I was alone as usual, had been alone for most of my life but this time was different. It was was my day of majority, after tonite I wouldn’t be a child anymore. For most people tonight was a celebration, families would be at home celebrating their kids. Some few would even be receiving shards and starting tomorrow they would be mages. Even a single shard mage would begin a new life tomorrow, I had dreamed of magic my whole life but knew there was no real hope of him finding a shard.

There were two things working against me, of course being an orphan was the first problem. It wasn’t that orphans didn’t exist, many of them lived happy lives in comfortable orphanage around the kingdom because of the wars. My worst crime was being born a half breed. The illicit spawn of a human and elf, hated by the elves across the land. Mom had met Pops in the human kingdoms on a trade mission and fallen in love. She had been disowned immediately by her family, left in the human lands. Pops was killed trying to bring her home to protect her from the slavers, it wasn’t common but female elves were worth a lot of gold. We had made it into Shylock, a mid sized city on the border, not long after he died.

It hadn’t been bad at first, I had gone with the other children to weapons training and school. Learning bow, sword and woodcraft in the mornings, than lore in the afternoons. The teachers had applauded my brains and rewarded my uncanny ability with weapons. I had friends, kids to play with and food to eat on a regular basis. Mom didn’t make much at the library but it supported us, it also let me read books that most kids couldn’t touch. I had a good memory even then and absorbed all the history and legends I could. Even studied the wars in-depth, read about the kings and nobility. The fundamentals of magic that every child was taught were steadily added to through reading. It was amazing how much my hunting skills grew from the beastiaries that filled my evenings.

Then it all changed over night, Moms family had found her. She managed to live for thirty years before they found out she was in elven lands and had her killed. One night it was a happy family, the next I was alone and outcast. I had been on my own since then, disappearing into the streets of the city. They hadn’t known or hadn’t bothered with me for whatever reason, maybe it wasn’t cost effective. They did make sure the schools and guards knew I was a half breed, so that ended most of my education. Thankfully I knew ways in and out of the library so my late night reading continued. My human parentage hadn’t shown much in the early years but over the last decade it had begun to show more and more. My eyes weren’t as angled as the others and there was more muscle on my frame than most of my peers. The odd thing was I could still move just as fast as they did, but with more strength.

These differences had left me with few friends, even those had vanished over the last month as they prepared for majority. Now I was alone in the woods, having fled the city again after last nights clash with the guards. They knew me on sight and wanted me dead or in prison. Last night had been to final straw, I had killed two guards to make my escape on the last job, now the city would be forever closed. Truthfully it didn’t matter, I had my sword and bow with plenty of supplies stashed in the tree house. If I’m being honest the preparations for this had been going on for the last five years, I knew it was coming.

Minor thievery had started shortly after when mom died and eventually grew into a bigger jobs. That final night in the city had been because of a job, my first kill. A minor merchant had owed the guild and had done the worst thing possible. He had gone to the guard, creating his own death. I had gotten the contract but in hindsight I knew it was meant to kill me. The merchant knew it was coming and was prepared. The man was dead with his bodyguards but the city had been alerted. Sure I had managed to get a good haul of gold and gems, not that they did him any good out here. They didn’t lessen the betrayal either, even the underground had sold me out.

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Honestly the wilds felt more like home than the city did anyway. Living in the wilds wasn’t much of a problem. My gift, as mom called it, always gave me a warning when true danger was nearby. It was a sixth sense of sorts, one of the elders had told me to keep it secret, it was part of ancient bloodline that most didn’t have. Some piece of my ancestry that came forward in me, the elder couldn’t tell him more and without shards it would never truly awaken. Aside from that I also had my skills, stealth had been honed surviving in the city over the years. Any food I had for the last several years came from what I hunted or harvested from the plants. I knew how to make basic healing poultices, what was safe to eat and what was poison. My herbalism skills didn’t got far for potions and such but I knew what worked to help heal.

The bloodlines were part of the advantage that the old races had over the humans. Shards in the old races, elves, dwarves, halflings and gnomes could awaken bloodlines along with their magic. It could grant them added abilities that completed the magic or even increased it. That is if you had shards to absorb on your majority and had a bloodline. From what I had read recently bloodlines we’re fading and shards were becoming more difficult to find.

“Bah! Wallowing in my own self pity, they called me Syn to make me ashamed,fuck them. I’ll wear it like a badge.” I spat into the slowly encroaching dusk. “Time to hunt if I want to eat tonight.”

Standing from my crouch, collecting my weapons I set out into the slowly fading light of early evening. Dinner wouldn’t arrive on a plate if I didn’t go kill it first. Setting off into the trees, moving from tree top to tree top steadily heading north toward a lake that attracted deer and other game. Reveling in the feeling of moving with absolute freedom that I never felt on the rooftops of the city. My excursions into the darker aspects of the city had me traveling across the city via rooftops often enough that I knew them but this was something else. Some part of me resonated with the feeling of moving through the wilds, it sang in my heart rejoicing in the freedom. The soft hum of life filled me as I moved feeling truly free for the first time in months. Why did I need a city, the wilds covered more land than most kingdoms anyway.

The wilds spread out before me as I moved, my new home. They created a barrier between the lands of man and the elves. The dwarves didn’t care preferring their mountain homes, you wanted to trade with them you went to them. The Gnomes had their flying cities and traded with anyone. The halflings seemed to belong no where but were welcomed and watched by all. Elves and humans hated each other but the other races just didn’t seem to care. They wouldn’t care if I showed up, some half breeds lived with or near them. To be fair the humans didn’t care much either, a lot of half elves lived in the human lands with no problems. Really it was just the elves that hated us the most, it didn’t make sense but they had this thing about purity.

The scent of the lake flowed on the breeze to his nostrils, I was close now time to slow down and start hunting. I hung back in the trees slowly working toward the waters edge, it was still light enough out that the animals were skittish. It would take a while to find a good target, finding a good tree to wait in I settled in to wait.