Chapter 2, Parentage

I had been there almost a full month, and I was so afraid.  I was seven years of age, my mother was gone, killed by Knights of the Empire, I was in a strange camp surrounded by strangers, and I was alone.  I feared to go to sleep for I knew what I would see when I closed my eyes, I was so very tired. 

G'Arrone, the man who adopted me, terrified me, though I tried very hard to not show it.  There had never been a man residing in my tent before; I never knew my real father, my birth-mother never spoke of him, so having a man around all the time was very different for me.  G'Arrone was a large man, very tall and well built, in the prime of his life and very intimidating with his scars.  He was also quite loud at times, even though I believed most of it to be just for fun.  He loved K'Miza, my adoptive mother, very much and it almost seemed as though he lived only to make her laugh.

K'Miza knew I was afraid and she took measures to try to keep G'Arrone from being too boisterous.  She spoke to me frequently and it was only polite for me to answer her, though my answers were little more than what were necessary, and nothing more.  I was well fed and very well cared for, I knew this, but I was still uneasy in my new surroundings. 

I had been in numerous fights with other Tehir children; everyone wanted to test the new arrival.  Sometimes I won, most times not, for I had never been taught how to fight, but I never backed down, never quit.  Numerous times I had come home bloodied and bruised and my second-mother would pay little attention to me, other than to hand me a wet piece of linen to clean myself up with.

My second-father knew I was having difficulty and he pulled me aside one day and asked me what I was afraid of.  My answer was quite simple.  "Everything," I said, "I'm afraid of everything."  G'Arrone looked me straight in the eyes and told me something I'll never forget.  "Radeek," he said, "fear lives within everyone, all the time, every second of every minute of every day.  We can rule fear, or we can let it rule us, but the choice belongs to us, not fear."  After that conversation, I learned very quickly to win, at all costs, to hold nothing back, to answer any challenge with violence, and to never, ever, quit.

When my second-father G'Arrone saw this he began to teach me how to fight, and fight to win, to make use of whatever was close by and make it a weapon.  Very soon thereafter, after my opponents many visits to the tent of the healers, the challenges stopped and I rarely ever fought again, unless it was for sport or the cause was just.  I was accepted among my peers, the other children of the camp. 

My training at the knee of my second-father did not stop, however.  G'Arrone was very good at teaching the martial skills and he told me I was an apt pupil.  I learned the deadly skills of the Tehir, bare hand combat, the use of the yierka spur, and G'Arrone taught me the art of the bow, and make no mistake... it is indeed an art. 

As time passed I no longer feared G'Arrone.  I grew to respect him, and indeed, love him.  G'Arrone is, for all intents and purposes, my father.  This goes far beyond his willingness to adopt me as his own and the sharing of our blood to seal this pact, which is more than enough in the eyes of the Tehir.  G'Arrone understood me, he always knew what it took to get the best out of me, he would push me far beyond what I thought I could accomplish.  G'Arrone is the reason I am WHAT I am. 

By that same token K'Miza, my second-mother, is why I am those things I never would have been, why I am WHO I am.  After my birth-mothers death and until Phever came into my life, K'Miza was one of the very few people to ever show me that what I am is not all I could be.  K'Miza, like Phever, never judged me and never questioned my actions and she always supported me.  She would tell me when I was wrong, not to correct me, but to tell me there may have been another, better option; she taught me to look before I leap, to consider as many options as I could before making a decision.  People who call me rash, quick to anger, or bloodthirsty have no idea how quickly decisions come and go in my head, weighed, considered, thought through and either discarded or accepted.  She taught me to always try to see beyond the obvious; I owe this skill to K'Miza.

I remember once, I had been with my new camp and family for about a year and K'Miza followed me into the dunes behind our camp.  I had been having a difficult time, K'Miza was always good at knowing when I was troubled; I was frustrated at the feeling I had of being helpless during the raid that killed my birth-mother, a feeling which to this very day still resides in the back of my mind.  K'Miza sat down in the sand with me and told me to think through my options, what I felt I should have done.  

Being the eight year old I was I of course told her a tale of my bravery, about how I would have picked up a Takouba of a fallen Tehir raider and used it to carve my way through the ranks of the Imperial Knights.  The corners of her mouth turned up in a slight but motherly indulgent smile, and she asked me if I thought that I could even pick up and swing a Takouba with enough force to kill an armored knight, much less reach that high since the knights were mounted on horses.  Even at eight I could see her reasoning.  She then told me that I had done all that I either could or should have done.  I was alive.  Had I done anything else I surely would not be and my birth-mothers sacrifice would have been for naught.  It was the way of it.

My herblore, foraging and skinning skills I also owe to K'Miza.  She was also a better than average tracker, and sometimes she heard the wind speak.  I've always felt that K'Miza knew more about me than I ever did myself.  I honestly believe that she knew my destiny long before I ever began to have an inkling of what course my life would take.  It was K'Miza who told me life was limitless, there are no boundaries, and that if we wanted something badly enough and were willing to work hard enough that we could be anything we wanted to be, do anything we chose to do, and do it well.  She always said life wasn't worth a lame Yierka if we didn't live it, and live it to the fullest.  She was right about that, and a great many other things.

My second-parents were my first exposure to love.  Of course my birth-mother loved me, enough to die so that I might live, but the love between a man and a woman were unknown to me before K'Miza and G'Arrone.  The love between the two of them was stronger than just about any I had ever seen since and I am thankful that I have that same love in my life now, with Phever.  I am certain that my second-parents would approve of her.  K'Miza once told me that there would be a woman in my life one day and that I would feel it if she were right for me or not.  I only understood this the day that Phever entered my life; I knew it the very first time she spoke to me, that very second.  Of course I now know that my birth-mother, Q'atild Andoran, saw Phever in a vision many years before, and I am comforted by this.  It is as if she gave me her blessing as she lay dying, her life's blood pouring into the sand, her life ending as mine was just beginning.

My second-parents, unlike my birth-mother, were nothing overly special.  They were regular, everyday people leading normal, benign lives.  They were good people who believed that their greatest strength lay in their family, friends, and clan.  G'Arrone was a well-respected Raider and K'Miza was very good in the healing arts and other more mundane things.  Neither carried the status of my birth-mother, but even so they had enough status of their own that I was assured of a mate of very good standing, even without the status of my birth-mother behind me. 

Some Tehir parents can be very involved in who their children marry.  G'Arrone had already begun to trade and raid to increase K'Miza's herds and wealth.  He intended to pay a high bride price to assure I was wed to a woman of high standing.  K'Miza I think always knew I wouldn't wed in the Sea of Fire, but she never let her feelings be known to myself or G'Arrone.  From the time I was twelve or thirteen and nearing the age for my Trials to begin G'Arrone was already beginning to put out feelers to the families of prospective brides for me, and K'Miza never hindered him in this, but looking back I now see she didn't take as large a part in this as the mother normally does.  She knew something of my future; of this I have no doubt.

But G'Arrone, and to a lesser extent K'Miza, kept up the wheeling, dealing, and bargaining that are part of the negotiations between families for marriages, and to his credit, and my future enjoyment, G'Arrone felt it important that the woman should be beautiful.  This of course raised the bride price of any potential mate for me, but G'Arrone was bound and determined to see me properly wed to a woman of high status and looks to match.  Looking back I find this, well, amusing, yes, but also quite gratifying, and I am indebted to G'Arrone and K'miza even though I never wed and their efforts went for naught.

It never ceases to amaze me how well they raised me, how much effort they put into my training and my teaching, how they molded me and gave me opportunities I would not normally have had.  Were it not for them, pushing me to go further, to think, to learn, to become who and what I am today I can almost guarantee I would have been dead long ago.  I consider them my parents, not my second-parents.  I owe them a debt I can never begin to repay, and I can only hope that they would be proud of me, of who I am and of what I have become, were they here.  Perhaps one day I will see them again and be able to tell them how very fortunate I've been, and to introduce them to the love of my life.  I believe both K'Miza and G'Arrone would adore Phever.