Devan

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Devan
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Apr 07, 2021 1:44 pm

Devan

Post by Devan »

It was an unusually cold night when Devan returned from his “scouting mission.” In Arafel, he was used blistering days and frigid nights, but this was far from normal. He returned home clutching his secret prize, a hunk of glimmering silver ore. Devan was short and scrawny for his age and on top of that, quite clumsy. Earlier in the day he tripped and fell into his mother’s carton of twinkling bells spilling the contents all over the ground in a cacophonous wave.

His mother Ahiko was an artisan bell-smith who meticulously worked on each of her tiny creations. Devan always made fun of the wrinkles she would develop on her face while working. Traditionally, she had a smooth exceedingly young-looking face… some had even remarked that as odd.

Spilling the bells onto the dusty floor was an egregious act on Devan’s part, as the dust had marred the surface of otherwise perfect bells. To make things worse, one spun to his baby sister Triss’s lap, to which she promptly picked the bell up and popped it into her mouth. Hopefully, that would pass…

Devan always wondered why his and his sister’s name was so different then the other kids. His mother and father had looked at each other and then smiled at him. “Strong southern names, so that you may live a better life then us.”

To restore his honor, he asked his mother for punishment. She, of course, only smiled warmly at him and pinched his cheek.

Devan’s dad, Balatar, was out on a hunting. His father had promised to practice with the sword when he returned home. Some of the boys whispered that he was some great Shienaran warrior, some even said he was some noble! Devan thought that was hilarious, though, he did find that heron-marked sword in the chest hidden in the cellar....

A day back, he had seen a glimmering in the horizon, this morning with his father gone, and his mother working hard on cleaning and buffing the bells he set off to investigate. To his surprise he found not only the chunk of silver ore, but a whole flaming vein!

Bundled up from cold, he ran up to their little house inside the city of Jakanda, but something seemed off… was that smoke in drifting from the village? Shadowspawn? No, no, no… he darted in the house. The scene inside the house was…. red… his mother and father lay motionless in the middle of the little one room house. The body of a trolloc, Devan had seen the like before, lay headless before his father. Two trollocs lay infront of his mother, totally encased in… ice? But the strangest scene was an alive trolloc… suspended in a sphere of water above his baby sister Triss while she… giggled…

Devan darted for the cellar and pulled out his father’s chest, quickly he noted and then discarded the word Togita on the chest. He pulled a sword from the chest, its blade made of a strange coppery metal that seemed.. folded upon itself endlessely. Above the hilt, adorned a heron of the purest gold Devan had ever seen. Grasping the blade awkwardly by its plain leather hilt he rushed upstairs and placed the blade right through the floating trollocs skull, and then dropped to his knees as his sister crawled over to him…

***

Five years later, Devan found himself with his younger sister Triss living on the streets of Aringill. Some bloody flaming traders had offered to take them in after hearing what happened to his parents. When they thought they were not listening though, he had overheard them talking about selling them to slavers. Bloody darkfriends! Or as bad as them at least. When they were sleeping, Devan visited them all with his father’s sword. At that point they had traveled far south and east, he grabbed his baby sister and fled into the city of Aringill.

They lived there on the streets for five years as beggars and thieves. Devan looked the part, years of malnourishment left the fifteen-year-old thin, gaunt, and frail. He wasn’t even a good beggar or thief; his sister had a way better knack for that. His true passion was the blade. He would sneak into the sewers at night and dance his way around, swinging the thing at loose piping and it would cut clean through!

One night, while dancing in the sewers, he came across a woman. Beautiful in silks, and her face… it was young and smooth like his mothers. She stuck out like a bean in a carton of bells. “Little boy,” her voice cooed. “Come here, show me what you swing.” Devan immediately tensed up, ready to run, but powerful arms picked him up from behind and carried him to the Lady. “Itsa sword, Velvadene Sedai.” Sedai? Aes Sedai? “Tell me, where did you get this sword, boy?” Velvadene asked sweetly. “It- ‘twas my father’s Aes Sedai.” “Your father? What was his name?” Devan look into her eyes, and they seemed… wrong. He faltered under that gaze, “B-balatar, my Lady.” She gasped at this, “Balatar the Blademaster, the war hero?” Devan did not know, but he nodded uncomfortably, still being held by the behemoth. Her eyes turned…. Hungry…. “Take him, Olav, he will make a perfect… subject.”

***

Blackness

Pain

Power and then…. Strength?


***
The man blinked eyes, red vision fading. Blood, blood all over him. Some of it… his, but most of it… not. He had been out here for a long time… or maybe not long at all? He found a lake, in the forest. He was in a forest. He was naked, all but for a copper sword with a gold heron mark. He jumped into the lake and washed away the blood. Yes, most of it not his. It was daytime, and he caught his reflection in the lake’s surface. He did not recognize the enormously tall, incredibly muscled man but he… he realized that he did not remember anything.

Men on horses came for him! He turned quickly bearing his sword at them. They fine warhorses and carried a flag… a black hawk on a blue and white striped field.

“My, what a big one you are, definitely Shienaran judging by that… sword!”

They all laughed.

“Kinsman, come with us,”

“You are alone, no longer.”
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