A little boy that was given the name Ranchal was born just a year after the New Dawn had founded it's capitol Kathia. Eidais and Horesis would be an unlikely couple outside the city walls, a cimmerian warrior for a mother and a stygian mage for a father? Unheard of. Even more unlikely was it perhaps that the man that was once a aristocrat in the heartland of Stygia would lay his magic aside in favour of drawing a blade beside his wife on the battlefield. Ranchal Iss was the result of this union and from the moment that his Dathanars blade cut the infants hand for this father to write the boys name in the scroll his destiny was foretold.
By the time that his fourth birthday came around his crest was woven and his mother proudly dressed her son with her Dathanars colours on their doorstep, the blade that his father had forged hanging by his side as he was taken away by the Dorini they had both sworn their loyalty to. Ranchal missed his parents that night and he wasn't the only child to cry himself to sleep in the barracks that was his new home, taken from the comfort of the Balah estate he was to learn that in the New Dawn his parents achievements would mean nothing to him.
Training begun the next day, it was the first time he was allowed to pull the blade from it's sheath and he couldn't help but smile to himself as he read his own name etched down it's steel. He stood on a long row of children who were the same age as him, dressed the same as him with a cloth uniform under their black and white tabards. A girl stood infront of him, she had drawn her sword aswell and stood gripping it with both hands, pointing the edge towards him, a sort of scary determination in her eyes. Adults walked up and down the lines, inspecting their stances and correcting where there were faults and then "strike!" he wasn't ready and he got his first scar that day, a cut over the back of his hand but he knew it would only get worse if he cried about it and stomping his foot in the ground he continued the practice.
Day in and day out for the next ten years, the boy was fourteen when he tried to graduate to Shan're for the first time. He had made good friends with all the other children in his barrack by then and he was almost not sure that he wanted to complete his training and become an adult, a soldier for his Dathanar, still he did not want to be left behind by his eager friends. So he stood on a line again but this time in his Dorini's examination hall, and yet with the same girl infront of him that he had crossed blades with for the first time so many years ago. They had become best friends since then, after having bullied eachother around for a couple of weeks first as boys and girls do of course, but he felt closer to her now than anyone else that he had met during his training.
It was forbidden to speak of the examination test so of course he had no idea that he shouldn't have paired up with her for this when the Dorini told them to find a partner, and he felt his heart sink when he was told that only the winners of the duel would be allowed to graduate, the rest, if they survived, would have to wait for another year. He wanted to give up then and give her the Shan're rank while he waited but she wouldn't have it and crossed blades with him anyway, he knew that she felt the same as he did because he had never beaten her before that day, he promised that they would be together again in twelve months.
But alot of things changed when Ranchal Iss became Shan're, he learned that his mother had lost her life on the battlefield and when he visted his father he would not be told that the boy would walk in his footsteps or otherwise be faced with the same pain that his old man now felt in his heart. "Live only to serve your Dathanar" he said and with those words till ringing in his ears the young man left for his first mission with the group he had been assigned to. He took his first life, then another and he wasn't counting them anylonger as March came along and he was allowed for the first time to participate in the celebrations of Damak.
Still a cold december morning he was ripped from the mind numbing guard duty on the wall as he heard his name called out by a somewhat familiar voice, atleast the anger was very familiar. He was scolded for not having picked her up like he promised to and he was quick to make the excuse that he had been on his shift and couldn't make it. It was as if the year he had spent building a wall to try to suppress his feelings for her suddenly had never existed and when he took her into his arms that damm broke.
He married her just a month later, after the wounds on his back had fully healed since he was distracted during his guard duty. His father came to witness the contract being signed by the two of them even though he had said he wouldn't and he blessed their marriage and asked the siblings to watch over them that they would give the Dathanar many strong soldiers.
Subject: A Day in the life of...Balance 
Tue Apr 29, 2008 8:13 pm
