image [https://i.imgur.com/DKj8I92.png]

Life village - West of Sun Helm

A white-haired woman lay in a wooden bed filled with animal skins. Her face was pale, and sweat trickled down her forehead. Barky wood walls surrounded the room, decorated with various animal pieces. A black, stringless bow lay next to the bed.

“Will she be okay?” A gruff, tanned man with thick black hair and a beard sat beside her. His large hands engulfed hers as she held onto him, and he looked between the nearby shaman and his wife with worry.

The life shaman chanted as she sprinkled water over the woman. Her face wore a mask fashioned from a flat skull, and she held a bone staff with various rings attached to the top.

The Village Shaman sighed and shook her head.

“Fauster, the woman’s life force is weak,” she said. “I’m afraid we may have to abort the baby or she may not make it through childbirth.”

“No…” The white-haired woman opened her eyes, her expression contorting from pain. “Fauster… please… our baby…”

Fauster felt tears coming to his eyes. “But, Melissa–”

“Please,” Melissa looked at him. Though, currently she was weak and stuck to the bed. Her eyes were clear. Clear as the day they had met.

Fauster clenched his empty hand into a fist. He looked at the shaman, his gut twisting in pain.

“Please,” he said. “Save our child.”

“Is this your final decision?” The shaman asked.

Fauster shook his head. He opened his mouth–

“It is,” Melissa said, without giving him a chance to speak. She knew him too well.

“Very well. I see your determination.” The Shaman nodded at Melissa. “Fauster, please step outside. This will be painful for you to watch. If you have any last words to your wife, I suggest you say them now.”

The village shaman stepped outside, giving them some privacy.

Fauster clenched his fist.

“If I ever find the one who poisoned you,” Fauster said through tears. “I will make him pay.”

“Don’t waste your life on revenge…” Melissa coughed between words, her voice getting fainter. “Raise our son, make him into a fine man...”

“I promise,” Fauster said. “I will raise him into a man you are proud of.”

“Go,” Melissa smiled, though the sweat on her forehead betrayed the pain she was in.

Fauster stood up. He kissed Melissa. She stared at him, and he stared back. Trying to burn the image of her face into his mind. Every line, every angle. He never wanted to forget.

“Go…” she said.

Fauster stepped outside. The Shaman was there waiting.

“Have you said your goodbyes?” The Shaman asked.

“It is done,” he said. “Please, bring our son into this world.”

The Shaman nodded. She entered the room, shutting the door behind her. Fauster put his hand on the wall, feeling the texture of the bark. His eyes zoned out, not knowing how much time was passing. His entire universe had ended in that one moment.

Eventually, the shaman stepped outside. In her arms, she carried a baby boy wrapped in woollen cloth. The boy was thin, nothing like himself. He had white hair, just like his mother, and his features were slender and angular.

He knew what this meant.

“She did not make it.” The Shaman said. The words confirmed what he had been expecting.

He expected it.

And yet everything felt like it was crumbling.

He had just lost the one and only person he ever cared about. The most important part of his life. Gone, just like that. He respected her wishes. And as he stared at the weak and bloody baby in the shaman’s arms. He couldn’t help but ask himself.

Did he make the right decision?

The baby cried.

“Do not grieve, Fauster.” The Shaman said as she handed him the baby. “This boy–”

John stared down at the boy. He was frail and weak. He did not know if he would make it long in this world.

“Do you have a name for him?” The shaman asked.

“John,” Fauster said. “That was the name Melissa wanted.”

The Shaman shook her head. “That name, combined with hers, is bad luck.”

Fauster stared at his son. His son tightly shut his eyes and continued to cry in his arms.

“Then his name will be John Fauster.”

Slowly, the boy stopped crying.

I can’t ask myself if this was worth it. Fauster thought to himself.

I have to be strong. For this child, for Melissa.

The Shaman nodded.

“John requires your support now.” She said, He can never see you in pain, never see you in hurt. Bury any thoughts of revenge, look forwards, think of the boy. He only has you. Honour Melissa’s sacrifice.”

John reached out a hand towards his chest.

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“He’s hungry,” Fauster said.

“I will find someone to nurse him.” The shaman nodded and left the two of them.

“It's just me and you now, John…”

Six years after the birth of John:

“Dad!” John smiled at his father, who was currently sitting on their front porch. He held up a butterfly he had caught in his palms, handing it to his father.

“What’s this you’ve brought me?” His father smiled at him, looking at the butterfly. John thought it was beautiful. Its wings were purple with striped markings and emerald green parts. It sat docile in his fingers as he handed it over to his father.

“Isn’t it pretty?” John asked. He wore oversized and worn cotton clothing, and his white hair trailed down his back. His skin was clear and flawless.

His father’s eyes widened. He slowly took the butterfly from John’s hands, holding it away from him.

“John,” Fauster said. “This butterfly is poisonous if ingested. Make sure you wash your hands.”

The blood drained from John’s face as his father said this, giving his already pale skin a frail look.

“P–poisonous?” he asked. “Dad, am I gonna die?”

“Don’t be silly.” Fauster laughed, but he looked at John earnestly. “Your mother gave her life to give birth to you. I promised her I’d spend the rest of my life being there for you. No matter what, John. You must live. Don’t worry about me or anyone else. Treasure this life she gave you, for it is your greatest and only gift.”

“Okay, dad.” John nodded. “I’ll live for you and mom!”

image [https://i.imgur.com/ADQoA54.png]

Fauster held his palms up in the air, and the butterfly took flight. It flapped its wings, which twinkled, reflecting the sunlight under the giant tree canopy. His father stood up, bringing John over to the nearby cobblestone well, and drew some water.

“This is how you wash your hands.” His father demonstrated by putting soap on his hands, and creating tonnes of bubbles. “Make sure to scrub well between your fingers and get under the nails.”

“Like this?” John showed his father his hands, which were covered in soap.

“You’re missing one thing.” Fauster said.

“What’s that?” John asked.

“This!” Fauster put his soapy hands all over John’s face. He giggled in response.

“Take this, soap attack!” John jumped on his father, trying to reach him. He lost his balance, tripping forwards.

“Careful!” Fauster grabbed John by the shirt with one arm, and he dangled above the well.

John peered down the well. It was incredibly deep, looking like a black abyss. He gulped, but his father’s grip was firm, and he gently brought him back and lowered him down.

“You’re so strong, dad!” John’s eyes shone.

“Of course I am–”

“Fauster, a word, please?” The village shaman approached the two of them. “I bear news.”

“What is it?” Fauster asked.

“It’s regarding your late wife.” The shaman inclined her neck towards John. “We should have this conversation away from the child.”

For the first time in John’s life. He saw Father’s usually cheerful face stiffen.

“John,” Father said. “Wait here, okay? I’ll be right back.”

Father picked up his bow and patted John on the shoulder. The Shaman and father walked off away from the well. They went behind a wooden building which John knew was for storing buckets.

Regarding mother? John thought. What were they discussing?

John snuck behind the shed, straining his ears to hear what they were saying.

“We may have found the one who poisoned your wife,” The Shaman said.

“Who was it?” Father’s voice was deep and guttural. John had never heard him speak like that before.

“We suspect it was The Sun God’s Church.” The Shaman said. “We do not know why, though.”

“Why are you telling me this now!” Father shouted. The anger in his voice was palpable.

“Wouldn’t you have wanted to know?” The shaman asked.

“I wouldn’t!” Father said. “I have given up everything for John. My wife asked me to look forward to when she died, and that is all I have ever done! This knowledge will only harm me and my son.”

“I see,” the shaman said. “My apologies. I will leave you two alone.”

“Father?” John walked out from behind the shed after the shaman left.

“John?” Fauster was currently sitting with his back against the shed. He clenched grass in his fists and dug the dirt next to his palms by burrowing his fingers into the ground. “I told you to stay back!”

“I wanted to hear about mother,” John’s eyes watered. His father had never shouted at him before, and his voice was choked in his throat.

“I didn’t want you to see me like this,” Father said, a dejected expression on his face.

“Is something going to happen to us?” John asked.

Father’s expression softened, and he picked John, putting him in his lap.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I told you I'd let nothing harm you, didn’t I?”

“Right.” John wiped the tears from his face and looked at his father. He felt so big, so powerful. He believed every word his father said. Together, nothing could hurt them.

Nine years after the birth of John:

“I’m sorry, John.” The shaman handed him a black bow. It was fashioned organically from the bark of a tree. It was as large as his body, and it had no string.

It was the bow his father always carried.

“I am responsible for his death,” The shaman said. “Like he said, the information I gave him was nothing more than poison. It has left you alone, little one. I apologise.”

John listlessly accepted the bow from the shaman. Everything around him felt hollow, and his eyes matched that same hollowness. A purple butterfly with striped markings and emerald green parts landed on the bow, flapping its wings slowly.

John took no notice of it.

Two of the hunters next to the Shaman spoke to each other. John recognised them as his father’s friends.

“The poor kid has nobody now. First Melissa and now old Fauster, the female hunter said. “Why did he go off to face the church?”

“We can’t know if he really is dead.” The male hunter said. “There were no remains. We only found his bow surrounded by brambles.”

“He’s been missing for weeks,” the female hunter said. “There’s no chance he’s still alive. Not after what he sent out to do–”

“Might father still be out there?” John walked over to the male hunter, pulling at his vambraced arm.

The man looked at John with a creased brow, but he tried to force a reassuring smile.

“Maybe, John,” he said. “Honestly, we don’t know.”

“Don’t say that to him!” The female hunter said. “What if you give him hope?”

“Thank you,” John said to the male hunter. He walked away, dragging the stringless bow. It was heavy, heavier than anything he had ever carried. And it left a trail in the dirt behind him as he walked.

Sixteen years after the birth of John.

A slender, white-haired youth wearing leather armour and carrying an oversized black bow stalked through the woods. He arrived at a small clearing surrounded by dark green trees. The early crimson sunlight trickled down from the overgrowth. No birds chirped in the surroundings, and the forest was deathly quiet.

The youth knelt down next to a set of footprints on the ground.

“A group of men?” John felt the ground, examining the footprints. “Three, maybe four?”

Originally, he was following the tracks of a Sun Fox. However, after tracking for days, the trail became marred with the tracks of men.

The Sun Fox was a near legendary species. As it grew older, its white body gained special red markings, giving it precise and special control over sun energy. This also made it a prize for the nearby Sun God’s church, who hunted it to the point of being endangered.

“Well, it doesn’t concern me,” John said. He strapped his bow to his back. Packing up his belongings.

What did it matter to him if there were poachers? He wished to glimpse the legendary creature, but he had no interest in putting his life on the line.

Father and mother left me with two things, John thought. One was the black bow he carried on his back, and the other was his life.

The life his mother sacrificed herself to give him.

The desire to live which his father tried to instil in him.

His father had failed.

Even so, he clung to life.

Because that was all he had.

A purple butterfly flew past John’s face. He recognised it as poisonous and swatted it away.