Tom was from Bronn. He was a local. Fionara, however, was an outsider. They met nine years ago.
She came to Bronn as a member of an adventurer’s group. They had taken a request from their guild to deal with a rampaging great bear. Two Bronn hunters had already fallen by its claws.
Tom, 21 years old at that time, was their guide into a nearby forest where the great bear was sighted. Neither Tom nor Fionara showed any interest in each other when they met for the first time.
“Nice to meet ya,” The group leader offered a hand to shake to which Tom accepted. The man looked like a typical warrior. He was pretty tall and had a muscular body. His armor was a mix of plate and leather, indicating that he must have been quite agile for a warrior. He looked to be in late twenties or early thirties.
As for Tom, being bang average was probably the best way to describe him. With short brown hair and brown eyes, nothing about him stood out.
“I’ve located the bear’s nest. I can lead you there right now if you are willing,” Tom said.
“We’ve just got here,” The leader replied while looking back at the other members in his group. “We’d like to have a day of rest and eat up a little. Where is the tavern?”
He pointed his index finger to a wooden building not far. The tavern didn’t have any signs specifically stating that it was a tavern. There was no need for a sign since locals knew where it was already, and outsiders visited the village rarely.
“There,” He said curtly.
“I see. Thanks. Let’s meet up tomorrow morning when the sun rises.”
“Understood.”
There were five people in his group. Among them, two of them were young females. One of them made a pass at Tom as she went by. He didn’t respond though.
At 21 years old, he was at the perfect age to marry. The only reason he was still single was due to a fact that their village elder encouraged young men to find women from outside. Likewise, women in the village would wed with outsiders frequently. This was to avoid accidental inbreeding which was a real possibility with such a small population of the village. This rule had made it harder to find a woman for Tom. He could still choose a woman from the village, but that required an approval from the elder who’d look into family trees from both sides to ensure that no accidental inbreeding may occur. Regardless, most importantly, he hadn’t found a woman of his taste, yet. If his parents were still alive, he would have likely married already. They passed away during a disease outbreak about five years ago.
The next early morning, Tom found the adventurer group waiting outside of the tavern.
“Yo, we are ready to go,” Their leader said aloud. They looked freshened up enough already although one of them looked a bit pale.
“Is he okay?”
“Hmm?” The leader looked back at the guy Tom pointed at. “Oh, he’s gonna be fine. Had a bit of too much ale last night. Ale here was a bit stronger than the one we used to have back in town.”
“Tastes different, too,” Another member added.
“Are you guys good to go?” Tom asked.
“Yeah, lead on.”
The bear’s nest was located in a shallow cave within a forest. It was just deep enough for the gigantic bear to sleep in and escape elements.
“I forgot to ask, your name?” The leader asked Tom.
“It’s Tom.”
“Alright, Tom. Stay back now. It’s our job.” Having said so, the leader drew his sword out and readied his shield. “Lads, in formation!”
Out of the four, one of them readied his bow and stayed in back. Another appeared to be a mage and also stayed back while readying her staff. The other two stayed by the leader. One of them had a dagger in each of her hands. The other had a spear in his hand.
Once the leader saw that his group was ready, he made a loud sound by clashing his sword onto his kite shield which annoyed the great bear to come out of its nest.
“Holy shit, that thing is huge,” One of them said aloud.
The bear stood on its hind legs and towered over them. It was at least five meters tall. Its menacing eyes indicated that it was not pleased to have been disturbed. It roared loudly at them.
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“Fire!” The leader exclaimed.
“Elementals of fire, heed my call. Lend me your power! Fireball!” The mage had spoken a short incantation, and a ball of fire that was the size of a soccer ball, flew toward the bear which the bear swept at with its claw. Upon contact, the fireball made a small explosion in the air as it dispersed. Subsequently, the archer made several shots, none of which managed to pierce its thick fur.
Seeing neither the mage nor the archer was being effective, the leader charged in along with the two next to him. It was basically a rough brawl afterwards.
“Elementals of fire, heed my call. Protect my friend: Flamewall!”
The mage made her incantation as the leader was enveloped with circles of fire which when attacked caused burn effect on its enemy, and the archer continued to fire his arrows even though it didn’t seem effective at all.
The brawl went on for a good while. The fight remained stalemate until an arrow managed to hit the bear’s left eye. Whether it was planned or purely accidental, Tom was unable to tell. The bear let out a painful roar, and it started to lose the fight from here. Still, it wasn’t going down without a fight. The adventurers eventually won the battle but not without a casualty.
“Damn it...!”
The one who used twin daggers let out a painful moan as she dropped down to the ground holding her right ankle tendon. The bear, as it fell, made a last sweep which had struck and severed her right ankle tendon. Blood was gushing out.
“Again?! It’s me again?!” She yelled with tears in her eyes.
“Damn it, we have no water mage here!” The leader exclaimed as he examined the wound.
“I can perform first aid,” Tom suggested to which the leader shook his head.
“We, too, can perform first aid. We know that much, but this wound is serious. Her tendon is cut clean. If this isn’t healed right away with magic....”
In this world, there was no concept of priests who healed. Instead, the task of healing was pretty much exclusive to water mages. Elemental water could regulate bloody functions as well as accelerate the healing process.
Having a tendon severed wasn’t a life threatening wound by itself. The issue was the consequence. This world had no medical technology to heal a severed tendon. The only way to heal it would be by magic as soon as it was cut. Once natural healing started to kick it, there would be lesser chances of being fully healed.
The group knew this which was why the girl had tears in her eyes. She realized pretty much instantly that her life as a rogue was pretty much over at this point.
The leader carried the girl to the village and sought out a water mage. The village had none. There was a local healer, but she was more of a witch doctor. Her wound was bandaged after it was covered with some herbs, and that was it.
“Fionara is staying behind,” The leader told Tom outside of a hut where she was resting. “She shouldn’t be walking for a while.” He handed over some copper coins to him. “This should cover her lodging for a bit.”
“What is going to happen to her?”
He sagged his shoulders. “That will be up to her to decide.”
A rogue who couldn’t use her athleticism. The answer was simple. Her days of adventuring were over.
After Tom watched the adventurer group depart, he quietly entered the hut to find Fionara sobbing silently on a bed with her face covered.
“Always me... Always me...” She mumbled to herself.
“Are you okay?”
“OF COURSE, NOT, YOU DORK!” She barked at him. Then she let the dam open, crying her eyes out for a while. He didn’t know what to do and simply stood there until she was done.
She would eventually tell him that she had never had good luck. As an orphan, she had done everything she could in order to amass wealth. Alas, whatever she did, nothing really worked out for her. In her own words, it was misfortune after misfortune.
When she was finally old enough, she enrolled to train to become a rogue. She had some talent for it or so she was told. She worked years to be where she was. She finally got into a decent group where she could make some dough. It was only the third mission with them, she told him.
“I give up. I fucking give up,” She lamented. “Nothing in my life works out eventually. I am cursed with bad luck. I am done. Fuck this shit.”
She felt that there was only one path left for her. It was to sell her body as a whore. It would be her last resort.
He had no idea how to treat her, thus he simply left the hut and let her be.
Originally, Fionara wasn’t going to stay once healed enough. She was going back to her guild and put in her resignation. And then she was going to find a new job...., probably as a prostitute. However, while she recuperated, she came to a realization that she could settle down in Bronn. It was a hunting village, and she knew how to lay traps and such. Even with her tendon cut, she would have no problems with daily life. As long as she didn’t need to run and such, she would have no problem. She limped a little, but that was okay.
The village elder welcomed her decision to stay put. It was rare enough for an outsider to settle down after all. He, then, placed Tom in charge of helping her settle down since he was the only one she was somewhat familiar with.
This was how their relationship began. Their relationship became much more intimate once she found out that they were of the same age and that Tom was single. One could say that she was the one pushing for the knot because she wanted a family. With her goal of being a famous adventurer over, she now wanted a family. That was her new goal.
Alas, as it turned out, Fionara having bad luck wasn’t just something she made up. She did seem to have bad luck. Mishaps followed her like a duckling following its mother. None of such mishaps was serious enough to outright declare her to be cursed, but it did seem pretty annoying.
For example, she would break dishes. The dishes sometimes would just crack out of nowhere. Traps she laid rarely caught an animal. It mostly caught giant bugs. One couldn’t say that she wasn’t trying. It was just that the results weren’t good enough.
And there was something else. For the first four years into their union, she failed to conceive a child. It became her biggest fear.
“I am really cursed, huh,” She lamented with tears in her eyes at night in bed. Tom had no answers for her. He wasn’t sure which one was at fault. It could have been him. Nobody knew.
Therefore, when she found out that she was finally pregnant with a child in their fifth year, she cried tears of absolute joy.
“I thank the God of Life for this gift to me,” She prayed to the sky on her knees. She did really mean what she said to the sky. For the time being, she had completely forgotten that misfortune followed her closely.