The Beginning

"Tell me the story again Mama" a quiet plead said next to the aging woman, her glowing eyes looking gently over at her daughter, a smile breaking out as she remembered she had promised them a story. Most nights when the sun had set and the darkness came, a story would make the long nights seem short. And if it must be a long one, at least it was going to be a good one. She dared asked the question of which tale she would be telling, but she felt she already knew what her little one would say.

"Which one my love?" she said as her other child came and sat next to the girl, her twin to the exact same dimples in their cheeks, his little body scooting forward as well. Usually he would be too busy playing with his wooden weapons or looking at his books, but he would always listen to this story.

"The Cleric and the Angel" her daughter smiled.

"Oh, well that is a long one" she said hearing her own voice mimic her father's, her own memories of asking him the same way when her room seemed too big to sleep all alone.

"Please!" her children smiled wide, their eyes and minds now fully awake with the chance to hear the saga from their own mother's mouth once again.

"Fine, as you wish" she said thinking of her father once again, settling in with his own children by his side at the fireplace, her own mind awake and wild with stories of the wilderness.

"But, we have to start at the beginning, like all good stories" she said, and getting close to her own children, began the tale. The smell of the burning wood and the crackles of the fire were the only sounds against the quiet wind outside. Her children snuggled beside her, no books for this kind of story, no this was a tale only to be told through speech and sound. It was the magic of the firelight, the dark shadows against the corners of the room. The way her hands would move and her eyes light up with each twist. Her own father would do the same, sometimes he would pull himself in close so that his stories were merely a whisper, hoping not to wake her other siblings as he told dark stories of the world of Faerun.

"What story shall I tell tonight" he would say coming close, a coy smile spreading as he knew mother wouldn't approve, his gray hair long even when she was as young as her own children now "You pick Olly, whatever story you want."

"Even the Kingmaker one?" she would say, her little head popping up over the big fur covers.

"Why not?" he would laugh and bring out a small book of the world, showing Olly the islands and the world she would soon see over her life.

Her father was known through the Sword Coast, his name only spoken out of fear in the dark of the woods, or of relief when his guiding light would find them. Weylyn Duer, the North Wind, did not start out as the loving father his daughter had known her entire life. Instead, he had known a world of ridicule and solitude most of his younger years, his skin hardened by the cruelty of being trained by Rangers of Malar, and his years of fighting every monster that dared come up against him made him no stranger to bloodshed. The Rangers of Malar showed him that the only weaknesses in this world were bonds, love, and mercy.

He was born outside of Triboar, the only son that was rumored to have been sired by the demi-god Gwaeron Windstorm. Windstorm, a Ranger god that was most prayed to when they were trying to reach the forest goddess Mielikki, who rarely made an appearance to mortals. In her father's world, and soon after in her own, gods were very real. Her own eyes had stared at them face to face, talking to them, and then leaving them as if it were a dream. But none the less, they were real and alive in the world of Faerun, to be respected or feared.

Weylyn though, never claimed his name to Windstorm, his own reputation strong on it's own. He was a Monster Slayer and a damn good one at that. He had taken on beasts the size of monoliths, deep sea creatures that had been thought to be dead long ago, and had feasted with giants in the sky. It was only when he gained the name "Kingmaker" did he meet Olly's mother. That was her favorite story as a child, how they had all come to be. Maybe it was nice to hear that the reason they were all so different was because it was all in the gods plans.

"Well, we have to start at the beginning" he would say, showing her a map of the Moonshea Isles, a speckle of green in the sea she had never seen. They had seemed so tiny on the page to Olly, compared to the roaring maps of mountains and jungles she had been shown before. Green and spread out in a oval shape, the islands were always talked about like they were holding some big secret. She would stare at the maps sometimes in the warm afternoons, dreaming of sailing over the sea and seeing new worlds not drawn in any books.

"That island right there" he said pointing to a larger island "is Alaron, where your mother grew up. She was part of the court of King Kendrick, his royal druid in fact. They used to call her Jentess the Jewel because she was rumored to be the daughter of the Fae King Oberon. But King Oberon had many children, and not all of them were with the Queen Titania, so she wasn't part of the royal family. Titania would never allow it."

"Mama says she doesn't know her father though" Olly would pipe in, interrupting him but never irritating him.

"Well that's why its a rumor, either way your mother has powers that not all druids have, and so she moved up in the royal court. Lots of people made stories about your mother because she didn't look like them or sound like them. It also didn't help that her hair was as blue as the sea itself. It used to remind me of the ocean, when the waves would roll just right against the horizon in the wind. Anyway..." he said getting a bit bashful he could still swoon after his wife even after all this time.

"What's on Alaron?" Olly asked still looking at the picture of the islands.

"It's beautiful, like a lush forest that nobody's ever walked into, and you can smell the salt in the air from the seaside of the island it's so close" he said as Olly closed her eyes trying to imagine it. She hadn't been to the ocean yet, Mama said she was too young right now to travel with her father and siblings. "The people of Alaron are called the Ffolk, and they worship the goddess called the Earthmother. Your mother was trained by the druids of Alaron, who taught her about the moonwells."

"Mama made one the other night to talk to Aunt Camilla" Olly said happy to be able to add. Moonwells were still to advanced for Olly to make, but she found it fascinating to watch her mother and older sister conjure up a portal to talk to whoever they needed to speak to.

"You wanna know why she's so good at them? Well so did the druids on Alaron" her father teased "She didn't just use them for guidance, or to heal people, she could see into them and see things going on right at that moment, things that had happened way in the past, and if she tried hard enough, she could see what was going to happen in the future. That's why she got so famous in her druid circle, and why King Kendrick wanted to use her for his war. See, the Seelie Feys wanted the land of Alaron for themselves, and King Kendrick was a young prince so he could easily lose his kingdom if the Feys wanted to take it. A lot of people get hurt in war Olly, nobody wins in a war. Never forget that when you grow up."

"Was Mama a bad guy?" Olly had asked "Were you going to hurt her?"

"Mama wasn't a bad guy, she was just confused. See, Prince Kendrick wanted your mother to use her powers to see where the Seelie Court was invading from the forest. He wanted to protect his lands, and your mother was helping him keep families safe. But one night your mother was captured by the Seelie Fey, and they told her that she was part of them, a daughter of Oberon. Your mother didn't know what to think, or who to be loyal to. She could stay in the Fey world, she could use her magic for them and be more powerful than she could ever imagine, but she also wanted to help the people of Alaron. Prince Kendrick though, didn't know what to do when his royal druid suddenly was gone. He was blind to enemy attacks, so he sent for me, to track your Mama down. Prince Kendrick had told me to track Jentess of the Moonshae Isles down, and demand she return to him or I had to kill her."

Olly never liked that part of the story, the thought of her kind, loving father who would speak of her mother like she moved the earth, would harm her at all was unnerving.

"But, when I snuck into the Seelie Court disguised as a hunchback jester, I took off my disguise once I found your mother in the court gardens. I took out the three guards that were looking after her, sneaky as a shadow" he said teasing Olly by wiggling his hands like a spider against her stomach, making her giggle almost a little too loud, her older sister stirring beside her. Her father had shushed her with a grimace of a smile, his own fault for the outburst "And you know what happened when I met your mother in the gardens?" he continued whispering.

"What?" Olly had whispered back, smiling because she loved the answer every time he described it.

"I felt lighting hit me" he said touching his palm flat against his chest "The moment I looked in her eyes and she looked into mine, it was instant. Like all the pieces of my life suddenly fit together into a picture of her. She was beautiful, she let her hair grow long down to her waist. She was wearing this dress that made her look like the night sky walking on the grass. Her eyes were staring at me so long she looked like a statue that someone had planted right in the middle of the garden pond."

"Did you tell her you loved her right there?" Olly said hugging herself against her pillow, imagining her mother in her head.

"No" he said shaking his head chuckling "she threw a shoe at me and took off. I didn't get to say two words to her before I was chasing her down in the forests of the Feywild. I didn't know what to say to her either anymore, I was star struck. I just knew that I had to be with her, even if it didn't make sense at the time."

"Did she feel the same though?" Olly said knowing her mother would never have time to answer her questions about the Kingmaker story in the morning with her little sister demanding more attention as of late.

"She said she felt it too, but was scared. See Olly, some people fall in love and just accept it, but some are hesitant, either because they have been hurt by someone they've loved, or they've never been in love. And that can terrify someone" he said his eyes growing soft, remembering something Olly could only guess back then, but her father quickly picked back up in the story, not lingering too long on the life lessons, but her father continued.

"She was able to surprise me, and tackled me to the ground, holding a pointed tree limb she had manifested into her hands "he said still smiling at the memory "She was just yelling at me" he chuckled "She asked me a lot of questions, her voice was really demanding, and while she was thinking of what she should do next, I was too busy studying the curves of her face, like I had just seen the sky for the first time..."

"So when I finally did catch her and talked to her, I told her what Prince Kendrick had said. Mama though, she was too confused about everything, she just wanted the war to end and for people to stop getting hurt. We knew the only way to do that was to seal the portal from the Feywild and our world the Material Plane, so we went on our journey. We fought giant wolves, befriended the elves of the islands,went to the Underdark itself, sailed and faced off against a water Elemental the size of a dragon. Your mother and I fell in love with each other time after time and when we sealed the portal using your mother's magic, we got married. Father Perell did the ceremony, using this" he said taking out his half of his marriage ribbon he kept tied to his wrist. Olly loved to look at the marriage ribbon, the dark crimson lined with sparkling gold embosses, her mothers a deep shade of blue with matching silver patterns.

"What about King Kendrick? What about the Seelie Court?" Olly said growing sleepy as the night had now gone far later than they had thought. Olly could hear the night winds picking up, the rattle of the glass in the window interrupting the quiet night.

"Well he was a prince remember? And when we sealed the portal, that meant that the land of Alaron was safe from the Seelie Court. He became king of the land after our adventure, your mother retiring from his court. The Fey's though, when they found out that a daughter of Oberon married a human, they knew that they couldn't attack the lands of Alaron. That's just how Fey law works" he would say shrugging.

Olly nodded, although she didn't really understand. Her father would smile down at her and kiss her forehead, but she wouldn't let him get away that easy.

"What about us?" Olly said nearly asleep.

"You" he said tucking her in "and your brother's and sisters came soon after. And that my dear, has been the best adventure so far."

She would have drifted off to sleep, dreaming of dragons and the magic forests of the Moonshaes. Her father would watch his children sleep sometimes in those quiet moments, remembering when Jen had brought up children to him. He had first outright refused, for fear that she and whatever children they may have would constantly be in danger. Jen had turned to Weylyn, her freckled face and almond shaped eyes staring up at him.

"I love you, I chose you. Whatever follows I accept" she had said, her lips brushing against his in a quiet vow.

"But Jen" Weylyn still relented "What about our children? What about the dangers they may face? If we have daughters, kings will ask for their hands in marriage, pawns in their court schemes. If we have sons they will be asked to fight and risk their lives all because someone named me "Kingmaker." They will never be safe, nor will they ever be wanted for anything except the blood that runs through their veins. It's a bad idea Jen."

"Not true" she said sitting in his lap "Our daughters will be fierce, and our sons will be like the wind. They will forever be moving, forever changing our world as we know it. They are our future, they are our hope. We cannot be afraid of what is to come, this is our adventure."

And as her father watched his children sleep, he knew his love had been right that night. That was the story of the Kingmaker, of the ranger Weylyn Duer.
But this story, the one the woman was about to tell her children now in the glow of the crackling firelight, this was about his daughter, Allana Duer.

This was her story.