Azarei's Quest

Chapter Two

Azarei grew up with his mom, a human. She smelled like the colorful wildflowers she planted all around their tiny cottage.

"They're weeds," he'd say petulantly about her flowers as she weeded and watered her garden.

His mother thought the whole world was her garden, she lent her green thumb wherever she went. Everything she touched began to bloom.

"They're flowers," she'd say patiently, kindly. She'd smile at him. "They're almost as beautiful as my boy." Then she'd pluck one and secure it behind his ear.

Later he would look at his reflection in the water of the small stream that ran beside their home. His face was reflected back at him, flower and all. He wondered what other people saw when they looked at him. His mother's beauty, it was all right there in his face. But the orc from his dad was also very present. He wondered if his was a face anyone other than his mother could love. He really didn't know.

Azarei's mother was beautiful and everything she touched was beautiful too. She made dresses, custom made, for the women in town. Everyone wanted one of her dresses. Sometimes Azarei helped her, gave an opinion here or held a pin or two there. He was always so surprised when she finished a dress, even though he'd seen her do it a thousand times before. She took a chunk of fabric and turned it into a gorgeous gown.

Azarei and his mother rarely fought. In fact, they were best friends. Azarei told his mother everything, he kept no secrets from her. They played cards together and chess. Azarei's mom loved chess. She would sit there with her pointer finger on her chin thinking out her next dozen moves with a coy little smile on her lips. It always made Azarei nervous when she did that, it usually meant he was about to lose.

Azarei liked to watch the fish swim in the stream. Sometimes he'd lift them out of the water in their own big bubbles and then drop them back in. He didn't need a spell for this, it was just something he'd learned to do. That's where he was when the fire came.

He'd fallen asleep alongside the stream again. His mother always told him not to do that, she worried he'd fall in. He felt the heat first, then felt the coughs bubbling up his throat from becoming clogged with smoke. It was hard to breathe.

Groggy and confused, Azarei looked towards their cottage. Flames had already engulfed his entire home. How had he slept through this? What had happened? He sprinted towards the fire, in what most cases would be a dumb move. He threw every spell he could think of at it but he didn't know very many water related spells. Why didn't he learn this in school?

He screamed for help but nobody came, the cottage was too far from town, nobody could hear him. He screamed his mother's name, called out for her. There was no answer. He kept screaming, begging her to come out. He screamed for her until he was hoarse, until his voice was only a whisper, until he had no voice at all. She never answered, never appeared.

So he collapsed in the grass and watched as his heart burned and turned to ash in front of him. He didn't think he would ever bloom again, he didn't think he'd ever see another beautiful thing.

Later there was a lot of speculation about the origin of the fire. Was it the fireplace? Was it the stove? Azarei didn't care what it was. He cared that his mother was gone and nothing was going to bring her back. He cared that his home had been ripped from him. And what is home if not the people you love keeping you there? There was nobody left for Azarei in that town.

So he left.