Torhalla’s Prayer #1

[Many many months ago]

Great Bear, oh wise and wonderful protector, giver of strength and a stout heart. I pray first, as always, to you for your protection and strength and for those who of my tribe survived.They are a long way away, and I do not know when I will ever be able to return to them. I hold faith. Faith that I will be among them again… So that I might kill the honorless ones that sold me into slavery. Great Bear, this I still pray. Unceasingly. Every. Single. Day. I keep my sword sharpened to the task.

As you know, because you see all, my master has died and I have been wandering. But I have no paper upon which to write nor do I feel I have enough words and so I think that I must carry on through conversations with you, O Great Protector.

I confide, I have felt restless and without footing. Yesterday, I came across a family of halflings. To be honest, O Great Father Bear, they came across me. I was nearly faint with hunger and trying to find a place to sleep. No money in my pocket, no honor in my life, I found myself alone. Then I prayed the great prayer to you. What has transpired since then is nothing short of your work.

Great Bear, this family is truehearted. They might be a little on the round side, but they have greatness. I am truly grateful for the food and fellowship that they have given me. But, they are not without their own needs and so I have been working hard at the tasks they have given while building my strength again.

I told them of my past, of my journey, the enslavement and the battles I fought for my master in the ring, so that he might fatten his purse. And fat it, and he, became. In the end, it was his own greed that killed him as he became ill with the poison of too much liquor. Or maybe he really did just drown in his bath from being a drunken idiot. I was grateful, at least, that he had no time to sell me before he died. Or at least, I do not know if he had. When he died, I ran. And that is how I came to the Burrowes, that is their name but they also live in comfortable underground dwellings that I find warm and inviting. The Burrowes are the halfling family who took me in.

I have made a friend, too. His name is Fenkeh. He is perhaps the most round person that I have ever met. He is small, fat, and perspires a lot. He can barely lift his hand, let alone chop wood for the family stove. But he is pleasant and cheerful and has a desire to adventure. When he speaks of this desire to see the world and make a name for himself it is as though I am drawn into his dream. It is his dream. But his dream, this fat little fellow’s fantasy, is the one that is now focusing me and my strength. I have found purchase in an idea. The idea that I might fight for my own honor and fortune.