A chilling breeze flew across the small clearing, skeletal and deathly, warning all potential travelers away from what lay within.

Wooden ruins of a small, humble cottage sat in the middle, scorch marks still evident even months after its destruction.

The grass in the clearing also spelled death for most who would enter it, fire, poison, and the unfettered unformed Aura of a cruel Cultivator ensuring that life would not grow in the area for years to come.

For even though the village that laid nearby might one day regrow to become what it once used to be, full of crafters, hunters, and men and women free from the obligations of living in a Kingdom or Queendom, this clearing, with the ruined cottage and the dead grass and the eternal skeletal wind that blew unceasingly, would stand, a monument to the battle that had occurred.

Though more than that, it would stand as a warning.

Fate did not care.

The gods did not care.

For if the ones in power cared, if they upheld the values of fairness, of goodness, of equality that their apostles, their followers, and they themselves spouted from their treacherous mouths, the battle in this clearing and the ruining of the village nearby would never have occurred.

And in this clearing, in a small area near the ruined cottage, a boy, no… a man kneeled in front of an upright semicircular stone.

He was a man, for a boy could not witness the horrors this man had, a boy could not hold the scars of a broken mind and heart on his soul the way this man did. The truth is, most men didn’t experience these things either. Not without their minds shattering.

The man who looked like a boy still, reached out and pushed a small golden ring into the ground in front of the tombstone, covering the object with soil.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

He did not say any prayers, for what would be the point of praying to the uncaring beings that ruled the worlds.

No, instead, the man made a promise.

A promise of vengeance.

***

South and towards the west sat a village, one far from the routes of cruel slavers and tyrant monarchs, a village that only knew the peace provided by freedom. There was no wealth here, no power struggles, only a healthy respect among the people who lived there.

Each person served a role that benefited the village as a whole. Hunters, seamstresses, carpenters, even artists and farmers. And on this night, the night of the New Season festival, everyone came together, to celebrate the arrival of a new year.

A large bonfire had been built in the center of this village, where drinks were being handed out and dancing had broken out. The villagers had already prayed around the large fire to the gods above, for another year of peace and prosperity.

For there was no race here, no fight to another tier of power, no backstabbing, political games, or any sort of violence more than the brawls of drunkards that were too deep in their cups to understand any reason.

However, interspersed throughout these residents of the village were some that did not belong, men and women that gave off a haunted aura. Some smiled and laughed and drank and danced, though their eyes were just as haunted and broken as those who sat in corners and unceasingly weeped. Yet the villagers accepted these new men and women, inviting them into their own homes and covering them with their own clothes and feeding them their own food.

One boy, around the age of fifteen or sixteen, had been walking near the bonfire all night, at times thinking to approach a log near it, but then turning away embarrassed.

However, bells later, when the bonfire had started to rage a little less, and the boy’s friends had all gone off to dance or drink or engage in other activities, the boy finally scrounged up the courage to approach the log.

He swallowed visibly, approaching the only person sitting on the log, struggling to release the words that had been circulating his head for many bells.

Finally however, the boy cleared his throat and said, “I was thinking…would you like to dance?”

The girl on the log looked up, tilting her head as she comprehended what the boy said. The cloudiness on her face cleared, a hint of warmth appearing in the brown depths of her eyes, the first emotion she’d shown in a very long time.

She nodded her assent.

The boy and the girl danced for the rest of the night, a green bracelet on the girl’s wrist glinting in the firelight.