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Author: Tyrlien
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Cold. It’s all I remember from Before.
Before she found me. As a child, I had been cast out by my mother’s people, the Elves. They resented their bloodlines being spoiled by the blood of humans and my father was a human. Aelfborn, half-elf/half-human. I was not good enough and so they sent me to my father’s people.
It was no better there. I thought I would be welcomed but instead I was treated as nothing more than a child slave. Many times it was worse, as it was at their hands I suffered the beatings. So I ran away.
I didn’t know where I was going, I was barely five, I just ran, as far away as I could get and soon found myself on the edge of a snow covered ledge at the mouth of an enormous cave. I collapsed. I was cold.
But she found me. I was small, insignificant, and almost frozen from the cold. She took me in, warmed me, fed me, and brought me back. I don’t know why she did it. Both of my peoples had hunted her kind from before time remembered.
Warmth and the smell of ash. Those are my memories of After.
After she found me. Years passed. I grew up and we grew close as friends. As close as any Dragon and any Aelfborn could be. She kept me safe, secluded on the mountain side and I never ventured far from the cave.
Until one night she came home, wounded, bleeding, and her fire went out. The men in the valley had caught sight of her in the midst of their cattle and rounded up a raiding party and attacked.
Elves! Humans! It makes no difference. I hate them both. On my own for the first time, I had to venture out of the cave into the valley and the Fire Plains below. I saw the devastation they had caused. I saw the black drakes slaughtered. I poisoned my blades and I took my revenge. And so I hate myself for I am each of them, an elf and a human. But I’m not them.
Only one man have I ever trusted. A Bard with a kind face who played the music that calmed me that night as I cried in the Fire Plains next to the drakes. He gave me a place to call home at Bard’s Tavern. A city west of the Plains where it was warm. But everything good comes to an end.
I am Tyrlien. I am Aelfborn. The imbalance of Elven and Human blood drive me to madness. There is no cure for our Curse. My tattoos are fading and no longer hold the magic that is supposed to keep me sane. I am Good when I remember to be, when I remember His music. But the dreams come more often now. The insanity encroaches in the darkness and I am Evil. Night falls and it is time to poison my blades and seek my revenge once again. I can’t sleep. I don’t dare. Have I come to my end?
Emptiness. That is what stands at Bard’s Tavern Since.
Since our world of Aerynth came to an end. My shop, Darkwynd Shadows Mercantile, a hollow burnt out shell of a building still stands there, or did before I left. She taught me the ways of her magic. I would need that magic to survive if I was to find another world that was safe. And He gave me the music to hold back the Chaos. But there was no music anymore.
From Aerynth to Norrath and as far as Telon I have traveled. But Norrath is my home. The dragons here remind me of Her. Caring beings, unlike Elves and Men. And a man here like the Bard who when he plays his music, I am calmed and the insanity is stayed if only for awhile. Please just for a while longer. I am cold.
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