68thth of Autumn
9th Bell
This season had become a trying one for Aoren. Every minute he spent in Syliras seemed to place him in a more difficult situation. There were questions he was being forced to ask himself that he had buried deep within his past. Little by little he was being made to reconsider who he was as a person and how he viewed the world.
“You’ve really done it now, Aoren. What are you going to do with yourself?” He shook his head. For the longest time Aoren had convinced himself that he was content. That he was happy. The truth was…he wasn’t. He had nothing tying him to Syliras. He had nothing in the city worth staying for. For twenty-four years Aoren had lived with the knowledge that he was, deep down, lost. He didn’t know who he was, where he came from, or why he was where he was. From the day he could really first realize what the notion of family was he had been searching for his. He knew that the answers he sought could be found if only he meditated and used the gift bestowed upon him by the Goddess of Divination.
But he was afraid of what he might find there.
So he pieced together the truth in his own way. Both running toward and away from who and what he was. When he was younger his closest friend had once noted his affinity for horses. The beasts seemed to take to him and he to them. They were inspiring to him. It was through them he found out that he was Drykas. Visions of the rolling hills of the Sea of Grass once visited him in his youth. There were times when he simply couldn’t help but receive them. He would sometimes find himself in waking dreams surrounded by great running beasts he one day learned to call Striders. Aoren had never seen one up close but he found comfort in the presence of normal horses though he didn’t spend much time around them as of late. He had since learned to discipline his mind a bit more carefully. Especially since he’d lost Ileera.
Loss.
That truly was at the core of what weighed down on Aoren. Before he even had the mind to remember he’d lost his family.
“Is my father alive? Is my mother? Are my siblings?” Aoren knew he had a family. That there was a possibility they were alive. Through chance, or perhaps through the mechanations of his patron goddess, he had met a Drykas man who had confirmed Aoren’s heritage. Aoren was Drykas. That much he knew about himself. He had suspected as much for several years and when he met the man named Crypt he had confirmed it. But why had he been given up? Why was he alone?
Aoren sighed. It was hardly the time for such questions. He hefted the pack over his shoulder carefully and knelt in the underbrush of the forest. Resting his quarterstaff against his shoulder he brushed his fingers over the fallen leaves at the base of a common lime tree. He looked up at the tall tree a half smile touching his lips. He was in the Bronze Wood collecting herbs for Mistress Sahfri Blackleaf. Not every ingredient she required for her remedies could be grown in a garden. There were some that just needed to be picked. It just so happened that the particular herb he was looking for happened to be near a clearing within the woods he liked to frequent. Pausing just a moment to pick up a few leaves that could be studied for use later he moved on toward his true destination.
Aoren was familiar with the geography of Syliras. He’d become acquainted with the vast majority of it in his adolescent years when he was even more foolish than he considered himself to be in the present day. The years he’d spent running straight into the arms of trouble and out of sensibility. He bore the scars of his less responsible years proudly. They reminded him of happier times. Through his work as an apothecary, though his erstwhile friend would never have approved, he had become familiar with various plants and herbs. Healing. Medicine. It appealed to him. He’d quieted over the past few years. He wasn’t as rowdy. He wasn’t as reckless. He was still adventurous at heart but that indomitable spirit was tempered with a bit of patience gained through experienced dangerous circumstances. He sometimes wondered how he’d survived this long.
“I am hardly the same man that I was two years ago. I don’t think that man would have had the courage to consider facing what I am now.”
Coming upon the clearing he sometimes frequented he noted the gnarled oak tree that stood watch over the relatively peaceful space. It was in here that Aoren went to clear his head. It was in that clearing where, when he was faced with his most troubling questions, he could find answers. There were still those answers he was too afraid to seek out though.
“Am I a coward for refusing to face the truth of my past? Am I without character because I fear the unknown? What does a son abandoned by his father do when faced with the question: why?”
Why not?
Who could truly say? Certainly not Aoren. There was only one person who could answer that question and there was only one way that Aoren was going to find the answer. As he entered the clearing he made his way up to the gnarled and partially barren oak tree. For as long as he could remember, ever since first stumbling upon the clearing some years ago, the tree had been only half-alive. There were branches that never sprouted leaves. There were branches that bore the traipsing’s of a grand oak as one should throughout the seasons. He ran his fingers over the bark. Growing on the tree was what he needed. Oak Moss. He set his pack on the ground at the base of the tree then rest his quarterstaff against the trunk. He would collect the oak moss but first there was something he needed to do.
Taking a seat at the base of the tree he pulled off his boots so that his bare feet touched the soft ground. It was chilly. As was to be expected in Bala’s season. He didn’t care though. Somehow the simple act of actually feeling the earth beneath his feet helped to calm his nerves. He set his boots aside next to his pack then looked around. When he was certain that there was no immediate danger he folded his legs beneath him, his travel robe helping to stave off the chill, and reached into his pack withdrawing a book , a quill and an ink well that was half-full. He set the ink well on the ground, uncorked it then dipped the quill inside and opened the book to a blank page.
“68th of Autumn, 513 AV
Somewhere off the beaten path there is a place I call my sanctuary. It is quiet. It is peaceful. There is nothing awe inspiring about it. There is no breath taking view. There is nothing magical in the air and yet there is indeed something magical about it. On the days where I can simply no longer stand the noise of Syliras I find myself drawn to this place. It is where my cluttered thoughts suddenly fall into place and make sense. It is where I be both myself and lose myself in the dream of who I want to be.
That is the question I am faced with. Who, exactly, is it that I want to be? There was a time where I might have been able to answer this question simply. Now, nothing seems to be quite so simple. I am…conflicted. I was not born to Syliras but I call Syliras my home. It has clothed me. It has fed me. I am sheltered by the peace if offers. But my blood is of the Horseclans. They are a people I do not know. A people I am afraid to know. With the raids pressing down upon Syliran holdings I sometimes wonder what exactly could bring my father’s people to such desperate ends? It is also this same question that gives me pause.
When one walks the road most traveled, to what places does it lead?
A road to answers. Or a road to more questions? “
Aoren continued to write in silence. He would occasionally stop to take a look at his surroundings or to give thought to the words he’d written on the page but for the most part he seemed consumed with the need to put his thoughts onto the paper.
