The man sitting across from me certainly bore a look of sadness in his eyes, though he was no longer the boy of eleven. His body was tall and lean, surprisingly hard for a man of over forty years, jet black hair with just a few specks of grey, mostly in his closely trimmed beard. His eyes were stone grey, not blue or faded brown, but grey and hard as the stone from which that colour came. His black leather boots were well broken in, not quite worn, leading up to sandy brown trousers and a dark green tunic emblazoned with what I would later learn was the crest of Wolfhaven, or the Longshanks family crest: a howling wolf beneath a crescent moon.
A broad brimmed hat sat atop a finely wrought quarterstaff which was quite unsettling as it seemed to pulse with life like a beating heart, and I would bet a gold sovereign the beats kept time with Galdrions own. Something about his appearance reminded me of a wolf. . . .
"Galdrion Longshanks, the Eye of the Wolf, Halcyon's Wolf, a guild secretary for the Sentinel Guild, one of the original Hierophants of the Oakstone Council, known member of Gaia's order, sometimes bard or poet, you have accomplished much for a boy orphaned in the wilderness by a goblin raid. Of what are you most proud?"
"You've never heard me sing, scribe. A man with a voice like grating rock does not claim to be a bard," Galdrion scowled. "I knew a man once who collected precious gems. He had hundreds of all shapes, colours, qualities. A man asked him which he liked best.
'It is not any one stone that is special, for when each stands alone it is naught but a pretty rock. But gather them all together, and it is my life's work and that is what is special.'
"A wise man, I think," Galdrion told me, his voice deep and rough as the stones of which he spoke.
"Longshanks, for the Honour of the Wolf, Wolfhaven, your grove, Halcyon's Wolf, the wolf which adorns your crest, what is the connection?"
Galdrion gave me a fierce look. "Some things, scribe, a man doesn't shout to the world. Suffice it to say I never would have survived after my father died without the help of my wolfbrothers."
I hated the way he said "scribe" -- could a man put any more contempt in a word? I suppose it must have been the fact that he was uncomfortable speaking of his past, more than a dislike he held toward me.

"What of your brother, Perseon Longshanks. It was you who accepted him into the Sentinel guild, yet at that time you did not know him to be your younger brother?"
"It was not until years later we discovered it," replied Galdrion. "We began to bond, the two of us, before we even knew, our blood knew. We often spoke the same thoughts, almost on top of one another. We both hold the forest so very dear to our hearts. I came upon him travelling through the mines of Moghedu and I saw him drop a signet ring," Galdrion suddenly erupted in an enormous laugh, the sadness vanishing from his eyes. "His hands were so full of his blessed maps and inkwells and blotting sand, no wonder it fell from his pack. But I knew that ring. It was Magadans."
"He told you his mother had given it to him, that it belonged to his father, your father, how did you react?"
"Magadan was no father to me, scribe, and how else should I react?" Galdrion scowled again. "The poor boy looked like me, his thoughts so many times seemed to be my own. . . I wept like a babe, but if you put that in your book, scribe, Ill test the hardness of your head against that of my staff."
"Perseon was the son of Magadan then?"
"Aye, Jonea must have gotten pregnant on the trip if not just before," Galdrion answered. "I never knew she was bearing a child. I also never knew until years later that goblins had killed Magadan. I sold the black dagger that had killed him to a merchant in Shallam who told me it was a goblins knife most likely from an area known as Azdun which lies near the place we camped. Not until Perseon and I discovered our brotherhood did I know that Jonea had survived."

Penned by my hand on the 3rd of Daedalan, in the year 235 AF.