The origins of Wilder part 1

[Corin]

Many years ago, a young man named Ronin Quval left his home. He traveled south, far into the deep, unexplored southern planes. There, he came across one of the last settlements in the Southern Kingdom. All but forgotten, even by it?s own kingdom, the town was small, isolated, and instantly suspicious of anything new. This included Ronin, a dusty traveler with little money and unwilling to tell of his self. But Ronin had found just what he had been looking for, peace and obscurity. He soon left the town, however, still going south. Only a few miles out, he found a small valley on the furthest outreaches of the Walls, a huge, impassable mountain range separating the continent in two.
Over the next few years, that small town, called simply Ciudad by it?s inhabitants, came to accept him, even if they didn?t ever fully come to trust him. He met the town blacksmith?s oldest daughter, Kerra, and quickly felt an increasing attraction. Despite her father?s wishes, they were wed and made a life together. His small farm by the mountains was rough and rustic, a hard life. The self-sustaining homestead and the distance from the town lead them to live a fairly isolated life, traveling to town only for supplies and to occasionally visit Kerra?s family. Thus it was, three years after their marriage, that Ronin and Kerra made the trip to town, Kerra riding the wagon. They had come to tell the good news to her family. Kerra was finally pregnant, with twins no less. But they?re joy was soon replaced with worry, for the town was rife with rumors of war in distant lands. And numerous war-mongering bandits fleeing south to escape the turmoil. But, despite the town?s warning, Ronin and Kerra returned to the home that they loved so much.
Months passed, uneventful, until late that next Summer, when things took an unexpected turn for the worse. With the far-distant wars still waging, more and more people fled the chaos, many moving south. And with them came those who pray on them. But things stayed much the same for Ronin and Kerra, their relative isolation protecting them from the turmoil?s around them. But the bad harvest that Fall had people becoming desperate. Ciudad only produced enough to feed itself, and now there were dozens of hungry mouths among all the refugees. Ronin and Kerra, also found themselves struggling. With the births of their two infant sons, they had barely enough to feed themselves. Until the night that their problems all came to an unexpected end.
A group of hungry and desperate outlaws came across their little home, and realized that no one would know if they slew it?s inhabitants. Thy thought, burn it down after we steal the food, make it look like an accident. So they did. Too late, Ronin saw them coming. Handing baby Corin to his wife, he took up his other son, Temix, and told her to run. She escaped from the main room of the house, down the ladder into the cellar. Ronin never made it more than a few steps. He was cut down from behind and fell, his child still wrapped protectively in his arms, his body covering the trap door Kerra had just used to escape. The outlaws searched the house for supplies, and the out-buildings for Kerra. Ransacking complete, they torched the house and fled into the night, fearing to stay to search for Kerra.
The next day, drawn by rumors of smoke see on the horizon, Kerra?s father, Haymen, led a group of villagers to the farm. Horrified at the scene before them, they sadly search the rubble, finding Ronin?s dead body shielding Temix, whom is barely alive. After a disheartening search for Kerra and Corin, they slowly begin the mournful walk back to Ciudad, baring Ronin?s body and the now parentless Temix. Futile were Kerra?s cries for help.
With the setting sun, came yet another surprise to the tiny, burnt-out farm. Two wanderers, cloaked and hooded. Come to see what, if anything, could be salvaged from the rubble. But with the failing light, they decided to put off their search until morning, and set up camp. Using charred timbers from the house, they built a small fire, and settled in for the night. But to their surprise, they were awakened just before dawn by strange, faint sounds from beneath the burnt ruins. Their keen hearing quickly led them to the source of the noise, a frantic digging. Realizing that below, someone had survived, they too began to quickly dig. And as the sun peeked over the horizon, the first rays of light fell upon the ashen face of a desperate women.
Despite the blood steaming from a large gash atop her head, the two strangers could see she was a remarkably beautiful women, and the resemblance was obvious in the swaddled baby she lifted up to them. The two travelers pulled her out of the hole and took her towards the well for shade and water. There, she fell, and refused their aid. She told them what had happened, that bandits had come and attacked. She told of how they?d killed her husband and her other son, of how she knew was dying. She bade them care for her son and see him safe and well. Then the light faded from her eyes and her soul walked no more upon this world, before she could even tell them the child?s name.
The Strangers searched the ashes for the bodies of her other son and husband, but found neither. They came to the conclusion that the local villagers must have come and taken the bodies back with them. They now faced a difficult decision. They knew the boy?s best bet was with any possible family in the town, but explaining that the fire wasn?t their doing to the villagers, especially bearing the child of the slain inhabitants, would be next to impossible. The two had already experienced the innate mistrust of outsiders so deeply ingrained in isolated communities and knew that, here in the south especially, elves were mistrusted and often hated on mere principle. Still did they try. Kovan, not willing to let his wife risk herself, left her and the child outside the town and went to try and find the baby?s family.
His hood masking his face, he went to the tavern to ask questions. But the fire had left the locals on edge and even more suspicious than normal. He soon began attracting too much attention. Realizing he had better leave, and quickly, he paid for his drink and headed for the door, only to be brought up short by the cries of the inn-keeper. Too late did he realize he?d paid with an elven coin. The crowd grew hostile, quickly forming a mob around him. Unable to match his light step, however, Kovan quickly outran the villager and made his back to Ryloo and the baby. A simple, knowing look told her what had happened and they once more journeyed back to the burnt-out farm house and their small camp.
That night, the two stayed up late discussing what to do with the boy given over to their care with such blind trust. With the fire burning low, they decided they had best take him with them. Leaving him outside for someone to find could just as easily see him eaten by wolves than actually be found. The next day, Kovan snuck into the barn of the nearest farm and acquired one of the nanny goats from the pen. Leaving behind a small pile of gold, he led the goat the miles back to the camp so Ryloo could feed the child. There, they named the child. Wilder, they would call him, for that was where he would be raised, away from all civilization and away from his own kind.
Packing their meager belongings, Kovan and Ryloo toke up Wilder and led the goat south, towards the Walls and the secret passes through them known only to the elves and the few peoples that call those mountains home. From there, they would enter the southern half of the continent, the homeland of the elves, and the Great Forest of the Sky that covers most all of that land. Here, they would raise the child. Exiles themselves, here they still had a few friends and knew the land well enough to hide from those hat might come looking for them. Here Wilder would learn the ways of the elves and grow into a man under their guidance. Here he would learn to hunt, to trap, the languages of both man and elf, and most importantly how to defend himself when necessary and how to hide when he couldn?t fight. And how to tell which was needed.
But always did Kovan and Ryloo know that ,someday, he must return to his home, to his people. He would feel compelled to search for answers, and for any family he might have left. But until that day , they would raise him as their own, love him and teach him the ways of the world. They could sense that he would be a link, born of one world and raised in another, he would one day help to bring those two worlds together. One day.