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Mark has hazy, fogged-over memories of his parents, a pair of people with calluses on their hands and smiles on their faces, but not much that he can recall unless he really strains himself. He actually doesn't recall their funeral, their death, anything related to that farming accident that changed his life along with his siblings'. He suspects that he's blocked the memories; he's read about that in books before.

The accident led Ella, who was then 16, to take him and Annie elsewhere, looking for a home and a place to work. Mark remembers Ella as his mother figure through most of his life, and she remains as such today, a bit to Mark's dismay. Ella sold the farm, moved the small family to Harcha, and set up a bar/inn that the family was to take care of -- mostly Ella, at the time. But Mark was nevertheless put to work, bussing tables, cleaning the dining room, counting money. The life Ella had brought them to was hard -- surely not as hard as it would have been for the three of them to try and run a farm, but hard all the same, and busy to boot. The constant bustle was dizzying, and he and Annie, who still held each other's hands from time to time for a few more years, both found their individual ways to escape the world. For Annie, it was fantasy and fairytales; for Mark, it was knowledge and fact.

Mark couldn't say when he first started learning languages. He is sure that it started with Hanalan, which he taught Annie as well as he learned it, a kind of partnership for when she would read him her storybooks. But eventually, both of them grew older, and Annie quit reading Mark as many fairytales, and in return, Mark quit teaching Annie quite as many little trivial facts about language and mathematics and history. He taught himself Old Hanalan, Korin, Megam, Dentorian, and even some Atsirian -- and a tiny bit of Kilian, though it's the language that's given him the most trouble so far. He's read about wars, about skirmishes between Korin houses and Dentorian houses and Atsirian houses and more. He taught himself multiplication tables, division, and for his hard work he got put in charge of the bookkeeping for the inn. Mark got used to Annie picking his locks even when he tried to shut himself away, and so they continued a much quieter partnership over the years.

Life continued in this sort of dull roar, business followed by solitude and simplicity, until one day Annie burst into the room, telling him what a great fairy story she'd found this time, but she couldn't read it all and besides, she knew he would like it. She shoved a book into his hands, and he read the same things she had -- a woman from Dentoria named Faith, an archer from Hanalan named Irving, a mage from Kilia named Jonathan, a thief from Kanemoria named Alex (who was later named Jace). For all he felt he'd grown out of fairy stories, he had to admit this was quite the work, and he read it along with Annie for all the months before she discovered that it was real, doing the translating for her and developing his own favorite characters (and crushes) and plot theories.

Once Annie discovered how real the journals were, understandably, the gap between them began to grow again.

.personality.