This was a short story i wrote off the top of my head. I wrote this Character Q&A and decided to continue it, However the character Q&A is set later in the story. The link is here if your interested.
http://mythicscribes.com/forums/character-q/9338-q-practice-alathi.html
It was late at night, Past the young Gallion's bedtime;The snow was settling on the ground outside the little log cabin his grandfather had built years before he was born. The moon shone brightly and reflected across the ground, Even though the house was built in the middle of a forest You could still see it clearly. The hut must have been built a century prior to now but never seemed to show any signs of wear and tear, No matter how big a storm came by. The old cabin stayed firm. He idly sat by watching his grandfather go through old items he seemed to have come across earlier in the day,A map, An old sword and an orb.
“Please Grandfather, Tell me of some of your adventures, Dad mentioned them to me once when I was little, But it was so long ago I cant remember them.”
“No I shall not tell you, your far too young” He slammed a chest shut he was looking in and stared out the window.
“Im sorry, I , I ..” His voice trailed off, A cold silence fell around the room that had been so well warmed by the fire just two seconds previously.
“No im sorry gallion, It's just some things happened on those adventures I do not like discussing and I do not feel I could tell parts of a story without going into it fully.”
“Very well. I guess nobody shall ever know them then. Thats fine with me”
He turned away and sat back in his chair with his arms crossed , his little legs dangling over the side of it due to his size. Alathi watched him for a minute or so then let out a sigh. I remember when I was his age, All I wanted to do was go on bold adventures and explore the world, Fight creatures of all shapes and sizes and explore the deepest caves.
“So you wish to know of my adventures ehh boy?”
Gallion spun round faster than a wolf does when it smells blood,His face betrayed his emotion more than I care to get into.
“Yes grandfather, I would Love too!” The sheer noise he let out when he said that was unreal, Im surprised his mother did not hear it from the room upstairs.
“Well , I suppose It's been long enough That I've have kept these old secrets bottled up inside me, gather round the fire then and i'll tell you, but wrap that blanket round you; your mother will probably roast me alive as it is before I even get through finishing the tale so at least you wont catch a cold, It'll be one less thing for her to moan at me about.”
Alathi paused for a moment, Stroking his beard.
“where to begin.. Where to begin” The light shining off his bright blue eyes as he spoke.
Gallion sat there listening intently to every word , Looking as if he was about to burst with anticipation.
“I know. It seems obvious but from the beginning seems the only logical place. You wanted to hear this so your going to hear the full story.”
“I grew up in a small village, In the western isle of Alrek. There were two mountains on the island and they stretched up as tall as you could see, There was also a forest, but it was fairly small you could walk from one side to the other in half a day or so. It was a quiet place and nothing much ever happened, The most excitement you could expect would be the occasional local dispute, Which in those days often got settled with a good old fashioned punch up” Which in my opinion is a lot better than the way some of the young ones today handle things
The island was small, and the village smaller, There were only huts there as was the fashion at the time, The year was around 1063, I cant remember exactly but I know it was roughly that time as People were still following the old religions, Load of nonsense if you ask me but people were very strict about it all in those days, You could expect hangings if you didn't adhere to the “will of the gods” they called it, But it was mostly a way for the churches to get money out of people who already had nothing.
I was a lonely child, Not because I wasn't sociable but because I chose not to have any friends. I just didn’t trust them, Most of them were two faced, You could bet your last gold ore that they would all steal from you when your back was turned and I simply wasn't like that. My father raised me to be a strong and honest young man, I was worked hard daily, with chores that they wouldn’t dream of giving children these days, I hates him for it at times, but now I look back on it, it built my muscles and gave me a sense of self satisfaction that was rare in a child so young;I will always be grateful for that.
By the time I was 18 I was well known im my village, I was quite a strong young man and as you can imagine in those days, seeing as there was such a sense of community as we lived in such a small place I had a wife already planned for me, I helped out around the community building houses for people and generally just trying to keep myself busy.
One night I remember distinctly. I went home and my father was sitting in the hut, My mother with him. He was carving a small sculpture out of this soft light red rock that you could find buried in the mountain if you looked for long enough and dug deep enough .
He had carved a shield, It had a Mel vok carved onto the front of it. He sat me down, looked me straight in the face with that hard face of his and said.
“Son, this is for you, Take it wherever you go, It will always carry the strength of me and your mother with it, and I promise you, we will always keep you safe.”
A tear started to form at the side of his eye and he quickly wiped it away and jumped up to pour himself an ale. That was the first an last time I ever saw my father cry.
“What's going on, Is something wrong?” I glanced rapidly back and forth between him and my mother, Trying to decipher any piece of evidence from their expressions.
I managed to do just that from my mother, Just as my father sat down again , he went to explain to me what it it was and I cut him off.
“I know I said, How long do you have.” By this point I was desperately trying to fight off the tears myself and believe me, I dont think I have ever faced a harder challenge in all my years of living.
“You stop that right now!” he demanded , he was a hard man after all.
Then he let out a breath and said, I dont know I dont reckon long son, I can feel the sickness taking over my body as the hours creep by. Now im not going to get into this again so listen and listen up good. When I die, You take care of your mother, No matter what. Give me a decent burial and you'll become the man of the house.”
“yes father”I replied.
I left the hut at that point, As I walked off into the village I could hear my mother weeping, I felt a sudden pulling at my heart and I walked head held high until I reached the forest at the edge of the village, Walked inside for a minute or so and then fell to my knees, I wept and wept for an hour or so and then I managed to pull myself off the floor, I dried my eyes and went home. By the time I got there My mother and father were both in bed sleeping.
A month or so went by before my father passed away. By the end he looked weaker than I have ever seen him, half the time I thought he was pretending and he was going to jump up and give me a few wisecracks about how much of a woman I was for being so soft, But he never did.
“Take care of your mother son, You comfort her good, Or i'll come back and haunt yeh.”
His voice trailed off, but he managed to get one last smirk in there before it did, His way of making peace with me for all the hard work I reckon. I grasped his hand with the necklace he had carved me in between our hands and stayed with him for his last few minutes on this earth. And when I felt his grip slipping I cupped it tighter and threw myself across him.
“I love you father, Thank you for making me a man, A real man.”
he managed again to pull one last grin out of his dying body and then he breathed his last breath and sunk back into the bed.
I gave him a proper burial as I said I would.
“actually gallion, I said I was going to tell you the full story, but this is one part im going to leave out. I cant bare to think of it any more.”
He nodded solemnly and gestured for me to continue.
A few months past and my mother was inconsolable, I thought I was bad but I never showed it in front of her, I needed to be strong for her.
I always made the effort to ask her what she wanted to do, if there was anything she needed but her answer was always the same.
In her earlier years when I was growing up I remember her as a warm motherly figure, she would always have dinner ready for me coming home, She was a good wife and always took care of my father as well. She was always laughing with the other women and doing the work women were tasked to do in those days, mainly skinning the animals brought home and cooking them afterwards. When my father died she just didn’t know what to do, I still did all the hunting and tried to comfort her but I got the feeling she thought It wasn’t the same, which is perfectly understandable.
Another year or so passed and my mother was on her last legs as well to put it delicately, She was decidedly worse than my father had been. She couldn’t eat, she was coughing up blood and her temperature was soaring. She was burning up all the time.
One of the last things she ever said to me was, “be who you are, not who anyone wants you to be.” I followed her advice without failure in the years to come. Again like my father, I dont want to recount her burial and even thinking of her passing is too painful.
I tried to stick around for the first few weeks after their death, But I could not bare the grief. I packed up my things one sunrise and decided to leave. I had no idea how to get off the island or where I was going, But I was certain I was going. I took what I needed and gave the rest to my neighbours.
As I was leaving an old man stopped me.
“Alathi, Where are you going” he said.
I don’t know sir, I cant bare it to live here any more, I must get away from this place or my grief will get the better of me.”
“i would not advise you to go young one, We all have to deal with anguish at some point in life and we all feel as you do, There is only one way off this island that I can think of and it is treacherous. I think you may die if you attempt it, Most do.”
My face lit up like a lantern at night.
“You know of a way off the island? I did not know there was one, I was going to climb the mountain and look for land then when I saw any in the distance swim, swim for all I am worth. My father taught me how, and I am fairly confident im a strong enough swimmer to manage it.” Defiantly I Looked at him as if I knew everything.
“Do not be foolish my son , You will have to do some swimming which is where most fail, but not the whole way. You must climb up to the point rock and look out at the sea until you see a raft out there then swim out to it.” he said it with a distinctive look that I will never forget on his face , A sort of “Try it if you think your good enough” look. In retrospect though, I think he did it to give me that push to manage it in defiance, I will always be grateful to that old man for that.
“A raft? What is a raft?” I knew the point rock, we used to dive off of it when we were younger, You had to be careful to avoid the rocks or you would be in for a couple of broken bones at least.
“Think of it my son, Wood floats does it not?” I nodded starting to piece it together already.
“Well all you need to do is bind some together and it is large enough for you and some others to stand on.”
“Thank you sir!”
I said it while half making my move to run off, The excitement in me was building greatly, I cant believe nobody from Alrek had though of this before, And if they had why they hadn't made it public knowledge. I heard the old man say something vaguely but I couldn’t hear him properly and carried on running, through the fields that surrounded the village towards the mountains.
I reached the mountains by midday, The sun was shining and the sky blue. I remember still feeling that excitement from the moment the old man had told me about the rafts.
“boats hadn't been invented yet gallion you see so rafts were as good as people could do.”
I looked out across the sea for the best part of the afternoon until the evening started to set in, It must have been summer as it was still fairly light, I was starving but had neglected to bring any food with me seeing as there was nothing in the house, And killing and cooking reminded me of my father and mother, Well it did in my own house anyway. I was beginning to get worried I would have to wait until the next day, When all of a sudden I saw one, As big as my hut had been, bobbing across the ocean with tiny figures on it.
Without thinking of the rocks, I dove off the point rock, Between the two mountains and landed directly in the hole in the water that forms a cavern beneath the surface. I must have jumped with momentum behind me as I remember it feeling like forever to swim back up to the surface, The only way I knew it was the surface was I could make out the light above the water and I headed for it with a passion. As soon as I breached the surface I started gasping for air and swimming at the same time , It was tricky business as I was trying to avoid inhaling water and choking while at the same time aiming for a moving craft and trying to take into account the currents.
I made it to within around one hundred feet of the raft when I couldn’t move any more, I started to float to keep myself up, But I just couldn’t any longer, My muscles ached and my lungs were burning as it was, I remember just sinking under the surface and thinking of my mother and father, I wasn’t panicking, In a sense I was relieved, I felt as if I would see them soon and that comforted me. I closed my eyes and awaited death arms wide open.
One of the men must have seen me just as I went under as I felt something grabbing me from under my shoulders and hauling me to the surface, I dont remember much at this point as I was practically unconscious, it was more the feelings and sounds I can recall.
As we neared the raft I heard more men calling, directing the man who had saved me towards them. They must have been trying to steer it to keep it steady for him. Then the next thing I know I was getting pulled from the water the way a fisherman pulls a fish from the sea and onto the raft.
I opened my eyes to three outlines standing over me, The sun was behind them so I could not see any of their faces. They spoke with different accents to mine and for some reason I lay there and listened for a few seconds before rolling over and spluttering water everywhere.
“Greetings lad, You trying to bloody kill yourself?” One of them said, he had a deep throaty sort of a voice and seemed to be concerned for me.
“Well met , Thank you for saving my life, I am forever in your service.” I bowed my head to the man even though I hadn’t had a proper look at him yet.
“dont be daft you sod” he replied laughing. “ You dont owe me anything, I would have done that for anyone, It's the brotherly thing to do”
“But you saved me, I mu-” he cut me off, “You must be from Alrek then I take it, You lot are always so tied to tradition and morals.”
I got up to my feet and faced the three men, They were dressed in ragged clothes, Which didn’t mean much in those days apart from the fact that they weren’t any clan chiefs of any kind as they would have had furs of some kind of dangerous creature draped all over them.
“Im Alathi , It is my honour to meet you all.”
“I am Toernir, And these are my Friends” the man who saved my life answered.
“Hello” “greetings” The other two had not yet introduced themselves chimed in.
They had beards that were quite curly, Dark hair and little teeth. One of them actually had a big scar down his face that went from below his eye right down to the side of his throat.
“ I am Droinik”
“And I am Blackr”
The man who had saved me was clean shaven, Lighter haired, friendlier looking and Taller than the other two, and had bulging muscles from almost everywhere you could imagine and seemed to be the leader by the way he stood.
“That is a trait that seems to run in our family gallion, We are expert judges of character. No matter the circumstance we can read situations down to a tee and almost predict what’s going to happen if we take certain actions.”
Toernir asked me with a rather bewildered look on his face, for some reason or another.
“I dont know, I replied. I know not of any other places bar Alrek”
“What the hell are you swimming out here for then?”
“I have my own reasons for leaving the island, And could not stay any longer, An old man told me of these crafts you call rafts and this was the first one I saw so I swam out to it.”
In the middle of our little conversation , Droinik and Blackr must have been listening to out little exchange for a bit too long as I heard them cursing and suddenly trying to get back on course very rapidly.
“Hmm,Well Wer going to Arkinsas, Home of the elves, We seek trade as we are from poor families. You may come with us if you like, Though I dont think you have much choice now, Unless you wish to hitch-hike a ride on the back of a turtle.”
The other two started laughing, and Toernir shot them a look that would have frozen a mountain troll in its tracks, and they quickly got back to rowing silently. That was my first clue that he was no ordinary trader.
http://mythicscribes.com/forums/character-q/9338-q-practice-alathi.html
It was late at night, Past the young Gallion's bedtime;The snow was settling on the ground outside the little log cabin his grandfather had built years before he was born. The moon shone brightly and reflected across the ground, Even though the house was built in the middle of a forest You could still see it clearly. The hut must have been built a century prior to now but never seemed to show any signs of wear and tear, No matter how big a storm came by. The old cabin stayed firm. He idly sat by watching his grandfather go through old items he seemed to have come across earlier in the day,A map, An old sword and an orb.
“Please Grandfather, Tell me of some of your adventures, Dad mentioned them to me once when I was little, But it was so long ago I cant remember them.”
“No I shall not tell you, your far too young” He slammed a chest shut he was looking in and stared out the window.
“Im sorry, I , I ..” His voice trailed off, A cold silence fell around the room that had been so well warmed by the fire just two seconds previously.
“No im sorry gallion, It's just some things happened on those adventures I do not like discussing and I do not feel I could tell parts of a story without going into it fully.”
“Very well. I guess nobody shall ever know them then. Thats fine with me”
He turned away and sat back in his chair with his arms crossed , his little legs dangling over the side of it due to his size. Alathi watched him for a minute or so then let out a sigh. I remember when I was his age, All I wanted to do was go on bold adventures and explore the world, Fight creatures of all shapes and sizes and explore the deepest caves.
“So you wish to know of my adventures ehh boy?”
Gallion spun round faster than a wolf does when it smells blood,His face betrayed his emotion more than I care to get into.
“Yes grandfather, I would Love too!” The sheer noise he let out when he said that was unreal, Im surprised his mother did not hear it from the room upstairs.
“Well , I suppose It's been long enough That I've have kept these old secrets bottled up inside me, gather round the fire then and i'll tell you, but wrap that blanket round you; your mother will probably roast me alive as it is before I even get through finishing the tale so at least you wont catch a cold, It'll be one less thing for her to moan at me about.”
Alathi paused for a moment, Stroking his beard.
“where to begin.. Where to begin” The light shining off his bright blue eyes as he spoke.
Gallion sat there listening intently to every word , Looking as if he was about to burst with anticipation.
“I know. It seems obvious but from the beginning seems the only logical place. You wanted to hear this so your going to hear the full story.”
“I grew up in a small village, In the western isle of Alrek. There were two mountains on the island and they stretched up as tall as you could see, There was also a forest, but it was fairly small you could walk from one side to the other in half a day or so. It was a quiet place and nothing much ever happened, The most excitement you could expect would be the occasional local dispute, Which in those days often got settled with a good old fashioned punch up” Which in my opinion is a lot better than the way some of the young ones today handle things
The island was small, and the village smaller, There were only huts there as was the fashion at the time, The year was around 1063, I cant remember exactly but I know it was roughly that time as People were still following the old religions, Load of nonsense if you ask me but people were very strict about it all in those days, You could expect hangings if you didn't adhere to the “will of the gods” they called it, But it was mostly a way for the churches to get money out of people who already had nothing.
I was a lonely child, Not because I wasn't sociable but because I chose not to have any friends. I just didn’t trust them, Most of them were two faced, You could bet your last gold ore that they would all steal from you when your back was turned and I simply wasn't like that. My father raised me to be a strong and honest young man, I was worked hard daily, with chores that they wouldn’t dream of giving children these days, I hates him for it at times, but now I look back on it, it built my muscles and gave me a sense of self satisfaction that was rare in a child so young;I will always be grateful for that.
By the time I was 18 I was well known im my village, I was quite a strong young man and as you can imagine in those days, seeing as there was such a sense of community as we lived in such a small place I had a wife already planned for me, I helped out around the community building houses for people and generally just trying to keep myself busy.
One night I remember distinctly. I went home and my father was sitting in the hut, My mother with him. He was carving a small sculpture out of this soft light red rock that you could find buried in the mountain if you looked for long enough and dug deep enough .
He had carved a shield, It had a Mel vok carved onto the front of it. He sat me down, looked me straight in the face with that hard face of his and said.
“Son, this is for you, Take it wherever you go, It will always carry the strength of me and your mother with it, and I promise you, we will always keep you safe.”
A tear started to form at the side of his eye and he quickly wiped it away and jumped up to pour himself an ale. That was the first an last time I ever saw my father cry.
“What's going on, Is something wrong?” I glanced rapidly back and forth between him and my mother, Trying to decipher any piece of evidence from their expressions.
I managed to do just that from my mother, Just as my father sat down again , he went to explain to me what it it was and I cut him off.
“I know I said, How long do you have.” By this point I was desperately trying to fight off the tears myself and believe me, I dont think I have ever faced a harder challenge in all my years of living.
“You stop that right now!” he demanded , he was a hard man after all.
Then he let out a breath and said, I dont know I dont reckon long son, I can feel the sickness taking over my body as the hours creep by. Now im not going to get into this again so listen and listen up good. When I die, You take care of your mother, No matter what. Give me a decent burial and you'll become the man of the house.”
“yes father”I replied.
I left the hut at that point, As I walked off into the village I could hear my mother weeping, I felt a sudden pulling at my heart and I walked head held high until I reached the forest at the edge of the village, Walked inside for a minute or so and then fell to my knees, I wept and wept for an hour or so and then I managed to pull myself off the floor, I dried my eyes and went home. By the time I got there My mother and father were both in bed sleeping.
A month or so went by before my father passed away. By the end he looked weaker than I have ever seen him, half the time I thought he was pretending and he was going to jump up and give me a few wisecracks about how much of a woman I was for being so soft, But he never did.
“Take care of your mother son, You comfort her good, Or i'll come back and haunt yeh.”
His voice trailed off, but he managed to get one last smirk in there before it did, His way of making peace with me for all the hard work I reckon. I grasped his hand with the necklace he had carved me in between our hands and stayed with him for his last few minutes on this earth. And when I felt his grip slipping I cupped it tighter and threw myself across him.
“I love you father, Thank you for making me a man, A real man.”
he managed again to pull one last grin out of his dying body and then he breathed his last breath and sunk back into the bed.
I gave him a proper burial as I said I would.
“actually gallion, I said I was going to tell you the full story, but this is one part im going to leave out. I cant bare to think of it any more.”
He nodded solemnly and gestured for me to continue.
A few months past and my mother was inconsolable, I thought I was bad but I never showed it in front of her, I needed to be strong for her.
I always made the effort to ask her what she wanted to do, if there was anything she needed but her answer was always the same.
In her earlier years when I was growing up I remember her as a warm motherly figure, she would always have dinner ready for me coming home, She was a good wife and always took care of my father as well. She was always laughing with the other women and doing the work women were tasked to do in those days, mainly skinning the animals brought home and cooking them afterwards. When my father died she just didn’t know what to do, I still did all the hunting and tried to comfort her but I got the feeling she thought It wasn’t the same, which is perfectly understandable.
Another year or so passed and my mother was on her last legs as well to put it delicately, She was decidedly worse than my father had been. She couldn’t eat, she was coughing up blood and her temperature was soaring. She was burning up all the time.
One of the last things she ever said to me was, “be who you are, not who anyone wants you to be.” I followed her advice without failure in the years to come. Again like my father, I dont want to recount her burial and even thinking of her passing is too painful.
I tried to stick around for the first few weeks after their death, But I could not bare the grief. I packed up my things one sunrise and decided to leave. I had no idea how to get off the island or where I was going, But I was certain I was going. I took what I needed and gave the rest to my neighbours.
As I was leaving an old man stopped me.
“Alathi, Where are you going” he said.
I don’t know sir, I cant bare it to live here any more, I must get away from this place or my grief will get the better of me.”
“i would not advise you to go young one, We all have to deal with anguish at some point in life and we all feel as you do, There is only one way off this island that I can think of and it is treacherous. I think you may die if you attempt it, Most do.”
My face lit up like a lantern at night.
“You know of a way off the island? I did not know there was one, I was going to climb the mountain and look for land then when I saw any in the distance swim, swim for all I am worth. My father taught me how, and I am fairly confident im a strong enough swimmer to manage it.” Defiantly I Looked at him as if I knew everything.
“Do not be foolish my son , You will have to do some swimming which is where most fail, but not the whole way. You must climb up to the point rock and look out at the sea until you see a raft out there then swim out to it.” he said it with a distinctive look that I will never forget on his face , A sort of “Try it if you think your good enough” look. In retrospect though, I think he did it to give me that push to manage it in defiance, I will always be grateful to that old man for that.
“A raft? What is a raft?” I knew the point rock, we used to dive off of it when we were younger, You had to be careful to avoid the rocks or you would be in for a couple of broken bones at least.
“Think of it my son, Wood floats does it not?” I nodded starting to piece it together already.
“Well all you need to do is bind some together and it is large enough for you and some others to stand on.”
“Thank you sir!”
I said it while half making my move to run off, The excitement in me was building greatly, I cant believe nobody from Alrek had though of this before, And if they had why they hadn't made it public knowledge. I heard the old man say something vaguely but I couldn’t hear him properly and carried on running, through the fields that surrounded the village towards the mountains.
I reached the mountains by midday, The sun was shining and the sky blue. I remember still feeling that excitement from the moment the old man had told me about the rafts.
“boats hadn't been invented yet gallion you see so rafts were as good as people could do.”
I looked out across the sea for the best part of the afternoon until the evening started to set in, It must have been summer as it was still fairly light, I was starving but had neglected to bring any food with me seeing as there was nothing in the house, And killing and cooking reminded me of my father and mother, Well it did in my own house anyway. I was beginning to get worried I would have to wait until the next day, When all of a sudden I saw one, As big as my hut had been, bobbing across the ocean with tiny figures on it.
Without thinking of the rocks, I dove off the point rock, Between the two mountains and landed directly in the hole in the water that forms a cavern beneath the surface. I must have jumped with momentum behind me as I remember it feeling like forever to swim back up to the surface, The only way I knew it was the surface was I could make out the light above the water and I headed for it with a passion. As soon as I breached the surface I started gasping for air and swimming at the same time , It was tricky business as I was trying to avoid inhaling water and choking while at the same time aiming for a moving craft and trying to take into account the currents.
I made it to within around one hundred feet of the raft when I couldn’t move any more, I started to float to keep myself up, But I just couldn’t any longer, My muscles ached and my lungs were burning as it was, I remember just sinking under the surface and thinking of my mother and father, I wasn’t panicking, In a sense I was relieved, I felt as if I would see them soon and that comforted me. I closed my eyes and awaited death arms wide open.
One of the men must have seen me just as I went under as I felt something grabbing me from under my shoulders and hauling me to the surface, I dont remember much at this point as I was practically unconscious, it was more the feelings and sounds I can recall.
As we neared the raft I heard more men calling, directing the man who had saved me towards them. They must have been trying to steer it to keep it steady for him. Then the next thing I know I was getting pulled from the water the way a fisherman pulls a fish from the sea and onto the raft.
I opened my eyes to three outlines standing over me, The sun was behind them so I could not see any of their faces. They spoke with different accents to mine and for some reason I lay there and listened for a few seconds before rolling over and spluttering water everywhere.
“Greetings lad, You trying to bloody kill yourself?” One of them said, he had a deep throaty sort of a voice and seemed to be concerned for me.
“Well met , Thank you for saving my life, I am forever in your service.” I bowed my head to the man even though I hadn’t had a proper look at him yet.
“dont be daft you sod” he replied laughing. “ You dont owe me anything, I would have done that for anyone, It's the brotherly thing to do”
“But you saved me, I mu-” he cut me off, “You must be from Alrek then I take it, You lot are always so tied to tradition and morals.”
I got up to my feet and faced the three men, They were dressed in ragged clothes, Which didn’t mean much in those days apart from the fact that they weren’t any clan chiefs of any kind as they would have had furs of some kind of dangerous creature draped all over them.
“Im Alathi , It is my honour to meet you all.”
“I am Toernir, And these are my Friends” the man who saved my life answered.
“Hello” “greetings” The other two had not yet introduced themselves chimed in.
They had beards that were quite curly, Dark hair and little teeth. One of them actually had a big scar down his face that went from below his eye right down to the side of his throat.
“ I am Droinik”
“And I am Blackr”
The man who had saved me was clean shaven, Lighter haired, friendlier looking and Taller than the other two, and had bulging muscles from almost everywhere you could imagine and seemed to be the leader by the way he stood.
“That is a trait that seems to run in our family gallion, We are expert judges of character. No matter the circumstance we can read situations down to a tee and almost predict what’s going to happen if we take certain actions.”
Toernir asked me with a rather bewildered look on his face, for some reason or another.
“I dont know, I replied. I know not of any other places bar Alrek”
“What the hell are you swimming out here for then?”
“I have my own reasons for leaving the island, And could not stay any longer, An old man told me of these crafts you call rafts and this was the first one I saw so I swam out to it.”
In the middle of our little conversation , Droinik and Blackr must have been listening to out little exchange for a bit too long as I heard them cursing and suddenly trying to get back on course very rapidly.
“Hmm,Well Wer going to Arkinsas, Home of the elves, We seek trade as we are from poor families. You may come with us if you like, Though I dont think you have much choice now, Unless you wish to hitch-hike a ride on the back of a turtle.”
The other two started laughing, and Toernir shot them a look that would have frozen a mountain troll in its tracks, and they quickly got back to rowing silently. That was my first clue that he was no ordinary trader.
