[Phantom]

1st Entry

Unlike most of the other children who spent their infancy within the confines of their parents' homes, only to be discarded by irresponsible hands or left to this place through the disposal of those guardians, I never had the luxury of remembering my mother's face. As a trend, among the other orphans, and street rats and runaways who had surrounded me in the Home, that seemed to be the one detail that linked them all together - if not her face, her voice, or her smell. Something about a mother's love always tucked itself away under the skin of every unwanted or forgotten soul just so that if nothing else, that single memory could comfort an unloved whelp as he grew, so at some time in his meager existence, he might realize he means something to someone, or did at one time.

As I said, I had not that luxury. Daresay, I could have been dubbed the "Lowest of the Low", abandoned as soon after birth as was possible, the cord barely been severed. From the moment the faux light from within the Home fell on the bundle I was wrapped within, I was seen as the most unwanted creature to walk within the place - not that I was hideous to look upon, nor was I diseased or malformed or underweight by any sort. I was simply so unloved, that a rumor spread my mother dashed me on those steps barely cleaned of blood herself, as if she was so regretful of the deed that spawned me, she couldn't even look into my eyes yet unopened.

No names were left. Not even a word off my mother's tongue, or any blessings of the father. So the caretakers of the home, finding it more worthwhile for their rewards from the city rather than out of the kindness of their hearts, took me in and gave me a name. Nathaniel. From God, since I had no avaliable heritage to speak of, and later since no visiting foster seemed to want me anymore than my own family had, Fawkes - after the founders of the Home itself.

Now, I could go into a drawn out reverie of what occurred during the 5 years I spent learning to walk and talk and what was right to do and what was wrong within the confines of the Home, under the eyes of religious fiends and penny pinching advocates of "saving the children", but most of it would be fabricated, seeing as how I never cared to remember once it was done. What I do remember however is the day the man in the red robes came, calling out the title of "little brother."

Sounds absurd, doesn't it? The man was middle aged, maybe even older than he looked, but when he spoke it was as if a spark illuminated the otherwise empty room and frightened the others away. I remember that day well... how confused I was to be standing alone at the center of the most utilized room in the Home, priorly filled with screaming and crying and laughing - suddenly struck silent by the two words spoken from this stranger's mouth. "Little brother." They meant nothing to me, but as that old man's eyes turned focused and set in the prime of my view, I knew that they weren't meant to.

It was someone else who found importance in those words, and no sooner had the robed man learned and written down my name was I assigned away from the Fawkes Home of the Abandoned, out into the city of Venes as I later learned, would become one great importance chain that linked me to my future, much further ahead than I could ever dare hope to see.

"Nathaniel," the man said my adopted name with a strangely affectionate tone, as if I were truly family and had been all along.

I had said nothing. Perhaps it was the shock of finally being offered a home, after 5 years of changing between temporary siblings and bunk mates, never having anyone to become familiar with or to continue to remember my name - perhaps that had garnered my young silence. Never the less, the man still smiled at me, somehow pleased at the quiet that had ensued. That probably should have unnerved me, but I was somehow calmed.

On the other side of the city, far from that place of abandonment, the carriage that had borne us across the city opened up to one of many a manner of buildings I would recognize later as a governmental seat, this one in particular, the circle for the Venesian Council. The men who resided within were both scorned and loved by the city populace, and every time one of them died, another was elected into his place, depending on his presence. All of their various offices on high, all of their specific duties and legal strengths - these I would be taught later. For now, as I entered the wide, circular rotunda where those 12 men all bore down towards the center where I was lead to stand, all I knew was the expression on their faces, the scrutiny in their eyes.

"His name is Nathaniel," the man who brought me spoke, though until that moment, I hadn't realized just how far behind me he'd strayed. I stood alone at the center, vulnerable to their deliberation.

"He comes with a name?" One of the elders asked, "I thought that we were meant to allow her to name him."

"The name is correct, his only flaw. He knows nothing, and speaks little." The red robed man spoke again, in my defense, though it didn't sound at all protective. "He is unattached, solitary, a blank slate... and will not be missed by anyone."

Whispers passed between the twelve.

"Expendable," became a well-versed word, one I would be familiar with for a long time without knowing its true meaning.

"Fine, leave him." another councilman ordered, "We will teach him what he needs to know..."

From that point on, I was no longer in the care of the red robed man, nor was I shown the same affection as I thought might procure from that family-like address. However, I was never abused or beaten. I was re-versed on my ideas of right and wrong and coursed on behavior in a formal setting. I was a docile child, and rarely spoke a word. I had no need to, and in these teachings, was taught to speak even less than that unless addressed.

It had been nearly a year since my integration into this political family when I heard her name for the first time. I hadn't left the council building since the very day I had been ushered inside, ate only what was provided to me and slept where I was able. Beyond what little I could grasp in the ways of history and writing at that age, I had always spent my time unnoticed by most adults, always in the shadow of one or more of the Council elders who had required me to address them each as Father. I didn't understand that either, but time would tell, and time could not be stopped...

It was time that had indicated I needed to be discovered for her, and it was time in turn that brought her to me. All along, they had known she was coming, and I had to be waiting for her.

"Little brother, Nathaniel," the eldest of the Council drew me aside that day alone.

The morning had already broken routine. Though I was usually woken up shortly after sunrise, today it was almost mealtime before I awoke on my own, undisturbed. There were whispered in the halls, and I went unescorted through them, until this particular man had sought me out by my name. I'd approached out of the formality engrained in me, and now, obediently, quietly, I waited for what news he had to offer.

"In three months time, you will be dismissed from the Council settings, and we are to send you home."

Home? It baffled me to hear the word, after all that had happened, I had believed this was my home. Certainly, in all of its delegations and schedules and meetings it was unorthodox, but surely he didn't mean the orphanage, and certainly no where else I had ever been I considered home at all.

"I have to admit, when you arrived, I didn't see a lot of potential in you. The fact is I sought out possible replacements that very evening, in case you weren't fit for the task that lies ahead... but all in all, you've exceeded everything that we hoped for, and we feel you will make a fine role model for her."

"Her?" This was my first word uttered in days, and it made the old man smile.

"Certainly, child. In three months, you will be taken to a new place, where you will have to grow accustomed to calling Home all anew. There, you will meet Lyra... to whom you will take the new title of older brother."

I was naive to think it was all going to be so simple. The elder councilman dictated that I would take that role, and as I was taught of the world, so would I in turn teach this little girl, barely an infant the day I knew her name.I would become the only face she would see day to day, the only family she knew once she was weaned... everyone else would fade away.

But time had another story to tell, and much more in store for me than I could have imagined even then. My meek little mind at that time would be tested... if only I knew how far I would go to pass those tests, and how far such a little girl, Lyra, could take me and teach me in turn...

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[Phantom]

2nd Entry - 3 Months later

Lyra. Being just under my sixth year in age, I had only been exposed to infants within the environment of the Home. Granted, I had been an infant myself when I had arrived, but usually they didn't last long - whether they became ill or were quickly adopted, I didn't know. But Lyra... when I first laid eyes upon the rolling bundle who squirmed and wriggled between the nurses in the auditorial rotunda of the Oracle, I wasn't sure what to think. For the prior months, I had been educated in the diet of infants, of their behavior and the proper responses to their cries. Certainly, I would not be wholly alone with this little girl as my charge... but it was constantly borne into my head that I would be the only one to be with her at all times.

Until I was no longer necessary.

They never told me I had a restricted age to remain with her. Only that I was to be her brother, and that I nor she would ever meet her mother or father, and there would be no other family for a long while beyond the occasional visits of the Council. From all that they told me and from what was prescribed, I felt as though I would be housed within the Chancellor's mansion, with my own room along with her. How wrong I was... for a year however, my feet remained firmly on the ground. It was on my eighth birthday, when Lyra was two and had just learned to walk that I learned where our true home would be.

I'd heard stories from the nurses at night, told to Lyra to wind the little girl down to sleep. As I sat near her cradle, I listened.

"Dear little child," the woman would start, "I wonder if you see your mother in your dreams? I know she longs to see your face, but she knows what's in store for you, and cannot interfere. The tomb behind the falls is empty, awaiting a new heart, awaiting you little Lyra to envision the world as it will be. For Tiberia, for the Gods, and for all the living creature of this world, your mother gifted you with this fragile life, and the sight you bear. The last gift she gave you was the perfect companion to comfort you in that small world..."

I remember her eyes. Every time she spoke of me, she looked to me, and soon so did the infant's. Lyra's tiny eyes always seemed to look right through me, as if I were a ghost seated in the room that only she could see.

"Your brother is young now, but he will take care of you, and will protect you from harm. And you in turn will protect and serve the voice of the Gods."

By then, she was no longer paying attention to me, but Lyra... Lyra would often stare and smile for all the time she was awake therein. If only I knew what she saw in me, or why she paid so much attention where rarely anyone else noticed me at all.

But now, as I noted, she was two years old and I was outfitted and educated on newer, more unusual features of the world beyond the Venesian walls. A man arrived in the middle of my tutor's discussion on the layout of the city, and why it was constructed and fortified in due. Then, as his studies moved to the outer realms, he began to learn about the expansive Forest of Elements that surrounded 3/4 of the city sides, and the rest moved to the fields and the water... The great falls, and the bridge to Heaven were only touched on, when the rider took me away.

"My name is Elric, and I am a regent of the Oracle," he made sure I understood his name and title, and went on to describe himself in a 'prude and offhanded manner as not to offend me being a child. Basically, I would come to understand that he was one of three lovers of Lyra's mother, and was quite possibly her father, despite how young he seemed.

"I am going to show you where you must go, young man. You are Nathanial, correct?" He asked, and I simply nodded in turn. "Good, come with me, these are the last moments you will have away from your little sister for a long time.

A decade in fact awaited me before I would see the streets of Venes up close again, but my mind would be elsewhere, because as the man took me to see the Falls, to see the grand Bridge to Heaven and look upon the way to the Vault of Zula where I was meant to grow and learn, and perhaps change as if the small chamber of stone was a metaphorical cocoon, I saw my own future before any gifted child could tell it to me.

For there, upon exiting the auditorial hall doors and entering the light in the midday of the Venesian streets, before me stood a creature I had only dreamed of before.

It was on that day I saw the first of many Arelle, the white dragons that once flew the skies over Venes.

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