Chereads / On the way home / Chapter 1 - Snow, Seraph Vol 1. Ch 1.

On the way home

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Synopsis

Chapter 1 - Snow, Seraph Vol 1. Ch 1.

Town Mulberg, it is a pastoral town with a population of six hundred, surrounded by golden fields of farm lands and a greenery unlike any other place. The area is located on a low altitude flat-lands and are naturally concealed by a thick forestry that more or less poses a danger against travelers. The town has nothing much in store for tourists. However, among the secrets of the scholars, Mulberg is known for being the town that produces an abnormal amount of heroes and adventurers within each generation ā€” in other words, a town especially blessed by the Gods.

In spring, the farmers and loggers celebrate their first and next upcoming set of festivals, all for the end of winter, where the town may regain the most of its overall income and to feed the mouths of people with bellies winding up full. In summer, the children run around the fields and play under the sun, the teenagers leave for the next town over for their education and the adults finish planting the seeds to their plants. In autumn, adults and children spend the days bonding while harvesting the crops and making food in the bakeries, late into the season the teenagers return from their studies just before winter. Finally during winter, the hunters take up their bows and arrows to collect food for their families or the whole village and the time for when tailors live off of the fur of martens and the money they give. Such is the life of a villager in this town and how heroes are born from these lands are often a mystery that no scholar has been able to solve. It was a village with not much to offer but make up for with their liveliness, celebrating festivals of all kinds all year long as a form of worship and excuse for partying after a long series of work in either farming, hunting and etc.

The rural town isn't home to any record buildings which is why students tend to leave for the next town for the summers through winters. Though the paved dirt roads are expansive enough for multiple carriages or caravans to come and go, that only speaks to the lack of structures and personal homes of the people with over one out of fourth of the populations either living in stables or at inns. The town more than enough makes up for it with their delicious booze as well as a very friendly community that can accept anyone.

To the unfortunate few who are unable to join a society such as that, they acknowledge that there are no absolutes ā€” Very occasionally something or someone merely exists in the rivers of the forests. Those things ascend from the depths of the rivers and float along the streams to wake up by the shores of the river. They are not born or not made, they just simply exist; they only have in this world a name and an item belonging only to them. Whoever or whatever they are, those people according to the oracles are blessed by the stars themselves as they always exist on the night of a new-moon, when the sea of stars open and become part of the riverside streams.

The current season is a summer of partially cloudy skies with a tinge of autumn breeze. Away from the open plains and deep within the forests, located near a pond with barely any room for mankind or animal-kind, is a home made from the trunk of a tree which was equivalent in size to a regular village home. The tree-house has a very quaint air, the way it was built is more for practicality than a homely appeal to it, as though it belongs to a house for a very experienced hunter. Despite the uncanny appearance to it, the house is kept in good conditions, speaking greatly on as to how clean and organized the person living there must be, giving the house an aspect to be from a fairy tale.

The wooden front-doors have stationary tent covers which are inclined, so that the rain water will provide a fresh and clean source of water through the rainy days. The tanning racks and the amateur distilleries are covered below the tent covers, to keep the products both constructs produce safe from degradation from the rain water. Nearby to another tree is a far larger one than the home that the hunter had, there is a scar on the tree that hints of what seems to be a face, complete with a set of eyes and mouth, hinting that the tree may have been once alive. The tree are the nesting grounds for of birds, both species are owls but half the population of owls are of separate breeds, where one breed are awake during spring and winter, while the other is awake during summer and autumn.

The keeper of the entire property belongs not to someone in their middle ages nor does it belong to an elderly, it belongs to a mere child named Seraph. It is a peculiar name, in the village, it is associated with ghosts and the hunt. Despite being alive, the boy's existence is viewed by the public as an urban legend, there was no way to deny it nor a way to prove it as the boy's parents never had presence ā€” or just maybe, never existed.

The tree house took nearly an entire year to actually construct. Built alongside knowledge that a village happened to be not too far, and with the intent to purposely isolate oneself from society. There is only room for him and him alone, a bed for himself, a chair for himself and only a table for himself. "It was only natural" for the boy to build a house away from everyone else; he existed at that age of twelve, he never grew up with someone his age nor did he have a role model to teach him the do's and don'ts. Born in the new-moon under a starry night sky, ascending from the riversides and waking up in a forest, in a reality that needed isolation and independence to survive, the boy happened to be most comparable to that of a lone wolf.

"Wake up Sibyl. Wake up Seraph."

It was a shouting voice that shook the boy awake; from then until today. With each morning routine, memories that belonged yet didn't belonged to the boy kept on flooding into his head, memories of experiences he never really did attained with each time the voice called out to him become part of his very own. The memories tell that he is a mage and is capable of using magic to a great extent, the memories tell that he always lived alone just as he does now. More or less the memories had some kind of similarity to what he usually did, and the more each memory came to his head, the greater the confusion became.

"Wake up Sibyl. Wake up Seraph."

The boy's eyes opened to the very same wake up call that for the past year haunted him; sounding at exactly the same minute and hour as it has been for the past whole year. For better or for worse, Seraph had already gotten used to the shouting and but it never stopped frightening him. For the times that Seraph thought that he'd get used to the shouting and the fright that it brought, the shouting only became louder. Why does it get louder? because the boy kept thinking that it will just fade away. "Why does it not stop? I'm already awake so why?" The boy asked in a daze. Then came the next memories he has never experienced.

"Wake up Sibyl. Wake up Seraph."

The boy's heart skips a beat upon hearing the very same words. The same words instead of having been shouted was spoken out in a weaker voice. The voice sounded so weak that when the boy's heart had prepared for the shout, the unexpected silence caught him off guard and it resounded much more painfully than when he was being shouted at by the voice. The boy inhaled deeply against the silence. Then came the memories, the memories that have truly woken up a fire within the boy, the memories of losing someone important.

"Why didn't they appear sooner, what have I been doing this past year?!" The boy shouted with a trembling voice that reverberated across the woods, and made the leaves around him rattle. He ran outside and downhill towards the town, calling for the name of one of his owls. The boy's cloaked body and hooded head prevented his light-blue hair from flowing wildly against the resisting winds. The boy wore a patterned blind-fold against his eyes to avoid being seen or recognized by others. His cloak became the overcoat for the boy's Prussian-blue long-sleeved robes. He wore a set of leather gauntlets and finger-less gloves to help defend himself somehow, as well as to avoid burning himself with his magic. Leather boots with a deep-cocoa color, worn for practicality ā€” or, in other words, easier travels. Finally the cocoa colored owl with gems for eyes and the very same pattern from Seraph's blindfold on its forehead, following the boy in his sprinting and waiting for a time to perch against his shoulders.

The boy leaps past a vine that could have tripped him and slid down-hill, nearly tripping again, across the country roads which would have made him roll against the golden fields. "Mulberg is the closest town from here, and in there I will find my answers." The mission was simple, to find answers on who he lost and whether or not they were still alive. With a whole years of doing nothing but survive each day, the boy took flight and ran cross the field with time, slowly pressing against his chest.