FINDING FAMILY
Sitting back down at this journal once more, it strikes me that I have been away for quite some time. Like the animal frenzies that I suffered from in my younger years, long and frequent wanderings have beset me for much of my life. But I do not wish to get ahead of myself. We will talk more about my walkabouts later. For now, on with my story.
The loa had smiled on me. My shackles had been loosed, and I had found my way to my Darkspear descendents in Kalimdor. Still it shames me to admit that I was scared and did not know what to do with myself. For so long I had been a seeker and a slave that the notion of "tribe" had become foreign to me, even frightening. Would they accept me as a long-lost cousin or treat me as an outcast? I did not know. So I began my new days of freedom by doing the same thing I have always done. Surviving.
I took to the bush of the Echo Isles. The surroundings were comforting, reminiscent of my old island home. Emerald rainforest. Jagged, rocky outcroppings. Palm-fringed shores. Fish seemed to leap from the reef into my hungry hands. There were raptor nests to deprive of eggs and plenty of fruit trees from which to forage. Occasionally I would see other trolls. In fact I discovered a large group of them living on the biggest of the islands. They appeared to be a hostile offshoot of the main tribe, led by a dark voodoo priest in a reign of terror. I stayed away from them.
But as the weeks passed I became more curious about the trolls on the mainland, who seemed far less threatening. I would swim to their village at night and watch them through the open windows of their huts. Their frequent laughter and singing must have had a disarming effect on me because I did not notice that soon I, the hunter, had become the hunted. When a young female voice said in my ear one evening, "Why yah been sneakin' around here, mon?" I nearly jumped out of my hide and turned to face her.
Her eyes widened. "B-bruddah, is dat...? Ha! I knew it!" She stood a head shorter than me, and the gaze under her tuft of red hair was shocked and hopeful. Before I could escape back to the safety of the sea and the islands, Hel'caite yelled, "Ma! Da! Come quick, I told yah I seen him!" Fear like a suffocating wave of water washed over me as heads poked out of every window and doorway. Two tall figures ran out of a nearby shelter and over to their daughter, who was once more staring at me with a bemused look on her face.
Loa Geres'tek, the Tortoise, seemed to slow time itself as everyone stood and blinked at me and at each other. Then the woman who would become my second mother cried, "Samedi be praised!" She picked me up in her arms and crushed me to her full chest. Her husband placed a hand on her shoulder, his eyes somewhat narrow and skeptical. "He has returned to us. Hel wuz right, loa bless yah mah daughtah," said the woman. I opened my mouth but my weak plea was drowned out as it seemed suddenly that all of Sen'jin had burst to life around me.
Trolls streamed out of their huts. Torches were lit and tossed into the central bonfire, whose flames soon stretched high and wide, casting tall shadows in every direction. Loud drums began to beat from somewhere. There were whistles and yelps and voices raised in a chant-like song. Before I knew it I was lifted off my feet and tossed upon the shoulders of the crowd, thrust up and down in time with the rhythmic music.
"Ayya! Ayya!" "Kazlin!" "Back to dah world of dah livin'!" "Eyo, Kazlin!" "Praise dah loa!" The hands and voices caressed me as I too began to laugh, caught up in the rush of the moment. "Kaz-lin! Kaz-lin!" The crowd whirled me about until finally I was set down dizzy in front of a commanding figure in the center of the commotion. I looked up hesitantly at the imposing rush'kah mask of Master Gadrin for the first time. "An' so yah return tah us from tha sea," he scrutinized me with shadowed eyes, grumbling. My heart stopped beating in my chest. Then his voice boomed. "Conqueror of Samedi! Chosen of Agwe! Kazlin!" He thrust his hands in the air and roared.
The cheers began again, and as my eyes scanned the crowd they fell on little Hel'caite and her mother and father. The girl, bouncing on the balls of her feet with her hand clasped in front of her, could barely contain her joy. Her mother and father smiled benignly, thankful tears on their blue-skinned cheeks, their arms tight around each other. In those moments of overpowering acceptance my old name fell from memory, and I became Kazlin of Sen'jin Village.
* * * * *
Months passed with my new family, and I eventually learned that the real Kazlin, who shared the same age and bared a close resemblance to me, had disappeared one summer afternoon while fishing along the coast with his sister. Hel said that a band of makura crab-men had attacked them both and dragged Kazlin into the ocean when he tried to fight them off. Just eleven years old at the time, Hel had been devastated by the incident.
Two years had passed when I was discovered on the very anniversary of Kazlin's disappearance. Whether the Darkspear truly believed I was the lost boy returned from the sea or whether they were simply willing to adopt the story for the sake of Hel and her family, and my own, I do not know. But I can say that I was never treated as anything but a full-fledged member of the tribe. To this day I am Kazlin in mind, body, and spirit.
