First Chapter
![[Image: tumblr_osi2wc4N2q1wtd9sro2_r1_1280.png]](https://68.media.tumblr.com/5ed8fbeb10cbb402a0262cb286251de7/tumblr_osi2wc4N2q1wtd9sro2_r1_1280.png)
I'm not quite sure how to begin here. I'm sure I'll edit this out later, as this is more a stream of thought than writing. That's why we draft things first, I suppose.
It's hard to know where to begin. All stories have a beginning, sure. All people have their origins. Writing about many people makes that difficult. This isn't so much a story, with players in their respective roles. Life simple doesn't work like such a tale. A bard's song is quick, concise, pointed. Life goes on seemingly endlessly, until it does not. Some of it is boring. Much of it, in fact. Some of it is decidedly not so.
I think I'll start with the Sea Wolf. Her name was often a joke to one of our other characters, in her less sensitive moments (which, I'm sure, most would argue there were plenty). Awyrbryda Faezbharwyn, or as it would be in the tongue of the Roegadyn, "Absent Bride, Daughter of Fat Bear". One might think that an odd thing to name a daughter, considering, but her father would have told you different.
Bharwym Ahldaentsyn (Fat Bear, Son of Old Duck), who often felt his family had a history of choosing unfortunate names for their children, had long hoped for a daughter. When he met his wife to be as a child, she had quickly agreed to his family's ill fortune (self-inflicted as it may have been), and it had been an odd topic of conversation to bond over.
As their love for each other grew with time, and quite a lot of time at that, the far more fortunately named Sthalwyda Swarhundrwyn (Steel Willow, Daughter of Black Dog) made it clear to him that she wished their child to have a name that spoke of strength, and independence. A name belonging to a fierce spirit that would not be bound. Though she passed after bringing her child into the world, her wish was upheld. Here was her daughter, a woman who would never be kept.
Awyrbryda did many years later find herself married, a moment in her life that would make her name feel quite ironic considering. Though her life to that point had been as quiet as one can imagine the life of such a woman to be (Author's note: This is very misleading. Her life was hardly quiet. It's just that all the lives around her were equally noisy.), her husband was lost during the Great Calamity, and she quickly uprooted herself. Though she still referred to Limsa Lominsa as her home, she left the city she had spent her life in and found herself among the people of the world.
You might wonder the point to all of this, though if you're reading this draft you should really consider keeping your nose out of other peoples things (and if you've taken this book please do kindly return it). The point is rather simple. Life is not like the stories we tell in taverns, or that bards sing of in their ballads. Life is life, and these little things and moments shape people. These people then go on, living their lives and passing by one another, sometimes clashing and sometimes bonding. There is no grand author penning some neat and perfect tale here. Just myself telling their stories, relaying to you what happens when so many uniquely messy tales happen to intersect at just the right time and inspire those like myself to tell them.
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