Journal of Mak'Viri

[Mak'Viri]

Once, when I was a little girl, my caregiver told me that my mother had died trying to save the man she loved. She told me that I would suffer the same fate if I did not learn from her mistakes. She taught me to heal basic wounds long enough to survive a journey from far off lands to Mura, she taught me how to read into the future as best as I could, to prevent myself from being harmed too gravely. And then she taught me how to fight.

I knew in my bones that I was never to remain on Mura, and so did she. I just don't think that she could have been prepared for just how my destiny became. It was in a way I could never had foreseen, could never have imagined. And I thank her for what she taught be, despite how great a setback it had seemed in the beginning to not have more varied skills. I know now that what she did had been for the best, and that others would teach me the things I needed to know that I could not have ever learned upon Mura.

I hope now to record what has transpired in my life, to tell anyone who comes upon this small pile of parchment, carefully hand-stitched into a leather cover, what my life has been, what I believe it amounted to, and how it came to a conclusion.

This is my story. Whomever reads this, please, bare with me as I relate my tale. The days have blurred together in places in my memory. But I do my best now to record with my final moments what I once was.

[Mak'Viri]

My first days upon the shores of Sylira, in Zeltiva, were an interesting experience, and a day full of new sights, smells, sounds... It was overwhelming. I had been so sheltered within Mura, and so delicately treated in some respects, that the bustling city with its loud people, the fights that broke out randomly in the streets and within taverns, the very nature of the varied people who lived there unsettled me deeply.

And I was so nervous. I was frightened almost every moment of the possibility of being exposed for what I was, of being captured and sold into slavery as so many Konti women far from home often were, that I went to great lengths to conceal myself from the passing strangers' eyes. Only for the guise to come undone at the first sign of a friendly face.

Truly, I was naive in those days. The very thought of it now brings a smile to my lips. I often wonder how I could have survived with such naivety in the years that would follow. And even within those wintry months, when the Blight came to Zeltiva, decimating the population. I was a doctor when I lived there after a few days of adjusting to the city itself.

Much of my ignorance concerning life and death, humanity, and so much more was shed in those days. I can still see the anguished faces before my eyes when I close them, those memories fresh as the days they were made in. My heart still aches for their pain, and that of their families.

But now as I settle into my bones for comfort, and my hands shake as I write, I feel my thoughts turning to the people I met in Zeltiva. The young fortune-teller who predicted what path my fate would lead to. The human lost within his search for the master doll-maker and a very dear friend of his. The wingless Akvatari woman, trapped in the ocean and unable to walk upon land. The Kelvic that seemed so very prevalent. They seemed to flock to that port-town.

I made many friends then. I am sorry I could not remain by their sides to help with the pain within their hearts in the way I wanted to. Some I could not help at all in all my inexperience. I was woefully unskilled in so much back then. I am glad to have changed that in the later months of my life. I know how to survive. I may not have been the richest, or even surrounded by family and friends, especially not now, in my final days.

But I have lived a full life. I can say that now, looking back. There will be things I never do, but I do not regret the hand that fate has dealt me. I can pass on this knowledge as my legacy to whomever would care enough to find it. I have no expectations leaving this world. All of the friends I had in my younger days are now long gone. But whomever finds this, please bring this back to Mura. There is a small cottage by the edge of the Silver Lake. It is probably lived in by now. But there will be a woman who will want to know of what became of the child she had cared for nearby. Give this to her.

She'll need it.