Eladran Gilder

My first memory was white light and a distant voice humming a song. A sweet melody that made you want to get lost in it, and perhaps I did. Next I remember is being born...yes I remember being born and that distant voice say in a soft whisper....."My sweet child your journey isn't over."....and then I was in the world.

My parents were, are, simple people. Not simple in their thinking but simple in their needs. Pa said, "Ain't no use having more then you can use.", and he lived by that motto. If someone was hungry he fed them and made sure they had some for later. I grew up on a small farm outside Wispil in the Verduran Forest. That's right, I said a farm in a forest. How might that be? I don't know myself but Pa would laugh when I questioned it saying he and the forest had an agreement. Mother was not much different, if something was hurt she had to help them. She was a midwife as well as a accomplished herbalist. Life was good, life was normal. I had friends, dreams, goals like all kids but then it happened, things changed .

I was 12 and at the blacksmith and Pa was talking to Smith Brandal about sharpening our plow blade. I saw a set of hand axes and all I remember was a feeling of home, familiarity. Then the fashes came, I saw an Elf, his skin a dark shade of grey and hair white with gold streaks and I knew, I knew that was me but not me at the same time at least not the me I am now. I also saw a dwarf. Now I have seen dwarfs before but this one, this one made my heart swell with pride and I knew we were brothers, not of blood but of friendship.. When I came out of it I looked around and everyone was staring at me with mouths agape and mixed looks of surprise and confusion. When I looked at the far wall where a small target had been made both axes were dead center bullseye. I looked at my hands then back at the axes and I ran and didn't stop till I made it home. Before Mother could ask I ran straight to my room, slammed the door and got on my bed and curled up in a ball and I started to shake. Not the I'm cold kind of shake but the kind only fear can bring. All the way to you bones kind of shake. I heard Pa come home after a few hours and I could hear them talking but couldn't hear what was said. In a little while I read footsteps coming upstairs so I did what all kids do to get out of a lecture, I pretended to be asleep. I heard my door open and felt a blanket being placed over me. As the door closed I heard Mother say "Leave him sleep dear, he will talk when he is ready". I heard Pa mumble something and my door closed. Sleep took me but it was far from a peaceful sleep. I was bombarded by dreams of a life that wasn't mine but it was, it was all very confusing.

For two days I never left my room and on the third day there was a soft tap on the door. After a few minutes Mother came in and with a look of concern she sat down next to me and just sat there in silence with me for what seemed an eternity. In a voice just barely louder than a whisper she said to me "El, when I was a young girl I came down with an sickness that the local healers couldn't cure. My parents your grandparents, were desperate. I was dying and they were helpless to stop it. It was then out of desperation they took me to the Isle of Arenway where they heard a great druid there might be able to save me. When we got there my father had to beg for me to be seen and after days of waiting I was seen. She stopped and looked at me for moment and then continued, "I was very close to death at that time so my memory is a bit cloudy but I remember him being very tall with a stern look on his face but when he spoke it was like listening to the wind blow through the leaves. He told my parents he could save me but there would be at a cost. My father started to say he had money but the druid held up his hand and stopped him before he could say anything. The cure will leave the child barren. She will never be able to bear children. They readily agreed." She stopped at that moment to let it sink in "am I..." I started but she raised her hand, chuckled and said "No son you are our child 100%. Have no fear of that, but after that is when my desire to learn about the plants and the benefits they can bring began. Your father knew up front I could not have children and bless him he still wanted to marry me.", a far away look came over her and the same serene face I see whenever she looked at my father and just as quickly she was back. "We had been married 5 years." she continued "and I was in the forest collecting herbs when all of a sudden a bright white light surrounded me. I was very much afraid but the feeling of love and warmth washed all those fears away. Then a voice, female I think spoke, but it was more like a whisper in my head. "You are not barren child, you have just been waiting for the right soul. Wait no more." The next thing I knew I was waking up sitting against the trunk of a large great oak and I had all the herbs I came for in my bag. I thought it nothing more than a tired mind for I had not slept in three days due to a complicated birth on the other side of town. Until a few days later I felt unwell, but not sick but it wasn't till after few more days that your father said I had a "glow" about me and then those words from the dream repeated in my head and I knew I was with child". She looked at me. "You were that soul El." She slowly stood up, bent down and kissed me gently on top of my head and left.

It took another day after that for me to finally come out of my room. When I came downstairs both my parents acted as if nothing had happened, but I saw the look in my father's eyes and I knew that I had changed. At least to him, and he was right, after that my life changed. It took me another week before I asked what happened. My father never once looked at me as he spoke. "Well son you picked those axes up and before anyone knew it you were..... well dancing is all I can say. You were swaying and moving , swinging and spinning those axes as if you had been doing it your whole life. Suddenly you jumped straight up did a backflip and threw both them mid flip right in the bullseye, but son not once did you blink and I swear just for a second you changed. Not much mind you but enough for your old man to notice." He paused for a moment and looked at me. "Son I don't know what happened but I do know that you scared me half to death." And he left it at that.

I would like to say life returned back to normal but talk happens in a small town and soon I felt like everyone was staring at me. Even my friends started to distance themselves from me. A few months after the incident I was passing Brandal's smithy and I heard my name called. "El!" When I looked it was Brandal that was gesturing me over. "Good to see ya El!" Brandal was one of the handful of Dwarves that called Wispil and the Verduran Forest home. "You had us worried when you ran off, have you talked with old Bing?" Bing was what everyone called my father short for Bingham. When I told him no he told me I should speak with him. Later that night I saw what Brandal meant, "Well son he mentioned he had a cousin in Yanmass who trains