The Tiniest Tincan - Frederick Teallow

[Thrym]

Somewhere in the hills near the village of Shallybrook, a comely, raven haired young hin sits down upon a rock by the river side, her bare feet dangling through the water. She opens a small book and begins to write.

On the cover, it states in big, fat letters:

Berry Teallow’s

~The Tiniest Tincan~

Introduction

Hello everybody!

Thank you for finding the time and interest to read this book. I can’t promise you wether it is going to be a good book, to get that out of the way – but knowing our protagonist, he probably couldn’t find a real bard to tell of his ventures anyways, so you’ll have to put up with my incomprehensible rambling I fear, dear reader!

This book is about my brother, Frederick. Not really my first choice of a protagonist, but hey, he got a bucket on his head and a sword, so he’ll have to do!

It is dedicated to my father, may the gods watch over him, and Grandfather, may they not take him anytime soon!

Hope you’ll have as much fun reading as I’ll have writing,

Berry Teallow

[Thrym]

The young woman ignites a candle in the darkness of her room and opens her small book, boredly starting to scribble into it as she lies on the bed.

Prologue

About two decades ago, one sunny morning, Frederick and I were born in the village of Shallybrook in the fair forest kingdom of Cormyr. Yes, about two decades is all you get – we’re twins, and a Lady does not tell her age! Actually, I’m not exactly sure whether it was sunny or not, but it just sounds appropriate, don’t you think?

Regardless of the actual weather, everyone was really excited, especially Grandfather – and Mother, of course. Maybe I should talk about these people for a little, because they’re kinda important.

Mother’s a farmer’s daughter – she is hard working, kind and dependable. She always took good care of us, hard as that was alone – especially taking care of me may or may not have been a rather challenging task – not Frederick of course, he was a good kid.

And then we have Grandfather. Funnily enough, his name was Frederick, too. He was a paladin of Arvoreen, just like our protagonist, except probably better looking when he was younger. He traveled the lands, smiting evil, saving damsels and being all around shiny, until one day, he met our grandmother in Shallybrook and decided to sell all his crazy magical adventuring gear, tithe the earnings to a bunch of churches and settle down.

Now, the astute reader that you are certainly are, you are obviously asking yourself ‘So, what about your father?’ – I guess you might also wonder about grandmother, but in her case it’s a simple case of passing on eventually.

Our father was a paladin too.

When we were born, he had just left a few months ago. He heard the calling as a young man, but not too young to have met our mother first. Having no idea of us being on our way, he had set out to answer the call. And we never met him, for he fell on his very first mission. Word took a while to reach Shallybrook. Everyone was depressed. Mother of course, but especially Grandfather, having lost his son when he wanted to follow in his footsteps. I think our birth gave everyone something to do. Something that distracted them, and more importantly, a piece of the man that had been ripped from their lives.[/i]