A blue moon bled into the sky and clouds all around it. Once a canopy of twinkling stars, clashing hues of the cosmos, and the all-consuming void in between, now a sky stained into a dark blue ocean, concealing the world from the watchful stars.
A cold gust accompanied the dark of night, signalling the coming of winter, marked by the arrival of snow owls and fog. Distant mountains, firmly dug into the flatlands, cut into the sky—their peaks blued by the moon, like blue icebergs piercing the surface of water. Encompassed within the fog laid a city, with tilled dirt pathways winding and straight, extending due north, west, and south for as far as the eye could see.
The tilled streets of the city were pin drop silent, adorned with clusters of rustic wooden buildings—some elevated slightly above the ground with wooden staircases leading to their entrances. Market stands sat in front of some of the buildings, veiled in beige cloths, their owners absent. Several acres of farmland rested in an area of its own, with crops approaching maturity, soon to be harvested to sustain the denizens of the humble city.
Save for a few patrolling guards, no one dared walk the streets, and no one made it apparent that they were home. Though, smoke emitting from extinguished lanterns suggested otherwise to the keen eye. No one had any business to conduct at night, nor anything to do for that matter at all, so it was only natural that the place gave off a ghost town aura.
All, but one, of course. Racing through the streets was a boy with wavy black hair that lustered the blue sky, bouncing against his shoulders with each step. Opposing his dark hair was a malnourished skin tone as pale as bone. His face carried a smirk, dampening the lines around his mouth that one would expect on the face of an old man who was on a first name basis with death. He was frail and of average stature, covered in threadbare clothing of strange colour choices—blue pants and a grey shirt, along with brown cloth bags attached to his waist. His black laced boots, fashioned in a medieval inspiration, flapped open at the heels, allowing for some ventilation.
Each step he took shifted the dirt, disturbing the silence, followed by heavy breathing that his heartbeat matched. He hummed a melancholic tune, revealing a deep voice that was out of place with his scarred childish face. A face that suggested suffering from famine, though lively green eyes that reflected the houses and sky. Indeed such eyes were indicative of an inquisitive spirit found only in the young who had much to learn about the world.
The boy turned a corner, colliding into a silver cuirass before he fell back with eyes closed, holding his head as he uttered a few grunts of pain.
"Kane?" said an orotund, masculine voice.
The boy, Kane, slowly opened his eyes, taking notice of the silver cuirass he crashed into, where black leather wrapped around the body and under riveted pauldrons, reflecting the incandescent orange of the torch the guard held in one hand, and a pike in the other. The helm covered all but a 'T' shaped opening, revealing a dark skin tone and brown eyes.
"Ephraim?" said Kane, his voice travelling an octave up. "What are you doing here?"
Ephraim tilted his head back, staring at Kane from the corners of his peripherals. "Boy, I'm a guard. What do you mean what am I doing here?" He stowed his placed his pike on the ground, lending Kane a hand with getting back on his feet, taking notice of rolled parchment crushed in his grasp. "What are you doing out this late?"
"Nothing," he replied without hesitation, carrying a tight-lip expression.
Without wasting a second, Ephraim reached for the parchment, slipping it right out of Kane's grasp, who tried reaching for it, only to fail.
"So," he said, reading each word along the caramel yellow paper, "Sage Maleagant sent you on another one of those late night scouting tasks?" He looked back at Kane, who grit his teeth as he tried to reach across Ephraim's gauntlet that held him back. "Why can't you do so during the day?"
"Because the moonshades die at sunrise!" said Kane, slipping under the gauntlet and finally reacquiring the parchment. "And I also get to spend more time searching for withervine."
"Withervine?" asked Ephraim, squinting his eyes as he scoffed. "You do know that withervine are merely fantasy, right?"
"And how would you know?"
"Have you ever seen one?"
Kane raised a brow, rubbing his chin as he rolled his eyes, wondering if the guard had a point. "Well, no, but it doesn't matter," he snapped back. "If I can find even one withervine then I can finally have enough silver to buy some proper food!"
Ephraim let out a heavy sigh, shaking his head as he reached into a pouch, pulling out ten silver coins and handing them over.
"Are you giving them to me?" asked Kane, squinting his eyes as he took a step back.
"Yes," Ephraim smiled, "no tricks. I know what it's like to be hungry. It isn't much, but it'll keep you well-fed for tomorrow."
Maintaining his skeptical gaze, Kane slowly stepped over, before quickly snatching the coins and studying them. It wouldn't be the first time that he was given counterfeit coins as a cruel prank.
"Come on," said Ephraim, carrying a hint of disappointment in his voice, "you know you can trust me. I'm not like everyone else in Thalamar. Besides, I've been helping you out for years now."
"The last time someone was trying to help me out," he replied, closing one eye as he studied the coin in the moonlight at various angles, playing the role of antiquity scholar, "I was given fake coins and then got in trouble with Mayor Wymond." He reached over to his breast pocket, placing the coins inside, the weight of them foreign yet to him. Is this what it feels like to have even ten coins?
"Rest assured, I mean you no trouble, Kane."
"Hmm, sure." Kane looked up, noticing that the moon was nearly at its peak, before walking past Ephraim as he said, "I better get going now. Thank—" His speech was halted just as his walk was by Ephraim's grasp on his shoulder. He looked over the gauntlet, meeting his eyes with Ephraim's as he said, "Now what?"
"Kane," his voice returned to an austere tone, as did his gaze, "be careful. The night is dangerous, especially with the nefandites skulking about."
Kane scoffed, chuckling as he shrugged off the guard's loosened grasp, walking towards wooden pillars that acted as the border of Thalamar. "I've been out at night many times unharmed. I've escaped bears, wolves, and... other things! The nefandites wouldn't be able to catch someone as fast and nimble as me anyway!"
"Right... Just be careful," added Ephraim, picking up his pike and walking off to complete his patrol route. "Your life is worth more than some herbs."
Kane froze in his tracks, looking back at Ephraim who spared not a single look back. My life is... worth more? As were the coins in his pouch, such a thought was foreign as well. For all he could remember was being treated as subhuman. Nevertheless, with a task at hand, Kane continued onward, running past the weathered, maroon tree logs that separated the outside world from the safety of Thalamar.