User:Shin Malphur

d  I'm writing this from memory - some mine, but not all. The facts won't sync with the reality, but they'll be close, and there's no one to say otherwise, so for all intents and purposes, this will be the history of a settlement we called Palamon and the horrors that followed an all too brief peace. I remember home, and stories of a paradise we'd all get to see some day - of a City, "shining even in the night." Palamon didn't shine, but it was sanctuary, of a sort. We'd settled in the heart of a range that stretched the horizon. Wooded mountains that shot with purpose toward the sky. Winters were harsh, but the trees and peaks hid us from the world. We talked about moving on, sometimes, striking out for the City. But it was just a longing. Drifters came and went. On occasion they would stay, but rarely. We had no real government, but there was rule of law. Basic tenets agreed upon by all and eventually overseen by Magistrate Loken. And there you have it...no government, until there was. I was young, so I barely understood. I remember Loken as a hardworking man who just became broken. Mostly I think he was sad. Sad and frightened. As his fingers tightened on Palamon, people left. Those who stayed saw our days became grey. Loken's protection - from the Fallen, from ourselves - became dictatorial. Looking back, I think maybe Loken had just lost too much - of himself, his family. But everyone lost something. And some of us had nothing to begin with. My only memory of my parents is a haze, like a daydream, and a small light, like the spark of their souls. It's not anything I dwell on. They left me early, taken by Dregs. Palamon raised me from there. The family I call my own - called my own - cared for me as if I was their natural born son. And life was good. Being the only life I knew, my judgment is skewed, and it wasn't easy - pocked by loss as it was - but I would call it good. Until, of course, it wasn't.

Until two men entered my world. One a light. The other the darkest shadow I would  ever know.



<span style="color:rgb(69,69,68);font-family:HelveticaNeue-Light,'HelveticaNeueLight','HelveticaNeue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;line-height:normal;background-color:rgb(9,18,25);"> The man I would come to know as Jaren Ward, my third father and quite possibly my closest friend, came to Palamon from the south. <span style="color:rgb(69,69,68);font-family:HelveticaNeue-Light,'HelveticaNeueLight','HelveticaNeue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;line-height:normal;background-color:rgb(9,18,25);">I was just a boy, but I'll never forget his silhouette on the empty trail as he made his slow walk into town. <span style="color:rgb(69,69,68);font-family:HelveticaNeue-Light,'HelveticaNeueLight','HelveticaNeue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;line-height:normal;background-color:rgb(9,18,25);">I'd never seen anything like him. Maybe none of us had. He'd said he was only passing through, and I believed him - still do, but life can get in the way of intent, and often does. <span style="color:rgb(69,69,68);font-family:HelveticaNeue-Light,'HelveticaNeueLight','HelveticaNeue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;line-height:normal;background-color:rgb(9,18,25);">I can picture that day with near perfect clarity. Of all the details though - every nuance, every moment - the memory that sticks in my mind is the iron on Jaren's hip. A cannon that looked both pristine and lived in. Like a relic of every battle he'd ever fought, hung low at his waist - a trophy and a warning. <span style="color:rgb(69,69,68);font-family:HelveticaNeue-Light,'HelveticaNeueLight','HelveticaNeue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;line-height:normal;background-color:rgb(9,18,25);">This man was dangerous, but there was a light about him - a pureness to his weight - that seemed to hint that his ire was something earned, not carelessly given. <span style="color:rgb(69,69,68);font-family:HelveticaNeue-Light,'HelveticaNeueLight','HelveticaNeue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;line-height:normal;background-color:rgb(9,18,25);">I'd been the first to see him as he approached, but soon most of Palamon had turned out to greet him. My father held me back as everyone stood in silence. <span style="color:rgb(69,69,68);font-family:HelveticaNeue-Light,'HelveticaNeueLight','HelveticaNeue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;line-height:normal;background-color:rgb(9,18,25);">Jaren didn't make a sound behind his sleek racer's helmet. He looked just like the heroes in the stories, and to this day I'm not sure one way or the other if the silence between the town's people and the adventurer was born of fear or respect. I like to think the latter, but any truth I try to place on the moment would be of my own making. <span style="color:rgb(69,69,68);font-family:HelveticaNeue-Light,'HelveticaNeueLight','HelveticaNeue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;line-height:normal;background-color:rgb(9,18,25);">As we waited for Magistrate Loken to arrive and make an official greeting, my patience got the best of me. I shook free of my father's heavy hand and made the short sprint across the court, stopping a few paces from where this new curiosity stood - a man unlike any other. <span style="color:rgb(69,69,68);font-family:HelveticaNeue-Light,'HelveticaNeueLight','HelveticaNeue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;line-height:normal;background-color:rgb(9,18,25);">I stared up at him and he lowered his attention to me, his eyes hidden behind the thick tinted visor of his headgear. My sight quickly fell to his sidearm. I was transfixed by it. I imagined all the places that weapon had been. All of the wonders it had seen. The horrors it had endured. My imagination darted from one heroic act to the next. <span style="color:rgb(69,69,68);font-family:HelveticaNeue-Light,'HelveticaNeueLight','HelveticaNeue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;line-height:normal;background-color:rgb(9,18,25);">I barely registered when he began to kneel, holding out the iron as if an offering. But my eyes locked onto the piece, mesmerized. <span style="color:rgb(69,69,68);font-family:HelveticaNeue-Light,'HelveticaNeueLight','HelveticaNeue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;line-height:normal;background-color:rgb(9,18,25);">   <span style="color:rgb(69,69,68);font-family:HelveticaNeue-Light,'HelveticaNeueLight','HelveticaNeue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;line-height:normal;background-color:rgb(9,18,25);">I recall turning back to my father and seeing the looks on the faces of everyone I knew. There was worry there - my father slowly shaking his head as if pleading with me to ignore the gift. <span style="color:rgb(69,69,68);font-family:HelveticaNeue-Light,'HelveticaNeueLight','HelveticaNeue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;line-height:normal;background-color:rgb(9,18,25);">   <span style="color:rgb(69,69,68);font-family:HelveticaNeue-Light,'HelveticaNeueLight','HelveticaNeue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;line-height:normal;background-color:rgb(9,18,25);">I turned back to the man I would come to know as Jaren Ward, the finest Hunter this system may ever know and one of the greatest Guardians to ever defend the Traveler's Light... <span style="color:rgb(69,69,68);font-family:HelveticaNeue-Light,'HelveticaNeueLight','HelveticaNeue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;line-height:normal;background-color:rgb(9,18,25);">And I took the weapon in my hand. Carefully. Gently. <span style="color:rgb(69,69,68);font-family:HelveticaNeue-Light,'HelveticaNeueLight','HelveticaNeue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;line-height:normal;background-color:rgb(9,18,25);">Not to use. But to observe. To imagine. To feel its weight and know its truth.

<p style="text-align:center;"><span style="color:rgb(69,69,68);font-family:HelveticaNeue-Light,'HelveticaNeueLight','HelveticaNeue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;line-height:normal;background-color:rgb(9,18,25);">That was the first time I held "Last Word," but, unfortunately, not the last. <span style="color:rgb(69,69,68);font-family:HelveticaNeue-Light,'HelveticaNeueLight','HelveticaNeue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;line-height:normal;background-color:rgb(9,18,25);">