~ 3rd of Evening Star, 4E 227 ~
This was my father's.
It's been three years since I last saw him. I was twelve at the time. He wished me luck as I headed off at first light to fish at the lake. When I returned late that afternoon, he was already gone.
My mother tried to explain to explain it to me, but I couldn't understand. She told me there were things I didn't know about my father, and that he had to leave, and that he would return. She told me that I had to trust her and believe in his return. I remember seeing the key to his great chest hanging from a chain around her neck. He always had it on him, yet he had left it with her. I had only actually seen it a few times before, and I had never seen the inside of the chest.
From that day on it was just the two of us. My mother was skilled with using the land to create medicines and poisons, a craft she had perfected before she became my father's companion. She had been her tribe's healer, and upon my father's departure she didn't let a day go by without teaching me her methods.
My mother, blessed Anora, did her best to provide for us, but she humbly accepted my help despite my young age. My father had taught me how to live off the land over the prior years, and I put forth my best effort to keep our bodies warm and our bellies full. Some of my favorite times were resting with her at the end of a long day while she read books to me by the fading firelight. My favorite book was the Father of the Niben, which she taught me to read myself.
You might think as the days passed on that I would think less and less about my father, but the opposite was true. The truth was that I missed him greatly, and I feared for his safe return. My mother would often catch my mood, and try to lift my spirits, but I couldn't help feeling that I would never see him again. I never entertained the same worry for my mother.
But two and a half years after my father vanished in my absence, my mother was taken from me as well. We were together, on an overnight trip to collect juniper berries for an elixir she had recently taught me how to make. When mixed with canis root from the swamps to the north, the potion enhanced my abilities with my bow. It was my favorite potion to make with her.
Collecting the ingredients was a dangerous task, however. The journey to the swamps often took several days, and swamps themselves were infested with spiders. I remember every time my father took us there, how he dreaded that place. It seemed as if he had a history with the swamps that he didn't like to remember. Juniper berries were closer to our cabin on the hill, but still deep inside the territory of the forsworn. And it was they who took my mother from me.
I was peering over a cliff's edge, looking for more juniper bushes, when I heard my mother yell for me. I turned and saw her running towards me, waving her arms wildly for me to run. I saw the head of the arrow come through her chest just before she fell to the ground. She tried to stand and another arrow struck her along the side of her head, knocking her down again. I was already running to her before I realized she wasn't getting back up.
Two forsworn appeared beyond her, and I stopped in my tracks. I'd never been so close to them before. I'd only seen them in the distance because we were also so careful to avoid them. But these two were no less than fifty paces from me, and they still had blood in their eyes. It never even crossed my mind to run. My mother was on the ground in front of me, bleeding to death.
I notched an arrow and let it fly as the forsworn charged me with blades drawn. The arrow struck true, and I quickly took one of my potions to enhance the shots that followed. One .. two .. three … the first forsworn fell. One .. two .. three .. four … the second met his fate.
It took me the better part of two days to get my mother back to the cabin on the hill. How she survived with a fourteen-year-old boy dragging her across the mountains I'll never know, but she did. She was a strong woman. For the next three weeks she fought as hard as anyone could to stay alive for her son. But one morning, with the new day's sun filtering in through the crevice's in the roof, she began to lose the fight.
She had been unable to speak for weeks, but now, with determination and strength in her eyes she grabbed at my shoulder and managed to mouth a single word … "isran". I stared at her, confused, thinking that maybe she was hallucinating. She gripped my shoulder tighter, though, and stared into my soul with her eyes, and once more said the word … "isran". And then, in a moment I can't close my own eyes and not see, I watched her eyes slowly slip shut and small .. approving .. loving .. proud .. and somewhat sad smile crept across her face. And then she was gone. And I was alone.
It took me a few moments to realize this, to realize both of my parents were gone and that I was alone in the world. But I also realized my mother had placed something in my hand while she was holding me close. A key. The key. The key to my father's great chest.
I didn't use it for nearly six months. My father had always been very serious about me not touching his chest. Not that I could have gotten it open without the key, but it was the one thing I never tested my father on. I couldn't bring myself to use the key, as doing so seemed like it would seal my father's fate of never returning.
A week ago I opened it.
Inside I found a bag of gold coins … a beautiful red gem ... and this journal. My father's journal.