Kelmar Fox, that is my name, or at least it was. And this is the story of how I got famous.
Foxes were the idols of my house. Sly, cunning, and wise enough to avoid conflict. The perfect sigil for a house of merchants. Unlike many merchant families, we actually went on hunts. We didn't do so with the intent of bagging game, and we weren't the ones doing the tracking–after all, what self respecting merchant has time to spend mastering the art of reading signs of the wood.
We would hire a tracker once a year and travel deep into the forest. Sometimes it would take several hours, more often than not, it would take a few days. But we would find the den of foxes and watch them through the curved glass lense of a telescope my father purchased from a trader that had wandered north from the Sea of Wrath.
Foxes are smart. Almost as smart as my dad, who always seemed to glean some life lessons from their behavior to pontificate upon.
Even more than Ma or Pa, I miss my siblings. Even Falmar.
Falmar was the oldest, and thus the inheritor of the Golden Fox Spice Company. I'll admit I was always jealous of him. I loved the company. I loved the life of a merchant. So many people to interact with. The thrill of a good deal. The smile of a happy customer...
But I didn't love it enough to be Falmar's assistant the rest of my life. I suppose that's why I left. It's just that he could be a bit of an asshole. But I'm getting sidetracked. I'm not here to talk about Falmar, or how much I miss my baby brother Hanmar, or my twin sister Iyena.
This story begins in a carriage headed along the Sea Road, out of the province of Summerset, and to the west. To the unknown. And, I thought, to Grayhaven. A border city on the coast. A perfect place to start my own trading company.
Caravan life is hard. Or at least it was for me. My skin was soft, and though we Foxes are never "pale" my skin was not accustomed to the relentless onslaught of the sun as it greets weary travelers day after day. It burned and cracked and peeled, and I had a hard time not thinking of myself as just a dirty onion rolling down the road. Layers of flesh coming off one at a time, and Spirits know I smelled bad enough to be mistaken for one.
My lips chapped and split, and sweat poured into the sores. It had only been two weeks on the road, and I'd already lost my appetite for discussion. Opening my mouth hurt too much even to tell the damn lute-playing, demon-tickling bard to be quiet and stop repeating that one song over and over every night. You don't know me as I was then, but I'd guess it would have been a deep shock to any of my friends back in Lavos to learn that anything could still my tongue. All this is just to say, I was not in high spirits.
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I don't know if you've spent your whole life landlocked like I had, but nothing can describe the first time you see the ocean. When we crested that last hill, shimmering yellow with wild grass, and my eyes took in an endless body of water that stretched farther than I'd ever imagined to see, seeming to pour off the edge of the world itself, everything else melted away.
A breeze, cool and sharp with the scent of the sea, soothed my burns and sores, and–verily–my soul itself. Like an ethereal horse carrying the essence of respite and hope to the weary traveler.
That was my first real moment of connection with the spirit of the natural world. The Ocean of Tibernus rolled with waves, each cupped into thousands of fractals shimmering the light of the sun. A field of jewels, each jewel a perfect moment, eternal and fleeting.
I smiled. It hurt, but I didn't care anymore. I was on an adventure after all. This was the start of my new life.
Eventually, my eyes started to burn from the intensity of the light reflecting off the water. I looked back into my wagon at rolled carpets, richly dyed; jars and sack of spices, wafting their sensuous aromas into the wind; a roll of canvas, wrapped around a bundle of ornate blades, engraved with runes for style and luck–the work of a master of Summerian Sword Smithing; and my mid sized locking chest and new backpack that lay beside it. On my hip sat the weight of copper, silver and gold. This was my fortune. The bounty of my childhood commissions, invested and saved. Would I use the fox as my sigil like my father? If so, what color?
I fingered the coins hanging from my belt and resolved to purchase some ointment for my skin and lips. If I was going to see the world, I may as well enjoy it.
The road pulled up along a cliff overlooking the water. And as the hours passed, the sun fell toward the horizon, the end of the world that I knew. Bright light turned to a warm glow–the clouds a tapestry of reds, pinks, and purples. If I could have paid a craftsman to capture the sky that evening and weave it into a robe, I most certainly would have been the wealthiest man on the continent. As the wind lay down and the ocean flattened, a mirror appeared, and the tapestry that was the sky became two-fold. One above and one below.
Before night snuffed the last of the light, the caravan curved with the road ahead, past a hill, and in the distance, from source unseen, faint pillars of smoke reached for the sky, only to disperse like mist before joining their cousins up above.
As my mules pulled the wagon around the hill, a village appeared before me, buildings dotting the sides of a gentle ravine that led down to the base of the cliff, where land met sea. Torches hung in sconces from the sides of every building, like fairy lights leading the weary fishermen up from the docks where they tied their boats.
Just hours before, I would have given anything to curl up on a soft mattress and bid the world farewell for a week or two, but now my mind and heart were humming. I could certainly hold out for a couple more hours to eat some fresh fish and drink whatever spirits the fishermen brewed. Indeed, a hot meal sounded even better than a bed.