Original forum post by pajlizard on May 13th, 2009

ERRR kay. Been meaning to do this for a while. Derec and Lir's backstories~ Ohoho. Kiiiinddaaa slow to start, but I promise it'll get pacey-er later XD Lir has a whole battle to experience after all, and Derec has a few houses to move. :B
This'll go on until they both meet (and the point at which Derec first arrived in-game) or untill I completely give up the will to live! *manic grin*
Der's starts.. Ffff.. 'Years' ago.
Also probably makes little sense at this point either. XD
Anyway, enough yadda yadda.

~~

The evening glow was perfect that night. Shining through the canopy of leaves it coated the forest floor in a mosaic of amber, gold, cinnamon and pearl. Nestled between sunspots, the silvery ribbon of a stream wormed it’s way though the masses of ferns and gnarled tree’s roots. Nestled by the stream, two figures- a boy, and his father.

Calanthe stood by the edge of the brook face turned up while his youngest fished with a basic wooden pole. Mere twigs and line, he didn’t expect them to catch anything. Perhaps alone he would have been an imposing figure, tall and lean with moonlight hair and a weathered face that bore the lines of too many sights best left unseen, but here in the heart of the woods, alone with his child, his eyes seemed to crease and soften- a great deal more then the old military captain would have liked, had he known.

Derec looked a lot like his mother, he thought, tan skin smeared with freckles; dark briar hair. But like his mother, Calanthe had been noticing a certain grayness and harshness under that tan. Nothing like the flesh of the ill, more like that the blood underneath ran pale and slow somehow. He mused, and being not naturally of a poetic nature, found himself trailing again into inevitable circles. The idea of sickness in his clearly healthy son caused him concern. The idea of sickness brought back memories of the Blight.

It was more than once that evening he found himself dredging up visions he’d tried to forget. The war had been… It had been indescribable. The death and the pain and the loss and the death and the dead coming back again- No, he was glad it was over…. But Tazoon hadn’t been the end of it. Oh no. He could remember the horrible churning feeling he had in the very pit of his stomach, marching into Feladan, past the scorched corpses of trees and ruined homes. The horrible choking fog, and screaming creatures made of tacked-together flesh, the legions of bone.

The fighting…

Getting separated, wandering and unable to find his platoon (Would he really want to? Had they all been turned?) Staggering over the bodies, and catching a glimpse of that glimmering, twisting.. thing. They called it a tempest blight, but all Calanthe knew was the echoing wail and scything talons, bright, hate-filled eyes. Subconsciously, his hand found it’s way to his abdomen, clutching at where the claws had all but filleted his flesh. Yes, he’d been lucky to have survived that. Lucky to have been found and taken back, nearly a cripple. Other’s weren’t so lucky-

“Dad- Dad! Look! I caught one! Dad! Look!”

Jerked out of his stupor, he turned his face down to meet the eyes of his son. A grin spread from one of his softly pointed ears to the other, held in his arms was a gaping silver fish, it’s mouth formed in a surprised little ‘o’ as if even it couldn’t believe that this cackling youth had caught it with what in all rights was an insult to all fishing equipment across Istaria. Calanthe chuckled and took the fish by the gills, looking it over appraisingly.

“Well done, my boy. We’ll be eating well tonight!”
He lowered a hand and ruffled Derec’s hair, producing a chorus of exasperated moans and waving limbs.

“Daaaaaad, don’t!”

The elf merely laughed some more and hoisted his son to his feet, gathering up the tackle box and handing the catch back to the catcher, turning and making his way back along the trail to home.

“Dad?... We really gonna eat the fish?”

Calanthe smiled but didn’t turn round.

“Most certainly! Your mother will have a recipe somewhere, and we have herbs in the larder.”

Derec paused, looking forlorn, clutching the fish like a treasure, and trailed after his father, scuffing his toes.

~~

“Argh! Give it back you- You slithering little snake!”

The shout was loud enough to startle birds screaming out of the undergrowth, had there been any birds around to startle. Instead, the boy Derec came hurtling out of the bushes, half smirking, half gasping for breath, and holding triumphantly above his head- a spear that was bigger than he was.

Reason would have dictated that such a young boy would not have been able to carry such a large and awkward weapon, let alone run with it, but Derec had never been one to take Reason’s opinions seriously, so he did it anyway.

Close on his tail, Ericai, his elder brother and second son of Calanthe, staggered and swore as he tripped up over himself for the third time, quickly recovering and renewing his pursuit. Like Derec, he had his mother’s hair and father’s moon-blue eyes, but he was taller, more sinewy and his skin was eggshell smooth, not a mark or freckle in sight. Calanthe watched from the porch, sniggering quietly to himself and enjoying a glass of something amber-coloured and warming. The sound of frying and light aroma of well seasoned fish slithered out from the window behind him and curled in the air about his nose. His wife Sheilah was a talented cook, having none of the finesse of a high class chef, but all the welcome care of the mother that she was, and could be heard whistling while she cooked. Perhaps it would have been scandalous once; a high ranking elf in the Feladani Militia becoming wed to a human of merchant-stock, but the Aegis had taken care of that at least. With the war, any objections would be withheld in the face of a greater problem- And after The Great Peace Accords Calanthe liked to think they were all one race now, the Living Race.

Up a tree now, Derec pulled faces and displayed his tongue, resting in the crook of the corkscrew-trunk, just below the canopy itself. Eric, not one for trees or heights, flailed his fists upwards, shouting obscenities his father would rather not have had him know, and slowly turned red around the cheeks until finally, he stamped over to where Calanthe reclined and crossed his arms, pouting.

Calanthe gave him a Look that said he had seen all and heard all, and Yes Mister, I heard all your parts too and Eric opened his mouth as if to complain, but at that moment Sheilah stuck her head out the window, smiling that sort of weary smile that only a true mother knows and gets away with.

“Honey, kids, food’s ready.”

~~

Inside, the room was lit with a dewy glow and the steady snicker-snack of knives and forks only complimented the comfortable, homely atmosphere. The food was as delicious as it’s appearance promised, and the three eldest chatted happily about their days, conversations broken only by the odd peals of laughter and glug of re-filling glasses. The youngest smiled along with them, having little to comment on, and pushed his fish around the plate with his fork, eating none of it but appearing happy all the same.

Later at night he lay awake in bed, toying absently with the tip of his ear and looking up into the darkened slant of his ceiling. As the house consisted of only one true floor, Derec was given the attic for his room, as no one could expect the two brothers to share and for both of them to still have all their limbs in the morning. The house itself was a seemingly flimsy structure, mostly wooden planks and boards, and had it been situated anywhere else it would have been blown apart by a strong breeze or stray dragon years ago. But here in the forest the trees both supported and sheltered it, keeping it mild in the winters and shaded in the long summer days. It was small, and a large amount of furniture they had no room to put out was stored up in Derec’s room. Stacked chairs and boxes took up almost half the space, and the young boy’s bed was squashed up in a corner, more a nest of throws and pillows than anything else. But this was the way he liked it.

Silently, he slipped out from under the covers, feet barely making a sound as they crossed the dusty boards towards the stairs down. He paused on passing an old mahogany dresser, a relic of his mother’s, it’s mirror now bleary and surface unseen due to the mass of smooth river-pebbles that had accumulated onto it over the years. It felt cold in this room, he thought, and that mirror only seemed to add to the coldness. No amount of covers could shield that coldness from his bones, and it had been getting worse. He listened to the grumbling snores of his brother, and the restless tossing of his mother, and the small well of silence he knew his father occupied as he slept. He descended, opened the front door, and slipped outside.

Even though the night was at it’s darkest, the air was heavy and balmy and filled with the chirping songs of a thousand unseen insects. The mossy ground gave a little under the child’s bare feet as he searched for the spot he knew would be there. The uneven earth meant the house was built with gaps underneath, and here behind the ivy was a spot where the floor of the house failed to meet land. It was here that he got on his belly and crawled.
His hands run along what to him was the ceiling as he shuffled his way in deeper. Foundations gave way to naked wood, and he curled up, worm like, under the house in which he dwelt but not in it. He recalled the fish, choking on the perfumed evening air on the way home. The time it took for its fins to cease jerking and for it’s panicked eyes to become dull and glazed. The silver of it’s scales had never looked quite so repulsive than when they were set upon his plate as a meal. It all seemed unreal somehow.

He sighed, feeling better for escaping out here, becoming unseen and unseeing in the dark. Laying his head on the soft bed of soil, he let the lullaby of the still night air finally carry him off to sleep.