I was a farmer’s daughter. No,…really. Mom made preserves out of more edibles than I could name, and my pop went out to tend the animals every morning before the sun touched the earth. Go ahead, have a good laugh. I know. Not really the type. But to be fair, you’re really only laughing quite so hard because you’re a little drunk.

I don’t remember the first time I helped feed the chickens. As far as I can recall, I always did. Then piling straw, mixing grains, helping with a difficult birthing of a calf or lamb when I was a bit older. My father would always let me stroke the mother’s neck to calm her. “Tough night ahead,” he’d say, “Can’t hurt to give her a bit more reason not to let it do her in.” He was, practical, my father. He was that, if anything.

My mother was all jams, and wool, and soft barn cats, but she’s a tough cookie under there, I think. She did a good job holding us all together most days, and every now and then I’d enter the room just a bit more quietly than expected and catch a glimpse of her and dad sharing a sense of humour that we didn’t often see. She’s a good woman overall, my mother, though not one I could say I know well.

We were small for a farming family, just my parents, my brother, and I. Dad took on a little magic now and then in a pinch, but mostly he seemed to get some kind of grim satisfaction in doing things by hand. Sometimes I used to wonder how things might have been different if there were more of us. There was another brother the year after me, but he died within weeks, and I think my parents just couldn’t bear to have another. That worked out fine for me. My older brother was, as most older brothers are, an absolute torture for the first years of life, then an absolute treasure thereafter. Ellion was several years my senior, and grew into maturity before I had outgrown the desire to chase after him and shadow his every move. Consequently, for a lovely few years, I had the benefit of his patience and acceptance. All of the things I wouldn’t think to mention, I learned from my brother. I count everything else as far less important.

I was only twelve when my brother joined the war effort. I remember feeling so guilty that I didn’t want him to go. The war never really touched our farm directly, and it seemed like such a distant problem to take him away from us that way. I cried for weeks, though I never let anyone see. I wanted my parents to be proud of me for being strong, and happy that my brother was going to do great things. I think my mother did the same.

We had some issues with bandits in the area in the years that followed, I remember. Various groups of ruffians taking advantage of the fact that many of our capable fighters were far from home. Or maybe just one group of ruffians. I never really counted, but sometimes they seemed to be everywhere. Not that we had much to steal, mind you. We led a pretty simple life, but there was always the threat of problems, and it made me so mad that they thought they could just walk in and take everything when people had worked so hard for what little they had. I tried to learn the sword that year. Snuck off to the barn when I thought no one would see me and practiced swinging an old blade of my brother’s. I could barely hold it up straight to start, but I had many great fantasies of what would happen the day those bastards moved off the road and tried to take our farm. Many of them I would not want to talk about now. I promised myself that I would ask Ellion to teach me to fight properly when next he came home. He had tried to take me hunting once, but I was hopeless with a bow. I vowed to be better with the sword. I had no dreams of running off to join the war, but at least I could protect the people left behind.

I was sitting by the pond, skimming stones, the day the messenger brought news that my brother was dead. I remember clearly the feel of the smooth rock in my hand. I had searched the bank carefully beforehand to find the ones with just the right shape to travel well over the water. I remember clearly the innocent sound of hoof beats on our front path, and my idle curiosity about who it could be. I remember clearly my mother’s wail, and the dancing ripples that the stones made when they all fell into the water. And then I remember nothing at all. Those realities were for other families, not for ours. I waited many afternoons by the front gate, hoping he would ride around the corner and tell me that they’d made a mistake; That the burning was so bad they had confused someone else’s body for his. If they had, that man was no better off. My brother never came.

The next years were hollow. My parents withdrew into themselves even more so than before, and I never caught them laughing in the kitchen again. We worked, and grieved, and fell into an empty routine that went from one chore to the next. The farm was never so clean. Eventually life went on, as it is prone to doing.

I tried as best I could to carry the torch of being the only remaining child. I baled thing, and raked things, and fed things, and rode things sometimes. And I hated it. Some afternoons, I would sneak off to the far field and watch the clouds, and wonder at what other lives I could have been born into. And feel horribly guilty for wishing that I didn’t have mine. Sometimes I would imagine being one of the messengers that rode by our farm. I was never really one for great adventures, but seeing distant lands sounded like it might be nice. We never really got travelers stopping in our town, with the city of Sharn so close by, but I imagined that if we did, they would have great stories to tell.

I had few friends in these years, as I had growing up. My parents were not overly social, so interactions with the neighbouring farms were limited and usually revolved around farm talk. There was one girl around my age, but she was a bit slow in the head. Had been since birth. The only boy nearby who hadn’t joined the war effort had stayed to run his parents farm. His father had passed, and his mother wasn’t well, and couldn’t handle things without him. I always wanted to like him, and felt bad for his situation, but really he was kind of a jerk. We had a farm hand now and then, but they were generally less intriguing than the livestock. One of the mage scribes that my father called in now and then was an interesting man, but he was much older, and didn’t come by much. I spent a lot of time alone with my dreams.

It was the month before my eighteenth birthday that my life changed dramatically. My parents were reluctant to marry me off and lose their last child and farm help, so I was as yet unattached, and still living at home. My father was making his regular trip to one of the markets in Sharn, and his usual help was sick with a fever. He asked me to come. Me, who had never been past the little inn at the end of our road (and then not often). So I helped him load the wagon, and off we went.

I can’t tell you what it was like for me that first time I set eyes on the city. My heart was racing so badly that my father actually asked me if I was okay, and for a moment I had no words to answer him. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, and I couldn’t even tell you why, except to say that it felt like life, and richness, and home. I breathed it in like I would have to hold that breath until I could return, and I almost felt like I would. My father wouldn’t let me explore the marketplace. I couldn’t see what lay in the other parts of the city. Despite it all, I knew that it was vast, and complex, and welcoming me in with open arms.

Leaving that day was one of the hardest things I’ve done, but I left with purpose and drive. Diving into that richness was almost all I could think about. Sitting back on the farm I realized how deluded I had been to think I could push through and carry on as I had been to please my parents. Now that I knew what more was out there, I had to see it for myself. I felt as if something was calling me, and I had no choice but to answer. Maybe she was.

I think I made it a week before I told my parents that I had to leave, and every second of delay made me more restless and scattered. It should have been a crazy thing, to pick up and leave my life so quickly, but it really wasn’t. Needless to say, my parents didn’t share my certainty. I’m sure I wouldn’t have either if it hadn’t been me. I think they alternated between thinking me sick, or mad, or that my short-lived rebellion would lead me back within the day. I left the next morning. I did not go back that day.

Perhaps if they thought me serious, they would have giving me leave to take more than my small pack and blanket. Perhaps they would have warned me less dramatically and more accurately of the dangers I would face in Sharn. As it was, I set out with almost nothing but hope. I walked the whole way to the city, since they couldn’t waste a horse, and I wouldn’t have been able to pay to stable it anyway. I walked through the gates feeling triumphant. People glanced at me sideways as I looked up at the sky, shadowed over by towers, and laughed in anticipation. I didn’t care. I had less certainty about my path than ever before, but was more sure than I had ever been that I was in the right place. I was reborn that day.

I spent much of that evening just walking, taking in the people in all their mystery, wondering who they all were, and what their story was. Our little farming community was mostly human. I saw my first elf that night. I looked eagerly at the brightly lit windows of taverns along the street, listening to the laughter and cries from inside. It was a long time before it really settled on me that I could enter one if I chose to, could be a part of that world. In retrospect, I was lucky that evening. A thousand horrors could have befallen me that night, wandering aimless and naive along the streets of Sharn. But life led me to a small tavern in Hareth’s Folly rather than a dark corner of the Cogs. I ordered an ale, and sat entranced by the play of emotions over the faces of the other clientele. I watched them quietly for as long as I could make my drink last. I could not afford to order another. They laughed, and taunted, and gambled less subtly than they assumed. And they lived. And I smiled.

Much of the rest of that night is a blur, to be honest. I was exhausted from the excitement and my day of travel. I hadn’t thought ahead to lodgings for the night, but I was still too overwhelmed by the sites of the city to care much. I started to notice that not all residents of Sharn were well-intentioned, and the vibes I got from more than one passing stranger gave me reason to cross the street. It was all a part of the depth of the city, though, and something that I felt drawn to know and experience. I wandered through what I thought must be half the city (but know now to be only the smallest scrap), drawn mostly to areas of warmth, laughter, and life. I walked from areas of raucous jesting to ones of quiet conversation. Then I turned a corner and the world went out from under me.

It is an incomprehensible thing to brush with a god. It is not something I talk about often, for I have no way to explain the vastness of it to anyone who has not already been there. I can barely fathom it myself, and I was. I turned what seemed to be a random corner in my wanderings, past a tavern full of warm light and tempting smells, and was met with a temple that I barely even recognized. My parents were religious in a passing way. My father believed largely that the gods had their own concerns for the most part, and had little time for us. They occasionally sent a prayer to Arawai in times of need, but I would hardly call our lives devout. I fell to my knees there in the street that night, tears flowing from my eyes. Olladra had not forgotten me. For a beautiful moment, I was wrapped in her acceptance and a wonderful sense of purpose, and I pledged myself to her service for as long as she would have me. I will not detail the brief remainder of my first night in Sharn, if it’s all the same to you. I awoke the next morning in the temple, where a puzzled looking priest brought me some porridge and told me the tale of how they’d found me on the temple steps.

My story gets a little crazy from here. I was Olladra’s chosen. Her champion. A paladin.

Yes, you know that. I know, but it’s a dramatic line, and an important piece of the tale. Who’s telling the story here anyway?

Thank you.

The priest I spoke with first paled a little when I described what had happened to me, and the changes I could still feel. He was the one who explained to me what had likely happened. They’d never seen a paladin of Olladra before. Even her own priesthood was a little confused by my appearance. There was quite a bit of not-so-subtle verification from various other orders in the beginning, as I recall. I was a little too shell shocked myself to be offended. In the end, everyone agreed that yes, I was Olladra’s chosen, and that no, they had no idea what to make of that.

I don’t know why she saw a need for me. I don’t know why it was me she chose, except to say that I will follow her faithfully for as long as I live. Maybe she knew. I suppose she must have, being a god. I certainly never envisioned my life this way, even in my wildest dreams in the far field.

That first year was the most difficult. I became a bit of an exotic oddity for many people, and a point of contention for some of the other clergy in the city. I wasn’t thrilled with either. Most of Olladra’s clerics were happy enough to accept me. At the least, I made things interesting for a while. Some placed bets on various aspects of my acclimation to the city. A couple even bought me drink or two with their winnings. A few were less impressed with Olladra’s judgement, finding me a bit too sheltered for their tastes. To their credit, most of those kept their opinions largely to themselves. It doesn’t pay to be too vocal about doubting one’s god, I suppose.

Gradually, I learned the lay of the city, which I still had a burning desire to explore. I sometimes think that Olladra herself had given me that first tour before she welcomed me in. I wasn’t entirely sure what to do with myself in these days. Half the city seemed to be watching me closely, waiting for me to make my purpose clear. I didn’t know why I was needed any more than they did, and the whole situation was often hard.

Even outside of the pressures and expectations of others, it was a difficult time adjusting to my new skills. I could suddenly see clearly the depth of the corruption in the city. I could sense every ruthless person waiting to take down a rival, or abuse the innocent, or run for political office. Combined with this, I had a heartfelt sense of duty like never before. It was my job to stop them from corrupting the lives of others and stomping on their joy. Mine. I got myself into a bad scrape early on, confronting a tavern patron who was threatening one of the serving girls. If things had gone just a bit differently, I could have died. The price of helping.

It was very shortly after this that I saw Kavarran for the first real time. I think he was among the people paraded around me in the early days, but I couldn’t keep track of them then. Kavarran took me under his wing after my “incident”, and shared with me what wisdom he could on dealing with a corrupt world without getting oneself messily killed. He also taught me some basics with the sword, but I think that was the less valuable of the two in terms of keeping me alive. He was the first person who truly seemed to understand part of what I was going through, and though he had never faced the same uncertainties about his role in the world, he knew what it meant to try to live up to a higher standard. Even then, we didn’t always agree on things (though I was considerably quieter about my opinions than I am now), but I trusted him instantly, and it was nice to be able to let my guard down.

And no, we never connected with more than friendship. That was just a rumour, and not even one of the more interesting ones I’ve heard about myself.

This was the time that I began to come into my own. With Kavarran’s support, I doubted myself much less frequently. I learned to fight, as I knew someday my sword would be needed. I let Olladra’s followers introduce me to the city, and I let the rest of its inhabitants think what they would. Occasionally I was invited to some high ranking function or another, at which I felt patently ridiculous for a good long time. Kavarran thrived on that kind of pomp and ceremony. I always found the whole thing a little silly, though the food was good.

I bought my first suit of armor to protect myself, and trudged around for a full three weeks in shining platemail. Seriously. Platemail laughing in the tavern. Platemail strolling down an avenue. Platemail curled up in a noble’s salon. It was ridiculous. No one else dared laugh at me, but I certainly couldn’t stop laughing at myself (in between the swearing, that is. Platemail is damnably heavy, let me tell you). Thankfully I was becoming confident enough in my individuality at this point that it only took me the few weeks to realize that I am not, in fact, a shining knight of Dol Arrah, and that this particular choice of wardrobe was woefully laughable for my situation. Spent a fortune on the replacement suit when I eventually bought it. Worth every penny, though. Ask me about it sometime.

The more I settled into the city, the more I began to find my path. There was so much joy to be had, and so few people who could relax enough to truly see it. I took it upon myself to help people to enjoy themselves from time to time. Maybe it’s not what Dol Arrah would have in mind, but it felt right to me, and I’ve learned to trust that inner voice as being closest to Olladra. I brightened days, and relieved stresses, and helped people to put aside their fears for a while. And if I do say so myself, I got quite good at it. I can take a dead room from drowning sorrows to jovial camaraderie in usually an hour or less.

As I was introduced to more of the city, I began to extend my influence to more of the areas I felt truly needed it. The lower levels of the city seemed to be all but forgotten by most of the law. Those are the places I feel like I do the most good. They need me, and going down there always gives me a sense of fulfillment deeper than I can get on other levels. It’s a trade off, though. I’m always careful now how close to the line I step. There are a lot of people down there who are good at heart, and looking for nothing but hope, but there are plenty who would sell their sister into slavery and kill her first if they didn’t get a good deal. I’ve learned to gauge when the promise of steel might be enough to get someone to back off, and how to find alternate ways of removing someone from a bad situation. I’ll admit I’m not always great at it though. Close calls happen more often than I’d like to admit. That’s one of the stronger reasons I don’t spend all my time down there. Still, an offered blanket on a cold day, or an apple for a hungry traveler can do quite a bit (once I learned how and when to offer them. …Remind me someday to tell you about my first attempts).

I enjoy keeping abreast of all the goings on in various circles. It’s a professional and a personal pleasure. People generally enjoy my company, and some of the upper class get very pretentious about telling people that I will be attending a social gathering they hold. Most people don’t seem to care anymore that I’m unusual, and I’ve never had it held against me that I spend as much time in the warehouse district as in the upper reaches of the city. I’m a bit outside of the normal social structure, but that suits me just fine.

I have a group of regular acquaintances, and some people now that I would call friends. My dear poet Mellynthias, who is so very much more preciously idealistic than I’ve ever been. He comes off a little superficial at first, but he’s loads of fun at a party, and there’s a sweet soul under the gaudy clothing once you get to know him. He’s in fashion now with the upper class, and creates some truly beautiful work. On occasion, he can be a bit playful with his poems, and I have to hope certain courtiers never put two and two together and recognize themselves in a cleverly laid metaphor. He plays their games with natural flair, but most of the time he’s secretly laughing at them. It relieves me sometimes that he can’t be bothered being political.

So this is my world, with scheming courtiers and hopeful whores, and me in the middle trying to keep them all on track. I still get invited to high ranking church functions, and I still find them a little silly, but to be honest I take a little pleasure now in keeping the stuffier clergy off their guard. I keep an ear out in the city, and step in to help where I can, and generally hope that my actions are somewhere close to what Olladra had in mind for me. You’re lucky, you know. This isn’t a tale I tell often.

Now bring your friend over… Did I ever tell you about the merchant’s daughter and her painful attempts to attract the cobbler’s son?

* * *

What Haramani won’t tell, even this night, is of the night that an altercation turned ugly, fighting off some cloaked figures who were trying to drag off a screaming woman for some unsavory purpose or another. She won’t mention the nasty stab wound she received, or how it began to fester despite her gifts. She won’t tell you how she went to Mellynthias’s loft feeling slightly feverish. Or that the cleric called in to treat her seemed alarmed. She certainly won’t mention that it was too late for the wound to heal properly, or what was left in its place when it closed. She tried at first to believe that she was imagining things, but on a deeper level, she knew from the start that there was something genuinely dark about the scar on her chest. What she finds more disturbing is the fact that the dark force responsible lingers still, and seems almost to be trying to protect her. And she really, really, really doesn’t want to know why. Add to that the fact that every night disturbing visions on the Keeper fill her dreams. The maintained strength of her connection to Olladra gives her reassurance, but she doubts herself now and then now, wondering if something dark has happened to her, or if she’s strayed somehow from the true path. The first time since the incident that she drew on power to strike down a murderous attacker, two gods answered her call. And only one of them was pleasant. This has Haramani deeply confused, and very, very careful. And she will certainly not ever tell you that.

Unless you asked.

Damn that code of honour.