So you tracked me down near my old home eh? Smarter than I thought I will give you that. You know why I hated being a lord? Seeing the lonely husks of people that never experienced the embrace of a friend. That is one of the few constants of war. The scars it leaves on the impressionable young minds last even after the deeper layers have healed. I have seen this time and time again...at this point there have been so many, everyone is a tapestry. Showing the misdeeds of the past. They can't even see it.
How can you comprehend something that is beyond the times the very gods of today cannot see? But if you're reading this. I hate to imagine what happened to create such a traveller. Maybe one day but not today. I should return to this tale. A lost forest of the laid lands was a town I remember. Its people were happy, plump and always willing to lend a hand...but war...war is something that rend a place's traditions bare. Only to be a memory of a thought burned into my mind forevermore,
'Why did the gods think war was a solid plan?'
This world is sullied by battles long won or lost. Their grand heros names even lost to me but these ones I knew, a set of twin sorcerers, bright as the morning sun but as frightening as night...always loyal to the end. I met them as that war was almost over. They were barely alive, looking like hollow undead living children...so I fed them, cleaned them and raised them...But…The looming shadows of war were never far behind.
As the seasons changed, the raging wars began to settle. The children's innocence was now gone, their sights that they had seen had smeared it under the vail of justice, leaving them angry and spiteful against mortality and what it had done. They grew into fine adults. Tall, strong but clearly marked. Wanting a home somewhere they could have their own peace. We travelled across the sea to find a piece of this Eden, we had only heard in hushed whispers in the night. Setting into the endless stresses of the ocean the twins grew into great sailors, ones I wished to keep forever. But my cursed fate would not allow that.
We sailed past the plagued lands to what they hoped for a place they can call home. I remember thinking about what would happen if they got there. Evan as children, they were cold, distant and a once gleaming look of hope in their eyes...too many a long winter whipped that away, chipping at them till I was left with my warriors, my sailors but in a way my best companions. Well so far.
As their skills progressed and their lineage of old ran through their veins, each day growing stronger and more visible to my cursed eyes, theirs however were growing more powerful though this did not restore faith in their young hearts.Arriving on a small set of Islands that would let me clearly see the archipelago my cursed life would revolve around. Oh how the gods enjoy my torture. Even if they don't remember me...They remember my tales. The lands were pure and clean, the water was fresh but no one claimed it as their own, a small miracle even those days. For the first time in a long period...we stood again on firm ground.
We rested under a circle of stars, their vast array of colour dazzling their young eyes as they dreamed of a better tomorrow and age for this world, one of peace, one they said there would be no room for the madness the mages could conjure from their twisted minds. I agreed but aired on the side of caution, having seen enough bloodshed at that point. Oh how I wish I was is wiser back then.
As the new age began and these new grown hedge knights were strong, brave, smart and had the will to dominate all that wished to harm them. Something I thought I saw before but at that point it was nothing to me. The darkness that haunted them for their entire existence had come back, like the switching of the seasons, old unspeakable truths would come to become the bedrock for whatever was left. On top of some forgotten respite, one I remember quite fondly.
As we travel again the carrnarge of what remains, vagrants littering the islands, the sparks of what one that would help cindel the next generations' luster for adventure, innovation and maybe even try and some of lost humanity. I was foolish back then even now in a way. The summer was in full swing before they had a chance to start their crop but they did. digging into the very lands for the spek of the gods touch as they would call it. Churning the earth and laying their seeds. Then they prepared the locals. They feed them, clean even though they use their reserves. But what came next I should have seen coming.
The days grow shorter and the air thinner as the winter rolled in, the crops were small sour but edible, the first time the twins look contented their eyes, now brigheted by the light of ambitions, it was not in till mid winter, as the last remaining shards of the blood moon fell to the sky, their bloodline shining bright as they brought their followers into the fields for a celebration as the war had truly come to an end in jubilation they dances and sang in the illuminating glow of a thousand flares descending through the sky. As their reward began to fall to the pure snow ground, one by one their singing and dancing, not stopping till the last beacon of light from the sky had descended, leaving us three forever more to wonder about this plane.
Why did I take on a few children?… there were no safe spaces at that time. But that's not an excuse. I raised them, showed them their place in the world and they followed my path. I guess that God was thought about one thing. I will never truly have a family. But I hope you don't waste your life on trivial things. Have a family. I'd love to meet your spawn one day that's for sure..
-Signed Perry Lakefield