Character Book for Valley of Vala

Dane Ravizac

Dane Ravizac

Living out in Beresboia Forest has given me the peace I need and the privacy I desire. I've lived on my own since I was sixteen years old. My mother was upset and didn't understand why. She thought I'd be eaten by the wild beasts or starve to death. Neither have happened. I've only become stronger and more in tune with myself. Something I desperately needed. I needed to respect myself, love myself, and understand myself.

Unfortunately, I have become out of tune with everyone else. Even my mother. I love her with my whole soul. I'm doing what I am doing and living the way I am living because of her. BUT, not living with her or anybody else, I forget how to handle and deal with people. Their emotions, their problems, their frustrations. I want nothing of that. All I deal with is my home and surviving.

I visit the town of Holombsia, filled with all kinds of traders and farmers who sell bits of their lives and souls every day to make a living, once a month. I bring in leathers, wood, oils, and other odds and ends with me to sell or trade for goods I can't farm or make myself. People come from all over to shop there. Holombsia is a rare place in that it isn't part of or controlled by a kingdom. People like to call it a Free Town, but it's basically left to its own because of it essentially being a large market that just happens to be controlled by a counsel of eleven people who also happen to be traders or farmers.

It's usually a days drive from my house in the forest and gives me time to think about something other than myself or what I do. I often think of my mother then. My father not so much as I didn't know him. He was a wonderful man, according to my mother, but died when I was four. She never remarried and lives in the same house on the edge of Caelkirk. They married young. Being the daughter of a Noble, it was her lot in life. She was worth something to somebody. Thankfully, it was a happy marriage. I like to think my mother was happy. That for awhile happiness had been an all consuming thing to her.

They got pregnant shortly after they married and then I came along. I was named after an Eren, a holy man, named Daines Polisco who originally helped secure the realm from the underworld. Or something. I don't believe in any of it, so it's no matter to me, but it mattered to them and so part of me appreciates that.

I'd like to say that I'm complex, but mostly I'm an idiot. Emotions and feelings aren't something I like to dabble with. Maybe because I don't know how and I fumble with it a lot, if I am being honest. It's easier to not deal with them than to stumble around. If I can't do it right, then I don't do it. I guess it's a motto of mine, if I were to have one.

Now I mentioned that I lost my father when I was four. I also lost a brother shortly after that. Just before my father died, my mother found out she was pregnant. They were thrilled. My mother was five months pregnant when my father died. Then a few months later when she went into labor, he was stillborn. She named him Lior and buried him in her backyard. They had tried to persuade her to bury him properly in the cemetery, but she wouldn't be persuaded or convinced to do so.

She still carries the title of Lady and remains part of nobility. For all of the shit I give the King, I appreciated that my mother never had to worry about food or a place to live, or her dignity.