Soft footsteps sounded through the sand, softly pressing on and wedging their way toward a single direction, creating a linear path as grains continued to rush into the lonesome individual creating this makeshift path that is soon to disappear, just as fast as it had appeared. Dressed in makeshift, torn cloth that cuts off at the fingertips to allow movements and protect the wearer from the harsh environment, they trotted towards "The pavilion". The unrelentless sand kept on throwing itself into the figure, but it persevered, just as unrelentless as the small pieces of earthern debris.
The individual was small, with sunken cheeks hidden under the makeshift cloth keffiyeh, and a malnurished, boney body. Their speed was slow but consistent; unwavering and domineering.
It's said that every human has something unique to them. A skill, maybe. Or perhaps a physical aspect, that comes natural. Even something as non-existent as power within a society. Being a royal, you wouldn't have many life skills, being fed by a silver spoon the moment you enter this world. But; if that "special trait" of sorts were to bring results, then it would undoubtedly be real. Though, natural talent shouldn't constitute as skill; what special trait would someone born with nothing have? No home from the moment they enter this world, with no skills to ecompany that, barely scraping by? Witnessing the horrors of the world, the answer is quite obvious.
The indomitable human spirit.
The sight of the mother being gutted and left for dead as young as 3, with a blurry memory of the young woman lying there, sturggling to cough out her last words to her child, the only one who she truly cared about. The light in her eyes dimming is still clear in the mind of this individual travelling to this vague destination they heard about where it's said that everyone lives in harmony. A pipe dream. That didn't matter though. Anything was better than the unrelenting city of "Bolt". This previous place was home to this straggler for a while, full of insidious scum who don't care to look twice at a young woman breathing her last breaths, and a young child, barely old enough to form words, witnessing this, as the light from her auburn eyes dimmed under the guise of the moonlight.
The young child bit his dry lips at the memory, causing them to slighty crack under the pressure; a thick red liquid with syrup-like viscosity began to flow slowly from the cracks. He had overheard some of the residents of that city talking about a safehaven in this direction called the pavilion. He hadn't failed to notice that he knew they were aware of his presence, though. They couldn't kill him due to the strict laws of the land that could even get a duke of a large piece of land beheaded for, but they could freely send the young boy to his death. An eyesore. That's what his presence was to them. His existence was nothing more than inconvenient for their daily lives.
The boy halted for a moment, his mouth agape under the cloth headware that wrapped around his head, leaving only a small bit of room for sight.
The sand continued to lay forward for atleast a few hundred miles, except, at the bottom of this small dune, strerching atleast half of those 500 miles were.. bodies. Corpses. Their limbs, torn from their original place and scattered like a puzzleboard of flesh and organs, with sometimes a bit of bone protruding from the sand. Hundreds of bodies. So, so many. Their weapons lay scattered, with mixes of iron spears with rough wood handles, atleast 1 metre long. Mixed among these spears were iron cutlasses, targes and silver daggers.
'What had happened here? Was this a full scale war? In the middle of a desert though?'
His thoughts were cut short at the sight of a standing corpse. It was unusual though.. it was still holding it's weapon. It held a brilliant iron Zweihänder, though it's iron was different from the rest; it's metal almost shining with a red radiant liquid still dripping from it.
'Blood? It's dripping. How recent had this happened? And that man.. he's breathing?"
Indeed, the lone warrior in this wasteland of corpses was still hanging on to their thread of life.
The man flinched suddenly, and turned his head toward the lone boy atop a small dune, overseeing this entire battlefield. The boy stepped back slighty, apprehensive of the fearsome warrior. His sight pierced the boy's own, before he started marching towards the small figure, getting his blade ready.
Before the boy could even begin to think of a plan for this unknown threat, he was already upon him, as if he phased out of existence only to reappear near him.
'My eyes couldn't even keep up with his speed.. ah, he's a proper warrior. I see.'
"Who are you? I doubt you're a fighter, since you're stature is too small.. an assassin? A messenger?"
The boy tried to reply, but croaked out a sharp, painful noise instead. The man caught this, and slowly unravelled the cloth around his head, shielding him from the flying sand closelining both of them.
Under these cloth rags was a young.. very young, face, still yet to hit maturity, with scraggly earthy brown hair barely reaching his auburn brown eyes. The man inspected the boy, before pondering.
'This.. is a kid. His eyes look dim, as if the light was snuffed out long ago. Interesting. The direction he seemed to have come from is.. ah, those cruel bastards.'
"Kid, are you from Bolt by chance?"
The young boy slowly nodded in response.
"I see. Ah, you're probably thirsty. Have some water!"
The man gave a devious grin towards the young boy, handing him a silver flask half full of, presumably, water.
The boy gulped down the water quickly, feeling the relief of his dry throat and lips getting moisturised by the clear liquid within the flask.
"Nice to meetcha kid. The name's Lloyd. What about you? Got a name?"
The boy grumbled slowly, getting used to the feeling of talking to another human after days, maybe even a few months traversing the desert and making do with drinking "cactus juice".
"Tre. My name is Tre."