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| Merith | 
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Merith is a Fifteen year old female, she belongs to a dying race called the Silves, who are akin to the elves talked about in popular mythology.
"Choices when you are seven are difficult to make
but I have had to grow up pretty damn fast and learn everything
again. It was a difficult choice and I didn’t understand what
the choices actually meant. It was either starvation for several
years, with parents who disregarded everything I said and beat
me for the privilege. In all probability I would have ended up
as a stupid plaything in the guard barracks of home. Or to
choose a profession that would make my life more complex than I
ever thought!
Oh
beautiful Varson, what a lovely stink hole that was. Mud built
houses, thatched with the straw from the fields. When it rained
heavily, as it often did, some of the mud was washed away
revealing the slats that held the walls rigid. The village had
plenty of dirt and even more wood from the forests that surround
it. It was a farming village on the edge of a vast wood, which
had a fearsome reputation for people getting lost, or at least
not coming back. The only reason for the place’s existence was
as a boundary where civilization ends and trees began. Oh, yes
and I suppose it was also on a minor crossroad between several
towns. This never seemed to be better excuse. The village
probably hadn’t changed for a thousand years and it would stay
the same for a thousand more unless something forced it to
change. It was built in a circle around a stream and the roads,
with only ten buildings that I remember, small, but it was large
enough to have a watermill to grind the flour Everything started very simply when a girl approached
my family with an offer I wasn’t allowed to refuse. The girl
said I would be trained as a priest but I’d have to go that
day. My Mum cried when she heard, my Dad was keen for it to
happen. It was then I found out I was adopted. They never told
me I was adopted and I was never allowed to notice that I was
different to the rest of the people. I never did get to play
with other children, there were always jobs to do for Mum. Every
day I had to fetch water and wood from the forest, there were
the animals to feed and eggs to collect. I remember always
trying to find jobs to do to avoid being around Dad, my adopted
dad. He was always drunk and abusive to anyone who came near, he
seemed to hold a particular grudge against me and if I had
caused him to be angry with me he would spank me over his knee.
Sometimes I felt that he did it even when I hadn’t done
anything, he just wanted to hurt someone. Late at might I would
be woken up by the shouting and screaming of him going at mum. I
would wake to find her bruised and crying. She always denied
that anything was wrong and would send me into the forest to
fetch more firewood. He drank the money they paid to take me away, no
questions asked. I don’t believe that they even knew where the
church was that I was being taken away to, or cared. The money,
it didn’t last long, money from Ichmarr never does. We always get it back. In my new life there were two meals a day and only a
beating from a particularly sadistic priestess when I made a
mistake. The days where long and hard and I had a lot to learn,
not only about the priesthood and who my new found goddess was
but also about the peculiar way in which her priests worshipped
her. I had known about the church and Christ, but my mother had
told me about the other gods, the ones we weren’t allowed to
talk about. It didn’t become obvious in the first few years
what I was becoming. I did what I was told, you do as child, you
never argue even if it seems odd it isn’t allowed. All of the
finger-hand exercises, dancing, stretching, endless chores
needing to be done. They demanded an endless repetition of a
useless task until they found an even more boring one. They said
I had a talent for it and I was moved from one town to the next
each town larger than the last. I always had to find my feet
with new people, new dangers and new prejudices. The endless
bullying from the older girls and the fights, I was always being
blamed because I was different. I did have a talent for it what
ever it was. Being nimble with long light bones, reflexes like a
cat I could do most of the odd tasks they demanded of me. I
found that I could work out why I couldn’t do it immediately.
Doing things with my hands and my body seemed to be second
nature I just did it. It was learning the little squiggles on
parchment that took a long time. What those runes, signs,
letters, meant was a difficulty. I spent years of impatient
study of stuff that I didn’t have a clue about and when I
started to get it, I began to realise what it was all aiming
for. I started asking questions about what I was ordered to do
and gradually it began to unfold for me. When I had to be told
what the training was for I already knew what it was all about.
I knew I was different from the others. I didn’t
know how different I was until I met another like me. The forest
was always a favoured place of mine. It was a place of beauty
and mystery for me as I grew up, a place to escape to. It always
felt like home as I wandered through it as a child and it held
no fear for me. I was nine when I met my first Silvesi, she
looked like me yet unlike me. We were drawn to each other.
Possibly due to common heritage but more likely out of the need
to be with someone else who was different. Kelestra was older
than me by four years and yet she seemed to be the same age. She
had been brought up by her parents until a raid by outlaws left
her bereft and alone in the world. She knew her heritage and
what it meant to be Silves. The gifts bestowed and the common
curse, which didn’t really seem to be that bad. I had always
wondered why I could see clearly in the dark unlike others
around me. We have a special membrane like cats at the back of
our eyes, which reflect light. It allows us to see it twice. We
can also see another colour, which shouldn’t be there. The
colour is like dark red but in light you can’t see it. It is
sometimes scary that hot things can be seen through your
eyelids! I remember a nightmare when I was a child I woke up
with something shining in my eyes, when they were closed. I woke
to find my ‘dad’ leaning over me with a wicked grin on his
face, stinking of beer. When he saw my eyes open he kissed me on
my cheek and said “Goodnight” It was my only happy memory of
him. Kelestra also told me that we were cursed to walk the earth
for years after my friends had died. I said at the time that I
didn’t want to be, the walking dead. She laughed, a giggly
sort of laugh one that I will miss for a long time. She always
said I was silly and needed to think before I said anything. If
I didn’t die of violence I would live for a very long time,
much longer than human memory could recall. We were linked to
the trees. There is a certain tree which keeps our spirit one
which was born as we were, which grows with us and dies with us.
If it is healthy, we will stay healthy. If we sicken, it withers
with us. When it dies we also perish. To be honest I thought it
was a load of hooey. But, as the years have gone by, I have
heard much the same from others that I have to believe it. We
will never know which tree is ours but I hope mine is far away
from civilisation and the axe."
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