Intro "The birth of a father"

A slight breeze rolled gently over and down the slopes of the Shai’gan mountains in the southeastern corner of Palencia stirring the grasses and multitude of wildflowers in the foothills and open plains beyond. The sun, not yet at its apex, burned brightly in the sky its rays only occasionally lessened by the passing of a single cumulus in an otherwise clear sky.
From the north a trio of men, a father and his two sons, made their way slowly down the long well worn road leading a single horse and cart laden with tools and necessaries needed by many of the villagers surrounding the small Barony their father governed. The three conversed amiably as they made their way clearly giving no thought to reaching their homes soon. The trip was a monthly repast from the constant strains and bickering of governing and would be their last together before Faren, the eldest of the two sons at twenty, left their home for the official military training he would receive in Palencias capital, Kal’Tor.
Every so often the group would burst into a raucous fit of laughter at one or another of the tales told by their father, Ragen Demeere. The tale he wove now was of an attempt made to win their mothers heart that had incidentally won him her fathers ire. Unfortunately for Ragen her father had happened to be the lord commander of Nesdrith, a joint encampment of Elvin and Human militaries located at the exact center of the thirty mile land bridge that separated the predominantly human and Elvin countries Palencia and Volusia, where Ragen a first year infantry man was stationed.
Both Faren and Guardan laughed uproariously as Ragen set about reiterating the events that followed his attempt at romance with the commanders daughter, embellishing as he often did with each telling. He told of the deplorable and often downright disgusting jobs he’d been given including the mucking of the cavalries horse stalls to which he’d been assigned for six months before the lord commander finally realized he would not be cowed or scared away and gave Ragen his blessing to take the beautiful Lemoreys hand in marriage.
The story was one they had heard hundreds of times growing up and yet they still laughed so hard they cried, often taking the opportunity to make a good natured gibe at their father who laughed all the harder for it.
As the group walked the laughter eventually faded as the telling of Ragens life in Nesdrith grew more serious and eventually came to a point Five years after his marriage to Lemorey when Ragen had been by necessity given a field promotion to Captain of Nesdriths cavalry after the death of the former captain in a short but bloody skirmish against Orcish raiders.
It was a scant few months after this promotion that an Elvin sea scout known as a wave runner
(a scout operating a highly swift and maneuverable one man vessel imbued with magical properties that allow it to shimmer the color of the ocean and pass virtually undetected on water) returned with news that two Orcish carrier vessels, capable of carrying three hundred Orcs apiece were spotted heading directly for a small Elvin community known as Sudal in the southeastern corner of Volusia some twenty miles from Nesdrith.
It was the young Captain Ragen and his swift force of five hundred cavalry that were given the orders and sent out in a headlong rush for Sudal.
When they arrived, not two hours later, the Damage had already been done and the Orcs numbering a like amount as the human cavalry put up such a ferocious fight that over fifty of Ragens men were mortally wounded and another two score were severely injured before the fighting was finished.
The only survivors of the massacre had been two half Human half Elvin boys found in the rubble of a collapsed cottage shielded by the body of the most beautiful Elvin woman Raden had ever seen. The sight had torn his heart out. Never in all his days had he visibly wept before his men but this day the tears rolled freely down cheeks layered in grime and blood and those of his men who had seen either cried openly as he or fought it with great visible effort.
As he moved to take the womans body in his arms she sighed and a shudder shook her lithe frame as the breathe of life left her body.
Quickly Ragen scooped the boys up into his arms and watched in amazement as the womans body began to convulse and distort its proportions. Her arms and legs drove themselves through the flooring and deep into the soil as they transformed before his eyes into living roots that grew and pushed deeper and deeper into the ground as her body transformed into the living trunk of a sequoia and shot skyward in an awe inspiring race to reach the heavens.
Those of the cavalry whom had concealed their sorrow before fell to their knees, especially those Few Elves present, and let their tears fall un ashamedly to the earth as they watched the growth of a millennia take place in mere minutes.
As the giant sequoia, now at least one hundred and fifty feet in height, gave on last shudder Ragen stepped forward and placed his head and those of the unconscious children against the soft fibrous trunk that now more than covered the entire cottage. “If I have to raise them myself your boys will be cared for” he whispered and his voice broke as a single tear fell and wet the bark.
A sense of tenderness and love as he had never felt it emanated from the tree and washed over him in a torrent. In that moment his life had truly began. In that moment he became a father.