My mother found me in the inn.
I know that she does not particularly like the place, but she knows that I meet my friends there often and thus came looking for me there. She had for me a gift, which I found most surprising. It is very rare that I recieve gifts from anyone and such kindness and generosity always warms my heart. Knowing my mother as I do, though, I half-expected it to be Drevorin's head in a bag.
Rather, as it turned out, it was a knife. It is a particularly wicked looking piece with a bright steel blade - smooth and sharp down one side but with three hooked barbs along the other. It has a hilt made of a similar strange black metal to that of my earring, bound in red leather strips and strange nasty-looking etchings all over. I would call it a ceremonial piece were it not for the fact that it looks well-used and practical as well as horrendously nasty. I am told that it has been passed down from generation to generation of women in my family, making it really very old, and also making it of Trev Duvardain design.
It feels strange to be wandering about Bree with a weapon clearly belonging to one of the enemy, thus I have gone to great lengths to keep it hidden about my person. As dangerous as it might be to carry it through fear of discovery, I would not dare leave it behind lest it become lost.
To my chargrin, mother asked me to take her to see the resting place of my father. Having no clue where his bones might lie, she then decided that I should take her to the house in which we lived as I grew. I had no wish to, but I did so anyway.
The closer we came to Archet, the more I just wanted to turn around and flee. I have not stepped foot in that place since I was taken from there so many years ago. I had no wish to see it, to relive all the memories of my youth and watch again as the town burned around me. Bedamnable vivid memory of mine! Still, I went with her for I knew that facing my past was a thing I must do if I am to truly overcome it.
As we stepped within the bounds of the stockade, I saw flashes of that last night. I heard the terrified screams of the villagers in my ears, smelled the burning flesh and wood on the air, tasted the soot and blood from my own mouth and felt the searing heat of the fires.
It took all of my willpower to supress those memories and walk on with my head held high to the house in which I had been raised. Seeing it again called up worse images in my mind. I focused myself on my mother, concentrated on her figure and actions as she walked up the steps, cut her hand and allowed her blood to spill on the porch before placing the bleeding appendage to the broken door. I listened to her gutteral chanting, concentrated on it in an effort to keep my past where it belonged.
When she was done, I practically fled that terrible place. I was so glad to be gone from there! She told me that her ritual had been both a blessing to my father and a curse upon the spirit of his wife. Much as I may disagree with the cursing aspect, I found myself lacking sympathy for whatever the fate of that woman might be. Perhaps I am becoming hardened to such things after all?
