Wickid

~~Prologue~~

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  My father was always taken with the Dragons. He admired their brutality and ability to destroy anything gracefully. It was something no one ever understood. Most people feared the Dragons or hated them with deep passion and thought my father should too. But he loved to observe them up close and thought they were misunderstood creatures.

So, it didn't come as a surprise to anyone when it was Dragons that caused his death. My mother was left alone to give birth to and raise me. She missed my father so much that she decided to name me after him, even though I was born a girl. As a result, when I became old enough to play with the other kids, the girls would tease me about my name and I was left to play with the boys.

That only lasted a couple years. Eventually I lost interest in playing their games and the boys lost interest in playing with a girl. I spent my days wandering through the forest near our little village, sometimes getting lost and returning home so late I'd get a whipping. It never deterred me from going out again the next day, though. The other kids began to think I was strange and their parents feared I was growing up to be like my father, a daydreamer and wanderer.

My mom was adamant I get an education. I ignored everyone except my mother and our village teacher. There were few enough of us children that the girls could learn, even if it was just the basics and we never got to practice fighting or farming. Since my father was gone, my mother had taken up the farming and taught me about it, but most of the other girls only knew how to take care of the household. When I wasn't helping my mother with the cows and chickens, I was out wandering and practicing sword fighting with sticks.

It was when I was twelve that I met my best friend. I'd been practicing sword fighting during my wandering when the stick I was holding flew from my grasp and struck something dark in the trees. I watched the dark shape fall to the forest floor and hurried over to it. A beautiful ebony Raven lay staring up at me. I nursed him, since my flying stick had broken his wing and given him quite a shock. Weeks later when it came time to set him back into the wild, he didn't want to leave and instead followed me everywhere, even resting on my shoulder.

We couldn't let each other go. So I named him Chewy since he loved chewing on my fingers when he got bored, and we've been inseparable ever since. We've even developed our own language so we can communicate. As my friendship with Chewy deepened, so did the other Children's contempt for me. They stopped talking to me except for when they were making fun of me or talking bad about me. I became a social outcast, but I accepted the role.

I didn't see any problems with being an outcast until my first meeting with a Dragon. That was when my entire world changed and I wasn't just Renwick anymore. I was Wickid.  

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