Fair Ravenclaw, From Glen
Prologue
Rowena did not remember the first move; she had been too young. The first hasty packing she recalled dated from her fifth year, when her mother was heavily pregnant with the child that would be Lynet. Though she was, at that point, old enough to remember the relocation, she was as yet too young to understand the reasons behind it. Between the second and third moves, however, Rowena learned much. Her mother, Ainslee of the famed beauty, finally saw fit to explain to her inquisitive little girl. "They just… they don't understand us, my dear," Ainslee said, holding the babe Lynet on her hip. "Some of them are afraid of us, and some of them are jealous, and some…" She sighed heavily, and seven year old Rowena, though a precocious child, was not experienced enough in the world to understand the emotion behind the exhale. Ainslee looked over at the soup, still patiently stirring itself, and then glanced over at the dried herbs hanging from the ceiling of their little cottage. "And some, my dear girl, hate us for reasons even they do not understand."
It was the third move, however, that left the greatest impression.
Rowena was a moon's cycle short of eight years old at the time, and the Ravenclaw family had been living for three years quite happily and quietly in a village outside of Hexham. Claennis had been born when Rowena was seven, two years after Lynet, and by all accounts the family prospered. Rowena's father, Enda, raised crops that never failed and owned livestock that never sickened. Ainslee had for years been proscribing little remedies and helpful tips to anyone who needed them, and in return the neighbors were always quick to share extra provisions, or to pass along any small luxuries to the kind woman who always knew what to do if a baby had the colic or a child just couldn't shake a cough.
But the summer of 913 (though few of the townsfolk knew that to be the year) was hot and dry, and the farmers of North Umbria were not accustomed to dealing with droughts. When adults began sickening, sheep began dying, and cows stopped giving milk, suspicion turned immediately and unflinchingly towards the only family untouched by suffering in these hard times: the ever-fortunate Enda Ravenclaw, his wife, and three babes.
For the rest of her life, Rowena would never be able to tolerate the smell of smoke in any intensity beyond that of a snuffed candle. The scent would forever be associated with the way orange flames licked at the black summer sky, with ear-piercing shrieks, with the sight of Orlege the blacksmith holding Ainslee back from rushing into the cottage to save her children. Enda and Ainslee had eventually broken free from their captors and recovered their wands, and promptly began hexing everyone in sight. When the villagers fled in terror, Enda grabbed the stunned Rowena, and ran. After a few weeks spent in a tavern in Durham, with Ainslee singing for their suppers, Rowena mending clothes and telling stories, and Enda gambling his way to glory, the three Ravenclaws moved to Alnwick, further north, and Rowena was again, as she had been born, an only child.
The Ravenclaws recovered quickly, as they always had, at least in financial means. Ainslee was never quite the same again, and Enda hid his despair in his business, stalwartly spending all his waking hours working on a tavern of his own. The business suited him well, and was more lucrative than farming, but never again did Rowena see in either of her parents the joy for life she had known as a small child. Rowena, though, continued to thrive. She felt some degree of guilt for doing so when her parents never seemed to smile, but the tavern provided Rowena with a great many opportunities. The girl loved to learn, anything and everything she could, and from any traveler that would teach her. She had already learned a great deal of herblore from her mother, but the people who passed through Dusty Raven taught her a wide variety of talents. From an old ex-warrior, she learned how to hold a sword. From a woman of Mercia, she learned how to weave intricate patterns on a loom. From a man who lived across the sea, she learned words in a language she had never before heard. Not only common learnings found their way to Rowena; the Dusty Raven was renowned in North Umbria's magical community as something of a haven, and any witch or wizard passing through was glad to reduce the cost of a night's room and board by a half a penny by teaching the Ravenclaws' daughter a little of what they knew. Rowena absorbed every scrap of knowledge that came her way, and this process bolstered her spirits so that she, unlike her parents, was not crushed by loss.
In later years, Rowena would come to look on this move as a blessing in a very hidden disguise. If they had not moved to Alnwick, Rowena might never have come to the attention of one Lady Moira Aighan.