A strange family.

Gairn Beirst an only child, raised in a far away village, across a vast ocean, was aware that his family was different. Strange even. The little community of fisherman to which he belonged seldom dealt well with the strange, but he and his family were tolerated. It was for his grandmother, Sarah's sake, Gairn knew this. She had been at the center of a great miracle, at around the same age as Gairn's own, five or so. Despite the cautious celebrity of his grandmother, each member of the family since that fateful day could do things that were only described as mystical, or magic. Being a people of small means, such magic was foreign to them and so they held it in a fearful awe. As is the way with such things, things that scare the community are out casted or shunned. It was not until his own birth, that the villagers and even his own family understood the reason for these seeming abilities. When Sarah was touched by the boy who had injured her and healed in that way, the God of Storms had put inside of her and her lineage a powerful gift. The villagers, of course, would not have described it so. They would have said a strange spell had been placed upon the family and now they were blessed, or cursed, with gifts. The custom of his village was such that around the fifth year of life, children were placed with those who knew a profession. Fisherman, net mender, boat captain and the like. For Gairn it was different. He was sent away, as the boy a generation ago had been, to study and fulfill an obligation. The villagers only knew, that the strange boy with the intense stare would be gone from among them, until the next time the Storm blew home.