Chapter 21 Coming Home

As I kneel, the heat of the sun intense even through my burnoose, I scoop a handful of the hot sand into my hand and let it trickle through my fingers, the wind catching the grains and scattering them before me.

Rubbing my gloves together I clean the residual dust from my hands as I turn my viridian swirled, twilight grey eyes up to the cloudless, brilliant blue sky and remove my veil.  The sun is hot and almost painful as it beats upon my face.  I am in my element here, the heat, the sun, and the sand... the Sea of Fire.  I am Tehir.

I close my eyes as I think back to my first life, my childhood.  My mother was still alive and life was so simple, at least it seemed to be so.  My memories of this time are sketchy at best, but I do remember my happiness, especially when speaking to my mother.  She was my world, my whole life, more so since I never knew my father.  Then, in one terrifying night, everything changed, and my first life ended.

I entered my second life through fire, smoke, blood, and… death.  A child, alone in a murderous wasteland.  Inexperienced, lacking the knowledge to survive, my end was a certainty, merely a matter of time.  But instead, I was found by G'Arrone and raised by him and his wife, K'miza, and I learned.  I learned all that I needed to survive, and so much more.  I learned the ways of the Empire, those who murdered my mother and the rest of my clan.  I learned how to kill men, and how to not be killed by those same men.

I learned the histories of the Tehir people.  I learned through the pain of the Tehir Trials of Manhood and I still bear the scars, earned through that same pain, numbering twenty and two, to prove it.  I learned the ways of the creatures of the desert, both man, and animal; but mostly, I learned to hate.  I learned to hate the Empire and everything it stands for with all that I am.  My soul burned with my hatred, it was my only motivation, there was no room for anything else, and I wanted nothing else.

Those same trials that taught me so much and gave me so much status among the Tehir also marked the end of my second life and the beginning of the third.  I was turned out from my people; my path, it seemed, was no longer that of a Tehir raider.  I was no longer numbered among the people... I was truly alone. 

I traveled throughout the lands, alone... always alone, with only my deep, undying hatred of the Empire for company.  It was enough, for a time.  Eventually I found myself in the free town of Wehnimer's Landing, a place where someone like me, with such a checkered past, was welcomed.  Many tried to befriend me, but my blind hatred of all things Imperial eventually turned even my most trusted friends and companions away.

I fought in almost every major campaign in and around Wehnimer's Landing for nearly twenty years.  I didn't do it for the town, or the people, or any of my few friends.  I did it for me, for my pride, for my ego, for my own selfish purposes.  I did it because I didn't really know what else to do.  I am no orator and I've never been known as a gentle and kind person.  Warfare appeals to me, much as it appalls most everyone else.

Things began to change for me when I met Phever.  She showed me there is more to life, and myself, than I ever thought possible.  She stood by me throughout some of the worst times of my life, when no one else would.  I was no longer alone and my hatred, with me for so very long, wasn't the most important thing in my life any more.

Then came Talador and their knights.  I killed multitudes of them and I kept an ear from each, as a token, but mostly as a reminder that my hate was still with me, still burning in my blood.

But that war ended, as all wars do, and I was left, once again, fighting my oldest nemesis.  Peace.  I tried to fit in, to change, to become something more, but I failed.  Once again, as I have done numerous times over the years, I left.  The lands of the non-Tehir were never the place for me, unless there was a fight.

The Sea of Fire was calling to me.  "Come home, Radeek Andoran, son of Q'atild.  Your place is here, in the sands."  I listened, I heard, and I went.

As I kneel in the burning sand and listen to the silence, incredible in its totality, it begins to dawn on me… I was wrong.  As much as I love this place of my birth, it is no longer home.  Though my love for the sands is no less, my love for my new home is greater.  There is nothing to keep me here any longer.  I have found what I searched for and it is time to go home.  It is time to return to Wehnimer's Landing.