"The Reason"

By ChildlikeEmpress

I know what you think of me.

That I'm an insensitive flirt, a slut, a whore. I'm used to it, I've been called worse. All because of two brothers. You probably know who I am by now. But there was more, this is my story. You are about to hear things never told before. Until now.

I was born in Haven, and lived there until my mother died. Then everything changed. While my mother was alive I could go out and play outside and was free to associate with whomever I pleased. I could get muddy, as long as I helped on washday. Tearing my play clothes was remedied with a heart to heart and then a group mending party with my dolls and cats.

My father was another matter. I rarely saw him. As a merchant he made long trips to Palanthas and Solamnia to buy fabric. His trips kept him away for months at a time. When he stopped at home it was for only a few days and then he would leave again. I didn't mind because as soon as he'd left my mother would stop being sad and quiet and be happy and laughing again.

It wasn't until I was fourteen that I noticed the carefully hidden bruises my beautiful mother received at my father's hands. After that, I hated my father more than ever. Before I had tolerated him, angry at his lack of concern over my well being and wishing he would notice me. But I was not the son he hoped for, the one he had failed to get.

Then mother died. Sweet, laughing mother, now sad and afraid. My father, postponed a trip to Pax Tharkas to be the attentive husband. I wished he would go away. He had started verbally abusing her, afraid the healers would notice physical marks. She died in the night, peacefully. Only I knew that my mother had willed herself to die. I caught her once, dumping her medicine in the flower bed. She saw me standing there and laughed. The ghost of the mother I remembered smiling through. "I hope it doesn't kill the poor flowers, it is such nasty stuff!" She made a grimace and I laughed along with her. But even laughing cost her dearly, soon she was spent and could barely make it back to bed before collapsing. Crying, I made her promise to take her medicine and it appeared that she did from then on. But sometimes I wonder if perhaps she was only more careful in disposing of it.

After her death my father sent me to an all Girls school. I hated it. It was full of stuck up snobs and rich girls who laughed at me whenever they had a chance. It was so bad that I finally took it upon myself to be whoever they thought I should be. I let them change me, and make me just like them. If I hadn't been desperate for companionship I would have stood firm, but I needed someone to talk to. I regret that now, for little good did it do me. Finally after two years of hell at the finishing school I was sent home.

Home.

It had ceased to be home after mother died, but the place I returned to was just an empty shell of what I remembered. The furniture was being loaded into wagons and the servants wouldn't answer when I asked what was going on. I went inside to try and find my father.

I found him. He was drunk. He did horrible things to me that night, laughing all the while. Sometimes I wonder if he even knew it was me, his daughter. Nevertheless I finally understood now all the terrible things my mother had to endure all those years. How I wished afterwards that I could have died with her.

My father was gone in the morning and all my things were loaded into the last wagon. We were moving to Solace I was told, where my aunt and uncle lived. My mother's sister had her suspicions about my father at first, but he was all laughs and jokes with her and my uncle. Soon I heard them conversing: "How come she doesn't treat her father better?" or "Oh he might have been a bit of a cad when he was younger, but still he's a good man." I would jiggle my little cousin and laugh. Aunt Tam would never know about my bed back home. The sheets stained with my blood. Or of the smashed bottles of dwarf spirits ground into the floorboards. Better she didn't know. I wouldn't crush their pipedreams.

Father hadn't spoken to me ever about that night. He probably forgot what happened. But I couldn't. I tried to swallow my hate and self loathing with drink and visits to The Trough. Every time I slept with someone the demons would leave me alone for a little while…only to haunt me even more the next night. It went on like this for awhile. Myself, the pretty young textile merchant's daughter…in reality an alcoholic whore.

But then I met him.

It was when my aunt's baby was deathly Ill. Weird Meggin was out of town tending plague victims in Haven.

He came instead. His name was Raistlin Majere…a studying mage and Weird Meggin's assistant. He was so gentle with my young cousin. I was there when he came and took little Lucian from my arms. He hardly gave me a second glance…something that any other girl would take offense at. But not me…it was refreshing not to be noticed for my looks for once. I gazed at him from across the room, my cheeks blushing like a schoolgirl. He was so perfect. I didn't go to the Trough that night. Not for many nights. It was enough just standing there and staring at him if only to hear him ask me to get a clean cloth or to boil some water.

When Lucian was well and Raistlin stopped coming by to check on him I was plunged into a melancholy so deep that even my father noticed. After much though I decided that my soul purpose in life would be to get his attention…to speak to him…see him again. Here was my chance! I could see him coming along the boardwalk! In a minute he would pass by the shop. I picked up some bolts of fabric and went out the door so fast I didn't look where I was going and bumped into someone. Fabric went flying. I looked up and saw those blue eyes I knew as well as my own. I was so embarrassed at my clumsiness and not wanting to seem a dimwit in front of him I looked around for inspiration, and there it was, over his shoulder a pair of nesting birds. I told him that I was sorry and pointed out the birds trying my best not to seem like a silly child. He offered to help me get my fabric back and I was so happy I could have shouted to all of Solace that life was beautiful. As we walked, I thanked him for caring for my cousin and told him that Lucian was doing so well that you never would have known he was sick. And after that I probably said a whole bunch of meaningless things that I don't remember now. I was too busy looking into his eyes and watching him smile, all the while silently rejoicing that I had said something witty.

I was just about to ask him if I could see him again when I heard my father calling. Talk about a damper on my spirits. Knowing my father's distrust of magic users I took the fabric from Raistlin and gave a hurried goodbye. I remember how our fingers touched for a moment.

I went inside the shop but turned and smiled over my shoulder, a real smile. Like the way I smiled before mother died. It would also be the last "real" smile I would ever give.

My father had some news for me he said. A marriage proposal from one of my father's business partners. Twice my age, with children older than me I had never thought of him as a potential husband. I cried and I pleaded. Alone in my room I smashed my mirror, the one my mother brought with her from Palanthas. I could refuse I thought…tell my father that I loved someone else.

He would be livid when I told him who.

Once I had heard Raistlin talking to Meggin when no one knew I was there. He talked of the magic, and I saw the excitement that showed in his eyes, the way his fingers moved as he spoke, how his whole face lit up in a way that no one else could have imagined. I couldn't take that away from him. I wasn't good enough for him. I would be a bother and a nuisance. He would have to quit school and work for my father. I shuddered. It would be torture. I couldn't see him in that life. It was so wrong. Raistlin belonged with the magic and I couldn't take that away. Not something that clearly brought him such joy.

And so, I didn't tell my father.

I got drunk.

I met a man on the way home from a tavern. I didn't know who he was, didn't care. Later I found out who he was. Caramon Majere. How ironic. I took him to a shed behind my father's house tempting fate, almost hoping that my father would open the door and find us there. Maybe with a sullied reputation I wouldn't be able to get married.

I didn't enjoy our time in the shed but of course I pretended I did. I didn't know what all the girls were talking about when they giggled and sighed over the man's muscles. Hell, what good is brawn with no brain?

I thought of Raistlin while I was in there…and you'll laugh, but I thought I saw him peering in through the window. But it was probably the drink and my over active imagination.

Or was it?

The next morning with a splitting headache I was privately wed to Alfred Rendl. Perhaps my father knew more than he let on about my drunken revelries and decided to marry me off as soon as possible. I didn't see Raistlin again until the next summer.

Alfred was as usual away on business when the plague hit Solace. I never succumbed, but my father did, along with a lot of other people that summer. With Alfred gone, there was only I and my newborn son at home. Ah yes, my son. The only thing that kept me from further self destruction. And by this time of course I had realized that Raistlin knew what his brother and I had done. I couldn't have planned it better my self. His apparent revulsion of me broke my heart but made it easier not to run into his arms and tell him of my feelings. "Stay with the Magic" I would think silently as I saw him in town. I still loved him though.

Then less then a week after his birth, my son began to show symptoms of the plague. It wasn't till he was near death did the wet nurse wake me. For the first time since my marriage I walked to a part of Solace that I knew like the back of my hand.

I walked to the Majere's house. I had caught him by chance, as he stopped by to pick up some medicinal herbs from his garden. I must have looked a sight with me not even supposed to be out of bed yet. In my rumpled shift with my hair all loose I must have looked ghastly. He turned. And I saw his eyes narrow, and for an instant so brief I wonder if it happened at all…the mask dropped. And at once I saw the pain I had inflicted and just as suddenly as I realized this, the glassy surface was back in place and I was regarded with a barely tolerated glance. I choked out the words before he went black before my eyes.

"My baby, please Raistlin.."

When I awoke Raistlin was there, sitting by my bed. He had taken me home. I saw a look of sadness cross his face as he stared at my son's cradle before he realized I was awake. He addressed me in clipped tones. "I did the best I could, but he was so young..." Daringly I reached for his hand. "I understand" I whispered. And then I held his hand for what seemed like only a second before he snatched it away and stood to leave. "Thank you" I whispered. I don't know if he heard.

Baby Raistlin was dead. Yes…that was what I had named him.

Months passed until it was summer again. My husband came back briefly-I swear the bastard thinks I'm a brood mare-and left again soon after. It was around this time I heard that the Majere twins were leaving Solace. A farewell party was being held by Otik at The Inn of the Last Home.

I crept in, when almost everyone had left and gathering my courage padded over to where he was standing. Touching him on the sleeve I looked at him for a second before kissing him softly and sweetly on the cheek. I then whispered two words in his ear and I wondered if he had heard them over the racket…but he smiled at me briefly and whispered back.

"I'm sorry too"

In case you haven't guessed by now readers, my name is Miranda.

The End

The song that inspired me, "The Reason" is by Hoobastank. Sue me and you'll get a pocketful of lint. I changed a few things from The Soulforge to suit my story, like it being Miranda's cousin instead of nephew. I own nothing. Raist and all characters belong to Wizards of the coast and Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.