[Orual]

Jadae's question hung in the air for a moment. Arethin was silent, his brown eyes scanning the horizon. The hills and the trees seemed like something out of the stories that his mother would tell him...

"My mother is an artist," Arethin said finally. "In fact, some of her work hangs in the Rusty Hilt. She would paint all of these beautiful scenes of the wilderness that she explored when she was younger, I guess about your age. You see, my mother was the youngest daughter of a politician, and though she loved her family she never felt that she quite fit in. So when she was only eighteen or nineteen she received her father's blessing and left, exploring and adventuring for a few years until she met my father. They eventually settled in Dale, but her heart never truly left the forests.

"So she would paint her memories, and tell me stories of her adventures, and stories that she had heard along the way. But the best stories came from my father. Before they settled in Dale, my father went with my mother on her escapades. And the best stories were the ones he told, about the things my mother never thought to tell. My mother would paint us pictures with her words, telling us what she saw--but my father told us what he felt. When they were attacked in the wilderness by wild animals, our hearts were thudding in our chests and we wanted to run away from the beast. When they met friends on the road, we felt like we had met long-lost friends ourselves. You see, my father was a storyteller. My mother was a painter. He made me love the spoken word, as much as my mother made me love the sight of the out-of-doors. But he died, ten years ago now." Arethin was quiet for a moment. "I keep listening to remind myself of him. And I hope that someday I can continue his legacy and tell my own children, and others' children, about the stories he was told, the stories he told, and...my own stories." Arethin suddenly smiled. "Like this one."