Rephrased from a story half-mumbled, half-yelled to all within earshot in a seedy tavern somewhere north of Caemlyn:
I am Andres (no middle or last name), because I have no father. I once had a mother, but she died when I was ten from working too hard. She had a weak heart, but to raise me she worked as a washerwoman by day and in a tavern at night for a few pennies a day. She would never have lasted long on pease and oats while working such long hours. I have no brothers nor sisters, either.
What I do have is a head of shocking red hair. I have never seen another with hair like mine, and in a village of less than forty people, my hair colour isn't a curiosity. It's a curse.
I was raised in a hovel near a small village outside Baerlon, where they called me the little red-haired bastard, and said I was the son of an Aiel. Considering the things that were said of Aiel in these parts, it wasn't surprising he was shunned like the plague. The Aiel drink blood, they said, and if you let the little bastard boy near you, he might slit your throat and drink it up. Is it any surprise I left when my mother died? There wasn't anything worth staying for, anyway, and I hope never to return.
Afterwards I wandered around Andor, hopeless, aimless and penniless, looking for something to do with my life. When I reached Caemlyn, however, I was pleasantly surprised at the sheer size of the city, and the fact that no one ever judged me for a single moment for how I looked or the colour of my hair, only by the coin in my pocket. At that moment, it struck me. That from that moment on, what I must do is provide myself with the means to create a fortune..
(story abruptly ends here as Andres spectacularly vomits over his tunic and falls off his chair to land comically in a growing pool of unmentionables)
Andres
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