I\u2019ve spent a lot of time with Renali off and on over the past couple of weeks. She\u2019s been helping me learn some Mwangi, which has been a good excuse for us to talk at length.<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019ve always had an ear for languages. I know the best time to learn is supposed to be when you\u2019re young, but it\u2019s never been difficult for me. Back in Macridi, I picked up Sylvan nearly just from exposure to it. In school, I learned Dwarven because <\/span>The Five Kings<\/span> the dwarven city-states were next door, and dwarves were everywhere. I learned Aklo so I could speak with Marcus when he has his episodes. Elven has been a project for a while, but given where we\u2019re probably headed, I\u2019ve been pushing on that too.<\/span><\/p>\n Anyway, she and I were having lunch in the Wizard\u2019s Grace, just chatting about nothing, really, when she abruptly said, \u201cYou never talk about your family.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n I don\u2019t have a lot of tells. Two years of a carefully constructed identity bludgeoned most of those out of me. But now that I\u2019ve\u2026started living as myself, direct questions like this have a way of throwing me off. I know she saw it.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cMy family\u2026wasn\u2019t very good at being a family,\u201d I said, not really sure where to go with this. I was not exactly comfortable telling the others about it, and Renali wasn\u2019t even part of that circle. But\u2026she deserved <\/span>some <\/span><\/i>truth. \u201cThat includes me, too. My father was not a responsible man. My mother was not particularly nurturing. And I was distant from both of them. None of us treated each other the way we deserved.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cUm. Mom makes that harder to say.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n I honestly don\u2019t know if she loved me, or just loved having a daughter. I <\/span>thought <\/span><\/i>she loved me when I was young, but as I listened to people like Kyira and Tarsius talk about their families, I realized I just didn\u2019t have a good frame of reference for what that meant. I was too young to understand what I was seeing in those days, but looking back, healthier examples were all around me. I think she had a plan for the life she wanted, and having a daughter was part of it. The trouble was, I turned out to have plans of my own.<\/span><\/p>\n “I think I understand what you mean,” Renali said. “Some parents have a hard time realizing we aren’t supposed to become smaller versions of themselves.” She was quiet for a moment before adding, \u201cAnd some just shouldn’t have been parents.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n I won\u2019t deny it. That second one hit hard. I could feel Iskaryn flinch through the bond, even as far away as she was.<\/span><\/p>\n I knew a little bit about Renali. She was born into an insular clan\u2014those are her words, not mine\u2014and as she grew up, this wanderlust took hold, and she started feeling less at home when she was <\/span>at <\/span><\/i>home. Her parents recognized her potential, but saw where she was headed and kept trying to nudge her back down the path they had planned for her.<\/span><\/p>\n It didn\u2019t work.<\/span><\/p>\n She tried to play the part of the herbalist\u2014really tried\u2014but it only left her feeling empty inside. So <\/span>very<\/span><\/i> empty.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know if it would help to share this, but\u2026\u201d She paused, thinking for a moment, then said, \u201cOne day, our village herbalist, Yoneria, the one whose role I was being trained to assume, saw my ennui. She sat me down to talk, and the truth just\u2026poured out. I told her I didn\u2019t want the training. I didn\u2019t want the life of the village herbalist, no matter how important that role was.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cHow did she take it?\u201d I asked.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cShe was saddened. Disheartened. But not for the reasons I expected. She told me that I valued myself so little that I was willing to languish in unhappiness, just to avoid disappointing my family.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cNine Hells,\u201d I said. \u201cThat\u2026that had to hurt.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt did. But I knew it was true once she said it. And she knew I wouldn\u2019t take the initiative, so she acted for me. She devised a plan for me that was truly <\/span>for me<\/span><\/i>. I would go into the wild, and after two years, I was to return and make my decision: the village, or the life of an explorer.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI was terrified,\u201d she laughed. \u201cBoth of how my parents would react to such a brazen plan, and of being alone in the wider world. But they agreed, to my surprise. They were willing to let me go. I just hadn\u2019t stood up for myself enough for them to understand. I think they wanted <\/span>me<\/span><\/i> to be happy more than they wanted me to become the village herbalist. I just never gave them the chance to show it.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAs for the latter, it seems to be working out,\u201d she said, gesturing around the room.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYou handled it with more grace than I did. When I pushed back\u2026\u201d I said, the sentence dying in the air between us.<\/span><\/p>\n For a long moment, neither of us spoke. Then Renali smiled faintly.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAt least you pushed back.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Arodus 22, 4719 Breachill Afternoon I\u2019ve spent a lot of time with Renali off and on over the past couple of weeks. She\u2019s been helping me learn some Mwangi, which has been a good excuse for us to talk at length. I\u2019ve always had an ear for languages. I know the best time to learn […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_import_markdown_pro_load_document_selector":0,"_import_markdown_pro_submit_text_textarea":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[95],"tags":[88],"class_list":["post-5531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aoa-journal","tag-aemi"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5531"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5536,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5531\/revisions\/5536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}