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=== A Familiars Begining ===

Caras’Val first encountered Chiron in his mortal days while journeying through the Marukan Alliance. He had travelled there to participate in the month long spring market celebration. There he learned the songs, stories and rituals of the Marukan peoples and offered performances of his own in exchange. Naturally he was wildly successful and as so often happened he won himself a small following of new friends. One amongst them was a man called Radek a wealthy land owner and a renowned member of the Arrows. The Marukani mounted archers. 

The two shared a common love of storytelling and they became fast friends spending much time in each others company. Radek taught Val the art of the bow and to ride like a Marukani. By the end of their time together Val was a horse archer himself and he could strike a moving target at a full gallop. In return Val would visit his friend each year for the spring market and teach Radek the stories he had learned on his travels, tales from across all of creation. 

Today Radek is an old man but he and his wondrous stories of distant lands and mighty heroes are still one of the greatest attractions of the spring market and each year children from across the alliance gather at his feet to hear them. That he cannot remember from where these stories came or who taught him the art of playing to a crowd bothers him at times, but not unduly so.

One year Val visited his friend to find him stricken with a deep melancholy. For days on end he would wander listlessly about the land lacking the desire to spin tales or even to ride. Val was naturally concerned, he knew all to well that for a Marukani to lack the desire to ride was but a step away from lacking the will to draw breath. He asked he companion what it was that troubled him. The answer was perhaps all too obvious. There was a woman named Thara, a girl of unsurpassed beauty and grace after whom he pined endlessly. Naturally Radek pursued her to the best of his abilities offering her gifts and treasures in the hopes of swaying her and he preformed acts of great daring and bravery in an attempt to win her heart. But of course a woman of such rare splendour was not without other suitors and naturally some were wealthier than a humble landowner like Radek and some were braver and more powerful warriors than even one of the greats amongst the Arrows. Though the horseman tried with all his heart and soul he could not draw the attention of his beloved and so he sulked and glowered and became generally disagreeable and short tempered with every living being. 

Val having travelled long and far to see his old friend had had his fill of this behaviour within about four heartbeats and promptly decided to set about putting things to right. He swiftly composed an epic love ballad that described Thara’s beauty and wit in breathtaking detail. By the time he was done it was said that any person reading the text could not but help falling deeply in love with the girl it described. Naturally when Radek preformed this masterwork at the spring market, after extensive couching from his friend of course, Thara was deeply moved by it elegance. Many of her other more astute suitors gauging the look of passion in her eyes gave up the chase on the spot wishing their competitor good fortune.

Radek and his loving bride were married that same week in a ceremony that took place at the height of the spring market with as much pomp and splendour as a passionate people like the Marukani can muster. As the night went on Val preformed some of his better pieces for the pleasure of the guests.

As the celebrations wound down and the market drew to a close Val thoroughly satisfied with the outcome prepared to leave. Though he loved the plains he never could abide to linger in one place for long. As he made his preparations Radek managed to tear himself away from gazing into the eyes of his beloved and came to him. He thanked his friend for all he had done and offered him the greatest treasure in his possession, other than his newly won wife. He presented Caras’Val with a mighty stallion of the finest breeding said to be descended from the equine god Hiparkes himself. Certainly he favoured his father’s appearance standing fully seventeen hands in height, his coat a steely grey and his mane flowing silver. Such a beast was worth more than many small kingdoms 
He was called Chiron and he was a gift. 

Val was greatly moved by this act of generosity, one that he could never truly repay. For all the years afterwards whenever Val visited his old friend he brought lavish gifts with him from across creation, gifts that Radek always stubbornly refused. Anyone taking the time to study the arcane and complex records of the Lapis Ewer may be somewhat surprised to find a rather powerful act of astrology in place that insures the fortunes of Radek and all his family down through three generations. One can say many things about Caras’Val and the quality of his character but he always repays his debts whether the recipient of his generosity likes it or not.

In the years that followed Val travelled far and wide across the east upon the broad back of Chiron. At first they had their difficulties, Chiron being a singularly stubborn and pompous creature even at the best of times, a problem that was only compounded by his near supernatural ability to convey vary levels of contempt for a person simply by the expression in his ebon eyes. His recent transformation into a minor godling and his resulting ability to speak has unleashed his scathing wit on all who come within reach, though at least he is somewhat more grateful to his sidereal companion for his new found immortality. Val is glad that he was able to offer this small gift to his oldest companion, or at least his oldest companion who still remember who he is. 

When not wearing his natural form of a great stallion Chiron takes the shape of a centaur, the torso of a darkly tanned and muscular man with flowing silver hair atop the hindquarters of a steed. Like his master, Chiron has taken up the arts of the bow and spear and he is a formidable warrior, in fact he is considerably more formidable in open battle than the sidereal who so often rides him, a fact he loves to point out at every opportunity. Apparently Hiparkes is rather proud of his son and when he is not serving Val’s needs Chrion spends time with the old man/horse racing across the plains of his celestial manse


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