A warrior is born

[Jezerai]

Alanni Shortshanks trudged into the one room schoolhouse where all halfling children from her village were taught.  Taking her seat with ill grace, she sighed and stared out the open window to the hills beyond the fields.  The teacher, a respectable halfling, for a halfling, pulled out his book and began the day's lessons.  Alanni endured, as she had endured every other school day that she was unable to sneak off on an adventure.

"Alanni!  Alanni Shortshanks!"  The strident voice of her instructor broke through Alanni's reverie, and a sharp rap on her knuckles returned her wandering mind to the classroom.  "You will keep your eyes on the BLACKBOARD!"  Other students tittered.  "You will keep your feet on the FLOOR!"  Each sentence was punctuated with a rap of the ruler on the desk.  "Ahem ... Class, where were we?"  And the droning resumed.

After school, Alanni raced off to the hills that had beckoned her all day.  Buried in a small cave was Alanni's stash.  With trembling, eager fingers, she pulled out a small wooden practice sword, almost new with only one side of the whittled guard broken off, found in a refuse pile at the local guardtower.  She also pulled out a book with the title "Treasure Island."  Biting the tip of her tongue with effort she laboriously read her book.  Some pages were missing and the pages that remained were torn and tattered, but she persevered.  Gripping her wooden sword in one hand, she dreamt of life on the high seas, quelling the unease that rose when she thought of waves rolling beneath her feet and ocean depths descending far, far below.  When the effort at reading became too much to bear for the active child, Alanni leapt to her feet and, brandishing her sword, she viciously attacked the vegitation shouting phrases that she had read in the book.  "YAAARRRR!* and "YO HO HO!"  rang through the trees and echoed back at her from the far hillsides.

And so her childhood days passed.  A test of perseverence each day she was unable to escape her classroom duties.  A race to the hills when she was able to evade watchful adult eyes, or when the deadly droning day was done.  The day that she turned 13 years of age and was able to lawfully make her own decision regarding school and a profession, Alanni announced with pride that she was heading out to become a pirate.  Nothing her parents could say would dissuade her.  Nothing her teachers said could dissuade her.  The more the adults lectured, the more stubbornly she held to her resolve. 

Realizing that they were getting nowhere, and knowing his daughter well, Alanni's father finally tried a different tack.  Instead of argument, he decided to let life teach his rebellious daughter the error of her ways.  Alanni was allowed to enter the Halfling Home Guard as a trainee.  She was drilled in sword work, marched over long dusty miles, worked til she dropped from exhaustion.  She was in heaven.  Alanni practiced all she was taught with a will and focus that her teachers were unable to elicit on even her best day.  She forced aching muscles to perform without complaint.  Alanni had found her niche, and a warrior was born.