It was the steely grey of early morn, as Gredish awoke. The burly woodcutter stood out of bed and dressed him self in his modest leather wood cutters jerkin and pants, Shuffling towards his sink to wash his face he stared in the mirror.

"Humph. Not the prettiest man in the land."

He grumbled as he looked at his weather beaten face. One long angry scar ran down his face, from his left temple down to stop on his jugular vein. His hair was starting to get the silver of the distinguished middle-aged man.

He was not as tall as all the other cutters in his village, but he could wield his axe with just as powerful strokes as Azæ, the strongest man in his village. Gredish had the typical brown eyes of a man with dark skin. He was turning forty-seven in three months, and he wondered where his life and dreams had dispersed.

Back when he was a young lad, he aspired to be a great adventurer living in the court of the king to the world of Kæleil, but fate aspired against him and was forced to become a lowly wood cutting peasant working for the king, instead of sitting beside him.

Looking around at his meagre belongings he decided to do with out his morning meal of gruel and, instead picking up his axe he turned towards the door and walked off to the forest to start his daily job.

It took him half an hour to get to his plot of trees where he had been felling, he had been working in the same spot for a few months now and had formed a nice little clearing amongst the trees. The sun was climbing in the sky and the ground was warm. Looking around he spied a fairly broad Oak that took his fancy.

"Well that looks like a job that I can start off with." Gredish said to himself.

Gredish had developed a sense of talking to himself over the many years of living by himself.

"Okay then Gredish lets get to it huh??"

Unpacking his axe, Gredish sizes up the tree and looks for the perfect starting point. Spitting in his hands to get a good grip on the handle, he hefts the axe around and brings a powerful chop to the base of the Oak. The axe bit deep into the trunk of the tree letting out a solid thud and spewing wood chips all over. Again he started to swing his axe. Gredish then stopped in mid swing as he thought he could hear the whimpers of a small child. Putting the head of the axe down and leaning on the handle Gredish strained his ears for the sound and the direction that it was coming from. Looking off to his left he saw a small scrub brush, the strange thing was it was moving like some animal was squirming around in there.

Cautiously Gredish walked over to the brush, axe at the ready for any surprises. A surprise was what he got when he laid his eyes on what inhabited the brush.

A small child lay within the rough foliage, to Gredish it looked as though the child had an enormous fascination with his little foot. Gredish saw instantly that this child was brought of magic by the telltale eyes. Never the less Gredish did not judge on what you were but who you made yourself to be.

Being a kind hearted man Gredish decided to take this little one home with him to raise as his own. It would be good to have some one else to talk to other then himself. Looking back at the mighty Oak he decided to give the day away and take the child home to a warmer environment.

The months went bye, as Gredish grew fond of the little one.

Already he had begun showing signs that he was developing in his magic, starting the fire was one of his little tricks, unfortunately he did not always start it in the fire place. One day while Gredish was outside picking some carrots for that night's dinner he noticed a rosy glow from his bedroom window.

"Shit! He's done it again!"

With carrots in hand Gredish sprinted inside to his sleeping chambers, and promptly stamped the little fire that was beginning to spread over the wooden floor.

"What am I going to do with you boy??"

After saying that Gredish mused upon the thought of giving the boy a name. He couldn't possibly go around the rest of his life with people calling him boy.

Gredish cooked a wonderful meal that night, though plain it might have been at least the two of them got the nourishing vitamins and iron they need, it was a simple beef stew consisting of a really thick gravy and a hole stack of carrots, one of the only vegetables that would grow in the rough soil surrounding the little village. Gredish was still thinking on a name as he went to bed that night. And just as he was Drifting of into oblivion he thought of a simple but healthy male name.

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