Mr. Vandal changed me, I am no longer Askelin, farmhand... I am Askelin, trained to do as I am told... Askelin the Regimented, Askelin the "trained"...
Five years... Fives years I was under the roof of the house of Vandal, it changed me beyond recognition... I am Lithindir's lackey at this point, I do as he says and I do it well... It's as if it's all I know...
I fear my mind has blocked out the past, I try with all my will to recall what I was before and all I can conjure to memory is red fire and black smoke... I cannot recall my childhood whatsoever... Nor can I remember the faces of my mother and father who are long dead and buried... All I see is that harrowing figure standing besides the ash trees where my parents now lie...
What did he do to me? Who am I? Mr. Vandal's "training" is almost all I know... He taught me how to write, he taught me the correct way to speak, the correct way to behave, how to treat guests... How to keep my nose out of business that does not concern me.
But now comes the time that Mr. Vandal wishes me to fly the coop as it were, to leave my master and seek out work in the bustling town of Bree so that I can live my own life. Mr. Vandal, as regimented and as strict as he was, was like a father to me. Alas that I cannot even remember the voice of my true father. Why do I forget?
I fear there is much that Mr. Vandal had not taught me, for one thing he had kept me away from the town of Bree, preferring instead that I wander the quiet of the Northern Bree fields, and even then I seldom spoke to people I came across... I simply didn't know how.
What do I say to a stranger I meet along my walk? They are not my master, they do not respond to "sir"... They will have no information that I need to continue with my work... They will not offer me a new sword or a repaired shield... Why should I speak to them?
Mr. Vandal has changed me... Into a worker... Into a hired blade that will do what he is told... Mr. Vandal has turned me into the ultimate fighter, never thinking twice when given an order from my superior... Never stopping to ponder on the reasoning behind what I was sent to do... All those times Mr. Vandal had sent me on errands into The North Downs to lend a blade to those strange wandering folk of the North, not once did I question why... Not once did I think to myself that I needn't be slaving away in The North at the behest of a man who never even told me who I am working for...
Come to think of it. I am not sure what to do now... Mr. Vandal wants me out of his abode by the end of the month, I overheard him talking to his friends, I was of course not invited to the occasion of drink and food, for I was supposed to be tending to the gardens outside the house, but I did hear that Lithindir had a brother... I wonder why he never told me of him.
I didn't intent to eavesdrop... So I swiftly got back to my tasks. A part of me is glad that soon I need not work like a dog for Mr. Vandal, though a part of me has become institutionalized to this routine... For the last five years, it has been all I have known.
I am still dreading the concept of leaving. I have only been into the town of Bree once or twice, and that was simply for errands regarding Lithindir's business... How will I find work? I suppose I could become a farm laborer again, plenty of work for that sort of thing or so I am told... But with skills such as mine and such a refined ability in the spear and the sword, who'd turn down a healthy young and athletic lad like me for some work as a sellsword? Maybe I can even join The Watch, I can follow orders, that's one thing. I suppose it won't be terribly difficult to find work. I just need to learn how to speak to folks.
