Thick pages torn from a nice journal lay crumpled in and around a garbage bin. Some are stained by the tea leaves dumped over them, others yet marred with splotches of ink that had been emptied over them when Dr. Thatch had decided that blue wasn’t the appropriate color for his thoughts.
Tradition. History. How is it that someone with none of their own keeps crawling back to it?
Well, I can’t say that I haven’t partaken in traditions. I spent too long surviving with the Kaer Magan tradition of lies and thievery. Stealing first to feed and clothe myself, then to sate my desire to find a life better than what I had. Taking knowledge that I was told wasn’t mine to consume, devouring words as rapidly as I could so that nobody would catch me feeding an intellect I was told I was undeserving of. A waste of space, reject, piece of rubbish, they would call me. That was okay. Rubbish from the street tends to blow away in the wind, and so did I.
I stashed myself away in a merchant’s wagon. I was a fairly small child, so it wasn’t difficult. I think I was nine when I did that, not that I really have any frame of reference to tell me my exact age. When I would ask, I was given a different answer from each person. Regardless, I wasn’t discovered until the merchant saw my hand peek out to take an apple he had just purchased once we were two days’ journey outside the city. He had thought to take me back, but I begged him not to. Once I proved I could read and write, he told me that I could earn my keep in exchange for hitchhiking along to New Thassilon. It was a dream come true.
Of course, the dream was a little tarnished on our arrival. I had been so concerned with leaving Kaer Maga that I hadn’t bothered to think ahead to where I would stay once I got to New Thassilon. I resorted to my old tricks again, but those of New Thassilon were much more educated than I gave them credit for. I thought my luck had truly run out when I was caught attempting to pickpocket a well-dressed man whose purse could stand to be a few gold pieces lighter.
“Arden?” he had said to me, a dramatic look of shock on his face. “I’m an old friend of your father’s. I looked for you for years in Kaer Maga! It does an old man well to see you, my child.” My heart had soared at his words. I had a history of my own I could finally learn about! Mr. Wilkes offered me a place to live and all the books I could possibly read. I never doubted him once. In hindsight, I should have. In Kaer Maga, people had called me by whatever name they thought I should have. Occasionally it was Joanna, or John once I decided that living as a girl was both boring and dangerous. Mostly it was “that girl” or “that boy” or “that kid”. It wasn’t until I arrived in New Thassilon that I had decided that I needed a new name, one of my own choosing. Aroden had always been my favorite historical figure, but it took me ages to learn to say his name correctly. Thus, I became Arden. Lord Wilkes shouldn’t have known me by that name. The thought of a home, a place to belong, had blinded me to this.
There had been sentences scratched out here and there up to this point, but the rest of the page was scribbles, doodles, scratches made by a hand unwilling to continue the thought.
Another page picked up where its predecessor had left off.
Lord Wilkes happened to be a cousin of a noble family that styled themselves as descendants of a runelord, but in all my time there I never discovered which. The patriarch, Lord Aumeriun Syneus, had taken a liking to me early on. I lived with Lord Wilkes in a private wing of Lord Syneus’s estate and had been invited to meet the lord of the house after having only been there a week. He introduced himself to me as Runelord Aumeriun and preferred to have me address him as such.
Runelord Aumeriun saw potential in me. My past on the streets of Kaer Maga gave me an edge, he had told me. It showed that I wasn’t afraid to take what I needed — or what I wanted. “Clawing your way up from the bottom is the way of the runelords, my boy!” he had once said to me. He praised my resourcefulness, encouraged my gluttony for knowledge, and fostered in me what had once made others fear me. I was to become his prodigy. I was to inherit his title when the time came, not that I wanted it. He claimed his daughter didn’t have the talent or the drive that I possessed.
I recall a particular instance when Aumeriun discovered that I could sing fairly well. I rarely sang, especially where anyone could hear me, since strange things happened when I did. As a child, I sang to myself when I was in danger or overwhelmed by fear as a way to soothe myself. Once it had caused a man’s ears to bleed as he had tried to pick up the terrified girl and drag her off to who only knows where. Aumeriun had caught me singing a rather grim song about a spider who had climbed up on the edge of a fountain, only to be swept in my a sudden rainstorm that caused it to drown. The large spider on the study wall met a similar fate, though no water was to be found in the room. “You’ve a voice like an angel, just like my daughter!” he had exclaimed. “It’s quite something, it is. Though you seem to know how to bend the sound to do your bidding. Quite a rare talent.” He hired me a vocal coach after that.
His daughter was quite something. Aurelia was my only friend for years and I was grateful for her company. She was a spoiled child, there was no doubt of that, yet she tried to temper those impulses around me. I was somewhere around fourteen or so when Runelord Aumeriun decided that I should marry his daughter once we both became of age. I had little desire to do so, having naïvely believed even then that marriage was supposed to be about love. I was told that I had until what we decided was my eighteenth nameday to make my decision. Over the years, I would often ponder the offer. Eventually I concluded that it was in my best interest to agree. After all, who was I to refuse the request of the people who had given me everything I had? I lived as a lordling not because of my birth, but because of the graciousness of my father’s friend and his runelord cousin.
The marriage, though, was delayed as many times as I could manage it. I’d like to attend college first, I had claimed. Then the excuse became graduation, one of my many digs, a conference, anything I could find. Aumeriun had agreed every time, citing my dedication to furthering the family’s standing, just as he had when I had chosen archaeology as my path. He had been doubtful of it at first, but came around to the idea when I suggested I could use it to find powerful relics for the family’s collection.
Sometimes I speculate on if he knew what I was doing or not. I think he did and assumed it was cold feet. Once he had realized that I had grown close to the personal guard he had hired to accompany me on digs, I got a lecture as to how my heart and my body were not to be shared with others. I had heard it before. I belonged to Aurelia and only to Aurelia. I didn’t even belong to myself. She would get similar lectures as to how she should make it clear that she was to marry me, but she was a much braver soul than I. Shortly after our nineteenth nameday, she suggested that we really test her father’s limits. Aurelia was the only one, aside from Dorian, who knew of my ability to become whoever I pleased. She had encouraged me to become Ellendra, a persona I used often when I went out to explore the markets with her instead of studying as I should have been. She invited me to join her and her father, who had highly approved of Aurelia’s friendship with Ellendra, on an outing to an outdoor play. I had no idea of her plans, so one could imagine my shock and surprise as she kissed me passionately in front of her father. I can’t say I really enjoyed the experience, as I held no affection for her beyond that of a friend. I could see the rage in Aumeriun’s eyes, but he kept his calm in front of everyone watching us. When we left, Ellendra was told that it would be best if she stayed away from Aurelia in the future. She went into a box in my wardrobe, never to be seen again. Aurelia was given a stern talking-to. I’m sure had it been me instead I would have gotten much worse. Not that I would have ever considered letting Arden so much as suggestively look in someone else’s direction.
There didn’t seem to be a proper sequel to this page anywhere in the rubbish bin. The next page in its continuity was marred by tea leaves, but also by a stain from a cup. Poor attempts at ancient Thassilonian runes filled the inside of the mark from the cup. Should one have attempted to read them, it would read “wrong end” in broken Thassilonian.
New Thassilon was my home. Is where I still say my home is. Yet when I was told of the post in Mendev, I leapt at the chance to leave it behind. There were others much more qualified than I was, but I quickly threw my name in the ring. I argued that my then-current pursuit of a second doctorate in anthropology coupled with my background in archaeology would put me in a unique situation to write a thesis on something that a Thassilonian scholar had not been able to before. I gave this story about intending to find Thassilonian origins in Kellid traditions, knowing that the temptation of claiming yet another piece of the world for themselves would be too great for the scholars to deny. Though I admit it a horrid thing to do, I don’t regret it in the slightest.
Once I was chosen, I was quickly fitted for clothes of an official nature and told that I would have them before the week was out. I packed only what I needed to take with me and only what I had paid for with my stipend. A few clothes, journals, pens, and other knickknacks found their way into my bag along with my Thassilonian Dream Receptacle, which had been a joke gift from Aurelia once I had received my doctorate. I left without breathing a word to any of them of my new post. I was sure they’d find out in time and could send someone after me should they have the desire.
All I left behind was a note to Aurelia. No explanation for anything. Just a quick, vague “I’m sorry” accompanied by the ring that had been the visual symbol of our impending marriage. Sometimes I wonder if she’s forgiven me for that. I had thought before of reaching out to her, yet it felt like it would be in poor taste to do that. “Hello, how have you been these last few years? Sorry I abandoned everyone back home. You should know that I didn’t love you as anything more than my dear friend and we would have spent our lives in an unhappy marriage had I stayed.” Yes, that would go over so well.
The rest of the pages were covered in lesson plans, notes on student progress, and the occasional note from Dorian saying that if Dr. Thatch stayed in his office any longer the Nidalese man would personally drag him out for a drink in the name of preserving the good doctor’s sanity.
