Ch.1

A Chapter by JScottM

I don’t know where to start, but I know that I once, very long ago, had a beginning. Like all others, I was born to a mother and a father. In old age I can only remember their faces, and their father’s names. Reggit, my father’s father, and Neveros, my mother’s father. Even now my mother’s name hangs at the corner of my frigid mind, but alas, I am cursed to forever forget it.

I know less of my father due to his untimely death when I was a child. What I do know is that he decided to settle with his bride in the small forested town of Deasco. Living there, they were seen with suspicion. The thing about new comers to a small community is that they are unknown and have no recommendations from anyone of whom others in the town that they have known forever.

I was treated differently due to the fact I was born in Deasco. The most humiliating thing for the whole of the experience was that I was referred to as Boy. Even right before I ended up killing everyone they called me Boy. I was only called Lucion by a few people: my mother, my uncle, my mentor, and by the dying old man Torak. It saddens my heart to know the crimes of which I have committed and the path that I have taken, but I can not dwell on it, for if I were to, this would not be a story. Good stories make you wait; or so said Torak.

My father died in a logging accident. No one talked about it. No one talked about it, only accepted it as a fact. One that should never be spoken of. The only figure that I have ever held as a father was my mentor. Second to him, Shaun Neveros.

My uncle was a learned man who had always looked out for his little sister. He came and lived with us, or at least next to us. He helped pay my mother’s taxes when the slippery b*****d came robbing many people blind in that little town. He never could get away with his scandals around Shaun and for that many of the people loved him. But still suspicious.

He ended up creating the town’s first general store, saying that he needed to be a working man, but not as hard as the poor b******s in the woods. Many people had laughed at that, but not my mother. She knew it was true and that something was going on. But she knew her brother was more intelligent than almost anyone of the pig brained men around the area.

Deasco had many travelers pass through, most of them having to go to several places to get all of their supplies. The town, in the most flowery and illustrious way I may let myself to describe it, was greasy, grubby, unsanitary, and impure to the extremes. Not to say that there was s**t in the street, but when men get lazy, they tend to do the least healthy things.

Then there were the buildings that Shaun had built. The corrupt swindler created a whole new part of the town using his money, of which I truly wonder where it came from or went. Not to say he wasn’t a good man, but he did have few morals. Those he did have were shown with me and my mother. Even then, he had others teach me. Another one of him in town would of created to much competition.

From an early age I had a nanny or teacher, but I didn’t have my mentor until I was thirteen. Ce, or Sunn Ce, was a scholar from the Isle Country Anaui. Where Shaun had met him I never knew, only that they seemed to be old friends. I have yet to describe a soul in this pretext, but I think that, with such an important figure in my life, I will tell you of Sunn Ce.

When I was a boy I considered him tall, but I quickly found out at the age of nineteen he was all but that. He was skinny, short in stature, and tan. He had a kind knowing face and wrinkles that creased his brow and around his mouth. His black hair and dark skin always fascinated me, but I’m sure it would anyone. After all, at that point I had only ever known the pale complexion of those in Deasco and those who passed by. This man was definitely foreign.

No one talked bad about him except me. Early in our relationship we would talk bad about each other, but together we were friends unlike any you would ever see. I learned a lot from him. History, literacy, math, and law were common occurrences in my lessons. Not to say I learned many things that, quite honestly, have saved me time and again. Horticulture, knots and snares, how to shoot a target from one hundred yards back and farther, and even hand to hand combat.