Marquith Hundescroft III
Marquith was born the 5th of 6 children (4th male) to the ancient but now minor (human) Barony of Hundescroft house in [Quarrel. The family was comfortable but not as grand as in elder generations, and had felt pressure to advance their station with each child's course.
His siblings were, from eldest to youngest:
Heathwald Hundescroft (m), always serious, distant, aloof and a bit tortured.
Weigert Hundescroft (m), the troublemaker and thorn in his parents' side
Jana Hundescroft (f), natural leader but also nurturing, nick-named "little mother"... married off to another old family
Borthwick Hundescroft (m), kindly, hard-working, quiet, deceased.
(self)
Falca Hundescroft (f) tough and "tomboyish" from the first breath - warrior's path
Growing up, Marquith was the runt of the family, and always the butt of all jokes from his eldest brothers and their friends, especially one of Weigert's friends named Waldenblatt the Wise. His response was to turn it inward and blame himself. He was a quiet, shy soul with a deep love of learning, history, philosophy, the natural world, and strategy. Borthwick was the brother nearest in age and in temperament, and they grew inseparable - but Borthwick, while also quiet and studious, had a much easier time making friends... Marquith lived in Borthwick's shadow for most of his childhood.
On reaching his teenage years, his prospects for the family were bleak - little chance of inheritance made him a poor suitor, no interest in religion except as a course of study, and no talent for magic. There was scant to be gained from a life of scholarship, so he was trained for war. His father did not go easy on him, wanting to toughen him up and prepare him for the life of a general. He surprised his father with the amount of punishment he could take, relying on his quiet resolve - he learnt his swordplay well enough, endured his armor without complaint, and proved to have an excellent mind for the strategy of a battlefield commander. But alas, he could not develop the strength for hand-to-hand combat, which haunted him at every step. Always the weakling, his brothers taunted - in his mind if no longer out loud. He spent his nights holed up and comparing notes and maps of ancient civilizations with Borthwick.
At 16 years old, he got separated and lost in the woods during training. He tried to recall what he had read about orienteering but it did not seem to help: he was fairly sure he recalled the typical path of the sun through the sky, but the damn thing kept turning around, then he swore it stopped and turned right around. He lost all sense of where he was or had been, but found himself at a bubbling spring. He took a lukewarm and tangy drink from the waters, which struck him as the first true water he had tasted in a lifetime of drinking grey nothingness. When he looked around, the forest was brighter, and the sun had dissolved into a hazy twilight spread loosely across the sky.
He soon found he was being hunted. At the boundaries of his awareness something watched. The beast (as he came to know it) hounded him for days, weeks, months. He learned that the forest had certain ways about it: when he was hungry, food would deliver itself. When he thirsted he would drink. And when he had need to defend himself, defenses would manifest. He put his hand out and the beast would be hurled back by force of mind, fleeing to return at a later time. Once, he was chased down a ravine to its rocky origin that left him trapped. The beast encroached, its jaws slavering; Marquith blinked and stepped forward...onto the cliff above, free and safe from the beast yet again. Time and again, Marquith learned of some new power he could flex by the silent use of his mind or the spoken words of power that came to him.
Slowly, Marquith gained a familiarity with the lay of the land. It was ever-changing, he now knew, like some mad witch's puzzle, but there was a certain logic to it, and at length he created a map of sorts. It was a globe, of many pieces of bark stuck together with sap. The pieces shifted from time to time but once he confirmed the way they fit together in a sphere, he saw plainly that he would never escape this accursed forest. Unless -- he blinked and stepped forward...across the boundary of the forest and into sight of the city walls. He wept.
Marquith returned to a world that seemed different. It turned out to have been not months but years. Young Falca was an esteemed captain and on her way to a heroic military career. Borthwick had established himself as a renowned cartographer rivaled only by the famed Waldenblatt. In the end, the two had developed a bitter dispute over some allegedly stolent notes, they had dueled, and Borthwick had been killed. Honor was satisfied and no further action was called for. The Hundescroft family had taken a dark turn, having lost both youngest sons and the two with the warmest hearts. The remaining family had grown more estranged. When Marquith returned, he was also clearly changed: he now was able to fully explore the use of magic, and it was some time before normal speech returned to him, though it did return.
When he did speak, it was to say, "no". He would not follow the course set for him as a military commander. He would choose his own path. He would win back the honor that had been lost to the dread Waldenblatt - he would make that fool suffer the indignity of being second best. He would map an uncharted world beyond the sea and make his dear brother proud from the beyond. And he would see placed they had never dreamed of in their boyish fantasies. He set off to take ship for Kyneslund.
