When
we experience Turning Points in our life, we are often unaware that they
are so until well after the fact. Meeting the Love of Your Life is certainly
a turning point, though it was not for a few years afterwards that I realized
the significance of that chance meeting. How John and I first met, though,
is an unusual tale in and of itself... and one that certainly lends itself
to the fairy tale that has become our story.
One of the amazing things about our chance encounter is the number of things that happened just right to lead to the moment where we met... if even one had been different, there is a good chance we would never have come to know each other. But that is the wonder of fate, that circumstances might lead to two people meeting at just the right time.
The New England Roleplaying Organization (NERO for short) was still in its near infancy in those days. My aunt had read an article in the newspaper about NERO and passed the information on to me. I was 14 at the time, in mid-1990 when I joined and became an active member. For no one who has ever LARPed before, the concept is often hard to understand. Live Action Roleplaying (LARPing) is much like improvisation theatre - you create a character, choosing her background, skills, likes, dislikes, and act that character among other people who are doing the same. There is no script; you make it up as you go along. There is a group, often called the Plot Committee, that is in charge of the overall plot for the event. The sort of write a script, and others play the roles they create. Everyone comes together to interact with one another, to figure out what the plot is, and to have fun. Because there is no set script, things often don't go as the Plot Committee intends - but that is part of the fun. It is a very relaxing hobby, and a lot of fun.
John and I met at a NERO event, so it is important to understand what NERO (and LARPing) is about (or at least to have an idea). None of this was real, it was all acted out. But it was fun, and makes a great story to tell about how we met.
I had been part of NERO for over a year when John and I first met. NERO held weekend-long events, and over this Memorial Day weekend, there was a huge war against the lizard men. It was held at Camp Wing in Duxbury, MA, and hundreds of people were in attendance. I (as my character Lorana) was at the keep with a small group of others, to protect it, while everyone else was on the field, fighting the war. There were a few cabins behind the keep where some of the smaller "commoner" teams were staying.
Suddenly I hear a group of them crying out for help. Looking over the wall of the Keep, I could see that one of the cabins was under attack. I gathered some of the Royal Army soldiers about me, and we opened the gates to the Keep to go rescue them. If only it had been that simple!
We rushed out towards the cabin, only to have the lizard men immediately engage us. The commander of the Royal Army soldiers with me was immediately cut down and 'killed' by a lizard men. The remaining soldiers panicked and fled, leaving me there alone to face the four lizard men. What a sad sight it must have looked like, the small Squire from Westmarch facing off against creatures far more powerful than she, abandoned by the Royal Army. I fought bravely and even struck one down, before the four lizard men overwhelmed and cut me down.
Unbeknownst to me at the time, John (as his character, Jack Shale) was following behind me at a safe distance. He was the leader of Union, the people in the cabin I was going to rescue. He had been in the Keep at the time they were attacked. He did not have the skills to face off against the lizard men, but followed myself and the Royal Army soldiers when we went to Union's defense. When he saw the Royal Army flee and then saw me cut down by the lizard men, he made a decision that was the beginning of our story... He made a valiant headlong rush into the middle of the battle, grabbed me, picked me up, and ran for it.
He fled with me down the path until he found help, other members of Westmarch and the Ducal Household who attacked the Lizard Men. He then got healing for me, and thus saved my life.
And that's how we met. And if that isn't the beginning of a fairy tale - that we met because John saved my life (well, okay, because his character saved the life of my character in a game) - I don't know what is.
Of course, we didn't know at the time that is was the beginning of something special. We became friends as a result of that day, and were friends for a year before we became a couple. In fact, others must have seen it coming long before we did. We were always just friends, we would tell people, and thought it amusing that they always thought we were a couple. We did our best to convince them that we were only just friends - and by the time we finally convinced people of that, our feelings for each other had grown from friendship to love.
And that was the beginning of our relationship, and the first step down the path to our Engagement.
