Alyria L'Arvado

What a cruel trick of fate that we're left with few memories of our earliest years. They were my happiest, I'm sure, even if I can remember so little. My mother was a beautful woman, I remember her smile and her warmth and the scent of lavender, lemon and vanilla. My father was a large man, or maybe he just seemed larger than life to his 3 year old daughter with his booming laugh, bushy eyebrows that joined to become one big caterpillar over his eyes when he was angry and his big belly he was so proud of, "Good food, good wine and entertaining good friends...that's how a man gets a belly like this." I'll never forget my happy home: my sisters laughing, servants scurrying, puppies barking, good smells coming from the kitchen and loving people always surrounding me as a toddler.

And then it was all gone.

I don't remember a lot after that, my next oldest sister, Danae, and I seemed to always be packing up and 'visiting' another relative. Some of them were nice and let me play with their children and wear nice dresses and eat good things. I remember being happy during those times. Other relatives were not as generous. I was dressed in black, worked hard and ate little. Eventually I'd come home with a bruise or a handprint on my cheek and Danae would pack our things, wake me up in the middle of the night and we'd be on our way to the next closest relative for as long as we were welcome. But times were hard for our family, even the extended members and we were too expensive to treat as daughters but too close a relation to be treated as servents in good conscience I guess, so we moved often.

Each relative seemed to be a little worse off than the last. I have so few early memories, I'm not sure what caused the downfall of my family. It seemed every house we were passed off to the conditions grew a little worse, our clothes a little shabbier, the food a bit more scarce and our relatives attitudes a bit less tolerant. Being told you're a charity case is humiliating, coming to the realization yourself, deep inside...well...it's worse.

As we grew older my sister, Danae, left to follow a man who came to town speaking of gifts, deities, wars and our past...all in hushed voices after I was shooed from the room. Before my sister left she handed me a locket, engraved with our family's coat of arms, wrapped in tattered satin, the remains of a once proudly colorful flag...and the words:

'Speak little, listen always...listen...and you will hear Her...obey and you will never fail'

And she was gone. I studied hard, what else was there for me to do? If i wasn't studying there were cows to milk and butter to churn. At least with my nose buried in a book my Auntie was much less likely to find chores. The apple tree by the creek, an almost magical place, I could loose myself for hours listening to the churning water and sparkling current. Laying back against the rough, warm bark..feet dangling in the sunshine...the water's burbling smoothing out to a sultry feminine whisper...

'You've done well to study...your mind grows but your heart is childlike, beautiful in it's simplicity but useless to me...you will be tested...be ready'

And I never heard it again, though I never forgot it. Her voice still rings through my mind, always with me. In a way I'm comforted knowing someone is watching me, in another way it frightens me. After that day I found I could see what ailed a person without being spoken to and I could fix them with no need for bandages or salves. I'm left to assume the woman who whispered to me found me more useful this way. I try to use her gifts to the best of my ability and to the pleasure of the One who blessed me.

I wish you health and every happiness.

Alyria L'Arvado