The End of a Cycle

When my heart beats with desires out of my reach, I am reborn with the purpose to live.

* * * * * * * *

A dip in height woke him. Coincidentally, he had been dreaming about falling off a cliff at that very moment.

Or perhaps, not coincidentally.

When he opened his eyes, all he saw were clouds of milk and honey hanging before the dimness of a new dawn. He thought he had woken up to his death. And then he felt the cold air prickle his cheeks. With a slow and groggy inhale, he looked down at the world beneath his dragon’s scarlet wings.

The gold of the sunlight was what made this land beautiful for him. Its beauty was what made this land worth fighting for. Not the people, though. Fuck the people. Just the land: every speck of earth watched and cared for by the Ashenborn—he would die to protect all of this territory he was able to call home.

“Commander Szakarilis, sir! Commander Fiera!”

He turned to his left. Beside him, a harpy had appeared, dressed in the uniform of their air guardians, keeping pace with his dragon, Fiera. Every dragon scale of her suit was tidied to the stitch, beautifully matched to the feathers upon her wings and the skin upon her claws for feet.

“At ease,” he nodded. “Good morning, soldier.”

“Pleasant mornings, indeed!” she chirped with a dip and a flip mid-air. “Welcome home!” she added, and offered a smile to both Szak and his dragon.

He nodded again, his frown unmovable. “Two weeks.”

“Just in time for Mother’s Morning!”

Another nod. Szak had other matters, but yes. He was to be home for Mother’s Morning, as well.

“I’ll be on my way then. Commander!”

“Off you go.” One last nod. Fiera, too, nodded beside him.

The air guardian swooped down, her brown and black feathers glittering under the dawn’s light in shades of copper and obsidian. Szak heaved a sigh and patted the back of his dragon’s neck.

Thanks for waking me, he thought to her. Negligence is unbecoming of a superior.

The Academy’s made us lazy.

Yes. Yes, it has. Szak’s groan was muted against the winds, but Fiera heard it.

* * * * * * * *

Thousands of miles south of where Szak and Fiera were, another young man had returned home the day before and had already spent today’s daybreak training children of his family’s school. As if in unison, all the little ones in training uniform hopped off their wooden post, landed in silent balance upon their right foot, and stepped forward with their left to head to the dining hall. One by one, they bowed before the young man.

“Thank you, Master Ty,” they said. One by one, this Master Ty smiled and nodded. Then, one by one, as if by clockwork, the moment he dismissed them, they ran, jumped, and hollered like little rascals finding freedom at last.

One of the older boys ran back, bright smile plastered on his face. “Join us for breakfast, Master Ty!”

“Alright,” he laughed. “I can do that.”

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Yelling with his fist in the air, the boy ran back to his classmates. “Master’s coming! Master’s eating with us!” The group all joined in the excitement and raced to the dining hall.

The energy and happiness of his students only made this young man’s smile even bigger, his heart warmer than usual this morning. He turned to check for any straggling ones left behind, and sure enough, there was a little girl sitting in the corner. She wore the same gray robe as all the other boys and girls, but didn’t participate all morning.

He walked up to her. “Jodie? Is that you?”

The little girl looked up. Her hair was a healthy shade of black upon uneven skin. He could see part of a scar that ran from her wrist up the sleeve of her robe. “What you want?”

“What do I want…” he looked away, hand on his chin as if thinking. “I think I want you to join us for breakfast.”

She hugged her legs tighter before her.

“What do you want?” he tried.

She shrugged.

He sat down on the ground beside her. Because she sat on a rock, she was now higher and the man had to look up to catch her brown eyes. “Master Giles told me you didn’t eat last night.”

“Ya, ‘cause he took it,” she snapped, turning away.

“I know. I won’t take your breakfast away. Promise. Let’s go eat.”

“Promises dun mean a thing,” she muttered between her knees.

He sat in silence; he knew he would never truly know, but he did wonder of where she had been and the world she had seen before she was accepted to board at his family’s school. She was skinny—much too skinny in a sickly and boney way.

“Alright, I’ll stay here a bit longer.”

“Look?!” she yelled. “You said you join them.”

“Yes, I will in a bit,” he eased her. “You know, your Aideylli isn’t bad at all. It’s pretty good for someone not born in Aideyll. Tell me. Is Jodie your name?”

She stared at him. Stared for an incredulous amount of time, as if analyzing every bit of his face. And then she replied. “Who you?”

He paused for a moment before answering. “My name’s Tylin. But you can just call me Master Ty,” he smiled. “I’m a Kyon.”

The little girl looked up at the school walls that surrounded them. “Your school?” she asked, looking back at him.

“My uncle’s,” he nodded.

“Where you at?”

He raised a brow. “Where am I at? I’m… right here?” As he answered, he kept thinking about what she had really meant. “Oh, where am I usually?”

She nodded once.

“I’ve been away at the Ashenborn Academy lately.”

Her eyes widened, and she looked up at him with parted lips. “In Essensia?”

“Yeah,” he chuckled. “I’ll be here for about two weeks, and then I go back after Mother’s Morning.”

Jodie sat there for a bit longer. In the distance, where the dining hall was, a gong sounded for the start of breakfast. It was a ways away, but both Jodie and Tylin could hear the crowd of students shouting in unison, inviting the elders in the room to eat.

“… Hungry.”

Tylin smiled and stood up. “Good. Me, too. Let’s go eat.”

Jodie got up with a pout, but when Tylin reached a hand out, Jodie took it shyly and followed his guide to rejoin the rest of the school.

* * * * * * * *

About a summer day’s travel even further southeast, in the same province as the Kyon Boarding School, a girl was leaving her home for the first time. In the late summer afternoon in this corner of the massive Ashenborn territory, officially known as the Provinces of Aideyll, the sun preferred to dangle longer and warmer in the sky.

“Let’s go, Alea!”

The girl with hair in shades of blue and ivory turned and watched with her blue, blue eyes, her father stepping onto a wooden, horse-drawn carriage. She stepped down the matriwood patio of her home in the forest and walked toward her father, a man with a head full of frizzy white hair. On her back, a golden longsword reflected the sunlight that pierced past the trees this afternoon, quiet in its slumber.

“Sorry, father. I was assuring myself I had packed everything.”

“You left most things behind. Anything you need, you can get in Essenia’s markets.”

She stepped onto the carriage and sat beside him. “Yes, father.”

They were to travel by horse and carriage until they reached the shores. Her father had told her that a ship would take them right to the ports of Essensia, and she would have to visit the Hall of the Ashenborn and pray for her entrance into their Academy immediately after, to get that done before Mother’s Morning. Perhaps her father had meant that she would visit the markets after the prayer was done? If she was missing any essentials, then, she’d have to wait until after prayer. Perhaps.

The horse started pulling.

“That sword of mine,” her father said. “You must take care of it and never let anyone else touch it but you.”

“I will take good care of it, father.”

Both the horse’s steps and the wheels of the carriage were quiet through the forest. They made their way past the familiar trees, down the path to the nearby village just outside the border of the crowded trees. Alea watched it all disappear behind her. She wondered if these trees would look different the next time she returned.

“Will you visit me every now and then?” she sat forward and asked.

“No, I won’t. In three years’ time, you may come home, but not a day before. That is a promise you must keep.”

“… Yes, father.”