Dear diary,
Hello. My name is Bretthera. I am seventeen winters old, as of writing this, and I am running away from home. Why am I doing this, you ask?
The man who calls himself my father.
For sixteen years, a very grand majority of my life, I have dealt with him mistreating me at every turn, just because I was not born male.
Yes, I am a 'lady'. Odel--my "father"--only wished for sons. My mother, killed only two days after I was born. Sadly... that is -all- I know of my mother...
I thought it was how my "father" showed me his love... one of the servants, and I am ever so thankful for this, taught me otherwise... she taught me that the way Odel treated me was wrong, that a father should never treat his child the way Odel treated me.
I have already left home, some of my most important possessions with me as I travel with seven others away from Dale. I won't turn back.
I can't go back to that. I really can't.
Odel plainly told me that if I came back after running off, he would kill me himself. I am not going to risk my life needlessly. It isn't worth the risk, as it is. However... now that I really think of it...
I believe Odel is responsible for killing my mother.
I remember the servants telling me that he was seen with a bloody knife in blood-covered hands... and a smile on his face... one remembered it quite well, she said, because she ran to check on my mother... and saw my mother's body; she saw my mother was holding me, and had feared I'd been killed, too... but I'd started crying, and she was glad I had not been taken from the world so soon after arriving... according to her, at least, I literally remember nothing of the events. She remembers taking me from my mother's limp arms...
She always told me that she took me straight to Odel, who walked away from us... although she also told me that, after bringing me to Odel, he said that it served my mother right for birthing a girl instead of a boy, as he believes boys are far superiour... either could be true, honestly.
Oh, it seems we're getting ready to move on... I must go, then.
- Bretthera
