Post by Star Fall on Feb 27, 2015 11:20:59 GMT
On a bright and misty afternoon in a land that would later come to be known as the Western Maw, an old and grey hunter sits in a clearing by a fire of his making. Behind him, a broad and mighty mountain range stretches across the horizon, the top of which is obscured by a perpetual cloud of fog and mist. Beside the old man sits a child of some twelve years of age, he has just started learning the arts of hunting and tracking and still has much to do if he is to become an asset to his village. Taking a long wooden pipe out of his pack, the old man stuffs the end of it full of dried cho' weed in slow practiced motions he has learned over a lifetime of repetition. Looking at the child besides him, the old man cracks a knowing smile seeing in his direction.
"Don't tell your mother I was smoking, I promised her that I'd quit the habit some ten years ago." He said in a tone warm with mirth and good intentions.
"Hmph, and why would I do that? Mamma told me she would give me and extra slice of mint cake for every bad thing I told on you." The twelve year old replied with youthful cunning, his revelation's purpose being all to apparent to his wizened old mentor.
"Hah! I'm afraid I don't have much to compete with that, your mother cooks a mean mint cake after all. But I'll offer you this boy; if you keep quiet about the pipe, I'll tell you the tale of when I met the Chosen in my youth." He said shrewdly, knowing full well that the youth's obsessive interest in the Chosen would surely buy his silence.
"Truly?! You met with the Chosen of the Gods!" He called aloud as he bound to his feet, his eyes sparkling with the kind of honest excitement reserved only for the young and bold.
"Aye, I have. Sit down there and I'll tell you of time I can never forget. Of a time, I sometimes wish I could..."
____________________________
When I was a child of about your age, my own grand-father and uncle had taken me out to these very woods to learn the family trade. Truth be told I was terrified, I had heard that the forests held threatening beasts of all sorts and I was nowhere near as bold as you are. We walked for hours through the dense woods, the progress was slow as each man took turns showing me the various ways to track an animal and harvest the valuable plants and mushrooms our people use. Nevertheless, we marched on into dusk and only stopped when darkness made our progress onwards impossible. Sitting by a fire, the two older men spoke and laughed of the day's events at their leisure.
"Tell me nephew, how is it that you can so scared of these woods yet still want to make a living scouring its depths for valuables the village needs?" He mocked with well meaning humor, The older man next to him, with an expression as dishevelled as my Uncle's hair, continued to sharpen his herb knife whilst speaking out in a grumbling, grizzled tone.
"Leave him be Serj, you know he wont be having the luxury of attending the old universitas of the king as you have." Not tired of his own point, my Uncle protested.
"I was just saying that maybe he could learn another profession."
"And do what? Become an apprentice to the that Longborn tailor? I know he offered an apprenticeship but I've seen the way he was eyeing the lad when he thinks noone is looking and I'll not see him left alone with my grand-children. No, he will be a tracker and that's the end of that." He concluded on a note that brook no further argument to which my uncle only shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. But as the the night wore on, the darkened horizon of the sky suddenly lit up in an orange glow, as if a new dawn was rising from the north.
"What in the world?!" We cried in unison, standing up to look upon the glow with fear and admiration. I dare say, I had never seen anything like nor have I ever since. But as we stood there in the clearing of the forest, a violent shock of wind blasted us off our feet and sent us rolling to the ground, the thick trees of the forest offering no protection whatsoever against this unnatural wind. But just as soon as it occurred, the wind vanished and the light faded from the night sky.
"W-What was that?!" I cried in horror, sure that the world would be ending at any moment.
"An omen, the gods send us a dire message indeed." My uncle spoke softly, as though afraid of his own statement. Picking up on this, grandfather became visibly tense.
"What kind?"
In response to the question, Uncle Serj fumbled his words at first. I had never seen my smooth-talking relative in such a state. "If the studies of the universitas hold true, then..."
A silence that held us all in both wonder and fear for a moment. I wanted him to continue, I wanted the fear to fade away, yet just as I was about to raise my hand and ask, I could feel grandfather's touch on my shoulder. Looking towards him, I could see it, plain as day. A man long-since wise enough to know when not to push for an unknown answer, respectful and kind as I had always known, yet with an air of confidence to lead us in place of my Uncle's fear.
"Then we will travel there come morning. It couldn't have been more than a day's walk away, whatever it was. Should the gods deem to send us such a message, it is imperative that we arrive to meet it."
The next morning we made off as soon as we could, skipping breakfast entirely and instead eating dried jerkin as we walked. The way was long and the pace hard, but with the sun setting on the horizon, we made it to our destination. What I saw then made my blood run cold for we had walked upon remnants of a fierce battlefield. Here, the thick forest gave way to a patch of scorched earth and ruptured craters upon which lay the fallen forms of Chosen. Nearest me were two beings who could only be described as being more than simply men - one was a giant, to whom my full height would only reach the knee, covered in intricate plate armor painted with runes of red and gold while the other was a smaller, unnaturally thin figure with eyes as black as the moonless night and whose ears marked it as perhaps having once been elvish in nature. The giant had plunged an immense dagger deep into the elf's chest nearly cleaving him in half and the other had pierced the giant's massive chest with two needle fine swords where I hazarded to guess must have lain his heart. Even in death these two mighty figures were locked in one another's embrace, the dried pool of blood beneath them showing that they had bled eachother dry.
"W-Why do they fight? I thought them to be the Chosen of the gods... the saviors of the realms!" I asked my uncle as he busied himself across the field with my grand-father, checking pulses and seeing if any of these godly beings yet still lived.
"Not all of the Chosen are brothers, nephew. They serve their god's will in all of their capacity but sometimes those wills oppose eachother. When this occurs, the Chosen will fight as the fiercest of foes and only stop when one or the other is dead."
But even my uncle explained the truths he had learned in the schools to me, it was my grand-father who noticed the aberation first. Most of the fallen Chosen did not fight one another, rather, more than half of them faced the same direction and fell with missing limbs and blackened skin - as though they had been ravaged by some unphathomable beast.
"W-What monster could have done such a thing?" I asked, panic marking my words as I stepped away from it all, every instinct in my body screaming for me to flee.
"I do not know, and I do not intend to stick around any longer than necessary lest the beast come back."
"This one still lives!" Called out my uncle having found a Chosen whose heart beat still. "Help me hoist it out of here, if we bandage its wounds quickly it may yet still live!" Moving swiftly to aid my uncle, me and my grand-father moved the figure out of the scorched remains and into another nearby clearing where we bandaged the figures wounds and kept it warm in my tent. We dared not move the figure any further than we already had lest we invoke its wrath upon us. And so, we little to no other choice, we waited for the figure to recover...