Dear Diary,This is the first time I write on you. My pen may now be too harsh on your skin, and I know my fingers are tense and my handwriting looks messy, but I want you to know something straight away: You're the only good thing left to me.
You see, apart from some water and a river fish I just caught, you're the actually the only thing left. The only one left. Because... it's all gone. Gone, gone, gone! Now they are all bloody d... I can't even write it.
You remind me of her. She gifted you to me years ago, for my
afmæli. She wanted me to write instead of reckless training with the bow. She wanted me to
hugsa instead of being manipulated by what others wanted to dictate for us. It wasn't just her of this opinion,
Pabbi would have agreed with her. Both of them actually were tired of weapons, and those stupid rules!
But look at me now! I'm writing senseless and this is so all so messed up! Maybe I'm just too tired. I've been walking and roaming for so long, I can barely understand what is happening. And I'm writing about them and of course you don't know who "them" is and... damn! My head is as messy as my handwriting.
Perhaps now is a good time to write about it. I found this quiet spot in the wood. Seems like I will be able to sleep a bit tonight.
Let me state it here once so I'll never forget where I come from.
My Origins:I was born in a forest, at the border between Golmore Jungle and Dalmasca. I was born during what the other nations called the sixth umbral era, year 1521. Back then there was no Garlean Empire. Not that I could remember, since the voices about their conquest begun soon after I was born and they conquered Dalmasca when I was around 15, or still too young to remember. Always too young, too "inexperienced", especially considering the lifespan of my people.The Garlean Empire never truly arrived to actively change the Wood, as we always fiercely defended our roots and villages. However, they were all around us, a constant threat to be aware of.
As a male Viera, I was supposed to train hard and the expectation on me were already culturally high. However the threat of the empire, had my people tending towards their traditions even more, and I guess because of that... my life wasn't exactly what I wanted.
The "Green Word", from what my mom used to say, has always been rigid. Hard to understand, particularly for a child. She also used to say that the voice of the wood will make up for it, in the future, when I will be ready. But that moment has yet to arrive. It didn't arrive when I needed the most. It happened during the year 1545. I was meant to be taken by our current wood-warders to be actively trained to become just like him.
I smiled to him and to my mom at the door and I said that I was glad to go and walk through this path. "Just like Pabbi" I affirmed. And I lied.
"Honor the traditions, the Wood, and you shall live an happy and worthy life" they said.
My mom looked at me, and... she knew.
I guess she too always wanted something different from me. I mean, it was her suggesting to keep on reading and studying. Now that I think about it, my family never really had lots of connection with the village. Pabbi died, when I was just 7, he too was a wood-warder. It was one of the first attack from the Garlean Empire. The first of many...
That night, my first outside the village with my mentor, I was supposed to hear for the first time the Word of the Wood and prey animals as a training. I miserably failed. I can still see my mentor disappointed facial expression. I've been forbidden reading and writing from that day one and imposed to a rigid bow and sword training. With time I become decent with the latter and good with the former, but I never heard the Word of the Wood.
16 years passed, and, due to me inability, I still hadn't been able to become a wood-wander myself. As a result of my rare condition, I began to visit again home and the village.
My mentor, but most of all the elders were confused and outraged. At the beginning they couldn't explain how, a
Viera of my age still couldn't hear the Word. Some women from the village tried to read my
mist and somehow apply some spell to enhance my connection with the Wood.
All the magic they tried failed and as my hope to fit with my people began to fall, they also started to see me as something "different" from a normal Viera. Later on, during 1561, my mentor announced that I was unfit to become a wood-wander. It was a first time case in our village and maybe in the whole Golmore Jungle. That's when they began suspecting if I was... cursed. My race tends to be a solitary one by nature, but the treatment reserved to me and my mother had no equals. I reckon that fear, the anxious presence of the Garlean Empire, played a big role in exaggerating emotions and reactions.
"She must have done something to him" I heard them saying in front of me. They started blaming my mom and the way she educated me. They began saying that maybe it was in our blood, to be inferior. On the other hand, my dad died "easily" compared to other wood-wanders and my mom has been rarely seen armed. The elders decided that, in order to cover the empty space left, as an exception, my mom would replace me as a wood-wander and leave our home town forever.
It was the 28th Sun of Sixth Umbral Moon 1561. At the gate between the village and the wood, she turned around and looked at me once more. I run towards her and hugged her.
<<I'm sorry mom! This is all my fault.>> I screamed before the watchful eyes of our people.
"Hey Adven, child. Calm down now and look at me!." she gently whispered in my ear. I slowly raised my head and met her eyes.
<<The Wood told me about you Adven. They are all wrong. You are not broken my child, remember my words!>> she was gently holding both my shoulders, I can still feel her soft but resolute touch.
<<Promise me Adven. Promise me that you will take any opportunity this life gives you to be truly happy. Promise me that you will always follow your dreams because that's where you soul strives. That's where our heart lies.>> and soon after saying this word, she turned to the wood and began walking towards it. I stayed there, staring still while her silhouette gently faded away mixed with the Wood's shadows. That was the last time I saw her.
I couldn't visit the village anymore without being verbally attacked. In their eyes, I was the only Viera man in the whole village, inconceivable for our culture. For this reason I began isolating more than usual and preying some animals near my tree-home instead of relaying on work or the market. That life didn't last long though.
During the first astral moon of 1562, the Garlean Empire successfully had been able to conquest the borders between the jungle and Dalmasca, and therefore, they invaded us with their 2nd legion. They arrived when the sun left the sky and the night took its place. The people inside the village received a notice of invasion a few hours before the legion arrived. The letter that announced it had been written by none other than my mother.
One of the elder ordered to immediately evacuate the village and head more towards the east since Dalmasca and Doma were full of Garleans. Unfortunately the Empire had been wise to surround our territory from both side, and a few days after taking the path to the east, we found ourselves being trapped. Elders, few women Warriors and Wood-wanders left, and just the river there, as a banner between us and the army. Our main but weak forces sacrificed themselves to make us flee and hide in the Wood. The Elders casted then concealing spells and began to actively use the Wood forces to manipulate the road. After three long days however, the magicks and the mist potions supply ended and the elders run out of the magic. The night the spell were over, the Empire found us right when we almost reached our eastern brothers.
In front of my very eyes they first slained the elders, the sick. Then they captured the young remaining women and the children. When they looked at me, they were surprised. As if they weren't expecting a male Viera with the villagers. Due to the unusualness and their low rank, the soldiers that captured us decided not to kill me, and two of them had been ordered to take me to their superiors to decide my fate.
At this point I barely remember what I was feeling or
if I was feeling at all. My mom, my people, my home. I was letting go of my life, all hope, all my dreams. It was alright to die, and I had live and would live a meaningless life anyway. I was okay with all being over and then...
<<Hear. Feel. Think>> I heard clear and loud. It was the voice of a woman, but there were none among us. I started wondering: is this the Word of the Wood? Is it finally reaching up to me after all these years?
But the call didn't feel like coming from the nature, or the tree. Instead I had a different feeling. I felt another need.
<<Hear. Feel. Think.>> said the voice the second, and it became even brighter. I suddenly felt the urge to look up, and there I stopped walking and I saw: comets. One of the soldier intimidated me to keep moving and wondered what was I looking at. In that moment, I also heard another voice coming up from my memories: My mom's. "Promise me that you will take any opportunity this life gives you to be truly happy". I perceived a strange amount of power, a new magic different from the mist. All of the sudden I felt my body becoming soft and my mind blurring. I lost consciousness. I woke up certain to be, by then, a prisoner of the Garlean Empire, or dead. I instead found myself in a vast deserted land full of rocks and mountains that I never saw before.
I roamed my way till a little town mainly populated by Hyur and got the chance to steal some food and water without getting caught. To my surprise... (continues)
