I was a Cuspis baby, born just five years into the new dawn. It's a cold time, Cuspis. Makes one appreciate the warmth of cradling arms, and fond words. My parents were wonderful people for the most part. I was never wanting for the necessities. We lived in an elven village out northeast of the once craggly mountains I now call home. It was as far back as I dared go.
The village was pleasant and happy; homogeneous places are like that. Sheltered from dispute and physical manifestations of prejudice. I had a brother, Quiri, five years older. Such a short time between births for an elven mother, but she and my father were rather rabid about each other. I am nothing if not my parents' child, which I don't exactly regret. If only my firewood hadn't been pine.
True discoveries don't begin in the home; you aren't you until the world, with its molding hands, tears you from your mothers breast. I began categorizing scrolls for our lorekeeper. If he'd seen a hundred winters, I'm a purple toad. But the scrolls were hand-me-downs from previous lorekeepers, and I suppose one has to start at some time so I'll keep my criticisms of the lad brief. The lad, I think of him that way, though he's 80 years my senior and no doubt dust now.
For the most part they were elven legends, stories told by every old person around every fire every night. Nothing remotely new to me. The real meat was in the few outer world descriptions. There was a map of the world. A map of the world! I poured myself into that map for a month at least. The Dragonspines were sharply drawn, so old it was. Sable City was there, larger than all else. I still have the copy I made of that map, hanging large over my desk. It's not a good rendering.
I was heavy for history then, and when I exhausted the limited stores of the lorekeeper, I went to the library at the crossroads. It was situated so that four elven villages shared it, about a day's walk from my town. My first experiences on my own were the sojourns I made to that library. I would camp outside for a dozen days. Eventually the chief librarian offered me a job. The pay was a room in the basement, and food. I jumped at the opportunity because then I could get at some of the hidden tomes. Books of magic. Impetuous and youthful I delved into the haunted world of necromancy. It sounded haunted when I began at least. As I progressed it lost its mystery, and thus my interest.
Being a shared locale for four communities, I was able to meet new people my age (which is give or take a decade). I met my first love, showing her through the Creatures section. Laria with soft brown hair, highlighted golden at the ends. She gave me my first kiss in my basement room, and my first lay a few days later, in the moonlight behind the library. Some people regret their first time, and I suppose I'm one. Not because of who it was or how young, but the timing could have been better. I made love to Laria to the cries of the chief librarian screwing his mistress on the second floor -- he was a rather insatiable man. His mistress was a screamer, Laria was not. Not that I gave her much cause to scream, I readily admit. These things take practice. Practice I got with Laria, but she grew tired of me and after a fine pair of months, she no longer came by the library, no pun intended.
I was not a very good employee. I was told I was too sarcastic with the patrons, delinquent in my filing, and what not. I gleaned most of what was there before I was fired anyway, so no real damage was done. But I was angry, so when they tossed me out, it was with a nice thick tome entitled "Shaping the Form" tucked under my coat. I've looked for another copy of that book over the years, but haven't found one. It was a comprehensive study of the known body, elven of course. The part I read and reread was on the mind and soul, and its untapped power. Psionics was covered, though not with an insider's prospective I can now safely say. It was far more fascinating than magic.
*** Here I will cover the 150 or so years before Sable ***
My early years in Sable are lost to me now. Why the brain chooses certain periods to lose instead of others is beyond me, but that time is one for me. It wasn't exactly an uninteresting time. Two of the city's factions, fighters and thieves (yes Sable is so organized even the thieves have a union) warred. Any war against Alexander is fruitless, as the thieves discovered, not that I remember much of this beyond a general feeling of tension. But I've read about it. The first truly clear memory I have is of Triaina. I was nothing if not loyal to my roots, so a female elven psion certainly would attract me. We toyed with each other for a while, flirted. Then one day I took her against a tree in the southern wood. A one time passionate affair. I knew I wasn't alone, and perhaps even the same day she took another, and another. But it was out of my system thankfully. She gave me a fishing cap once, as I was avid at the time. I still fish occasionally, even taking a trip to the docks when I last visited Sable a short while ago. My casting is far weaker now. It was a good cap. It had lures hooked all around it, and was crushable.
Most categorize their lives on the loves they've had, I find. Sadly I'm no rebel to that thinking. In my warm memory I think of my Laria days, my Triaina days, though that was no true love, and then my Bluejay days. Physical breaks from parents are one thing, but it takes something strong to sever the psychological breaks, and that's what Bluejay did for me, symbolically at least, for she was a catfolk. Pointy ears, but the fur and whiskers would have given her away to mom. I might say I loved Bluejay, but maybe you can't love if its not returned. No, but I did admire her for a time. Sweet, funny, and not deserving of the burden later laid on her shoulders, or the abuse shoved through her ears.
I was already well into my training when Bluejay began. In our lives we compete with those near to us, seeing who can attain the necessary skill faster. I had a few people like that drive me along through my life, but Bluejay is the first I remember. So sweet. For her I danced, not something to take lightly. She laughed rather hysterically at my tossed hair. Not a moment for which I'm proud, but one of which I'm fond.
Ah but she ran off with a dark mage. A canis who gave himself to her so completely that he became a cat. Theirs was a love of shadows, and of such depth that the Erosians I later witnessed sickened me with their shallow acts. The one gift I received from Bluejay was the ability to recognize false love when I see it.
One of those Erosians, Illustrious Dalaena, was a friend, perhaps not terribly close, but affectionate. I recall times of Trial Arcanus, when I was beginning my play, with her and Meara, another cleric. She later would turn from Meara. I began a journey that day. The specifics have gone hazy, like details do. She was wrong though, that I knew. Later, she would turn from the purest, finest man Sable has ever known, and my journey was complete. Maybe I should have forgiven her, should still forgive her, not that she would care, but perhaps it would do me good. I never have though, not even so near my death. It was hard to do as she chased power, sided with the despised, and turned from old friends to new. Alexander, Etruscan, Katidyd. Judge the measure of a person by how they treat those less than them, I'm sure I've read that. The rise of Phalanx was the death knell for my respect for the powerful.
Crothian. No memory bathes me like his. Not a cool swim when summer burns, more a warm bath in winter, when someone opens the door and the drafts scurry in, cackling with glee. The scorpien with no voice. Nothing was so alien to me, weaned on elven existence, as a scorpien. No one did I respect and revere more than Crothian. I once made him a bright red hat. It had a wide brim to facilitate easy removal when the need arose to throw it to the ground in a fury when he lost one of his numerous Arcanus duels with me. A birthday present I believe. The picture I drew of it for the folks at the VVV hangs beside my door, so my mood is light before I go for my walks. Inscribed around the inside were the words: "To Crothian, the person I most admire and revere. May the rest of your days be as happy as this one." He's long dead I'm sure, and without Secila's embrace to comfort his walk beside Mortis. He will be the first I seek when I pass forever to that realm.
I have no recollection how or when I met the White, but it was probably during an Arcanus match. He was aggressive, and got away with it. I felt aggressive, but knew I couldn't do what he did. Nevertheless, he brought out that side in me. Foul-tempered and jovial, a rare mix. Rare enough that I've never seen it again. He achieved what I never could. Rather I was jovial in my youth, to the point of being flighty, and became foul-tempered as I aged. The White formed Team Cyan along with Vermillion the thief cat. He was always taken with fellow cats, recognizable well before Shiva. I was the odd one out. But soon I joined Cyan. I was, no conceit intended, the best player in the realm for several years, achieving ranks higher than anyone had before. I was a better Arcanus man than I was a psion. It was my gift. The gods crack jokes like that a lot. Such a useless gift. Such useless gods.
Team Cyan netted me enemies, I would later find out. I became what I despised: powerful. I mock myself for using that word more than you ever will so do not try. In the game, I was strong. And any strength breeds contempt. But it was a game, and I always treated it as such, I knew its true worth in the great scheme of things. But the Creator itself did not treat it as such. Such useless gods. Vermillion left and Team Cyan faded to the memories of a handful, if that many. We had trenchcoats of cyan, each personalized on the back. A while after Cyan broke, I had another coat made, a replica of which hangs near my writing desk. It's rather ghastly, a menagerie of colors, each color of Team Arcanus. Down the back is a thick band of cyan. It doesn't glow in that subconscious way that the originals did. But it's a reminder. We had a dance too, but though I've embarrassed myself considerably in these pages, I will not describe those movements (pelvic thrusts were involved, god how they were involved).
Our friends bring us closer to our enemies. The White shared a bond with Dalaena that I admit I never understood. Nor, I think, did she. Never married, never truly together. She did something for him, though, which I'm still working out. And as Aelyn's dream came, so will it eventually. People are ghastly and grim creatures, yet needing to be understood. So for him I have tried. What they did, they did alone, and for that I was grateful.
A couple of people came into my life around the same time, before Team Cyan. Both dryads. Different, but very similar, though neither would enjoy the comparison. I said before that Sable was organized. Duty seemed at its core. Day in and day out its inhabitants went about with the drudgery of work. Creativity was sparse, but I remember the only two bards I knew who were actually that, bards. I don't know how the others managed to join that should-be prestigious organization, but only Vivaldi and Aelyn endeavored to lift the hearts of the city. Sable, as per its usual was not appreciative, but I was. I paid obscene amounts of money to Aelyn to hear her sing. And lest you think that my mind is completely wiped of detail, gaze upon this. Upon her harp she would play "Dante's Prayer", "On My Way Home", "Evening Falls", and "Secret Hours". My favorite pieces, however, were her lute pieces, on which she performed "Paint the Sky With Stars", and "Come By the Hills". I talked with her, fished with her, and, sadly, had to refuse her advances for I was involved with another. I wrote her biography some ten or twelve or fifteen years ago, and even visited with her recently. She owns a fine, trashy home near the graveyard now. I've word from nearby gossipers that she's got another man in her life. Hopefully a finer individual than the last I remember. Erosian he was, and as violent as they all seem inexplicably to be.
Around the time I met Aelyn, I was summoned to the tavern of ancient Emirikol. Outliving the smug evil that is that man would be a worthy goal, almost enough to sustain my heart a while longer. Janiqua, a female counterpart of mine in those days -- that is a flighty, fun-loving, horny person -- wished to introduce me to a woman she had befriended over the previous months. Melina was a knockout, simply put. Her only shortcoming would have been her height, but that is the price of joining the race beloved of the gods. Beloved of most mortals too. Our first encounter led to another, on a boat in the middle of the Regelian Sea. I will admit that I was never good with women. The first half of my life I tried too hard, the second half I tried too little. I am acerbic, and altogether too honest about everything but myself, about which I have difficulty speaking. (Writing appears to be a different matter, however).
Our love grew quickly, sparked by our first night together, a phenomenal few hours beneath the stars on the soft floor of the Ironwood Forest. We were a match meant to be, and from that time on we were rabbits, thoroughly annoying to all who knew us. I was, and still am, dazzled by her. She was not one to be judged rationally, at least not by me. When I linked with her mind, the mutual satisfaction of love was heady. Unlike all other quick romances that I've known, ours did not die out just as quickly. We were partners in life for over three decades before our parting.
The first indication of any trouble we would eventually have showed itself rather early, maybe five or six years into our relationship. The short of the situation was that I did not adequately express my need for her. I never asked for her hand in marriage, and though I constantly expressed my love, I was absent in conveying my dependence on her. Jokes were made which were revealed as true expression, namely her sexual desires for another man, Khalid the Experienced. Men and women, though capable of monogamy, always harbor desire for another. I admit I often thought about Aelyn, among others, joining me among the furs of a gypsy tent, though Melina never was informed. Such thoughts are better kept hidden; something she would have done well to learn. Melina and I quickly rectified the situation and our passion only intensified. I took new risks with her, struggling successfully to maintain her interest.
A decade or so later we departed Sable. I had grown weary of the politics and foolishness. She went on ahead of me to prepare her inherited home, north of the city. I remained behind to bid goodbye to my dearest friends, Serith and Aelyn, as well as my not-so-dearest friends, Samadhi and Khalid. Too often I have so fervently wished to share a smoke as we so often did in the past, that tears have passed my eyes. With age I have lost emotional control, for which I weep.
Melina and I lived together in the home of her adoptive parents, a large estate with an oak tree around back which she tended as if Calypso herself resided within. A decade passed before the true rumblings began. She had always wanted marriage and had expected to bring me around over the years. I was unflagging on the matter, and grew angry. Our first real arguments began to occur. The sex faded into nothing over the next two years. She was a dryad, passionate and needful. I was old when she first met me, old but virile. Now I was ancient, and incapable of pleasuring in the way she needed. The combination of factors eventually led to a mutual separation. I have never seen her again. Over my desk is hung the fishing cap I made for myself so long ago. It is the emerald of her eyes, or as close as the VVV could come. Copper shavings symbolize the flecks within that emerald. A crescent moon resides on the right in golden thread. On the top, an ornate, delicate M is embroidered. Around the legs of the M is entwined a large fish. Inscribed around the inside are these words: "I owe the sea for bringing Her to me. I owe Her only my life."
I headed straight toward the Dragonspines, intending to head home. I bypassed the city, not ready to renew acquaintances. The environment of the mountains so enraptured me when I began my journey across them, that I set up a makeshift home, intending one day to complete my travel. But the mountains are my kin. They are cold and unyielding. They care little for my presence, though I yearn for theirs. I do not feel young in the shadows of the great peaks, nor do I desire that falsehood. I am old. They are old.
The makeshift house has been replaced. I was quite surprised by my abilities in construction of this fine, if modest home. I have three rooms: a bedroom, a meeting room, and my study -- the largest. The past years I have spent writing, my fondest work being the unauthorized biography of Aelyn. I walk the mountains, and I remember. I miss everything I had, everything I was, and regret very little. Life is an arc from beginning to end. My arc reached skyward, rather than dipping soullessly to the depths. For that I am happy. Forgive me the tear I'm too far gone to hide.
Offered With Respect,
Siric Silanoi