_HipoInfinity_

Asulon, Seventis, Spring of 35--

Breaking the mold, I hit the ground running. Anywhere I went, it was open arms to whomever seemed most pleased, my grandmother especially wary and careful to hold me on a short leash. I might have been but 10 at the time... But I was given the treatment of a sage. Any book that I cared to read, I read, I often I did. A quarter's earnings meant for the family, a new pair of shoes for me every single time. From what little my uncles and aunts learned from what trickled down aristocrats, they laid upon me. "Look the part. Fill your shoes like a proper gentleman." Silly words, I thought at the time. Then, at one point or another, it hit me that I'd have to fill in my shoes quickly. No one expected it, and medicine wasn't something that you could just up and call for from where I stood. I think I did pretty well for 12. I knew my collection of cartographer's catalogs and novels would soon have to become apothecary's studies and pressed herbs.

It took my Nana first. Then my sister, Marla. I had to stop visiting my uncle Finnigan as he was pulled from his apartments. I never thought the bodies would ever stop piling. It got a bit harder after it took my father. He worked the fields, got a cut from Glaston at the mill and did the butchershop weekends just for the bedroom and bath. We had to dig into savings, my mother working linens for our noble's quarter and me, sweeping the streets as stool picker for the leatherers midtown. Found out that lavender really helps with the smell. After a little over 2 years, people stopped dropping and the water got cleaner. 

I think at this point, probably 4 months before Hanseti's concession, is when I picked up the habit of shaving and the hobby of... conversation. Seventis had a hold of the plague, but war pulled a majority of guard from this battered little town. I don't think we had better times. It wasn't close enough to be the stories I read, but it was home and it was whole again.  I knew I had to see the world. Take what I've come to be and show what a good word can do. And now... even as my mother insists upon getting me new shoes every quarter, every day seems less like a burden, or more... more like a reminder. "Keep your eyes forward and your heart open. "