"Ceauli, please... Why do you like him so much? Is it because you're bouncing back from your last-"
"Shut up Lin! You don't understand! And stop following me!"
Lin followed his sister down the morning-lit streets.
"Where are you going?" he asked in desperation as she tried to get away from him.
She turned around, with her foot pressed up on the second step of a steep staircase.
"I'm going to the Administration Center. I'm done with you. You've just been complaining for two days straight!"
"But I'm... I'm..."
"Just give up already Lin, I'm in love him... I love him..."
"But why?"
Ceauli looked at Lin straight in the eyes. A fierce determination.
"Do you really wanna know why? Do you want to know why?!"
"Yes!" screamed out Lin as he stood a few steps below his sister.
Ceauli looked straight into his thin brown eyes, her brown bushy hair flowing in the sandy wind as the sky parted with the morning sun.
"The reason why I love him is because he's not afraid of himself. He's not afraid of the Shorebringers, and he doesn't care about others' thoughts of him. He doesn't care about appealing to people, nor does he care about girls or love or any of that. All he cares about is his dream. All he wants is one thing, and he will do anything to get it. And that is what you lack Lin, that is what everyone in this godforsaken world lacks. They pretend to be something, and... Even I do when I'm around him. I hate it... I hate feeling like I'm trapped with you, in this city. Like I'm a slave to myself."
"But..."
"No more buts Lin. No more... I've made my choice."
Lin looked down. His eyes turning from the stone-bricked staircase to the glittering sand as it floated past him. A tear rolled down his cheek as he remembered his mother and father.
---
Lin and Ceauli were both born Nobels in the Kingdom of Elisese. But there was a difference between them and their predecessors. Their father was but a simple butler, and their mother was the wife of a rich and famous Lord. For the first ten years of their lives, they lived in the marble arched mansions high above the slums without even an inclination that they were bastards. In the beginning, life was but arrogant and fulfilling. Days of walking through the manor, becoming educated, and learning about the world around them. But on one fateful night, Ceauli overheard her mother talking about the scandal.
This sudden news broke her. It made her feel deep and lonely inside. Like a piece of herself had broken off and now she was but a figment of her own reality. She wasn't a Nobel but a bastard daughter, a nobody. After long sleepless nights of constant thinking and ruthless contemplating she decided to keep this information to herself. Not for her own sanity, but for Lin's. Lin was so close to their father that if he had found out, it would more than not break him entirely.
Three years later, at the age of thirteen and fifteen, Lin and Ceauli were walking through the manor like normal, reading literature from the tall spanning bookshelves and glancing across the windows at the poor people below. Everything was peaceful... But it was on this random most average day that their lives would change. Their father found out. And in angered spite, he cast out his two bastard children to the Kingdom of Rend where they were forced to live with their estranged uncle in a far-off cabin on the edge of the Outerlands.
Over this sudden change in lifestyle, Lin was utterly defeated. He spent years trying to get over this hump of constant regret, fear, and overpowering arrogance. But Ceauli, she had already spent three years waiting for this day. Three years watching and buying her time until she would have to leave her home and journey out into the real world. So with her uncle's help, she studied her ass off, she learned about monsters, merchants, and the world of money. She did it all for Lin, and Lin did it for her. He always tried to become better than her, to become the person he once was, a Noble from a far-off Kingdom, but no matter what he did he couldn't fill that hole.
He was just selfish, and arrogant, and lonely.
---
Ceauli left for the Administration Center as Lin silently sat in his own pity on those cobblestone steps under the burning hot sun. He sat staring at his rough cut-up boots, the bloodstains still soaked into his clothes. He thought about the pain he had to go through, how nobody understood him, how he was special among the thousands of millions of lives. He recoiled in that pain, in the thought of Ceauli leaving him.
First his mother, then his father, then his friends, and now his sister. He was all alone. All alone...
All alone...
"My child, what are you doing on these steps alone?"
A soft slithery voice echoed from the top of the staircase. Lin turned his head to see a cape of white against sharp silvery full plated armor. It was the same man who saved him two days prior. The man of white hair, white eyebrows, white eyes, and a deep scar across his face.
Lanis of the White Poem.
"I am alone," repeated Lin.
"Hmph..." He sat down next to him, "aren't we all my child. We all think that we are alone. Lost in this forgotten world. Oh, how many times I have heard that." He placed his hand on Lin's shoulder, "this world hasn't forgotten you. The people may have, but this world hasn't. What has brought us together? You and me, this inevitable thing called fate."
Lin looked up, his eyes listening to the words coming from this man's mouth.
"Fate?" he asked.
"Yes, fate, God's fate for you, my fate with you. We are all interconnected, our paths predetermined. And I know that sounds scary, I know it makes your world meaningless to an extent."
Lin contemplated his fate. This feeling for so long. His fate with Ceauli, with me. He knew that it wasn't just coincidence, but fate...
"No... No, I get it!" He sat up, his head toward the sun, "God... God is the only one with me. He has a plan for me, and I... Fate... I..."
Lanis smirked, "then join me, my child. Become a Knight of Murami. We are looking for souls much like yours. Souls who can see the light of God."
Lin looked at Lanis, his face not even wavering, not even moving an inch, "yes, yes, yes. I know this is the way I have to go. I don't even have to choose, I already know that this is fate."
---
On the other side of town, I walked into the Red Light Tavern. A large bar spanned across the entire first floor. Wooden walls coated in boards and posters, men and women eating and dining on plates of silver, in seats of wood.
They were eating god knows what, and drinking... I don't even wanna know. But the smell was good. The whole place smelled like a wet sponge filled with beer, there was something homey about it.
I walked up to the bar and sat down. There were five other people passed out drunk next to me. I looked across at the bartender as he slowly slid over to my side.
"What can I get you?" he asked with a cloth wrapped up in his hands.
I immediately said, "I'm looking for Twine."
"Twine? Ugh... She's in the backroom, near the bathrooms."
He pointed to a red-lined door near the back of the place. I quickly got up from my seat and headed toward the door. But before I could even take one step toward it a woman walked out from the door. Her face had heavy makeup, with puffy dark red hair, kinda like mine.
She pointed at me and said, "you must be Hoefen Tij. I've been waiting for you."