A year ago, in a small village called Oakvale, I was the mother of two seemingly normal children. My daughter, Theresa, the eldest, experienced frequent nightmares. On a night like many others, I awoke to her screams, ready to reach for my ax. This time, my son Arn had fallen out of bed. He hit his head in doing so, and I was immediately worried. Many children who hit their heads went to sleep and never awoke again. I brewed him some willow bark tea to reduce the swelling.

He didn’t wait around, though. After staring at his clothes for a few moments, he suddenly ran barefoot out of the house before I could give him the tea I’d made. I would have chased after him, but Theresa started crying about something she couldn’t remember. I believed my daughter needed my comfort more than he did, so I embraced her and patted her small head.

“There, there, child,” I soothed.

As days turned to weeks, events grew stranger. Theresa no longer woke us with screams, and she seemed different—like she was years older and more confident, as if the world were under her control. Arn was often nowhere to be seen, and when he was, I was left perplexed. Sometimes I caught him writing notes on paper. Who had taught him to write? Brom and I never had! Even his speech was more refined; he had become “more proper,” as he once put it.

As I prepared to head to the guild—something I did annually—a servant from the Mayor of Bowerstone brought me a letter. At first, I cursed my terrible luck. Why was such an important noble writing to me all of a sudden? My suspicion turned out to be unfounded. The Grey family’s youngest daughter, Elvira, had met Arn and was completely taken with him. The letter was a request for both an extended leave and permission for her to visit us. It made sense now. Arn must have been playing with her all this time without knowing who she was, and Elvira must have been teaching him language and writing skills!

The letter even stated that Arn was the only suitor candidate the Mayor was considering for Elvira. What great luck! For such a thing to happen for Arn at such a young age! As a young girl, I had dreamed of a noble knight sweeping me off my feet. Instead, I ended up with a Balverine, which led me into a life of being a hero. I was glad I never married a noble, or I might never have met the love of my life, Brom.

Life had more surprises in store for me, though, as Elvira brought up Arn's Will power of Time during one of her visits. It turned out to be true, and Arn did not take being cornered in a conversation well. He ran away...

Theresa took that opportunity to explain that she, too, had a Will-based power and could see the future. I didn’t believe her at first, but several immediate instances of her accurately predicting events proved it to be true. How else could she have known Arn would use his power to make a demon door disappear completely? I had never seen or heard of such a thing before. Just as she had predicted, he was carried back days later, starved as if he’d been gone a month. It broke my heart to see him like that, and worse yet, when Theresa explained why he had done this to himself.

In a timeline that Arn would do anything to prevent, Jack of Blades would ruin our lives in a little more than a year from now. I would fail to protect them and be captured. Brom would be killed, and Theresa would have her eyes cut out. All of this was unavoidable—at least, it originally was—until Arn intervened.

My son turned out to be more special than I could have fathomed. He also knew the future, but not through visions. Theresa explained that when he hit his head that night, he awakened some unknown power—possibly one greater than even the Archon from which we are descended. According to her, Arn gained the knowledge of a being who lived outside our time yet parallel to it. One that knew events yet to unfold. This made no sense to me, no matter how she tried to explain it.

How in Avo's name could that knowledge get inside his head? Then came the moment when I saw what she described as the cost of this knowledge: “Identity Crises.” He was fighting with himself and was confused about who he had always been.

I asked her, “Are you sure that’s really Arn?”

“How do you define who someone is, Mother? Is it their soul? Their memories? The Arn we know is still in there. I can still recognize his silly personality bleeding through an otherwise adult mind,” Theresa declared.

“Then what’s the cause?” I pressed.

“Imagine two different people’s Wills. Now imagine the two were very similar to the point they nearly overlap, and one said individual didn’t have a body of their own. Somehow these two minds, or ‘Wills,’ ended up fused,” Theresa stated, sharing her theory.

Somewhat enraged, I said, “Then this other person is possessing my son?”

“No, they are fused together. From what I can tell, this could only have happened if both individuals were willing to do so. Do I need to point out to you who got the raw deal in this fusion? The other Will bears all of Arn’s pain and suffering. It shields him from the costs of this world while taking nothing in return.”

If that’s true, then why? Why help us? Looking back at Theresa, I asked, “Who was he?”

“I don’t know. An old and forgotten hero, maybe? All I know is that person has a very beautiful mind who somehow lost their life.” Theresa shrugged while responding to my question. I could tell that just thinking about it brought tears to her eyes.

“That sounds incredibly sad. He must have been a hero then—possibly one who died fighting a demon or something…” I guessed.

Children often inherit their parents' Wills, but that is just a document transferring their possessions. To inherit the Will of another hero is something else altogether. I doubt that has ever been done in Albion or any other world. So the Arn we have now is still my son but has a fallen hero within him along for the ride. I can live with this revelation!

Months passed as I helped train my family into a true unit of combat specialists. My husband was becoming a splendid tank, my daughter was becoming the greatest archer, and my son would be the most powerful mage. Even Archmage Maze wouldn't be able to hold a candle to my boy. He did puke like crazy when he killed his first bandit, though, and I had a hard time holding back my laughter. I had to maintain a stoic and approving face in front of him; I didn’t want to hurt his pride.

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One morning, Arn asked me to take him to a specific place in Greatwood. There, he consumed a rare potion called the “Willmaster’s Elixir.” I was shocked he actually drank it! Who drinks potions? They taste terrible and are meant to be poured on wounds.

The day grew weirder from there as he saw something just over the hill. He took off into a sprint toward it before I could properly react. Once I saw the foul beast luring him, my instincts took over. I rushed toward the creature with my ax ready to strike!

“A NYMPH!!!” I screamed in panic.

I barely noticed when Arn yelled, “STOP!”

If I didn’t know better, I wouldn’t have recognized that as coming from him. It was less a shout and more of a command. It was said with such authority that my mind almost went blank in confusion, but my ax remained true. I would have ended the Nymph's life except, oddly, my blade hit an invisible and immovable object.

“Let me kill it! That thing is EVIL!” I demanded.

“NO!” he shouted, with a sharpness in his eyes I’d never seen before, in man or beast alike.

“You don’t under—”

“YOU'RE WRONG!” he interrupted.

I was literally at a loss for words.

Next, he lectured his perspective. “I’ve seen EVIL, and I know when I see it. From what I’ve seen so far, I doubt that thing is evil. It’s most likely just misunderstood, and with humans infringing and polluting its home, it thinks we’re enemies.”

I angrily rebutted, “They kidnap children and most likely eat them! When have you ever seen evil?”

The argument continued on in a way I didn’t like as he claimed humanity itself was also capable of great evil. How could that be? We were the good guys! So what if they didn’t kill kids? They turned them into monsters! How is that better and not worse?

I tried to overtake the conversation by threatening him with “Boy,” but I was once again cut off. The word “Boy” was met with a Will-powered glare that no mere child could ever manifest. The power in those eyes was ancient, belonging to a being who had walked uphill barefoot through broken glass to save others. The kind of eyes that do not belong to someone who is going to yield. At that moment, I realized I was just thinking of the hero within as just a part of my son. True, he was still my little boy, but he was also so much more. Even if that other Will had forgotten who it once was, a lion is still a lion. Look who is no longer just a cub!

He declared that he would fight and kill me if I made him do so. His statement of being in charge left me with many questions. Strong as I was, I knew I wasn’t a match for him anymore. I was forced to yield.

I shrugged. “They grow so fast,” was all I could say.

To my surprise, Arn then spoke to the creature. Honestly, I had expected trickery from the dying creature, but all it wanted was to live. It offered gold and gems for its life, but Arn refused to risk letting it go and kill innocents. He placed the burden of proof on the creature itself. So it offered a familiar pact—something I had heard of as rumor but never seen. The rumor was that any being could become a hero’s familiar with the right spell or ritual, but no one knew them anymore—not since the fall of the old kingdom. Magic creatures were an exception, as they could initiate the pact themselves, but most were evil and untrustworthy beasts. The boy accepted the offer and I didn’t stop him; I doubted he would have stopped even if I had spoken up.

With the pact complete, Arn released the Nymph from the trap that held it. The following conversation threw me for a loop. Nymphs are practically immortal, but this one was only five years old. It was a baby! When asked to heal my son’s new familiar, all I could muster to say was, “Oh, right!”

Healed, the Nymph was then asked by Arn to reveal its history. The creature went into vivid detail about accounts from its elders. Nymphs don’t truly have gender, but they all look like female children. The story recounted the beings getting molested over hundreds of years. It was truly sickening, and I was forced to remember the times I’d been hired to hunt Nymphs, several where the request was to bring them back alive for “research” by various noble wizards. I had been tricked into taking children to the real monsters. What kind of hero does that?

I had been told it was for research to make peace, but we never saw the fruit of their supposed labor. Some said it was magical research, but we saw no new spells invented from it. How great were my sins? Had I brought Jack upon us with my own wicked deeds? Then came the rage and hate of being lied to by those bastards!

My daughter then offered the Nymph candy, which turned out to be a thing for them. They looked like children and loved sweets.

That’s when a trader came by, expecting to see a Nymph in a trap. I lost myself to rage when I realized he was one of THEM! This time, I was faster than Arn's reaction time. My ax nearly cleaved the scum in two. I wanted to tear him into a million pieces!

I felt a hand touch me, and in my unstable mental state, I nearly lashed out. It was Arn. “You are only human, and as such, you cannot know everything that has and is happening.”

Even my daughter comforted me, but I was forced to ask myself: Am I worthy of such sweet children? All this time, I had been blissfully ignorant of what was happening around me in this world. So I had to ask, “How did you know she wasn’t just a monster?”

The answer was that he could see it in her eyes. What a pure soul to see innocence within another.

We spent the rest of the day destroying the bastard’s body, even though some beast in Greatwood would likely consume him anyway. He was oddly insistent on doing so and used a simple method I’d never heard of before.

After that, he devised a clever solution for how to bring his familiar into town. Brom and I hadn’t even foreseen the problem until he pointed it out. What a clever person he had become.

A few weeks later, we left for the Void within the demon door Arn had named “Nemo.” There, we trained for the battle ahead. My whole family worked hard, but my husband especially. All this training had made him a wall of muscle, highlighting his already handsome features. His rock-hard abs! His thick, rippling biceps! Let’s just say I couldn’t resist rewarding his hard work.

It was like we were newlyweds again. We went at it often, as we were at our most attractive and, other than training, had little else to do.

We got caught in the act once, though, because we forgot about the Nymph. Our children pranked us and had a good laugh over our reactions. To our relief, they seemed to not really care what we were actually doing. Both our children knew what sex was and that married couples did it. They even knew the importance of waiting until marriage before having sex with someone. So, in due time, everything calmed down again—until I got sick.

That’s when my son revealed startling news. I’d become pregnant at the worst possible time. I was 34 years old—not that I’d ever admit that to anyone—but how the hell could I be PREGNANT?!

I was surprised that not only did Arn not blame me for this, but he also consoled me instead. He said something about, “Well, I should have guessed contraceptives weren’t a thing in this world.” What the hell's a contraceptive?

Here I was once again creating a situation that put my family in danger. Now I would barely be able to participate in the upcoming battle. Arn assured me he had it all figured out, but I couldn’t help but worry. What if? If any one of them dies, it will basically be my fault.

Arn called me out on my self-loathing. He claimed that no one has rights over death and that everyone dies. That’s my sweet boy. I hope we all live to see how great he becomes someday.

“So, for baby names, how does Granok, Destroyer of Worlds, sound?” Arn blurted out. I couldn’t help but burst into laughter.