Talenel: Difference between revisions
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OTTERKNIGHT (talk | contribs) (Created page with "Talenel was the blacksmith’s son. He was a boy forged on an anvil. He was a boy with constant strength from the time he was young. His strength was the dense and quiet kind that allowed him to work the iron with ease. But his heart was formed from the tales of the minstrels. As he struck his hammer against the anvil, his heart struck his sword against the distant roads filled with monsters. He wanted to lead a life filled with heroic adventures. He wanted to prove his...") |
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Talenel was the blacksmith’s son. He was a boy forged on an anvil. He was a boy with constant strength from the time he was young. His strength was the dense and quiet kind that allowed him to work the iron with ease. But his heart was formed from the tales of the minstrels. As he struck his hammer against the anvil, his heart struck his sword against the distant roads filled with monsters. He wanted to lead a life filled with heroic adventures. He wanted to prove his strength was not only meant to shoe horses. |
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Talenel’s chance came with a clarity of purpose. The orcs stormed into the village with the smell of damp earth and fury. As the villagers ran with fear in their hearts, Talenel took his chance. He picked the biggest hammer he could find in the blacksmith’s workshop. It was a blunt instrument used to shape the spokes of wagon wheels. He ran toward the danger with his heart singing the song of destined glory. |
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But his song was never sung. As he got closer to the orcs, he realized that one of the monsters was a monument of primal fear. Its roar was a physical presence. Its smell was a fog of death. The tales he heard never prepared him for the mind-numbing fear that gripped his limbs. He was a statue forged of shame as the beast glowered down at him. |
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It was his father, in fact, who had saved him, running forward to distract the beast with a bucket of fiery coals. The orc had been repelled, but not before it had struck the old blacksmith, breaking his arm and side. Talenel had not been a hero; he had been a liability. The crushing blow of his father’s injury, the unspoken disappointment of the villagers, had been a burden far heavier than any iron. On that same night, he had taken the same hammer that he had been unable to wield and had gone out into the world, a self-imposed exile because of a courage that he had lacked. |
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He had been "Taln" for several years, a gentleman taking odd jobs, his strength hidden, his soul armored in guilt. Adventure had been a ghostly specter that had haunted him. All of that changed on a forest road when goblins attacked his traveling companions. A young cartographer had been paralyzed in fear, his eyes wide open in the same terror that had once held Talenel in its grip. But in that moment of realization, a different instinct was born, an instinct that was far deeper than fear, far simpler than dreams. |
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"Not again. I will be the shield." The sledgehammer had been an extension of his newfound will. It had not been elegant; it had not been beautiful. But it had been devastatingly effective. As the cartographer stuttered out his thanks, Talenel had come to the realization that being a hero had little to do with feeling brave, but everything to do with being brave in spite of the fear. His strength, once a tool for a dream, had found a new purpose as a tool for protection. The wanderer’s road had become a guardian’s road. |
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