“Jerin, it’s been eight years now since we found you, you know?” Maiylin asked, smiling at me. The starlight shining in her eyes, reflecting memories of happiness and comfort. The waves of her soft, shiny hair blowing in the cool night breeze were illuminated by the glow from the stars, sharpening the blue tint of her hair that lay out over her shoulders and down her slender back. I have been staying at the Stellein manor for eight years. I had lost all of my memories, Maiylin and her father found me all alone in the forest. They said I had been just lying there, like I was sleeping. Mr. Stellein, Maiylin’s father, said he thought I might have been dead. Although, Maiylin said she thought I was just some sort of mushroom boy peacefully sleeping in the forest.

“Maiylin, it felt like the time just breezed away,” I told her while I looked at her face, seeing her eyes search my face.

Her eyes glanced down. “But you haven’t seemed to recover any of your-”

“That doesn’t matter to me, the new memories I make here are more than enough.”

“But that won’t help with your condition,” those big black eyes started to glisten, causing this wrenching feeling inside my chest. There was an old family saying Maiylin’s father liked to say, ‘if we run from the past, we’re bound into repeating a disastrous future.’ Maiylin can be a little superstitious, so she sees that saying as a warning that I must regain my memory or I might just disappear or cause a flood; I always have to stop myself from laughing when she starts talking about that because I can’t control my memories Maiylin gets very angry with me when I laugh or tease her about her little superstitions.

“I have so much to live for right here, so much that I want with me forever. No one can predict the future, and who knows, maybe something from my past will come up and change everything.”

“Well, I hope something does come up and change everything for the better because – I – I –” she had a look in her face I couldn’t quite recognize because I hadn’t seen her like this before.

“Maiylin! Come inside now and let Master Jerin rest, he’s been working all day and needs some good hot food in him now,” Fessy’s voice came from the kitchen doorway a bit up the hill.

The Stellein estate was a good five acres of land. With an expansive house with rooms for the whole family to stay there after having worked on the land, if much of the family did choose to stay on their ancestral land.

“You did have a long day weeding the Kaleb potato patch, didn’t you Jerin?”

“Well, it wasn’t bad for me. I appreciate having some way that I can pay back all of your family’s kindness, Maiylin,” I said.

“Then shall we go up for some dinner,” she said, standing up and turning before I could answer her.

Reaching the stout kitchen, door of a deep brown Jekyl wood from the nearby forest, the deep spicy aroma of some Kes’shnu stew reached my nose. Just the smell of the juicy chunks of Kes’shnu meat with some special mix of Fessy’s herbs made my mouth water. She always kept them a secret because ‘it’s a family habit.’ The smell was driving my stomach to new heights of hunger. Fessy was standing near the door waiting for us in her bright white apron, same long root-like nose, skin as brown as the nuts she ground up for her pastries, a grandmotherly curve to her back from caring for so many generations of Stelleins, and as many wrinkles to match those years, which was a sign of beauty with her people, the Kairu.

“Master Jerin, Lady Maiylin, please take a seat and I’ll serve some right up for you two, everybody else has already eaten I’m afraid,” Fessy told us as I finished closing the door behind me. The kitchen was very spacious and made to accommodate up to four cooks, but the Maiylin’s family used to be much bigger back then.

“Thank you Fessy, we’ll just eat right in here, if you don’t mind the company.”

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“Oh, I’m sorry Lady Maiylin, I had been waiting for you, but I was afraid you and master Jerin had went and gotten some supper from town,” she frowned at having had to miss eating with us.

“Don’t worry so much Fessy, you’ll wrinkle up that way,” I told Fessy.

“Oh master Jerin, you shouldn’t flirt with an old lady so much,” she laughed, “there’s two bowls on the table here that I had set just in case you two were hungry, and I have some bread keeping warm in the box for you,” I’ll be back fresh and early as usual,”

“Good night Fessy,” Maiylin said.

“Take care Fessy,” I said. She just waved on her way out with her same immutable smile.

The rest of the meal we sent in silence, and it wasn’t just because we were spooning up Fessy’s stew so quickly. I could tell Maiylin was uncomfortable after we had talked at the base of the hill, but I had no idea what it was. And she quickly excused herself up to her room after she had finished eating, with just a spin of her dress to ask and say thank you for cleaning up the dishes. Which reminded me of a talk I had with her father this morning while clearing a patch of ground for some new Sylk Berry trees he had bought in town the previous day.

‘Hey Jerin, I heard some disturbing rumors in town yesterday. There was talk of some Holfgegs having been seen in the area. Now son, I know how you’ve kind of lost everything, but these things, you’ll know them when you see them, big hairy brutes, with long dagger-like teeth that they say can even puncture a sturdy breastplate of Arven forging. And they work in a pack too, so if you see anything unusual, just run straight back to the house and grab something to defend it with. They’re brutal savages that don’t show any mercy. And they often have Skaves with them, smaller creatures that use stealth and their wits to guide the packs and earn tribute with that control.” Sometimes Mr. Stellein liked to hang out at the taverns too late at night, because the pouch of gold he always had at his side was looking a little thin, and he would like to tell stories about how things seemed to happen to cause his gold supply to thin. And I don’t know if I had made a strange look on my face or what happened because he turned away, nervously I thought, and went to go inspect the other side of the row we were working on, carefully looking at something on the ground.

Then some heavy footsteps fallowed by a loud knock on the door brought me out of my thoughts. That’s strange, I thought Fessy had said everyone had gone upstairs to sleep already? Then a hand began to almost paw at the door, and a hand caught the latch. And as the door creaked on its hinges, I noticed a familiar silhouette begin to enter through the doorway. “Oh Jerin, my boy, a fine night to you,” Mr. Tem Sellein, Maiylin’s father, said, with a strong wind of Kairuvian whiskey exiting his mouth.

“And a fine night to you Mr. Sellein. I was just going up to the barn for the night.”

“How many times do I have to offer you one of the empty rooms until you accept one?”

“I guess as many times until I stop saying no, sir.”

“Jerid, you keep warm and safe up there.” He had some extra warmth to his voice tonight, something warmer than the liquid rounding his belly.

“I will sir,” and went out the door to my little room I had set up in the back of the barn loft. Before I closed the door, I thought I heard him say something about how I had grown into a dutiful man and then mumble something about Maiylin. He should take it easy on the whiskey.

The old guy had always taken to me as a father to his real son since he and Maiylin had found me by what they called a Stream. They even put a heavy emphasis on it being so profound, but I couldn’t figure out why, and they would not tell me anything about it. That is my earliest memory that I can remember. I’m about the same age as Maiylin, and she is seventeen now, was about thirteen then. They’ve been caring for me since then, and before I noticed it I had reached the big green barn set a little ways away from the house. I climbed up the ladder to my little room above all the bocen’s stalls, took off my boots and almost collapsed into my beautiful straw mattress I had sewn myself, it had only taken several layers of my stitching to get the cloth to stay wrapped around it all. With the amazingly warm blanket Fessy had stitched for me in a deep subtle blue, I drifted straight into sleep.

In my dreams a lot happened, a lot of running though alleys and stony corridors with people I did not know, people of races I had not seen yet, only heard of, and behind me I felt an urgency to run towards Maiylin, as if something about her was more important than I could see. Something was also wrong about her in the dream, and it made me feel torn and ragged, as if I had just plowed the whole Stellein farmlands in less than a day, driving the plow ahead of me with energy I do not have. The energy came from places around me, but they were to dark for me to see them. But I could feel that the energy from them was warm and steady.