"Askin me again about the past?  so long ago?  and you think that I'll not jus' sit here to listen, but I also gotta tell the tale?"  Palooka sighs softly, shaking his head.  His son Lyricaen will not let this topic alone.  As the young Bard has grown, his interest in his diminuative father's boyhood has kept pace with the height notches on the post of his knotted pine sleighbed.

Lyricaen smiles and presses the point by saying "well Papa, you've always stomped around spouting "Family this, and The home's our anchor that, and Remember who 'dopted ya and pulled you from huntin sewer ratses and such.  I'm jus' interested in 'who' my father is, and what secrets ping back and forth around that overworked mind of yours."  Stepping back to see what effect that argument would have on the wizard, he muses about the fact that even though his father has spent his days in Elanthia playing the baffoon, and making tactless comments at just the wrong moment, Palooka the Mage is by no means a fool.

"My Son", begins the wizard, "You've worn down my patience to the point of prolly either havin you practice dodging earthly boils or jus givin' in an tellin ya'...."  A pensive frown slowly turns upward on his face as Palooka says "better get Mona a'cookin somethin cause I always get hungry after a tale."

The word "hungry" is the cue for Palooka's more than intelligent pet Chimpanzee, Mona, to waddle over to the kitchen and begin the makings of a fine sun-dried tomato and garlic sauce.  Soon the sounds of chopping and scraping form the prelude to an aroma that could only be florentine lasagna and an herb salad with a nice basalmic vinegarette.  Food is always the focal point of a halfling household.

There is a mischevious twinkle in the aging hobbit's eye as he needles "listen well, causin' there is but one telling, and I'm a spillin' m'thoughts to a bardly man so it'll prolly be sung o'er and o'er unto eternity."  Lyricaen leans back against the tiled table where his father spends his time pouring over tomes and scrolls and other such things deemed arcane.  "I didn come from no turnip farm, ya' know..  I've never been one to deal with the dirt or anythin that grows in, under, through or around it.  I've told ya before that I was a lil'un born in a village upon the Thistle Vale...  north and west and then again a bit more westly than northly from the city of Solhaven.  Oooh there in the southern places are wonders, not least of which is the big big big Ocean itself!  Starting to lose himself in his thoughts and recollections, Palooka begins to idly trace the scallop shell design tooled into his leather tunic.  "As a boy.. I was amazed more by the power of the sea, an the rain an the cold light of the stars than by anthin else my fishin village had to offer.  Well, ya see here that I like fish...  it's better wid a nice white wine sauce laced with fresh dill, to be sure, but to use m'time in fishin would take me from my books.  Those same books that sit on the'shelf o'er there..."  Palooka's sweeping gesture indicates his bookshelf and the rows of dusty papers and loosely bound tomes which Lyricaen thinks Palooka sees as his "better behaved" children.  "Now I kin hold my own on a ship, or a dock or in the scalin' huts of Solhaven better than most... I got the knack fer it, ya' see..."  A quick wink and the hobbit continues.

"There is nothin like it, m'boy...  The dry salty taste of the air...  grit gettin everywhere it shouldn't...  (the wizard pulls at his britches like one trying to purge some wayward sand from inside.)  Wrinkles warm pressed into ya face by the mid-day sun...  Is my Home, long since seen, yup yup... but not forgotten."  The Bard sits still, listening, a small grin crosses his face as he thinks to himself, "I surely got my way with adjectives from my Pops.."  Palooka leans forward till the driftwood chair he's in creaks and groans and his face takes on a more serious expression.  "That was until the very hand of Lordly Ronan, lord of Dreams twisted the thread of m'fate in another direction."  Lyricaen's ears perk up at this next bit of information.  He'd always know of the Hobbit wizard's fascination with the God of Dreams, but never had he spoken of the involvement of an Arkati.  The closest thing to mentioning the divine powers outright was the usual blessing he lent to anyone that would show kindness to him or his family.  The Mage studied his son's eyes as the story went on.  "There was a night, colder than should'a been right for a late summer eve.  When I was a'sittin on a dock listenin' to the fishers grumpin' about the Humans takin too many of the Crab thingies from the sea shelf bedses, when I saw somethin...  was light, yet not light, an it flowed smoothier than even the briney waves.  I'd thought I heard a voice like that unto a dream, an it told me to jus watch.  Little was I knowin.... being a lil hobbit an all, that I'd seen my first flow of mana.  The force that powers m'magics and when learned makes the makings of a fine wizard."  Palooka nods slowly to his son and says "an watch I did.. an foolishly gotted m'self up an followed that flow I did... right into the surf.  an it was cold! Soooo cold.. colder than anythin else I'd known.. like ice that makes other ice freeze into somethin harder and more icy than.. well... Ice!