Winter Voices

Madelan existed outside many social groups, associations, and institutions in the city of Neverwinter; a circumstance that has fueled her resolve and has reason to purpose. As a young adult Madelan was accepted as an initiate at Cloak Tower College because of her family connections, though while attending she was routinely ostracized by her peers because of differing her religious beliefs.

Her family presently exercised the traditions of Neverwinter aristocratic business but many times lacked the surplus of funds to fully realize any significant climb in social class. This led to Madelan’s family becoming financially dependent on the wealthier branch of the family; kin who have since returned home.

Madelan was born from a half-elf mother of whose side of the family possesses the bulk of the family’s wealth, a miserly aunt who has outlived thirty husbands is said of have joined other Elves in returning to their Homeland; and a human father, a noble from Waterdeep who lived for the night life and the thrill of ambition but failed at every business venture he entered into.

In many ways Madelan would never be truly accepted as one of the elite persons of the city, an outsider. Even their rented villa was just outside the prim streets and towers of Neverwinter night life, where her family truly lived.

One morning Madelan, in the process of walking home after a sixteen-hour examination at the Cloak Tower, was immersed in a feeling she never until now remembered experiencing before. The sensation was like having an icy bucket of sea water splashed across her body, thick and heavy, burning with icy intensity. The feeling left her terrified—was she injured? A quick assessment told her no but only now remember what this terrifying feeling portended: Dragons.

Fog rippled up the streets filling every shadow and intersection with its cold breath. A dragon roar followed the fog, but it was not a simple roar in frustration or victory. This was a calling.

In college they said ‘Madelan picked up languages on accident,’ but what made her unique she could hear and understand languages within languages. Inferences, undertones, and emotions communicated beneath the range of hearing to everyone but herself.

Goose flesh rose on her arms as the temperature surrounding the elven lass noticeably dropped as the city was once again filled with the sound of a dragon roar- the dragon beckoned. She tried to listen for more but all at once two bestial white dragons thrust up from the city rift and into the sky where they blended with the winter white sky.