The Hero's Memoirs

"Fret not that the Roses have thorns, rejoice that the thorns have Roses."

- My mom.

For the sake of history, I should record as many details in my life as possible. Since I want people to read this and not be bored to tears, I'll paraphrase.

How should I start? Many people around Albion will simply call me Hero. Sounds better than how my wife and daughter call me. They don't insult my you little blighters if that's what your thinking. To be honest, I didn't start off with much. Not even a last name. I was an orphan.

Eventually I did make a name for myself. Literally. After I had survived the Crucible, some of locals began calling me Lionheart. I liked the name.

Let me start from the begging. My first name is Sparrow. Not really epic poetry from what I've heard from my friend Roland the roaming bard, but really, It was all I ever had. When my deeds became known, I could have started anew. I could have been anyone I wanted. But I could not bear with severing the last connection to my sister.

"Excuse me mister?"

The butler, who had been standing for so long at the doors that he had fallen asleep (Useful skill for a butler) opened his eye and looked at the speaker.

She was a young girl, no more than thirteen years of age, covered in rags. She looked like she came from the bad side of town.

"Yes miss?" The butler asked both politely and rudely at the same time. (As is custom when speaking with anyone not your superior.)

"I'm looking for my kid brother." The kid told the man. "A friend of a friend told me that he's been living here."

"I see."

My sister. Rose was her name. That is really where my story starts. I was known simply as Sparrow, to the few guards that were nice to us street rats, some of the nicer kids, some of the lowlier gang members, and of course to Rose.

"Well, if that's the case young miss, I'd have to take you to the Lord of the castle. I'm sure he can point you in the right direction." The butler said. "Follow me.

I have a few memories from before we were orphaned. A beautiful farm, endless sunshine, cozy winter nights by a fireplace, bedtime stories. However, there is a particular memory of long ago that almost lost it's meaning.

Back then I didn't know what it meant, but it was a winter when I must have been, oh... six years old maybe? Regardless, I remember an endless wait. Probably for our parents, though I've lost any recollection of them. Something about bandits attacking, the surname Impatient comes to mind for some reason.

The girl just stared in awe as she walked through the castle. Trophies of battles, and jewels from foreign countries seemed to be placed wily nily, as though the owner had just wanted to find a place to put them, or hold them for a while. As she walked down a corridor, she noticed in particular a cutlass that seemed to emanate some sort of deadly aura, and then, she came across three different seals, all seeming to symbolize some force of nature.

Not all of the trophies were grand though. Just after the seals was a bandits head, mounted on the wall as though it were a Deer's head. Although admittedly the man's who's head was mounted was wearing a Deers skull.

Eventually, after food ran out, and firewood, we took what we could with us, and made our way to Bowerstone. It was better than living in an abandoned home. We sold most of what we brought with us for food. Soon we settled down in a back alley of Old Town. Now, this must have been oh what, twenty years? That doesn't seem right... no that's right. Regardless, when we moved in, it was a horrible place to live, nothing like it is today. Smugglers, thieves, swindlers, and now that I think of it, I'm sure there were prostitutes, as one man, named Arfur (I'm unsure if that was his name, or if it was because of his bad english) kept pitching this one idea to Rose that would keep us fed, though she would always reject it, and she never told me why. Still though, our place had a lovely view. You could almost see the entirety of the rest of the city, including Castle Fairfax.

Again though, a horrible place to live. During the summer, we would try to make it to Bower Lake, and if we were lucky, a family of gypsies would take us in. During the winter, we scavenged any gold we could to buy food. Don't ask me what we did during spring and fall.

The girl just stood amazed for a bit. It was a little much to take in all at once. Her idea of luxury was not worrying about getting enough food. She headed over to balcony that was on the path they were taking to the Lords study. The way the snow fluttered down to the earth was amazing. Though this, she had the strangest sense of Deja Vu. But that couldn't be right. Probably one of her silly dreams of what life in the castle would be like. That, or it was just the fact that she's had to live only off of what you can scrounge in a forest, which can have many different side-effects if you don't know what your eating.

Let me tell you about Rose though. She was an amazingly strong person. Despite what we went through, I had never seen her cry. She made sure I always got fed, oftentimes sacrificing her own meal for me. It took it's toll on her though, being the older sibling. She sacrificed her youth, because she had to be mature.

She lost the sense of wonder I still had. She became quite pessimistic. Took on all the responsibilities, and all the burden. I did my best to cheer her up. Made me happy when she confessed dreams of living in Fairfax Castle.

Really though, my story begins when the world renowned swindler, the 'Mystical Murgo' stopped by in Old Town. Rose wanted to see what the commotion was about, so we joined the crowd and listened to his speech.

"He should be in here." The butler told her. "Now mind you, he gets to be a little irritable while in his study."

"Okay." The girl said, nodding.

"Now, while usually an upstanding gentleman, the Lord has been brooding a little lately, he just began writing his memoirs."

"Oh." She said. 'That makes sense.'

"And whatever you do, please don't mention the incident at the Spire, Lord Lionheart has become rather touchy on the subject as of late."

"Oh... okay." The girl said, rather confused.

That was the day that I purchased a Music Box, met a blind old women, and saw my sister killed.

There's more to the story I assure you. Before I get to the gloomy part, I think I should mention an interesting side-note. A friend of mine, Garth (Remember his name, he's important.) told me of some Samarkand philosophy they have, called the 'Butterfly Effect'. If say, a butterfly here in Albion fluttered it's wings here, eventually it could start a small breeze, that turns into a wind, that becomes a gale, that culminates into a hurricane in Samarkand, just because a Butterfly flapped it's wings.

To the point, there was an interesting side adventure we took to gather the gold to buy the box. I remembered how enraptured I was by Murgo's speech of magical Items that Rose easily saw through. A blind women told us to have more-

"Sir, you have a guest here." The butler told Lord Lionheart. "She's a young girl asking for her brother."

"Yeah, fine, send her in." The Lord of the castle said. 'I was on a roll there too.'

"E-excuse me M'lord." A young girl said.

"Hey there." The Lord said, trying to get back to what he was doing.

-have more faith in magic, saying that most kids Rose's age believed in magic readily. Rose responded by saying that the five gold it would take to pay for the box could feed us for a week, the women in turn told her that by the end of that week, neither her nor I would be any closer to Fairfax castle.

Honestly I was split on the idea. On the one hand, I wanted to eat for a week. But on the other, Rose seemed to think it could actually work after that comment. It was the first time Rose seemed like a kid again. I decided to she was more important than food, and that she need this. So-

"Um, excuse me, M'lord?" The girl said.

"Oh, sorry," The Lord said, though still not turning to look at her. "I'm just trying to get the first chapter done. I get to go back to the Mrs. afterwards. What were you saying?"

-So we started looking for odd jobs to do. The local guard, Derrick, for whom I would later name my Dog, asked us to help him find arrest warrants that had flown down an alleyway. So we agreed-

"I've been looking for my younger brother. I was told that I could find him here."

-agreed to help him find them for a gold piece. next we kept going down the alleyway to look for them when I met a smart, eager young entrepenuer, named Barnum. Peple where looking at the display he set up, and accused him of being a witchdoctor/con man. He asked us-

"I'm sorry miss, but I don't think anyone younger than you has been wandering through here for a long time. My daughter brought in a friend once. What does he look like?"

-asked us to pose for a picture. It took as awhile to understand him, as he had been using words from a thesaurus bought from Murgo. We posed, tried to look our best, and he took our picture, and paid us our gold. The only problem with his machine, was that it took three months to develop the photo. Shame everyone is so impatient, the cover to these memoirs should include the picture Barnum took, and as you can see, it is incredibly accurate.

Anyway, we headed down the alleyway where kids where causing a fuss. A kid named Rex, now a good friend of mine, was beating-

"Well, he's about hmm... five years younger than me, he has a dark brown hair, he's about yea tall." She said motioning his height.

-beating up a dog. Lowly, cruel, but what can you expect of anyone in Albion? We did set up the Crucible. Anyway Rose stood up for the dog, but Rex just knocked her down, smiling over his victory, and came towards me. Fortunately, I was a formidable swordsman even in my youth.

With that, Rose approached the dog to see if it was alright, while the other kids began tormenting Rex. We were truly savage back then. Anyway the dog to a liking to us, but Rose told him we couldn't keep him, as we barely had enough to keep-

"Um M'Lord?"

"Oh, sorry, just lost in thought." The man said, still not even turning to look at the girl. "Well, he sounds a bit like that guest Jenna had over. What was his name?"

"Sparrow M'lord."

With that, Lord Sparrow Lionheart stopped dead. He stood up a little, and slowly turned to finally look at the little girl.

"What did you say your name was?" He asked, getting up.

"Rose. M'lord." She told him.

The man just took a step forward, then another, almost as if paralyzed. He made his way across the room, and then collapsed on his knees in front of the girl.

"Your not an illusion right?" He asked. "And I didn't get shot a third time, did I?"

"N-no, I don't think so." Rose said, rather uneasy. "You alright? You look as though you've seen a ghost."

The man just chuckled softly for a bit. "Rose. You've found me." With that he just embraced the girl, and cried tears of joy down her back.

"I-it's okay." She said. "Umm... how do I know you?"