| The Chronicles of Sorrow Marikalay's History |
| As ever, the Chronicles stand open for future generations, for all those who will follow in my footsteps if the need arises. This is the twentieth such Chronicle to be written, perhaps not the longest in writing, but certainly spanning the longest period of time. Who-ever you happen to be, know that I love you, and always have, for you will be the closest to a child of mine that will ever come forth to this world. I pray that my words will guide you, as the words of my predecessors have guided me. |
| I was always a dreamer, forever writing whatever tales of romance or adventure came to me while I worked. I worked as hard as anyone else in the village, but my mother never seemed to understand why I would rather sit and write or read for hours as opposed to doing something she considered more practical. We fought about it more and more as I grew to womanhood, though it seems to me now that I was so very young, a mere sixteen years old. No matter how much we fought, however, we were always a family, and I understood that all she wanted was for me to be happy and prosperous in my life. I was seventeen when she grew ill and could no longer work. I remember that I set aside my writing, and took all my papers to the shrine in the village. I prayed there for hours, for what seemed like days. I begged the god of our village to let my mother lived, I swore that if he would give her back her life, I would set aside my dreaming ways forever, I swore that I would be a better daughter. |
| It was, however, all for naught. Three weeks of tireless nursing later, my mother passed away, her gentle smile and quiet practicality gone forever from this world. I was seventeen years old, unmarried, and now without my mother to take care of me. One after another, the wives and mothers of other villagers admonished me that I must not be alone, that I must marry at the very least. |
| The day of my mother's funeral was filled with sunshine, as clear and fine as any day had ever been. Other than that I don't really remember any of it. All I knew was that my mother was gone for all time, that she would never again swear at the baker, or scold me for getting some piece of fabric stained with ink. I didn't make a single sound through the entire affair, though I wept as freely as any who have just lost the only person they loved. When it was over, there were no more attempts at conciliation, no admonitions that I needed to be cared for, no false subtleties of how much this or that woman would love to have a daughter in law that knew how to write. I was alone. I returned to my mother's house, now my house, alone, and remained there weeping silently until long after the sun had gone down. |
| My name is Marikalay Aedelos, and I am the twentieth person to hold the title Priestess of Sorrows. My life has been long, and sometimes lonely, but I have never regretted entering the service of the temple, or of those very few people that I have chosen to serve. I was born just over four thousand years ago, in a place that I no longer truly remember. It was no more than a few weeks walk from where I now wind my way through life, and has long since gone to dust. What I do remember is that I was born to a loving family in a small and somewhat poor community on the edge of what would someday become the unclaimed lands that lay between two great nations called Stonegate and Kenyon. My father passed away when I was quite young, enough yet that I have knowledge of him rather than remembrance. I was raised by my mother alone, and she did the best that she could to be both father and mother to me. Honestly, though I sometimes wished for a father, I would never know the difference. |
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