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Message: <blockquote data-quote="seasong" data-source="post: 487944" data-attributes="member: 5137">For some reason, this one was a lot harder for me to write. I've gone ahead and written it "sucky", so we can get past it and on to the good stuff.You'll also note that I put it all in one big post, instead of two. My next story update shall be the beginnings of Chapter One.PROLOGUETangled ThreadsMeridethA month in, and she was already in trouble. If she'd known how registration worked, she'd maybe have done things differently, but now...When a person is born, their full name (such as Merideth of Southbottom) is written on a page. All of the pages for a particular year are gathered up and kept. Fifteen years later, they are used for the roll call to Service.There was no Merideth of Northwood.Now she sat in a small, locked room along with a handful of others who had tried to represent themselves fraudulently. No one spoke - they were all to busy trying to be invisible. She wondered, briefly, if the others felt the same deep shame she felt. Probably not... they looked like they came from better families than she did.Finally, the captain, a tall woman with silvering black hair, stepped into the room and called her "name". They walked in silence to a small office. The desk was sharply scented pine, hand-polished and well constructed. The rest of the room wasa  violent clutter, filled with naming lists, maps, and other records of a city gone soft.There was no other chair than the one the captain sat in behind the desk, so Merideth stood.The captain sighed, "Is Merideth your real name, or also a lie?"The words, though soft, stung. Merideth bit back hot tears and anger, "It's real. My name... it's Merideth of Soutbottom."There, it was out. She was a backwood servant, the only child of clothes washers to the second class rich.The captain looked at her, no pity evident, "I suspected. Your former master is a fairly well-known healer, and I was, quite by coincidence, keeping an eye out in the rolls for his apprentice when she came through. Imagine my surprise when, after your mentor's glowing praise of her, she completely failed to register for Service. And then, topping it off, there is the matter of this fraudulent Merideth of Northwood, who does not seem to exist anywhere in the rolls."A hefty sigh from the captain, "You have wasted a lot of my hours for the sake of your pride. If we did not need a healer at the northeast pass, I would put you in the most god-forsaken duty I could find!"Merideth shrank, but the captain seemed done yelling. She continued, "As it is, we do need you in the northeast pass. But I will be keeping an eye on you. I don't care what kind of a healer you are, we don't need liars for soldiers. I've assigned a shieldman to escort you up there, so you can waste some of his hours. I don't want the Southbottom girl disappearing on me again."And that was that. No punishment, but Merideth didn't feel like she'd escaped anything.The northeast pass beckoned, and she went.AthanA month into training, and Athan was the hero of his group of trainees. Like some young hero, stepped out of myth, he consistently excelled in athletics, and rapidly became well feared for his accuracy and unsettling distance with the spear.At the two month mark, his training ended, and he went to be assigned. There was never any real question - he was assigned to the rich northern valleys because they liked him, and he was assigned to a pass because he was heroic.The northeast pass beckoned, and he went.GreppaGreppa's training near Tartwater was harsh and gruelling for the slender ellini. Still, he did well enough at it, and quickly got assigned as a scout - an odd choice for a spell caster, perhaps, but Greppa was naturally stealthy from years of sneaking peeks in Hurath's library, or just sneaking out.He was not needed anywhere in particularly, but he wanted to see the north a bit, and so his captain pulled a few strings and got Greppa sent to a pass north of Theralis.The northeast pass beckoned, and he went.EastpassMerideth hauled the pair of buckets out of the well, cursing her luck with each grunting pull. The captain of Eastpass, a shrewish woman named Agina, had apparently been told all about Merideth, and had found a lot of very creative uses for a spell caster, like this one. As an esper, Merideth could intuit the lay of the well bottom, and get the buckets to hit water instead of ice... so she got well duty. Every day.She'd been doing this instead of weapons drills with the others for a month, when she first saw him. Built like a young god, and stepping lightly across the snow-covered ground, was a heart-gripping young soldier. Captain Agina greeted him when he arrived, and Merideth's heart lurched.He was so beautiful, it hurt.Although no one noticed, Athan was accompanied by a slender, dark-skinned ellini who had joined him on the road. Greppa stuck close to Athan, mouth shut and eyes aimed downward.Greppa was fascinated by the graceful Athan as well, but even less inclined to admit it than Merideth.Over the next few months, the three became swift friends. Athan genuinely liked people, and Greppa and Merideth were very interesting people to him. Athan's association with Merideth also had an unexpected benefit - it considerably softened Captain Agina's opinion of the girl, and gave her a more normal soldier's lot.Marked by AllasMerideth and Greppa were sitting at the sidelines of an up-mountain sprint that Athan was winning, when Agina unexpectedly walked by. They startde to scramble to a stand, but she waved them down, "Relax. I was just curious - the three of you spend a lot of time together. Is it because of the birthmarks?"After that point, yes.Merideth, in particular, became obsessed with the mark, spending extra time each day praying to Allas for guidance. She became convinced that she (and the others) were meant to be great heroes. She cast herself in the role of a legendary warrior-healer who wandered the land curing terrible plagues and defeating monsters of all ilk.For the most part, Athan just ignored the mark and Merideth's fancies about it. He still planned to be a career soldier, and didn't put much stock in heroes.Greppa, while not as fanciful as Merideth, was also not as duty-driven as Athan. He saw adventuring from a different light... as the opportunity to discover ancient secrets of magic.Over much of the rest of the year, Merideth and Greppa (but particularly Merideth) continued to wear on Athan, trying to persuade him that the road to glory was the best road to take. He remained unconvinced.And then, as summer first reached the peaks of Eastpass, the first rumblings of a war to come came rolling down the mountains.END PROLOGUE</blockquote>

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