A towering figure crept the room with a smug demeanor. It was Dirk, fresh from their scouting trip with father. There's sawdust in his shoulders and dripping sweat on his brows. He smelled of dirt and the core of lumber. He walked closers and lifted me from the crib with ease.
My relationship with Dirk is not as close as Aylwin's. Dirk's gone most of the time, either cutting wood with our father or out training in the Hold's barracks. If somehow he isn't torn between those two tasks, he's courting Lizbette's hand in marriage. Although, there are these times after work that he'd go home straight to my room and play with me. He isn't a good sport when I bested him at catching the trinket that he'd dangle at me. He'd laugh it off and blame it in the light, the wind or that he let me catch it. Our mother said that if Dirk would be a warrior and Aylwin a mage, I'd be better suited for the thief's line of work. It's something Dirk would laugh off in a concerned voice. Despite lacking in many brotherly ways, he's still my brother and he's doing a great job so far. He even brought me a Drakewood trinket of our goddess Barenziah. It's a folklore that you should tie the trinket in a twine of barley and wrap it around a babe. This shall protect the wearer from all manners of lowly beasts that shall seek harm and foul. It's even more potent when the trinket Dirk gave me is imbued with mana that I could see with my very eyes. It's quite evident with its flurry of colors ranging from the bloodiest reds to the brightest whites. It's blinding but Dirk doesn't seem to mind. I snatched the trinket from his hand and flashed it in his eyes. There was no effect on him. He didn't even bat an eye.
Then suddenly, the same energies that surrounded the trinket coalesced in the air and shot straight to my heart. It's burning inside me but I felt no pain. There's energy compelling me to blink and focus on the hidden world around me. I did and my eyes seared with the same dense energy enveloping my infantile body. The world was brighter and lit with squirming mana in the air. Dirk was faint but beyond the walls, I could see Aylwin's and my mother's figure.
Deep inside Dirk's soul, I saw a whole that peered into an abyss. Mana is flowing in but never out. Something inside me is whispering, "reach-in" repeatedly. It hammered me to listen to the voice and follow the gravity pulling me to this hole.