Ah, it feels so good to have a family again. I can barely remember my own. I suppose that's why I failed to mention them when I told you my story… A few memories, though, stand clear in my mind even after so many years. The Dark Ones never managed to obliterate my memories entirely, though they came close. Yes, one of those things I remember most clearly about my family was my grandmother's cellar. My grandmother was a wise old krawk, her mane graying and her once vibrant turquoise scales fading and warping with age, but to me, her grandson, no more than a young child at the time, she was a lovely old lady, and I don't think I could have loved anyone more than my old grandmother.
I was especially fascinated by her spells and potions, which she worked with in her cellar. Some of them she sold in the shop she had upstairs, an apothecary, she called it, explaining to me that the potions she sold would help heal those who weren't well. Others, though, she didn't sell. In fact, some of the potions she showed no one… except me. She showed me everything.
I wasn't more than 8 years old that autumn when she told me about her secret potions, my shoulder still free of that guilt-bearing mark and my wings still white, free of the black that taints them now. I had always known about the potions. I had been watching her in her cellar since I was a toddler but she never told me what those spells and potions did, why she hid them from everyone, or more importantly, why she didn't hide them from me. But then, one day, a crisp, cool day during our last autumn together before the Dark Ones came, that all changed.
Grandma came out of her house, which was situated at the roots of a big willow tree by a pond not far from Kiko Lake, and ushered me in, as I was standing outside like I normally did at that time of day. I was not only her grandson, but also her young apprentice, you see, so I was to report to her shop (which was also her house) at 8 O'clock every morning. In my village, we didn't go to school, we became apprentices. It was a village full of magic and artisans. Many bloodlines carried special magical powers unique to their family, and my family was no exception. I was told that I had inherited my grandmother's gift for magic, but I had always been told that her magic, and mine as well, were simple and weak, nothing spectacular. We weren't good for much beyond concocting healing potions. But on that day, that one special day, I learned that that was wrong. I was merely a child, but when it came to my grandmother's magic, I knew everything, every in, out, nook, cranny, and secret, except about those special, secret potions, but even those I knew more about then the rest of the village, or even the rest of our family.
"Come on in, Revi," Grandma welcomed me in with a hug, greeting me in her gravelly, sweet voice. She always seemed to carry the slight scent of mint perfume. I loved the smell of my grandma. She began leading me down the stone stairs to her magic cellar, "I have something special for you today."
I was excited, of course, and began rattling off guesses as to what that "something special" might be, as any 8-year-old might do in such a situation. All my guesses were far from correct, though, and grandma just laughed at my efforts. Finally, we reached the bottom of the stairs (just as I was asking her if she had gotten me a new Frisbee from the toy-shop next door) and she scuttled over to her secret potion cabinet with me close at her heals, bouncing excitedly on the balls of my feet.
She opened the cabinet and pulled something out, but it wasn't a potion. It was a small scroll, and after she had blown the dust off of it, she set it in my eager hands, "I think this will mean a lot more to you, Little Revi, than any Frisbee possibly could," she said with a creaking chuckle.
"Can I open it?!" I asked excitedly, my bouncing resuming full-force as I held the scroll in my hands. My grandmother nodded, so with as much speed as I could afford without the risk of damaging the document, I flung off the string tying it and unrolled the scroll, instantly immersing myself in the words written on it. It was a letter, and surprisingly enough, it was addressed to me. It wasn't very long, but I wasn't a very proficient reader yet, so I had to stop and ask my grandma to help reading words quite a few times, but never once while I read the letter did I take my eyes off that paper. What I read was turning my world, everything I had been told, upside-down, and I wasn't the slightest bit alarmed!
The letter was from my great grandfather, who had died less than a year after I was born, but somehow he knew more about me than I knew. In the letter, he spoke of a powerful magic, the ability to render an enemy helpless to their own mind, to give them dreams when they weren't sleeping, and he spoke of a staff that had no magic of it's own but could channel it's possessor's magic into a direct attack. He said that great danger would come, and that one of our kind would have he chance, whether he takes it or not, to defend our village using these powers granted to him, and most importantly of all, he spoke of the one who possessed these powers, and the one to receive the staff "when the time is right"… and that one was me.
I didn't understand all this, but in the mind of an 8-year-old, these powers my great-grandfather spoke of would make great toys. Hat though barely had time to formulate before my grandmother broke into my thoughts and told me, as she handed me the staff ceremoniously, that these powers I now knew I had would not be used as toys. And she told me, much to my astonishment, that she could and would temporarily remove my powers using the potions she had stored in her secret cabinet if I were to misbehave in any ay using them, but then she hugged me and, smiling and kissing my cheek, told me that she trusted I wouldn't misbehave. I grinned and hugged her back. I loved my grandmother, how could I blame her for being worried that I might play with something dangerous?
After that, the two of us went back to work on a batch of healing potions she was making. Little did we know that that was the last autumn we had together. Little did we know that less than a year later, the bearer of the great powers would back down and let the coming enemy take him in and brutally train him as one of their own. Right then, all we knew was that we loved each other and that we loved our potions. Oh, how I miss being able to feel that way… life's not so simple anymore.