Chapter 17: The History of Totlac
Ten years ago, long before Totlac became a slaver, he was but a simple farmer.
His only job was to feed his sheep, butcher his hens, and finish his chores for the day, so that he might have a nice long rest in his wool bed.
Accompanying him was his son, only seven and a half years old, he was born in early spring when his wife was strong and steady. A spring boy with enough energy to pull over a dozen carts.
Totlac could still vividly remember that day. The day his life met such great heights and also the day where he lost everything.
Married for thirteen years, he could say he knew everything about his wife, from her hobbies, likes, and even what type of food she would eat on moody days.
But, he was wrong.
He never took his wife for a liar, at most a horrible fibber.
But when he entered his kitchen after a long day's work, he found all those lies come tumbling down with her tears, as she cried to him with tears of joy.
"A child."
She had called out to him.
"A baby girl."
A child, a baby girl, who was left within their lofted hay bed in their barn, discovered late at night by his wife, who went to soothe the cattle to sleep.
For over a week she had kept her hidden, but could do so no longer.
His wife was afraid that Totlac would get rid of the child, too many mouths, and too little food. She was scared, but her fears were unneeded.
Totlac could have been a number of things, but anger was never included with that.
In fact, the thought of anger had never even crossed his mind. He just took the little girl, barely a year old in his arms, and straddled her there against his chest.
"Such a fragile little thing."
He had said then, never knowing how true those words would become.
They named her Niami. Their adoptive daughter.
And while the mother or father could never have been located, Totlac knew more than he would tell.
Nearly that very same morning when his wife had found the little girl, during his trip to town, he had overheard the conversation of the town guard, who was discussing the corpse of a woman, barely twenty, who had been stabbed to death, and left to the wolves.
But Totlac didn't care. Niami was now his daughter, and no matter what had happened to her mother, or where her father was, he had swore to himself that he would raise her well.
And well he did.
His son turned out to be the best big brother Niami could have ever asked for. Anson, now fifteen, turned out to be a fine young man who never hesitated to help his father, unless of course it was for his little sister.
Niam, who barely reached the age of seven, was a small little ball of energy that never got tired of playing or fooling around.
In fact , her mother and father could barely keep up with her, as she would often bound around the hay loft, hiding within the bales of hay and popping out just to scare them.
Life was perfect for them.
A plentiful harvest, full of corn, wheat, potatoes and a number of other things Totlac had planted with the help of Anson.
With the addition of Niami in their now growing family, Totlac had planted extra while the season was still young, allowing them to have a harvest that lasted the entirety of fall and even deep into winter.
Soon the villagers, who could barely make it past winter with their stock, would find themselves receiving help from Totlac, who would always share more than he had.
But he didn't care. It was his profession to grow the crop his people ate. And he wouldn't have traded it for anything in the world.
His world was perfect, in more ways than one.
Sadly however, where the light will once fade, it shall cast the darkness of shadows to encompass the earth.
And soon, with the coming of winter, Totlac watched as everything he had was torn from him in mere days.
The villagers he had always helped throughout the winters had grown fat off his kindness, and neglected their own crop farming.
This, of course, in turn, placed them with little to barely any food that could be passed amongst themselves.
And sadly, the spare food Totlac had was not enough to satisfy the hungry mob that had grown.
People were dying, freezing, and starving. And with no one to blame but themselves, their natural human instinct kicked in. And eventually, within their firm grasp for their lives, they pointed the finger to Ttolac and blamed him.
"How could you not share more?"
"You always have so much, why keep it when we're starving?"
"Give us more."
"More!"
"More!"
The shouts and screams from those barely clinging to life were almost defending in his ears, but he too had a family. And while he cursed himself for his selfishness, he refused to give anymore food to them, claiming he didn't have enough.
However, the mob did not believe him. How could they? They had grown fat from the mercy he had provided them, causing their own downfall.
But they couldn't blame themselves. Their own natural instinct clicked in, and like all human nature, they looked for any blame to fall upon someone other than themselves.
And so they came with torches and men, broken, beaten and frozen stiff to the core.
Fire.
That was all Totlac could remember of that night.
Fire that scorched and burned its way through his crop fields where he and Anson would work tirelessly day and night.
The hay loft, set ablaze by the food fire loves so much, wood and death, the same hay loft that Niami would hide in, and scare anyone that passed by.
The fire tore through their house, the same house that he and his wife had built for a family, and finally they had achieved that, only for it to be ripped away by that scorching flame.
The torches, the pitchforks, the angry faces that tore apart Totlac from his family.
The village, so hungry and poor, had resorted to such dastardly means for their own bellies to be full.
They stole from his silos and from his barn. They stole from his pantry and slaughtered all his herds. Then they came, in carts made of paint and wood, chains dangling from the sides, and the cires of the taken wailed out in the air.
The farm was gone, burned to dust. His food was gone, eaten and slaughtered by the men he once called friends. Surely they could not dishonor him more. Surly there wasn't anything else they could take.
He was wrong.
Slavers.
In spite of all they had taken, it clearly wasn't enough. They had resorted to enslavement to earn a few extra coins in case the food they stole would not run out.
To ensure they would not start fighting one another, and pillage each other for food.
The irony.
They tore from his arms, his wife and son, as they begged for help and forgiveness from the villagers. But what haunted his mind even more, was Niami, who was torn from her hiding spot in the hay loft as it burned.
She screamed and fought, and Totlac knew that someone that young would not last long in enslavement.
He fought back. He punched and he kicked and he bit any that got in his way.
Totlac didn't remember much, but he knew he had failed.
From all the screams and shouts that filled the air, Niami's voice that cried out to her father for help, was clear as a drip of water falling in a pool of silence.
Totlac tried and desperately begged at the villagers, claiming they could have everything, so long as they let his family go.
But he was a fool for believing that they would listen.
They tore her from his arms, and sent her off, paying only three gold.
'Three gold?'
Totlac often wondered after that day.
'Three gold was all she was worth. You traded my daughter for three mesley pieces of gold?!'
Totlac's rage and hatred seethed out of him like water through an open dam.
It was because of this anger, that the slavers refused to buy him, claiming he was too much of a wild dog to be broken. So they refused.
Adn with no other use for Totlac, the villagers sent him away banished from the village to die in the forest.
Alone.
***
As Lia recounted the words to the story, she was left with sudden awe and shock.
Totlac however, was calm and composed, and rather than show any form of depression or sadness, anger or hate, he just sat there, looking out at the rolling hills.
His silence didn't put Lia at ease however, as anger began bubbling inside her and a feeling she couldn't place raged within her heart.
But above all those feelings, shame stood tall among them all.
Shame for her hatred for the man, but also shame for judging him, a man she had never met previously.
At that moment, shame was all she could feel.
"You're probably wondering why?"
But breaking through the silence, and interrupting Lia's self loathing, was the sound of Totlac's steady voice.
"Why did I choose to be a slaver when my family and I went through such things?"
Lia wanted to lie, but in the end, seeing Totlac's steady eyes pan out along the horizon, she couldn't stop the truth from flowing out.
"I do. I honestly wonder why you would choose such a life, and not a life of revenge."
Lia tried to look into his eyes, tired to let him see that she was the same.
"Why wouldn't you want them to pay? Why wouldn't you want them to feel the same pain they gave you?"
Totlac finally, hearing her words, turned his head to meet her eyes.
"Is that my pain, or your pain talking?"
The sound of his words set Lia aback with surprise.
In many ways she wanted to deny him, but she couldn't, as she too knew that his words were correct.
They had both experienced pain from people they trusted, and while Lia's family was not ripped from her arms, the loving relationship and looks from her parents to her siblings was taken from her.
In many ways, their love was stolen. Stolen from her.
Lia looked away, unable to answer his claims.
Seeing this, Totlac didn't respond, he didn't intrude, and he didn't interfere. He only turned his head once more, to glance out along the horizon, which was now painted black with the night sky.
"I chose to become a slaver, Lia, because it was the best option I had."
And as he continued speaking, the pieces began to form in Lia's mind, filling in gaps she had once assumed to be filled in Totlac's character.
"To find my family in some desperate attempt, I chose to become a slaver, selling whatever I could salvage from my farm house."
He reached into his pocket, and drew out a small golden coin. It was worn, rusted, and certainly not in any shape to use in currency.
"I bought my first slave for one gold. A sickly little girl, no younger than Niami, who could barely walk. I did nothing to her, nor did I harm her. I fed her, I clothed her, I gave her a comfortable life to the best of my abilities. I hunted beasts and prayed on the kindness of Hunters who would teach me all the tricks they knew to make my life better."
He flipped the coin in the air, glimmering from the firelight.
"She died three months later, and I'll never forget what she told me. I let her rest in one of those caravans, with enough pillows and blankets to smother her. For those three months I searched for her family, but I never could find them. But to her, it didn't matter, not to her. All she said to me in her last minutes in this world, were simple thanks to me. A thank you for the final moments of peace I gave her."
He glanced at Lia who kept her face turned, but through her actions he could tell she was nearly on the verge of tears.
Quickly Totlac changed the topic, hoping to spare her from the self embarrassment she would feel.
"From then on, along with the duty of finding my family by learning this hellish trade, I took on the job of buying and freeing slaves. And to those who had nowhere to go, I kept and offered them peace and a happy life with me."
He turned to look back against the moonlit tents that dotted the surrounding caravans.
"I guess I might have gotten a little carried away."
Turning back to her, he placed the coin down by her side, drawing Lia's attention, who barely paid it a glance.
"I am still searching for my family, but I also have another job to complete now. It lies with them, so if you ever need someone to hear your story, I'm free to hear."
And with that, he stood and walked back to the tents, darkened by the shadows of the caravan.
Lia wanted to follow, and pour her heart out to him, letting him hear her years of solitude inflicted by her family. But she stayed.
'I have no right to pour my heart out to a man who's lost everything.'
She thought, as her eyes passed over the coin laying by her side.
Seeing the coin glimmer in the fire light, the same feeling she couldn't place came back, and she realized that it was an inconsequential anger like a bile in her throat.
Not directed at Totlac, but at the people who hurt him. How similar they were to her family, and their forced solitude against her. It was an anger for all those who had hurt them.
In an act of rage, Lia grabbed the coin, and threw it beyond the fire, turning to leave as she did so.
She needed to clear her head, and calm her emotions otherwise she would never be able to get through her shift on watch.
However, her feet came to a sudden halt, when she realized the coin never made any sound, signaling that it had hit the ground.
Lia turned her head, confusion written all over her face. In her anger she had not taken into account the possibility of someone being there to catch it. So she showed no form of hesitance.
There, on the other side of the fire, illuminated by its light, stood a man dressed in a loose tunic that ran to his waist, and black leather pants that hid him in the shadows.
This was the first time Lia had seen him looking so…normal.
Wearing attire that she had seen often in the streets of Azalia, and not his normal dark leather clothing that covered him head to toe.
She knew this man well, but even so, was not happy to see him right now.
"Hello Cain."
Cain stood there in silence, his hand half raised, clutching onto something she could only guess was the coin she had thrown.
Finally, breaking the silence, and lowering his hand, he spoke.
"Lia. We need to talk."
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