Chapter Text
I was born in a valley east of Baldur’s Gate, in a village too small for a proper name, and not noteworthy enough for a place on a map. Not even the Valley itself had one, despite being the only place most of us had ever known.
I still remember the awe I felt at seeing my whole world laid out at my feet like toys enfolded in a green-brown quilt. But my first trip up the hill was nearly my last—every sound and shadow in the brush terrified me, and I made my poor mother carry me the whole way, alongside her longbow and quiver. Never mind that I was nearly six years old, a second-generation half wood elf, and more than capable of hiking to the overlook on my own two feet.
I remember her hair in my face—red like mine, smelling of her favorite lemongrass soap, crisp and bright. And I remember the cadence of her hunting voice, low and soft as she showed me all the small wonders of the forest and the stories she could glean from it.
“See how these tracks meander a bit, then straighten out as they approach the thicket?” she’d say, a twinkle in her hazel eyes. “Looks like Mama Deer was scouting to make sure she wasn’t being followed by predators. Then—look! Here’s where she laid down with her fawn,”
And she’d let me touch the flattened grasses to see if they were still warm.
So it was, that day on the hill, until we reached the summit.
Then I saw the endless fields in which I played transfigured to the size of one of my grandmother’s handwoven tapestries. Down in the center of the village stood the ancient tree stump we children called the Throne of Silvanus, for the blooming shoots that flowered from it each spring. And along the eastern edge of the Valley flowed Mielikki’s Run, a tiny silver ribbon of a stream that fed the mighty Chionthar River to the north, its green banks just barely visible between the hills.
I wanted to hold every house, farm, and pasture in the palm of my hand and live there forever.
“Is that all you see?” she asked, frowning. “Is that all you want from life?”
“It’s home, Mama,” I said, confused.
“For now,” she replied, sadness in her voice. I threw my arms around her neck—that made her smile. At least for a moment. Then she knelt and told me something I’d never forget.
“You, Raela Fairfield, have the heart of a wanderer, the same way you have my hair, or your father’s eyes. You may not know it until you leave, but you’ll outgrow this village someday. And when you do, you’ll have to learn how to carry your home with you wherever you go.”
“But I don’t want to leave! Something might come eat me out there!” I pointed to the woods behind us.
She gave me a wink, then strung her longbow. “Not if we kill it first,”
Not long afterward, Mama gave me my first bow and began to teach me everything she knew. By trade she was a fletcher, specializing in making arrows and sometimes bows, but in her youth, she’d been a ranger, hunting monsters and game, selling meat and pelts and collecting bounties on the many beasts that threatened the fringes of civilization.
Papa’s occupation was less heroic. Odd jobs repairing barns, hauling bricks, herding sheep, helping bring in our neighbors’ crops, and countless such tasks. We had a small plot of land, suitable only for a modest garden and a handful of livestock, including a few chickens, rabbits, and a goat or two, none of which he ever spent much time tending.
I never did find out how he got my mother to leave behind her adventurous life for the drudgery of the Valley. He never stayed in one place long enough to hold a full conversation, and Mama would just flush bright red and change the subject whenever I asked.
He was kind enough, if distant, always looking over his shoulder for something more, something better. It’s hard to say what else I may have gotten from him, besides emerald eyes and a lithe build, as he was reserved to the point of near-secrecy, and largely absent from my life even before his disappearance.
From Mama, I inherited unruly, fox-red hair, countless freckles, pale skin that burned and flushed at the slightest cause, and keen senses, particularly my sight. With her patient guidance, I overcame my fear of the wilderness and learned the ways of its creatures, and how to avoid its hazards. Though Mama’s goal was to teach me to hunt, she gave me so much more, all blooming from our deep love and respect for nature. From her I learned to think like my quarry without becoming prey, to observe the whole of my surroundings before acting, and to move bravely through life, in spite of my fear and uncertainty.
*****
By my ninth year, I could track and capture small game with traps or my bow, skin and dress the animal, and make stew with it and the nearby wild plants and mushrooms. Though I could not carry it home, I had shot my first deer and made lean-to’s that shed the rain and could imitate at least a dozen bird calls at will.
Just before harvest time, though, an early cold snap ruined much of our neighbors’ crops, and left Papa without his most vital and lucrative work of the year. Even when spring planting came, no one could pay him anything but promises and goodwill. Neither of which can feed a growing ten-year-old girl. For the first time in my recollection, Mama had no spare arrows to sell on market day, nor even time to barter for our own needs of salt, grain, cloth, and other goods, leaving me to take on the trading while she hunted.
“I’ve had enough, Mariele!” Papa’s raised voice woke me one late-summer night.
“Darden, shhh,” Mama said quietly. “I promised I’d hear you out, but I don’t want her to hear this,”
In the loft above them, I felt my ears burn.
Papa let out a humorless laugh. “Why should I bother? You can’t protect her from the truth for much longer. You more than anyone in this backwater know what the world does to innocents,”
Something thumped the table, rattling the plates and cups from dinner. I flinched.
“Enough. Say your piece, or I’m going to bed. Alone.” I crawled to the edge of the loft, and saw Mama’s tensed shoulders and back, her clenched fist resting on the table before her, lit by only a single candle.
Papa paced the front room, a strange glint in his eyes I could only glimpse in the brief moments he passed through the candlelight.
“I’m tired of it,” he said. “Working other peoples’ land, tending their flocks, fixing their barns, only to be sent home with a crust of bread and barely a word of thanks.” He reached the door and whirled around to face Mama. “No one appreciates me here. Not even you,”
She tipped her head back, a long strand falling loose from her braid. “It’s been a hard year for everyone. Not just for us, Darden. Or have you forgotten?”
“How could I? You’re always keen to remind me,” he retorted. “But I’m done waiting for our fortunes to turn for the better. I’m headed for Baldur’s Gate tomorrow,”
Mama stiffened even more, but her voice remained even, if a bit colder than I’d ever heard before. “What will you do there, exactly?”
“I’ll find a job,” Papa said, as if it were obvious. “I’m bound to have better luck securing work there than here,”
“And then what? You’ll send for us, I assume,”
“Of course I will. What do you take me for?” He made a scornful sound in his throat.
Mama stayed quiet for a long time, but even with her back to me, I felt the unhappiness radiating from her like a dark shadow. “That’s it? You won’t even try to reconcile, for my sake, for Raela’s inheritance? If we had a wheat field or two, or a full flock of our own, I know we could make ends meet,”
“You can grovel for the land, if it means so much to you. But I won’t be beholden to anyone else. Not our neighbors. Not my father. Not you,”
“Not even your own daughter?”
Heart racing, I ducked further back into the loft, certain one of them would look up and catch me eavesdropping.
“Mariele.” Papa’s voice dropped low. “Raela is the only reason I stayed in this damned Valley in the first place. There’s no future for her here, and you know it,”
I heard a ragged gasp and Mama’s breathless, “Gods damn you, Darden Fairfield. For a moment I actually believed you were doing this for her. But you can’t help but give yourself away, can you?”
The candlelight flickered, casting my parents’ shadows onto the ceiling above my bed.
“Go on, then. You know I won’t stop you. But don’t you dare leave without saying goodbye to your daughter,”
I peered over the edge just in time to watch Papa stalk out the door, a blanket slung over his shoulder. The moment it shut behind him, Mama slumped forward onto the table and let out a heart-wrenching sob.
Part of me wanted desperately to throw myself down the ladder and onto her shoulder and cry with her. But the rest of me knew this was a moment I could not share with her, that if I revealed myself, she would wipe away her tears and hold me as if she had never been in pain. Nothing I could say would give her permission to let go.
So I wrapped myself in my blanket and pretended not to hear my mother cry long into the night.
*****
It was harder to pretend the next morning as Papa made feeble explanations over the breakfast table. Especially once Mama emerged from bed, red-eyed, not bothering to comb her hair or change her rumpled nightgown. She wouldn’t look either of us in the eye, both hands wrapped tightly around her cup.
Whenever I felt the urge to reveal what I had heard, I ate a large spoonful of porridge, and its thick, glue-like consistency stopped up the incriminating words.
“I understand why you have to go, Papa,” I said finally.
“You aren’t upset?” he asked, brows knitting together.
What good would it do me to scream and carry on? Nothing I could do would change his mind and make him stay.
I shook my head. All that was left to me was to stay strong for Mama, to hold onto her as he prepared to leave.
“You’re the bravest girl I know,” Papa said, as he hugged me for the last time. Then he gave Mama a peck on the cheek, and got in the wagon.
We watched him go, Mama’s hands gripping my shoulders until they trembled, until all we could see was a faint cloud of dust receding through the gap that led to the Risen Road. When he was truly gone, she finally let go, and held me close, silent tears streaming down her face.
*****
Months passed, but no letter from Papa ever came. Not one.
As the seasons changed, Mama’s face shifted from sad, to angry, to resolute. One day, not long after my eleventh birthday, in early spring, she found me in the barn where I was milking the goat.
“Raela, I’ve decided. We’re not going to wait for news from Papa anymore,”
“What?” I mumbled, intent on finishing up my chores.
“We’re going to go to Baldur’s Gate and find him ourselves,”
“What?!” My hand clenched, but I missed the bucket, splattering milk down my leg. “It’s so big, how are we supposed to find him there on our own?”
But once Mama had an idea, there was no changing her mind. Within the month, our house, land, and livestock were sold, and we were bundled in the back of a farmer’s cart with our few belongings, heading for the city.
“What a fine adventure this will be,” she said. “Don’t you agree?”
As we bumped along the Risen Road, I kept craning my neck over the side of the wagon to see if the city had appeared in the distance yet. For a girl in constant motion, used to playing with friends, working a small farm, foraging in the woods every day, the journey passed so slowly I thought we’d never arrive. Perhaps the city was a mythical place, like the far-off lands written about in my grandparents’ books.
But my first glimpse of Baldur’s Gate—when it did appear—stole my breath away with its sheer size and beauty. Nestled in the mouth of the Chionthar on a gentle sloping hill, the city seemed more a feature of the landscape than an actual place I could visit.
“Don’t let it intimidate you,” Mama whispered, as she enfolded me in her arms and planted a kiss on the top of my head. “It’ll be home for us before you know it, my wild hearted girl. Just wait and see,”