home before, like ever and that daunted him a little bit, since he also felt in danger due to the elements battering his now clothing clad body and him being able to see that he could literally be attacked from anywhere.

He looked to the sky and saw nothing but the cloud covered sky, he thought that was solace because it looked like a huge cave that was well lit and went on forever, except he saw a bird flying above him, and it was a strange sensation, not sure if it was smaller than his arm or just huge and far away. He then smiled and began walking on, not quite sure if he should be doing it at his age, because his motto popped into his own head 'The more danger you have in life the more alive you feel

by **Catastrophe** on June 17th, 2014, 1:16 am

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Valdoran :

Notes :

Flashback Starting A Journey...