The First Steps Away From Home

[Ludo Maypop]

Dearest Reader,



I preface this tale with a question. Where does a story begin?

Is it simply a matter of winding back time to the very start of it all - to the moment in which our Hero first meets the world? Naked, blameless, and crying to be heard for the first time? Or, perhaps the beginning is found in the embers of a tragedy? A crucible of past pains from which they burn, only to be poured, shaped, and molded into what they are meant to be? You might even be inclined to consider whether our Hero is expected by portent or prophecy? Are they the answer to a question asked before they were even born to hear it?

Perhaps.

If you will permit this author to be so bold, however, none of these are beginnings which are worth putting quill to paper. Are we not all born, and by the time we are in the grave, haven't we been no strangers to cruel misfortune? As for prophecy? Huddled in the dark, it looks awfully similar to delusion, doesn't it?

However, I have a feeling that you are a clever reader indeed. You found this humble author's manuscript, which clearly indicates you are a gentle-saer of both taste and wit. With that said, you have undoubtedly noticed that I have already given you the answer to this little onion, haven't I?

Where does a story begin? At the Beginning, of course!

Where is that, you might ask? Well, the thing about Heroes, is that they are just like you and me, until one day they decide to take a first step. And then another. And another. On, and on, and on, and on and on and on some more. Until one day, they pause to look back, and realize how impossibly far they have traveled, and how heavy the mark they've left upon Creation truly weighs.

Only then, Dearest Reader, do you have a Story. When the End can at last glimpse the Beginning, and be amazed by truly how far they've come.

Now, I invite you to continue forth into a truly splendiferous story that was originally passed to me in a Calimshite parlor, during a game of Three-Dragon Ante (with three dragons, no less - though that is a tale for another day). You might find certain events within to be outlandish, and possibly bordering on the absurd! As I leave you to the tale and cease my monologuing, I will leave you with two important things to consider, should the events within incite your skepticism:

1. My source's integrity is most assuredly unimpeachable, and my integrity is as such that I should not reveal their identity in my florid prose.

2. There are no refunds on manuscripts.



Sincerely,

Volothamp Geddarm

[Ludo Maypop]

Our story begins many years ago, in a dell deep in the Neverwinter Wood. There, near a burbling brook, stood a little wooden cottage, of the sort Men build. Cozy but not cramped, and simple but not plain. It had a roof of thatch, not too shaggy, which sloped to an awning over a modest porch. A chimney made of mortar and river-stones abutted the residence, perpetually curling a small crease of white smoke into the trees wreathing the dell.

Within the wood, within the dell, and within that cozy little cottage, lived a Halfling with ruddy, freckled skin, coal-black hair, and big brown eyes. Short in stature even among the wee folk, and almost as short in years, Ludo Maypop nevertheless tended the matters of house and home as well as any grown folk, big or small. Up with the rooster's crow every day, the boy fed the chickens, tidied messes, tended the garden, and minded the kitchen. The latter of which seemed to occupy the majority of both Ludo's time and passion. It's often been written of the Halfling love of comfort food, and the trait did not miss the young Maypop. Though only cooking for one, making sure not to skip any of the six Halfling meals in a day was practically a full time job.

It was a lonely life. Days, weeks, sometimes months on end, Ludo lived alone. Halflings are a folk who prefer to never meet a stranger. When neither friends nor strangers darken your door, sometimes the only thing to do is to create the friends you want to meet. Ludo had a menagerie of friends of the manufactured sort. There was Pattypan the Possum, who accepted tribute in the form of pie crusts and apple cores. Gregory Forklin was a misshapen kitchen utensil in a previous life, before a crudely-knitted suit was fashioned around his rusty handle. Ludo even found the time to painstakingly whittle a canine companion of a sorts from a log, and named it Bark. It has also been written extensively of the Halfling love of a good pun. Or an especially bad one.

Discounting the friends he imagined, made with his two hands, or that walked on four legs, Ludo only had one other friend. The only person he knew in the world, really.

Karsten.

Technically Sir Karsten of the Argent Order, though Ludo had as much understanding of titles and orders as a hippopotamus might. A Human Knight in glinting armor was strange company indeed for a Halfling. For as long as Ludo could remember, Karsten had always been close by. Even in Ludo's haziest early recollections of his parents, he was there. When his parents died in Ludo's tender years, Karsten took up the responsibility of being the boy's guardian. He spirited Ludo away to an isolated place of safety, and built the cottage in the woods with his own hands. For Ludo's formative years, Karsten stayed close at hand always. He taught the boy how to read, mended ripped seams, healed scraped knees. Karsten taught Ludo how to cook; he was surprisingly well-learned on all manner of Halfling recipes - from trifles to toad-in-a-hole, and from sausage rolls to scuppernong pies. But most importantly, Karsten was a friend to a boy who was starving for one. He was never to proud, and never too grown up to meet Ludo in his own world, where imagination manifested into reality. So long as the chores were done, there was always time for a story, or a game, or even just reveling in idle time by laying on the grass and calling out animal shapes in the clouds.

As the years passed, and Ludo began to show signs of self sufficiency, Karsten spent more and more time away from the little cottage he had built. The Argent Order needed him, he explained, and that he would never be far. At first, it was a day or so, every other week. Then a day every week. Two days. A week. Two weeks. A month.

The day before Ludo's sixteenth birthday, it had been 58 days since Karsten had returned home. For the last three years, Karsten had spent more time away than at home. But he'd never missed his birthday before...

[Ludo Maypop]

"Six peaches, a quart of blueberries, two bell peppers, three big tomatoes, two eggplants, four courgettes, and two goose-neck squash!"

The basket was full-to-bursting with ripe fruit and vegetables from the garden, and Ludo grinned at the bounty, even as he had to use both arms to lug it back to the house. Midway back, he paused, setting the overflowing basket down for a moment to tilt back the wide brim of his gardening hat.

"Reckon we could make a ratatouille for sure! Maybe hand pies for the peaches, and muffins for the blueberries?"

He looked down expectantly for an answer. Wedged in his pocket was a bent and fussed-over fork, well-past its prime. The bent tines carried a rat's nest of yarn that almost looked like an unruly head of hair - reinforced by the crude face painted on the flat bit near the handle. Gregory Forklin didn't give an answer of the sort that grown-ups might understand, but Ludo got the message.

"You're right, we baked muffins yesterday. What about scones? A cobbler? Maybe a grunt? With a dollop of clotted cream!"

Ludo picked up the hefty basket again, and double-timed it back home. He dragged his produce up the stairs, and paused for a spell in his nearly toy-sized rocking chair, which sat next to Karsten's gigantic one. He couldn't help but look up at it, and frowned at its emptiness. Feeling eyes on him, the boy looked back to Gregory in his pocket.

"I really hope he comes home, Gregory." Ludo swallowed heavily, hanging his head a little. "I'll bake my own cake if I have to. I just don't want to eat it by myself."

A few beats of silence, and Ludo looked appalled at the fork.

"I am not wasting buttercream frosting on Pattypan! You know he doesn't appreciate stuff like that. Might as well give it to Bark."

Ludo slid off the rocking chair, his perpetually-bare feet smacking lightly on the porch. He turned to the cottage door - a curious little portal with an unusually low-mounted doorknob. As he reached for it, he caught a flash of light in the corner of his eye. Looked to be lightning - north, just past the crest of the ridge overlooking the dell. Barely half a moment later - a peel of thunder. A close one.

Wait. Lightning??

Ludo's brow knit as he pushed the brim of his hat farther back on his head. There wasn't a cloud in the sky.

"Did you see that?"

Gregory didn't answer, and Ludo wasn't paying attention if he did. The Halfling took a few steps off the porch, looking in the direction of the strike.

"Maybe I imagined it?" Ludo conceded to himself, perfectly capable of holding a conversation with a party of one.

When the second bolt came down, it elicited a surprised yelp from the boy, who almost fell back on his backside. Ludo blinked.

"Okay, not imagining! Real lightning!"

He couldn't be sure, but it looked like it was pretty close to the last one. Which was preposterous. He wasn't sure which book he'd read it in, but Ludo was definitely certain that someone with enough smarts to write a book had certainly written that lightning never strikes the same place twice.

BANG

He wasn't imagining this. Any of it. A third bolt out of a cloudless sky. Maybe he couldn't be sure about the first bolt, but the second and the third one?

Karsten said stuff like this was auspicious. Grown-ups love big words, but Ludo knew what that one meant. A sign.

The boy's lips pressed into a determined thin line, and he pulled Gregory out of his pocket, wedging him into the basket between a tomato and a courgette.

"I need you to watch the produce, Gregory."

Ludo shuffled to the edge of the porch, fetching his trusty walking stick, which he kept propped between the newell posts. Another spear of lightning came down, and there was no doubt about where it hit.

"I gotta go take a look..."

A mixture of curiousity and trepidation filled Ludo's expression. He tipped down the brim of his straw hat, and set off for the ridge.