The Story of Lyra Swiftfist, Part One

This story was created by Beth Stoneman, a player in the game I'm currently running, and the first of what I hope will be many guest writers on Cerebral Vomit.  'The Story of Lyra Swiftfist' is her character's backstory, and, in my humble opinion, is an excellent read.

When I was young, my life was fraught with nothing but hardship. The memories are so painful to recall, but I need to get them out there, so that they stop haunting me and swimming in my head.

Our family was treated poorly because my parents, who married out of love, were neither both human, nor both elf, and a union of such impurity was more than frowned upon in my home country of Darinus. My mother was an Elf, and formerly of high standing in Elven society. Named Ellyria Sageheart, she was one of the more wealthy Elves in Alcarinore, and the head of an Elven mercenary company, though she never did any mercenary work herself.

One day, a human man by the name of Davin Swiftfist, an adventurer who had been exploring woods near her home, came into town to stock up on supplies and get a few days' rest. He investigated her mercenary organization, looking to hire a scout to help navigate forests and support him in his travels. There, he met my mother. They always told me that the day they met, they felt a surge of magic that couldn't be learned by the most powerful magic users in all of EbonHurst. They fell in love the moment their eyes met, and my father decided not to hire a mercenary, instead taking an extended stay in town and subtly courting my mother under the radar. After a time, they decided to get married. He took her back to a human city, where people where moderately more accepting—though still wary of their union—and they married. After the wedding, they returned to the city where she had her home. When they returned together, word of their shameful union had reached the people, and she was stripped of her status and company, and forced to live in the slums reserved for mixed-race families.

Despite her ostracization, Mother told Father that living in the city that had treated them so poorly was important to her. She had deep emotional ties to the trees and animals that lived in Alcarinore, and couldn't bring herself to leave. He obliged, wishing only to make her happy, and they had me. I was born into destitution and bigotry, an unfit life for a small child, but my parents' love for each other and me made it more bearable. Sometimes there would be raids, but my father's combat prowess always kept us safe. For food, Father had to travel to the market under a cloak and keep his face hidden, because many stores would either increase their demands or sometimes deny service completely. The other families in this part of town were kind, and I played with the children there. We lived there for most of my childhood, until one night, tragedy struck.

During our slumber, we heard a great racket outside. An extremist cult, wishing to go against the council's laws, had grown to the point where they could wipe out the entire mixed-race slums, and they did. That night, the worst raid ever seen destroyed our way of life, and killed nearly every resident. One of the most ferocious members of the cult entered our house. Mother, having been trained with the sword, and father, being deft with his fists and feet, battled valiantly against this monster, while I watched from a secret room that Father built into our small house in case of raids like this one. They weakened him to near incapacitation before he felled both of them with his dual axes. My parents were mighty and skilled, but could not stand up to the attacker's ferocity, and I watched them both die right there in my own home. After weathering many smaller raids, I learned not to cry when my parents were injured, and only sat there, dumbfounded in my perfect hiding place. However, when their dark champion left, and the raid ended, I saw fit to cry, and did not stop crying for perhaps hours.

Pain still fills my entire being when I think of that day. I saw my parents, both bloodied and beaten on the floor. Mother's beautiful glowing elven swords that had once slain the greatest of foes still lay in her hands. Father's intricate, ornate, hand-sewn fistwraps that had always guided his attacks so seamlessly fell from his clenched fingers. All the weapons and furniture were soaked in blood, both from my parents and from their assailant. I had never seen what carnage was until that day, when it had been dropped without mercy upon my house. I cried ceaselessly and without abandon for days, eating little, and sleeping poorly.