The white light of the full moon was shining on the two men sitting next to the campfire enjoying what seemed to be fish but was clearly big enough to feed a family of five. The once white robes had turned brown from the dirt and had claw marks on them.

Will looked at his father enjoying the food like he was eating in a three-star restaurant, he was tired of this, stuck in the jungle for the last two months, he hated the mud, the rain, and wost of all the cold nights. At first, it was exciting, he had never been outside of the town and everything was new to him, but it became old quickly. All the trees looked the same and all the monsters had tried to kill them including this fish who they were having for dinner.

He missed his sisters and his friends, he didn’t have time to visit all of them before leaving, he only said goodbye to his sisters and Eumer. When the townspeople heard of them leaving they even offered him a bride to make them stay, his father was their strongest warrior and him leaving the town was the worse thing that could have happened. It was true that the town was safe, and that for some reason the monsters couldn’t get near it, but the people had to leave the town regularly for gathering food and water.

His father had refused because he was angry at the council, but because he knew that they were right, he had to do something to save his son, he had to find the city of Eking and see if anyone there could cure his son.

But the journey to the city was not an easy one, the journey was long and not one person had made the journey in the last thousand years, some of the townspeople even called the city a myth and a children’s story.

Will took a bite and chewed the fish meat while trying to get it down as fast as possible, he didn't like the taste but knew he needed the strength for the many days to come. He looked at his father with a beaten look on his face and said, “father, we have been traveling through the forest for months now and there is no sign of a city, if we turn back now there is a chance for us actually get back without dying a horrible death by the hands of one of these monsters looking for an imaginary city.”

Will had seen the afterlife, he knew that the soul of any living creature was immortal and would be reborn after death. This made things like bloodline irrelevant to him, the body was only a temporary thing that the souls would leave behind, this meant that he had thousands of fathers and mothers that he had already forgotten. He found it depressing sometimes, knowing that everything he did was irrelevant and that he would forget everything basically starting all over again in a never-ending loop.

His father looked at him a took a couple of seconds before responding, “I know the city of Eking exists,” he said before taking another bite of the fish and trying to decide what to say next. This was something Will really admitted about his father, unlike him who would say anything on his mind he would calculate every word he said.

His father sat straight and took his hands through his hair, this was something he would do when he was about to say something important, in a matter of fact, this was what he had done when he had told him that they were leaving the town. Will sat down straight and paid close attention, he knew his father, he was not the man to say something like that if he was not sure.

Weidrek took another quick bite of the fish meat and shook his head before saying, “I was not born in the town of Izline, I was born a long time ago in the city of Eking, as the son of the lord of Eking”.

Will had a blank look on his face, this was the last thing he had expected. Moving from place to place on this planet was not some easy feet, most of the planet is a field with deadly monsters that would attack any human without any warning. He made sure not to interrupt his father, this was the first time his father had told him something about before he was born.

Weidrek took another deep breath before continuing, “I will not get into much details about what I did when I was young, the only thing I will tell you is that power can mold a child into a monster and that I did things that I’m still ashamed of until this day. I had everything I could have ever wanted but I still felt empty, I had thousands of people around me doing my bidding, but I had never felt more alone. In time these feelings turned into anger and before long my father could not ignore my bad deeds anymore, so he banished me to one of the eight small towns that are under his rule. At the time I cursed him and ran away, but now I thank him for sparing my life. After I ran, I got lost in the woods and the next human I saw was two years later, it was your mother who was also lost in the forest trying to hunt at night. She was the most amazing woman I had ever met, I had never seen a woman outside hunting before, especially at night, not even men would dare to do that. She was special, she had the heart of a warrior. Later I found out that she had snuck out of the town against her father’s wishes to prove to him that she could hunt just as well as any man could,” he said as his eyes were tearing and his voice was shaking. Weidrek could still remember how his father in law had taken him in and together with the other council members made sure nobody ever found out about his real identity.

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This was the first time he had seen his father cry, he knew how much he loved his mother and had heard stories about how he was a different person before she had died. Will had never blamed himself for her death but he never understood how his father could love him as much as he did and never blamed him for it.

Weidrek waited a couple of seconds and calmed himself down before he continued, “when my father told me to continue the family bloodline I thought the same thing you properly thought when I told you, that continuing the bloodline is for the honor of the family, but nothing is more from the truth. My father had eight sons and most of them also had children, so why would, me having children matter in the greater skim? It was after meeting your mother that I understood, continuing the bloodline was not for the glory of the family, it was for my sake, it gave me something no amount of power, money or woman could. it gave me fulfillment,” he said as he stood up and extinguished the fire and got ready to go to bed.

“Tell me right now that something is not missing and we will return tomorrow,” Weidrek said as the two of them were lying on the ground, looking at the night sky with the many stars and the big moon that was many times closer to the planet than the moon on earth. Will could not deny that he felt like something was missing, he had never felt bad about life but he also never had felt like life was anything special and was living it the only way he had done in this, and his past life, on autopilot.

The next morning, he woke up and saw his father getting ready for the trip ahead. A pot of fish soup was boiling on the fire and Weidrek was practicing some basic moves with his sword. Will got up and got ready quickly knowing that they needed to travel as soon as possible because traveling at night was too dangerous.

The two ate the soup and got ready to move north, the path was full of big trees and the ground was still muddy from the rain a couple of days ago. His father was leading the way, as usual, he was using his sword to mark the trees in case they needed to go back. This was the only hope Will had left for turning back, but after last night he didn’t want to turn back, he liked the idea of going to the city and maybe finding a cure for this thing.

The two walked for most of the day as Will looked around for some birds to catch, he didn’t know why but from all the meals he had, the birds always tasted the best, luckily for him his father was an excellent archer and they were able to roast a couple of them in the last couple of weeks.

Just as Will was looking at the trees trying to find his next meal an animal scream louder than anything he had ever heard came from behind him. He turned around in shock and saw what looked like a female human with big claws and yellow hair lying on the ground with what looked like to be his blood on her hands. Before long she stopped screaming and lay on the ground without moving, the look on her eyes told the whole story, she had lost her sanity.

At the same time two-man also with yellow hair and claws attacked him at the speed he could not see or react to. Before he knew it, his father was standing in front of him and blocked the two attacks with his sword easily. Will quickly got his sword and got into position behind his father like he had taught him.

The larger of the two men with the face tattoo looked at the dead woman with sadness and anger in his eyes, she was clearly dear to him. “I will make you pay for what you did to my sister, prepare to die,” he said while the two of them circled Will and his father.

“You know, in the human culture we always flirt before we start sticking sharp things into other people,” Will said as he rolled his eyes.