Torin/Clearwater

"I was born in Northern Germany, close to the border of The Netherlands .... I think. Or, at least, so I've been told. My mother was a gypsy ... we never really stayed in one place for too long. It was safer that way. Gypsies were ... still are ... outcasts. Theives, beggars, murderers ... didn't matter how innocent they - we - were, we were automatically these things. My mother and I more so than any other.

"I've always wondered ... I know that she wasn't ... so I suppose it must've been my father. I'll never really know, though ... he wasn't one of us. A murderer, my mother would call him ... she'd always get that look in her eye"

"and I wouldn't press it"

“I was raised on the streets after my mother died ... without her to protect me ... to protect them from me ... I wasn't one of them ... It wasn't easy, but I suppose it could have been harder. Could have been up north, somewhere where there's not even enough food for the normal people, where the nights themselves can kill you. Like I've told you before, I had to fight for food and shelter, and I could never stay in one place for too long. After being anywhere for too long it got harder ... the risk of someone catching you. Worse than that, though, was getting comfortable. Letting your guard down."

"I traveled many places; France, Ireland, Italy, Spain, down to Greece. Always in secret ... never letting any acquaintances - people that may have, in a kinder reality, become my friends - know where I was off to. Had to avoid certain places too. Places where there's more fear of us. Romania was the worst ... they had ways to protect agasint ... well you know what I am. Not like most of my kind, though ... I always have been since I was born. Took me many years to learn to control it ... always had to be careful to stay away from towns during daylight hours when I was young. Didn't help though, still had to run more often than I care to remember. The hunters, you know ... they're always there. Still are, but over the years I learned how to fight back ... and better then most of them."

"There were stories ... that some of them wouldn't just kill you. I know, that with them it's never just killing, it's always torture ... tearing you limb from limb, burning you alive ... God, the silver - things that are only neccessary out of their own superstition. But others ... granted, I don't know the truth to these stories, because there weren't exactly survivors ... but they'd take you somewhere. Somewhere dark, wet ... sickly. And they wouldn't kill you ... the torture wouldn't be in the way they were trying to kill you, and it wouldn't even be out of mortal ignorance towards the way the world really works ... it was just meant to hurt. Meant to get you to talk. About what, I don't know. I suppose that they think there's some grand secret ... something you could tell them that could lead them to a way to kills us all off."

Paged to Master Squire Hirehorn