I was born the eighth and the last child, the fourth son, to a family that owned and ran a tavern located in a small town near the Baron’s manor. Unfortunately, my three eldest siblings had passed away during the epidemic before I was born. What remained were my parents and their five children, me being the youngest.

The first couple of years was a frustrating experience as an infant with full conscience and the memory of after-… pre-life. When I finally gained the motor control, and things started to move per my will, I was up and running and holding conversations with the adults. At first, my family was scared; One evening, I overheard father and mother discussing, in whispers, whether they had spawned a demon child.

“No, I am godsent.”

That was true in all literal sense, but father freaked out. A priest was called in, and we had a long talk, him trying to determine whether there was any devil’s work in me.

“I sense a slight touch of the divine,” he observed, and we became friends. Of course, I was a little taken aback by the fact that some people were able to sense the divinity. I thus kept the whole thing about the goddesses and my mission a secret. In general, we were in good terms, the priest and I. He was a bald old man in his late years. He had seen things and suffered through the devastating epidemic and, in the end, emerged wiser, kinder, and wrinklier. Yet he remained humble and faithful, and I liked to listen to what he had to say about the world we were living in. The old priest gave me the holy book through which I learned the letters of this world. I liked reading it again and again because, in essence, the book was a hilariously written fan-fiction with my good buddy God as its protagonist. Sometimes when I was alone, I would read a passage aloud giggling like a toddler, for I was a toddler, imagining the fat boy God blushing and fidgeting in embarrassment listening to this made-up fiction about himself.

Like my siblings, I started to help out in the tavern. By the age of three, I was managing the larder on top of running errands. Father began to entrust more and more on me, but he never allowed me to go out on my own carrying money.

“Mugging you would be as easy as taking sweets from a toddler’s hand,” father said. I, a three years old toddler, couldn’t argue against that, although I complained he was being overly cautious. There was no mugging on the streets. The town was as peaceful and beautiful as a sleeping baby; like me. Being so close to the Baron’s manor helped, too. His Lordship truly looked after his people.

It took me a while to notice the townsfolk unofficially referred His Lordship as the Marquis of the Roseland, and it puzzled me greatly. As far as I knew, the Roseland was a barony ruled by the Baron stemming from the La Rose family. The name La Rose originated from ‘Of the Roseland’ because they had ruled the land for so long the Roseland was the La Rose, and the La Rose were the Roseland.

“A long, long time ago, we were a marquisat,” my good old priest kindly answered my question. Many and many generations ago, the La Rose were the Marquises ruling over the marquisat, which included the Roseland, the swampland, the mountains to the north, the forest to the south, nowadays Montclam and patches of neighboring lands. One of the Marquises, the great great great grandfather of His Lordship, infamously bludgeoned traitor Dumas to death with his banner-draped pole, effectively stopping a rebellion in its fetus stage. The bloodstain remained on the banner to this day, symbolizing the La Rose family’s unwavering loyalty to the kingdom and His Majesty. However, some generations later, the then Marquis had become tired of all the bickering and scheming and power struggle in the Royal Court. The Marquis did the unthinkable and humbly returned his title to the baffled King, and settled with the title of the Baron of the Roseland Barony. The people of the Roseland welcomed the decision as their ruler returned to his humble land of origin. Overall it was a fascinating story, and I was impressed. The barony flourished thanks to now undivided attention given by the Baron.

You see, despite being surrounded by the hostile environment of desert, mountains, and swamps, the Roseland itself was a land of plenty. The forest provided much. The soil was dark and rich. The hot air from the desert and the ice-cold glacial wind from the mountains competed over the Roseland and created a temperate climate with changing seasons. Any idiot could sow anything one could imagine, and it would grow. The wild roses were especially prominent, and every spring, they would bloom like crazy and cover the land in brilliant red and pink and white, and the air would be scented sweet for months. The Roseland was good. The Barons and the Baronesses of La Rose made it great. The goddesses, for once, had done me a favor. They had sent me to a good place.