There is no truth.

[Jai_V]

The man in the chair with long black hair stares into the mirror, intensely scrutinizing himself. His face marked by many scars; some of them made from the fists of drunken pugilists, others from crafty blade-wielders, and one on his left cheek from an orcish arrowhead (which he'll proudly tell you about). But what's not there is the knick, clip, or cut of a straight razor, though he appears freshly clean-shaven, with lotion and powder.

He runs his hands over his cheeks and around his chin before smiling at the mirror and looking back to the barber with the clean-shaven head that stands just behind him. "Clean as'a whistle, chum. How much I owe ya?" Here's where it always gets confusing for me.

"7 silver." The barber says, softly. The man in the chair flips him a shiny gold coin. "Keep the change." he says as he walks out of the shop. The barber is all smiles, until the customer leaves and a scowl crawls across his lips. He goes to the door and proceeds to close up shop. "Boy!" his voice echoes through the empty shop as a young blonde boy with hair like a mop comes hesistantly out of the back.

His worried blue eyes look to man shutting the door. "Get'a broom and sweep up all this God's damn hair. An' don't bother coming upstairs until you do, or you won't get fed tonight." "But d..." the boy croaks out before the barber (who appears much too young to be the boy's father) is on him, giving him a back-handed slap that rattles his small frame and brings swelling and blood to the boy's lower lip. "Don't back talk me, you filthy little fairy-blooded bastard...do what I say."

He swaggers through the bar, stopping by a cabinent to open it and take an unlabeled bottle from it before going in the back, to the stairs. His dutiful ward sweeps the floor, silently sobbing the whole time, afraid that he will miss a spot and be denied dinner after having not eaten all day because he wasn't up early enough in the morning and this house-hold only serves two meals a day.

You might've noticed earlier I said this where things confuse me.

Sometimes, I'm the boy with the shaggy blonde hair. Sometimes, I'm the shaven-bald barber. Hells, sometimes, I'm even the guy in the chair. Sometimes, I'm someone else in the room, just watching.

I know very few things about myself, for certain. I know that I can cut and even style hair. I know that, in a fight, I'm good with most small blades and can't take much of a hit. I know, without a doubt, that my mother is dead, and that I was raised by a man who wasn't my father. I know that she named me "Deacon" after her father. I even know I was raised in Thesk and that the barber shop in this memory is in Telflamm.

Everything else about me changes, every day, when I first wake up. There's so much I can't focus on, and it seems like it doesn't even matter. I know exactly who I am...but ask me the finer details. They're random, half-remembered scraps and some of them, out-right lies.

But I've learned to cope. I adjust, each day, rising to fill the role of whoever and whatever the God's have deemed for me to play while I slept. I've been asked, "What brought you to Sundren?" Most of the time, I respond "The Sea Sword," but in all honesty? I have no idea why I decided to come here. So, I'll just make the best of it, until I do.

[Jai_V]

Some people spend so much time concerned over who they were, they seem to forget who they are.

The bard with the lustrous red hair plays a wistful tune, plucking strings of his harp as he flutters, hither and yon. The words are lost on those who are captivated by the sheer melancholy brilliance of each note.

"Ours was no love, though each day we try,
and those passing 'I love you's were only a lie...
and as another day passes, I know one thing is true,
I just don't think I'll ever...get over you."

As he strummed out those last few notes, he took a bow. There wasn't a dry eye in the crowded, smokey Cormyrian bar. A subdued applause broke, and many a patron tossed silvers and golds into the musicians empty harp-carrying case.

I can never be truly sure if I was the musician, or simply a man in the audience.

[Jai_V]

"Deacon."

There I lay dreaming, darkly, in a place obscured by the deepest ebon shadows I have ever know. The bed in the Four Laterns isn't this comfortable...I feel like I'm back in my mother's womb.

"I feel your pain, Deacon...my mother abandoned me to be raised by a cruel world, as well."

Is that the truth? Was I abandoned as a child?

I see an image drifting, a flittering vision just below the tenebrous embrace of where I am. It is a hooded figure, feminine and slight. She lay a basket, and me inside, in a river. I can hear the miserly moans of her weeping.

As I look at the image, it resolves itself differently. The slight woman cloaks to be made of the darkest night and the river, also looks to be a nothing more then flowing shadows.

"Sundren is a good place, Deacon. Sundren is an over-ripe fruit, willingly bearing itself to any with the temerity to reach out and take it."

I can't seem to focus, anymore...my dream is fading.

As my eyes flutter open and I am brought back to the waking world, there is a whisper in my ear from that place of dreams.

"Take it, Deacon..."

[Jai_V]

The girl looks at herself in the mirror, all decked out in dancer's attire, wearing an almost-comical amount of make-up. Breathing evenly, she speaks lies and blasphemies to herself in whispered tones. Finally, she is resolved to her fate: "Fuck it...I've put this off, long enough."

She stands, as the chair slides back from her, scuttling the floor. The tok, tok, tok of her dancer's shoes echo in the hallway until she reaches the curtain...just as she reaches it, the hasher gives her the "thumbs-up" and she strides out to the stage, in mock confidence.

By her standards, she gives a middling performance, at best. But the crowds are awed and shocked, likely having never seen such an erotic display of interpretive dancing, outside of their own bedrooms...and the fluidity of her movements shamed anything their common rutting could have produced.

Mostly the men clap, scream, and cheer, but even a few of the women present seem to have appreciated some aspect of her performance. She doesn't fool herself into thinking any of these cretins have any appreciation for her art in a form not sybaritic. She takes a bow and returns backstage with dignity.

She looks at herself in the mirror, once more...

Deacon looks at himself in the mirror, coming to his senses. "Why in the Nine Hells would I dream about something like that? I don't even like human women." He shakes his head, wondering where all these odd dreams keep coming from, and considers finding an oneiromancer to help him determine.