I

The tavern was crowded and noisy. A band of rowdy sailors had taken over a portion of the establishment near the back, and the smoke from their tobacco - and other, stronger herbs - filled the murky place almost as thoroughly as their drunken singing did. A bard tried his best to do his job despite their presence, but he was failing miserably. Workers sat by the bar, downing ale and eating meat pies after a hard day’s work in the port. Serving wenches bustled back and forth between the two dozen or so packed tables of families out to dinner, off-duty watchmen, soldiers, and the occasional foreign merchant or traveller. The barkeep and owner of The Milk Barn smiled greedily at all the money rolling in today.

Somewhere near the sailors, a young woman named Aroha grinned broadly as an old man readied himself to regale a small group of children who had gathered around his table with another one of his tales. ‘Do you know the story of the four heroes who saved this world of ours, young ones?’

The children were jumping up and down in barely contained anticipation. Aroha leaned back in her chair, closing her eyes and zoning out on the old man’s words, drowning out the rest of the clatter that was going on in the pub all around them. Despite being far too old, she still loved this story no matter how many times she heard it.

The old man was equally as eager to tell the story as his listeners were to hear it. ‘It is said that Thiara was founded by four great heroes from a place far, far away from here. From a place past the furthest stars that the astronomers have charted and documented, even! The heroes were known as Jinéal the Valiant, Galielylë the Wise, Tresvest the Breaker, and Comeîõen the Maiden. Their home was dying and so they travelled far from it in search of a new one. That was when they came upon Thiara, but they were shocked to discover that it was infested with monsters and beasts from nightmare! The heroes fought the monsters bravely for many years, travelling the planet and freeing the ancient peoples that once lived off the lands. When the four Heroes finally succeeded in defeating the last of the great beasts - the dread dragon Zazamiel herself – in a battle that raged for many days and nights, they choose to stay and start a new life here on Thiara. They bestowed upon the ancient peoples many gifts and secrets that led them to better lives, and with time they eventually integrated and settled with these peoples in harmony.’

‘What secrets, Pop-pop?’ chirped one of the excited children.

‘Oh, wouldn’t you like to know? Maybe if you came to the temple you would find out!’ said the old man, grabbing the child playfully by the nose. ‘Now, get out of here before your mothers come looking for you! There’s beautiful sunshine outside and you should be playing in it!’

With that, the children got up and ran off excitedly, swinging imaginary swords and singing old songs that other elders had taught them, their heads full of legend. The old man leaned back in his chair and drank deeply of his tankard, satisfied he had fulfilled his duty as a storyteller.

Aroha smiled at the old man, her dark eyes twinkling mischievously in the dim light of the tavern’s fires, ‘I think that story gets grander in each telling. If you’re not careful, the little tykes might just believe it to be true.’

‘Oh ye of little faith,’ laughed the old man. ‘Speaking of,’ he continued nonchalantly, ‘I haven’t seen you in the Mother’s temple for a while now, young lady. The Founding is almost upon us. Can I expect you and your brother to come plant the new trees with the rest of the congregation?’

Aroha played with an errant strand of her hair and muttered out a non-committal reply.

The old priest nodded silently. ‘How are Vanessa and Riario doing?’

‘Father is away to the Capital on business so mother and I tend the shop in his absence. Riario works at the docks for now. We are waiting for the travelling scholars to come to the Port again so he might get some learning, but they have been scarce since their last visit.’

‘Ah, yes, I fear that travellers from the Kingdoms will keep getting rarer and rarer. There’s talk of war brewing. Again.’ The priest sighed. ‘Such petty conflicts always affect the common folk the worst.’

‘What have you heard?’

‘Tensions all around!’ the priest exclaimed. ‘The Capital refused to sign a renewed trade agreement with the new royal family of Sevet, so they have closed their borders to us.’

‘I heard from some sailors earlier tonight that the Namarian raiders are also becoming bolder in the south. They have taken the Crown and Ortizia’s Point for their own.’

‘Lucky we live so far north that they should not trouble us,’ the priest said with a sigh. ‘This is why the Founding ritual is so important for us, Aroha. It strengthens our community and allows people to forget their troubles for a moment.’

‘I suppose it does...’

The two chatted on for a while, about nothing else of particular consequence, until the priest said his goodbyes and retired to his home. With no one left to talk to, Aroha left the Milk Barn as well, giving a wave to her favourite barmaid and paying a few coins to the barkeep on her way out, for the food and drink she had had there. She stepped out from the intentionally dim tavern onto the bright streets of Kaze Port. It was always bright and always sunny and always beautiful. The season never seemed to change in the Port, the heat of Thiara’s twin suns as constant as death itself. It always felt to Aroha as if the entirety of the town were stuck in a perpetual dream. Unable to change, unable to move forward. Aroha knew, from travellers who stopped by the Port every so often, that the entire world was in much the same state - Bustavia saw nothing but snow, Camar nothing but light rainfall, and so on and so forth – but she could not help but feel that this place, in particular, was stuck in limbo. At least the heat and busyness of the day was waning down as the Port settled into the mood of twilight.

The problem with having twin suns is that there was no such thing as proper nightfall. Even as one sun set on the horizon, the other still shone quite brazenly, and by the time that one would be reaching its own setting, the other was already beginning to rise again. The suns were known simply as the Sisters. Galantina was a massive red star, known affectionately by the general populace, and to her cults, as the Elder One. Orphesia was a bright blue star and was about half the size of her sister. She was nicknamed the Messenger, and the cults dedicated to her considered the associated goddess to be a spritely young maiden who delivered omens and tidings because she was known to cross the sky at a much faster speed than her older sister, oftentimes lapping her altogether. Aurelia, the planet’s moon, was the allegedly lost third sister that completed the trio, but the existence of such a celestial body had been a topic of debate for centuries, with only the Bustavians really putting much stock in the now-outdated belief that the planet had ever had a moon in the first place.

Aroha roamed the streets for a while, weaving in and around the various alleyways and thoroughfares of the town. It was not a big city by any standard and lived up to its name admirably as, besides the port, it consisted of not much else. The port itself was not even especially known for its bustling commerce as it was mainly used as a way-station by sailors from all over the world on their way to far more important destinations, or, more regularly, the few local fishermen who made the town their home. Aside from the port, the most important feature of the town, in terms of sheer acreage, was the Mother’s temple and its accompanying graveyard, which sat on a small hill to the north of the town, suitably removed from the rest of the Port so as to almost be its own entity.

Aroha passed the handful of closed shop fronts on the town’s main road before making her way into the residential areas. Here she passed the shuttered homes of people who were making the most of their leisure time by closing off the vestiges of sunlight and sleeping. She passed the occasional fellow wanderer, making similar use of their time by aimlessly roaming the streets, often already drunk or in search of the state. After a spell, she found herself nearing the outskirts of the town. There was only one road out of the Port. This road joined the main road that connected the various cities, villages and towns of the continent just past the small river that marked Kaze Port’s border. It was a testament to the Port’s relative unimportance that nobody in the town was quite sure what exactly the name of the river was. Sometimes it was known as the Sephia as it ran into a dense forest by the same name to the north, sometimes it was the Bergia, after the neighbouring town. Mostly it was just the river.

There were four or five small farm holdings this far out of the town that enjoyed the dubious responsibility of feeding most of the Port. These farms kept the town supplied with various crops, fruits and vegetables, milk and eggs, and sometimes livestock if things were going favourably. They were not large, nor did they produce much. Aroha made her way to the one closest to town, jumping the little fence that separated it from the road. She stole a small peach from a tree near the fence as she made her way through the freshly harvested field and the few fruit trees that littered the land. She could see a figure standing outside the farmhouse a little way from the field, loading its crops into a small wagon that was not yet hitched to anything. She saw the figure look up at her as she drew nearer and she waved a hand to it in greeting.

‘Aroha?’ the figure called out.

‘Aye, Rylan, it’s me!’ she hollered back. She broke into a light trot to reach the farmhouse quicker. The young man who had been loading the wagon was beaming at her, standing with his hands on his hips, waiting patiently for Aroha to reach him. As Aroha drew nearer, she instantly brightened to see the genuine glow of happiness in her friend’s eyes, despite the weariness of a hard day’s work that the slouch in his shoulders betrayed. Aroha returned the smile, grasped her friend’s coarse hand and shook it warmly.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

‘How in the hells are you?’ the young man asked jovially.

Aroha spat out her peach pit in the dirt next to where the two were standing. ‘I’m well as can be expected, and you?’

‘Ha! I’m jollier now that you’ve come for a visit,’ Rylan replied. ‘It’s been quite a while since you’ve made the trip out to see us.’

Aroha nodded at the wagon beside him. ‘Good harvest?’

Rylan sighed, furrowed his brow a little and kicked the dirt. ‘Not as well as I had hoped. Had a bit of blight on about half of the crop. No idea where it came from.’

‘Ah, that’s a shame,’ Aroha nodded solemnly. ‘How’s Penelope doing?’

‘She’s taking a bit of rest; it’s been a busy day,’ Rylan replied, pointing at the modest wooden farmhouse behind him with a thumb over his shoulder. ‘If you stick around for a meal, you might see her.’

‘Ah, no, I ate at the Milk Barn already. I just stopped by to say hello before heading home.’

‘Hmmm, an awfully roundabout way home,’ Rylan said, squinting at his friend. Seeing that she was not forthcoming with any explanation, he changed the subject. ‘Well, come in for a drink at least!’

Aroha nodded politely and followed Rylan as he made his way into the farmhouse. He undid his ponytail as he entered the homestead, letting his thick brown hair down, still slightly matted with sweat. The entrance they had used from the field led straight into the kitchen and Aroha took a seat at the coarse wood dinner table as Rylan found a half-full bottle of wine in one of the cupboards.

‘How are things in the Port?’ Rylan asked, carefully pouring out a measure of wine each for himself and his guest.

‘Same old, I suppose,’ Aroha replied. ‘Not much happening at the moment. There are a fair bit of sailors in though, come to do some trading now that it’s harvest season. They’re all getting drunk right now as well.’ She added as she graciously accepted the cup Rylan offered and took a hearty swig of the wine within. It was a particularly sweet berry wine, the kind that she enjoyed. She flashed Rylan a smile of appreciation and he tipped his cup in recognition.

Rylan sat down with a heavy sigh across from her, the day’s work catching up to him in seconds. He groaned and rubbed his shoulders as he sipped from his cup. ‘I don’t have a lot of produce to take to market this time around. Penelope is pissed.’

‘I can imagine.’

‘She always wants things just so. But there’s nothing you can do about crop blight,’ Rylan said. Aroha could sense the disappointment in his voice however and knew he was the one beating himself up about it.

‘No, there’s really not. You guys do the best you can,’ she responded as casually as possible.

‘Your father still in the Capital?’ Rylan asked, changing the subject.

‘Yes.’

‘He’s been gone a while. Almost a month now?’

‘Yes,’ Aroha answered, somewhat more tersely than she intended.

Rylan nodded and took a sip of his cup for lack of anything better to do. ‘How’s Riario doing? He promised to come down and help with the harvest but he never showed up.’

Aroha sighed. ‘I’ll talk to him. He’s so irresponsible.’

‘No, no, it’s fine,’ Rylan laughed. ‘I’m sure he’s busy.’

‘I’m sure he’s not,’ Aroha retaliated. ‘He claims he’s working at the dock, but I know he’s just playing with his friends down there, getting into trouble and probably stealing things. He leaves me and Ma to work the shop ourselves all day long, and you know how she can get so fussy and mean. I’m honestly sick of her already. Part of the reason I went out and wasted my pay on food at the Milk Barn.’ She stopped to take a long draught of wine.

She put her now empty cup on the table and Rylan shot her a wry but tired smile as he refilled it. ‘He’s still young. We used to get into trouble and steal things, remember?’

‘Aye, and your Ma would beat us until we couldn’t sit properly when we were caught. And then she’d tell my father and… I don’t miss those days.’

Rylan was quiet for a moment, contemplating Aroha’s stone face. Their eyes met and hers told him not to talk about it, so he obliged and continued. ‘The good days were good. You can’t deny that. Back when we didn’t have a care in the world. Getting our knees torn up by seashells while fishing for mussels and crabs. Getting into fights with the bigger kids and having to run all the way back to the farmhouse to get away.’ His eyes left hers and stared into some middle distance behind her. ‘I’ve never had a sweeter meal than that time we stole the pies off the baker’s store and ate them while running in the streets, damn near half the town chasing after us.’

He finished up his wine and set the cup down before adding, almost under his breath. ‘Now it’s all work and crop blight and worrying about earning enough money to buy seed for the next harvest.’

A silence descended between them.

‘Well, I better be getting back home,’ Aroha finally said. ‘You know how my Ma stresses out if I’m gone too long. She’s not going to be happy about the money I spent either.’

Rylan stood up, taking his and Aroha’s cups to the washbasin. He grabbed the bottle of wine off the table and said, ‘Let me walk you back.’

‘No, it’s fine,’ Aroha protested.

He held up the bottle. ‘I’ve got nothing else going on right now. The crop will be fine outside for now and Penelope is still napping so I’ll just be here alone. It’s better to be alone in company at least.’ He took a swig of the bottle and passed it to Aroha, who accepted it and reciprocated the swig.

The pair left the farmhouse and took a walk back out to the road. They walked in silence for a while, until they came to the road and Rylan couldn’t help but tell Aroha about how his neighbour’s, the Durandal’s, eldest son had been trying to get Penelope to go out with him. He’d asked her to the Founding festival and had even spoken to Rylan to try and get him to convince her that he was worth courting. He’d even written her a love letter! Rylan and Aroha had a hearty laugh at his expense, recalling how they used to get into constant fights with him and his brothers when they were younger. Aroha had once threw a stone in a fight so hard that it gave the poor boy a permanent scar across the bridge of his nose. ‘It was the biggest target!’ she protested, which didn’t help her defence.

The pair chatted and joked all the way up the road until they crossed the river back into the town, at which point they were stopped dead in their tracks by the sight of a figure sitting on the ground a few metres away, propped up against the faded wooden signpost that declared the name of the town. Aroha hesitated, unsure whether to step towards the figure or not; Rylan was already running. It was unclear whether it was just some drunkard or if the figure was in any kind of distress and Aroha found that she couldn’t will her feet to move forward and find out.

‘Aroha! Come quick!’

Rylan’s shout broke her hesitation and she ran to him and the figure. It was a man, slumped against the signpost and bleeding badly from a wound in his left shoulder. Aroha noted his light leather armour, not that of any soldier she’d ever seen, but more like a watchman or private mercenary. The longsword on the ground at his side confirmed this analysis. His short, cropped hair also spoke to a militaristic occupation of some kind. His eyes met hers and there was a deep sadness and pain there, whether from the wound or something more she could not say. She was frozen there was a good few seconds before she suddenly became aware that Rylan had been shouting at her the entire time.

‘He’s hurt bad! Help me, Aroha!’

‘What? What do I do?’

She had never felt so confused and disorientated in her life. It felt like this was an unreal situation, something that was happening to other people and that she was merely observing from the outside. She had no control over her own body. She couldn’t even feel her legs and so could not will them to move closer to her friend to help him with the injured man. The best she could muster at that moment in time was a dumb-founded expression and not much else.

Rylan took off his shirt, still dirty and damp from a long day’s work in the fields, but it was the best he could do. He bundled it up and pushed it into the man’s shoulder. He grabbed the man’s right hand and forced him to grip it. To the man, he said, ‘We’re going to get you help, don’t worry. Just hold that cloth as tight as you can.’

To Aroha, he said, ‘Help me. We’ve got to carry him into town. Make sure he keeps that cloth pressed hard to his shoulder. It should soak up the blood and hopefully slow the bleeding.’

The man suddenly jerked to attention at these words and yelled out, ‘No!’ which startled both Aroha and Rylan. Aroha flinched as if struck in the face by the outburst and immediately felt silly for doing it. Rylan eyed the man cautiously as if half expecting him to suddenly spring to his feet and attack him.

All the man did was draw a ragged, rattling breath before continuing, ‘Can’t…’

He struggled to get every word out but seemed adamant to finish what he wanted to tell them. Unfortunately, all he could manage was, ‘Can’t go back… They…’ before it became too much for him. He grimaced in pain and Aroha noticed that every breath he took to speak physically hurt him. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the signpost, each breath a painful rattle in the back of his throat. She winced at his pain, unsure if she should stop him, try and comfort him, or just let him continue talking.

‘Don’t speak,’ Rylan finally interjected. He had no idea what to do with his hands. Covered with this strange man’s blood as they were now, they seemed alien to him. The hands of someone else entirely. ‘Just relax. Let us take care of it.’

Still a little wary, Rylan waited a few seconds for a response – which did not come - before he leaned down and hefted the man to his feet. The man was heavy, well-built and armour-clad as he was, and Rylan barely managed to get him onto unsteady feet. He gripped the man’s waist, keeping him standing as the man’s head swayed dangerously with the heaviness of someone teetering on the edge of consciousness. ‘Aroha, quick! Get over here!’

The sight of Rylan struggling to keep the man on his feet was enough to get Aroha’s legs to respond to her again. She ran to Rylan’s side, mentally shaking the cobwebs of her breakdown from her mind and trying her best to just focus on the task at hand. She grabbed the cloth out of the man’s limp grip and then helped Rylan drape the man’s right arm over his shoulder for Rylan to better support his weight. She then went over to the man’s left side, and pressed the already bloody cloth back into his wounded shoulder, while helping Rylan carry the man by the belt of his pants with her free hand. Working together like this, the pair managed to get into motion, splitting the man’s bulk between them. It made the task of hefting the man into the Port a much easier job.

The walk to the town from the river was not a long one and indeed the outskirts of the Port was already within sight from it. Even as they drew nearer, however, Aroha could feel that something was off. There was too much noise happening for this time of the day. In these faux twilight hours, the townspeople would be at home, trying to get some much-needed rest after a long day of working, but Aroha could hear shouting and the sounds of commotion coming from the direction of the Port proper. She glanced nervously at Rylan and the grim look on his face as he stared intently ahead, trying to catch a glimpse of what was happening, told her that he thought something was odd too.

A scream punctuated the air suddenly and the pair stopped dead in their tracks. More screams followed the first. The sounds of men shouting, voices raised in anger. The shrill, piercing thrill of a woman. Next came the cries of pain, perforating the air like a knife. Then the shrieks of fear. The crash of steel on steel. The thunder of a hundred feet, running - away or towards the commotion, Aroha couldn’t be sure.

Aroha looked at Rylan and she saw the terror in his eyes that must have been a mirror of her own. She became uncomfortably aware of her heartbeat, the sound of it thump-thumping in her ears drowning out everything else around her. Rylan said something to her then - screamed something - but she didn’t hear it. She was already running. She didn’t know where, she didn’t know why, but she was running.

Why was she running towards the noise?

Home?

Yes, that had to be it. She had to get home. Her Ma would be ever so upset with her for coming home this late.