Most don't remember being very young, but I recall it in vivid detail. It was a sorry set of circumstances;
a mother who simply wasn't in the picture, and a petty, alcoholic father who passed his son into the hands
of an outlander for no reason other than to be relieved of the burden of raising a half-breed. Verily, the
world has always been a hostile and dangerous place. Perhaps my story isn't much different from any other
street urchin.. but as the wheel of time turned, I was delivered into the hands of something resembling a
father in the form of a leather-boiling "tradesman" who stepped from the mists, bearing a terrible secret.
His proper name was never known to me, but being young and naive, I simply regarded him as "Father." I had
imagined I would follow in his footsteps and eke out a meager living tanning and curing hides as he had done.
How wrong I was. In time, I came to learn that the man prayed to dark and mysterious forces, moonlighting
as a murderer who kept a secret collection of body parts, human and otherwise, whom he had managed to
confiscate from their owners in a horrid menagerie he kept stowed away in a bag fashioned of human skin and
magicked to contain an astonishing amount of contents.
I had never encountered something so evil, so purely maligned in my short life. I was impressionable then.
I thought, perhaps there was reason to his madness. Perhaps that was my first grave mistake in my time. I
quietly took up a tanner's knife for a short while, assisting him as best I could for fear that I would be
the next object of his collection.. or pieces of me, as it were. I was fortunate in that it never came to
that. I quietly did my work, and was instructed in the ways of his dark vraja, to my horror and dismay.
Years went by, and about the time I was twelve years of age, I took my opportunity to be free of him.
When I found the chance, I quietly crept up to his rented room in the night and slit the bastard's throat.
I located his wretched bag from among his possessions, and pinned a note upon it for the authorities to
discover at a later date, explaining his vile acts and disposition--though I was intelligent enough not
to disclose my identity. As chance would have it, people weren't much interested in who had committed
the act. It seemed that justice had been done there, albeit bloody.
They say the sins of the son are the sins of the father. I would like to think that I am above the butchery
and witchcraft he demonstrated with such skill and passion, but alas, it is all I know. I have gone to
lengths to turn my bloodied hands against those who deserve it, but these hands were never suited to swords
or penning doctrine. The only talent that ever manifested in me was cultivated in the form of bending the
firmament to my will through magick, evil or otherwise. If that is my only answer to survival in this harsh
and unforgiving world, I will not apologize for it.
A mind concerned with fact and structured around this cruel reality knows only blood.
There is no other option, but to survive.
