I call it a gift and I do that with good reason.  While no one should consider their surname a right, my family would have every right to keep Elvenwood from me.  I would not learn until many years after first hearing the stories of Elvenwood, but my lineage was less then most proper.  From the moment my parents, met there was a connection between them; a love I can only hope to find for myself one day.  Mintaka's youth was a stumbling block for father.  Out of propriety and respect for my grand sire, Mnementh did his best to love her like a sister and move on with his life.  Mother was too young to understand fully the feeling or so she claims.  To this day, however, she still smiles knowingly when she coxes father into saying: from the first moment he saw her, he knew he would hold her forever, even if only in his dreams.  

Unfortunately, dreams have a way of being over-powered by reality.  When mother left the Elvenwood, she went to find new things, and to weave the strands of her life.  Father wanted to cling to the new home he had found.  In absence, the two were able to pretend at lives without each other.  Even when father came to the Kingdom, they used distance to shield themselves, when he moved to a different city.  Both found near love and called it happiness.  If you believe in random chance, at this point you might think that with different luck I may never have existed.  Luck or no, the farces could not last and as they came apart, mother was a women grown and father wanting a sense of home as much as ever.  In each other's arms, they remembered the old feelings and found happiness that outshined all other.

Father could not reconcile his actions with his feelings.  He felt he some how owed more to Inzan.  He had tried to end things but the truth of how he felt was to grand for him or mother to resist. So for some time they met, and each time they swore it would be the last, for it pained them to hide it from my grandsire.  It was this internal conflict that nearly cost me my name.  Though the rendezvous last for some time (I have never had the courage to ask for a number), all things must evolve.  It was during this time that my soul journeyed to the Kingdom and a few months after arrival my physical appearance started becoming obviousMother claims she knew of my arrival from the moment it happened and was not sure what to make of it.  Father only saw one possible action.  He would tell my grandsire everything and as with most things, he chose to shoulder all the responsibility.   My grandsire first heard the news of his grandchild, an illegitimate child born to the man he had once trusted with his childrens' lives, as a regret filled apology.  It's the only time I've ever heard of my father apologizing and if Inzan had been a lesser man, he could have taken fathers life.  My Grandsire knew father's heart better then father did himself.  Even though the methods were?unorthodox my grandsire knew father would never do anything to hurt the family.  What Mnementh thought would be a wedge ended up being a natural progression that Inzan had foreseen for quite some time

So I was born not in the Elvanwood family but of two Members.  By the kind grace of  my loved ones, I have been given a name that means more then any material.  It is in their spirits of love, honesty, respect, loyalty, and diligence, that I have come up in the world.  It is by those virtues that I judge myself as a man.  They are apart of all I am.  As with my family, I will die holding onto them.  

Part 2: My part

As much as my family is a part of me, I can not be the family.  There is a difference.  They have visited Elvenwood.  For me, it is only a dream an ideal carried close to my heart.  As much as the Norse lands of my father or Grandsire before his rebirth, these things are very real for the others but no more then a specter of the past for me.  As much as I emulate them I can never be identical to them.  As a boy I did not realize this however.

I tried to be the best of all them, fathers strength, mothers wisdom, grandsires determination.  Even just playing at these ideas was more then I could understand.  If I had continued at it, I would not be any of them.  When my tutelage started it was clear that my prowess was more toward my Elven heritage.  While I'm sure that pained father, he still did all he could to teach me.    And I did all I could to learn from all of them.  

While walking through the woods, trying to track a wolf, contemplate inner peace and convince my self to be devote to both causes, I felt something sharp on my foot.  My father found me several hours later.  I had a grievous wound on my foot but no other ailment, other then I would not wake.

My mother and Grandsire did all they could.  With the knowledge they have gained over the yuris that is quite a lot.  But nothing would bring me from the death like state.  Father was near the point of break down felling it was his fault that I was out in the wood by myself because of him.  Only Grandsire Inzan had the insight to realize that whatever was going on it was out of there hands.  Mother was grudgingly willing to except that.  Father did not agree so much, but there was next to nothing for him to do.

It was in this sleep that I realized I could only be a part of the family and not encompass all of it.  I saw the specters of the Norse land as my father had described them as well as a mystical Elvenwood.  I walked, intangible and unnoticed, with my family as they journeyed to the Kingdom of Winds.  I even witnessed flashes from what I can only guess was uncle MysticHaze's time as a captive.  The epiphany of my life hit me as I walked among these mirror images.  The strength of the family came from the different strengths of its members.  To truly be a boon, I would need to find my own passion and power.  In this realm of memory, I knew I should walk with those who had pasted and to gain lost knowledge.

I woke up, in my own time just as Inzan said I would.  There was no left over effect from the wound on my foot.  I told them all about the dream, but no told me what it meant.  I did not need them too.  From that time I have walk the way of the Mage.I am Quananth Elvenwood, the Norse Half-elven illigitimit son of Mintaka and Mnementh Elvenwood.  My family is my strength and I will be a strength to my family and all I call friend.