Savoirs

Lia

Jaclyn was terrified, that was obvious to everyone. She was staring into the fire and had her hands clutched to her chest. The mark on her wrist had given her away from the start and we all knew that she had to have had a power but now we all knew she was not only like us, she was also a danger to us all. All I wanted to do was just disappear and leave but then that would leave Tanner and Emily alone and afraid out here and I couldn't do that to them, not after Mary had died on our way to get the others and the young mother had been taken in by a kind elderly couple. Tanner had been devastated when Mary died and had grieved since then but I hadn't had the time yet to grieve for her yet. She hadn't really seemed dead because she had died in her sleep so we both knew she didn't feel anything and it was easy for us to just think that she was sleeping when we buried her but it still had been hard to leave the place we laid her to rest but here we were, sitting with strangers around a fire that Jason had created and a girl who was scared to death of herself. I sighed, rather loudly and Tanner coughed.

"Why don't you all get to know each other?" He asked "Your lives are obviously linked somehow." I rolled my eyes. Tanner had always claimed that his power was detecting when people were somehow connected to each other but all the same Jason agreed with him and so did the others, except Jaclyn, who kept quiet and continued her staring at the fire. Joseph looked at Adam and nodded at him.

"You first, hunter." He grunted and Adam nodded. He took a moment before he started talking and my curiosity peaked at the hesitation.

"I left my home. The village was a place for criminals to hide from the knights and bounty hunters after them. I left shortly after my father had been killed by one of the many murders there. At first I had wanted to find my mother since she left my father and I when I was only a baby. You see, she had missed her family and hated the village my father was from and when he refused to leave with her she left. When I couldn't find anything on where she went when she left or anything from her in fact I left. I had no other family that I was aware of so I doubted I'd be missed so I packed a weapon or two, some clothes and left. After that I never went back even when I learned that the king had fixed the numerous problems there because it wasn't my home anymore. By then I had made the wilderness my home and it fit me well. I had alwasy been somewhat of a wild child and my father had many times come out to find me climbing as high as I could in any tree I could find. I taught myself how to hunt without alerting the animal of my presence by watching them and copying how the hunters hunted, how to make things, like a bow and arrows or an ax and by the time the king had taken action against the criminals in the village, I was happy and well off were I was at, so I just continued with my life like nothing had ever happened and I had been living out here all my life." He said, gesturing around him to indicate that he was taking about the small cottage he had built himself and I found that I was jealous of his life. Yes, it had been hard for him the first year or so he had been out here but he hadn't lived in the streets all his life and he had been well fed and never really worried about the guards catching him stealing out here for out here everything was fair game. Someone cleared their throat and I blinked as I was pulled from my thoughts. I was informed that it was my turn to share and I shrugged.

"I lived on the streets all my life. My mother died when I was a child and my father I never knew. When I asked about him my mother would say he was the reason that we lived the life of a street rat and that he was a horrid man and I believed her because we had never been safe from the weather, the guards, or anything really. Not really much else to tell besides that I kept others fed and only took a little for myself. A mouthful here and there was all I ever really took for myself. Tanner here did the same." I explained and the others nodded. Joseph grunted after I was done talking, knowing he had to share now.

"I'm a blacksmith, always have been always will be. My father taught me how to fight but other than that I have few fond thoughts of my father. My wife and kids were murdered one night while I was out on a patrol because there had been a few other murders over the last few nights and then men in the village decided we'd keep a patrol going for a few days. I had lived just outside the patrol of course bu I had thought they were safe. When I had got home it was up in flames and I could hear them screaming from inside the building. I tried to get inside but I couldn't and, well, the house collapsed before the fire killed them. When I watched it happen and knew they were dead, whatever sanity I had left me. Gradually I have gotten some of that sanity back but now I'm always watching for the man who did it so if I ever find him, I can kill him like he killed my family." He says darkly and everyone looked to Jason who shrugged and looked at the fire. Again a hesitation and he starts to talk but doesn't look up at us, obviously remembering something.