Legends of Belariath

Philana Sanjeet

Philana rumaged in her pack until she found what she was looking for, with a smile she pulled out the leather-bound journal, an eagle-quill and colored ink well purcheased not long ago from the local General Store. Moving to her cherry desk within her room the kitten clears it of clutter and sets up the few items held within her hand, placing them neatly upon the smooth, hard surface of the cherry wood, lighting the two candles perched upon either side of the desk the kitten settles within the chair before it, cold eyes peering down upon the still closed book, mind wirling with ideas of what to place within it.

After a few moments the kitten frowns, having not even opened the leather-bound journal she stairs at, wonder wrinkling the corners of her eyes as she tries to discern the reason for such silence when all she whished to do write of things gone by, of the place she calls her home and the land she left behind. But then, perhaps that is it, one can not write about the present until the past is clearly past, therefore this kitten chooses to write about what has been, and focuse later upon what is now.

The Kitten Writes:

To Whom It May Concern:

My name is Philana Sanjeet, it was given to me long ago by a group of gentelmen who took it upon themselves to raise a stray kitten far from home. I do not know where I am from or who I was born to, I do not know where i will end up or how I will get there, but I do know this: I sit here in this room, in this strange land and look back on a life left behind in a place lost to me forever, and wonder what path my life shall take from here.

I ask you now, gentle reader, do not pity me for what I do not know and what I have lost or given up, for, while many things are unclear to me, I do not mourn my past for it does not haunt me; I am not weary of the future for, while it is uncertin what may or may not happen tomorrow, I know that whatever it is it was ment to happen.

Please do not frown upon me, gentle reader, do not think me selfish for telling this tale, nor look to harshly upon me for my words. I do not consider myself wise but I do know some things, and I do have a story to tell, weather or not you chose to read it is your choice and your's alone, it matters not to me for I find my confort in the fact that is is written, not that it is read.

The Kitten Writes:

While I have lived only a short time I have come to know certain things about life and the pursuit of it, things that both trouble and excite me. In the monastery I was sequestered from the outside world, protected from things the monks thought would taint the purity of my soul and damn me to live a life of misery. They taught me, these men, to respect and understand what the ‘mother’ offered, they taught me to grasp those gifts I was born with and shy away from what would harm or destroy me. The funny thing about my teachings, however, was that the more dangerous the lesson the more eager I was to learn it.

From early on I found myself drawn to a darker path, seduced by the unknown and forbidden. Yet I suppressed these desires and lived my life as I was taught to. I learned my lessons as I was suppose to, acted as I was expected to yet in my heart I knew that the life of these men, these monks, was not the life I was meant for, it was the life of someone else, someone better then me.

Because of these darker urges I slowly broke free of those who had raised me, more and more I found myself alone by the side of a mountain spring or watching the deadly flow of a mighty waterfall plummet into the mists and disappear. I would take to the trees and follow some unsuspecting deer or rabbit and sometimes even a wolf, just to see where it went. Drawing from the knowledge the monks gave me of the land and how to live off it, I taught myself how survive without the comforts the monastery offered, I taught myself how to watch for signs of passage over the earth I had come to know and eventually over the earth I didn’t know at all. As the years went by I found that I could track an animal or person who’s trail was nearly a week old, the longer I stayed out the more daring I got and while I kept to my teachings and respected the land around me I slowly discovered the power I had over those I tracked and eventually I found that this feline body was good for something other then stealth.

The day I took the life of my first real kill my life changed, and the change was very noticeable. I had stumbled upon an ability the monks simply didn’t want me to know, the ability to kill. And it excited me, when I returned to the monastery that night with my kill I was looked upon with trepidation by the younger brothers of the order but the masters seemed to understand what this discovery meant and my training began anew. I was moved from the common rooms and given a place among the masters not as one of them but as a student of them, and from that point on I was given a vigorous and tiring training schedule which centered around the development of my body, I was taught to become one with the air and earth about me, to disappear in plain daylight, to blend into the background. What I had learned in my time alone in the mountains and forest was expanded upon and taken to a new level, they taught me to fight with weapons and words, they taught me to use my body and the beliefs most have about my race to fool those who would see me as some sort of target.

The masters taught me all they could and then they sent me from them to return only when I was needed. They gave me a few gifts which I would learn to use to my advantage, they gave me enough food to last the night, they gave me more knowledge then I would have gotten if I had grown up among my own kind and then they shut me out of their lives, telling me it was time for me to find my own destiny, to make my own path and leave my own mark.

Philana Sanjeet

Philana sighed as she read over what she had written upon the parchment frowning a little and shaking her head, it was not what she had meant to write but there was truth within it that the kitten simply couldn’t deny therefore she left it as it was, offering no changes or corrections. She smiled as she remembered what the masters had told her in her studies, they said ‘the best things ever written are the things that were never meant to be said’ offering a chuckle the kitten left her writing to go about some other business only to return and pick up her quill again, for while her story seemed complete there was still so much more to tell.

The kitten writes:

To Whom It May Concern:

I do not seek redemption for the things I have done to get me to where I am at this moment, for I know that had the events in my life not traspired the way they have thus far I would be a far different person then I am, and who's to say I would like who that person is?

The monks told me once that regret was a thing that wallowed in the heart, tainting ones soul and denying the ability to fully realize ones potintial. They went on to explain that if one contantly looked back on their life and regreted what they saw there they would spend the rest of their days trying to fix what went wrong, never truely knowing what would happen had they allowed their lives to progess as it was ment to. They told me that these poor souls would never know true happiness.

This sadened me greatly, what kind of life could one live if they were constantly looking back? I was a gentler soul then, untainted by the world and those within it, it was easy for me to belive that hardships did not really exist, that the monks wove tales simply to frighten me and keep me good.

I was a very nieve kitten.

The Kitten writes:

I didn’t expect the sudden feeling of loss I had when I left those I had come to know as family, I didn’t expect the loneliness that came with being isolated for so long. I realized in the few months after being shut out of the only home I had ever known just how much I had taken the brothers for granted thinking they would always be there for me, thinking they would always help me.

That first night on my own, with the knowledge that I had nowhere to go and no one to turn too, was the longest night of my life. Despite everything I had learned, despite everything I knew, despite all the desires I had, the one thing I wanted most in those wee hours of the morning was to return home to the safety of the brotherhood. But I didn’t I remained deep within the woods high in mountains until the desire to flee my new life was gone. I think I stayed there for three days, maybe four, I can’t really remember, and in those days I came to the conclusion that I simply could not live behind the walls of the monastery and the masters saw that, so they taught me what I needed to know then set me free. Once I had convinced myself of this, while my new life was no less lonely or no less hard, it was livable and I lived it to the fullest.

It was almost a year before I left the mountains in search of something else, something more, and in that year I discovered that I was worth something to the outside world. I learned that I had skills others needed, I learned that I had abilities others didn’t. I survived by helping stray travelers through the mountain passes, asking for very little in return for my services, sometimes only a story was all I required.

I met many travelers, many different kinds of people, heard of many different places and dreamed of many more, it was one of these parties that I was leading through the mountain passes that told me Belariath and the Imperium and the town of Nanthalion, they told me that I could probably find a place among them, meet those of my own kind and others, make friends and create a new life. So I went in search of it, I descended the mountain peeks and entered the valleys below only to find myself trapped in a world of violence, slavery and sex, a world that I found I fit into, a world where I was accepted despite my darker urges and a world where I could make a home for myself and perhaps fulfill a destiny the monks never imagined.

Philana Sanjeet

Philana offered a light purr as she replaced the quill upon the desk and read over the words upon the parchment once more. Quite satisfied with her work she left it there upon the desk extinguished the candle and left to again explore the new world around her and find a way to make her mark upon the land she now calls home.

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