As you observe the passing of seasons, it is difficult to say when one season changes to another. At what point could one say where winter ends and where spring begins? It was obvious that during the winter there would be snow and that it would be very cold. But that could be true of spring as well.

At what point does spring turn into summer? Or summer into autumn? Or autumn into winter?

As you observe it very closely, it could become quite obvious. The very first flowers would pierce the dead ground and remind us that there is such life around us all. Colors other than the already more-than-familiar white would start to populate the areas where there was less snow from the slowly rising temperatures. These were the first signs of spring, which Kanrel observed.

Though such signs of spring only became such because it was, for some reason, decided that they should be those signs.

But in Kanrel’s humble opinion, they were the clearest of signs that nature could give man—that it was alive and around us.

Slowly, the village and its surroundings began shifting, snow slowly melting away, and birds returning from wherever they had been hiding. The world had such color in it. It was objectively there for those who could see color. Kanrel could see it. He was just unable to enjoy any of it.

He only had memories of enjoying the re-arriving beauty of spring. There was much more… gravity made clear as he observed the return of spring—the return of life. He missed that, which he could hardly touch or remember. He missed that feeling he had had so many times before.

A memory so precious. Sitting in the campus courtyard, looking at the flowers that chose to defy the existence of winter, piercing through the snow, showcasing their defiance, their beauty, and their lives to him, calling for a child’s smile—his smile.

Memory can cause so much pain as you long for it, as you wish it was true once more, and as you pray to relive it again and again. Chasing for that memory, reaching toward it, trying to grasp it with your cold hands; perhaps repeating that memory, trying to relive it in a futile manner. Just to never truly touch it again; just to give up and slowly, ever so bitterly forget that beautiful memory.

Now it slowly becomes more soiled—yet another cause of pain, another moment ruined by the torturous existence that he had forced upon himself. Another regret. Another past self, he should have been. An innocent child with the ability to smile—to truly smile.

He sat in the tavern, peering out the window, observing the very first signs of spring and that memory, which he now sought to forget. Years from now, there’d either be just a memory of that memory or another moment, like another regretful look inside, a condemnation of choices made thus far.

Kanrel couldn’t help but let out a long sigh. Someone sat next to him, and he couldn’t help but ignore them for a moment longer, but soon he was forced to interact with another human he was jealous of for a very simple reason: the ability to enjoy.

“Why the more than usual lack of expression on your face?” Vien asked. It had been a slow day at the tavern, which gave lots of time to do menial tasks like organizing things in the tavern and even refurnishing. But moving one chair a few centimeters to the left and then deciding that the previous position was better would, in the end, get quite boring. So, of course, the next best form of entertainment was a socially dull priest.

“Nothing, just remembering past springs and how I was back then.” Kanrel answered, finally breaking his deep “eye contact” with the snowdrops outside.

“Ah, I can already imagine how you must have been.” Vien said, “So I can totally understand your expression and that deep sigh of yours.”

“Are you bored?”

“Yes.”

“And it has become my job to somehow entertain you?”

“Yes.”

“Why me?”

“Well, aren’t you a dear friend of mine and another one of the many suitors that I have in this village? Say, Do you happen to like ale?”

Kanrel stared at the woman. He wondered if he’d find such comments funny if he wasn’t a priest. “Not in particular; it is a drink that seems to make men attracted to women of ill-intent.”

“How cliché of you to blame the drink instead of the man,” Vien said after a slight chuckle. “But alas, I have to leave you with your sorrows; I am, after all, a busy woman, as you can see.” She added and then gestured at the very empty seats in the tavern.

She soon got up and left Kanrel alone. He just stared as she got up, walked behind the counter, and soon disappeared behind the curtains that worked as a border between the tavern and her home.

He couldn’t help but wonder: How does one court a woman? Was it all about confessions about ale or having a beard? He shook his head in denial, directed at himself. What was the point of wondering such things? It was either way unlikely that he would find himself in a situation where he would ever court anyone. It seemed rather pointless.

He chose to get up as well; he should do something. Sitting here would do him no good; he again needed something to distract his thoughts. To make it so that he had no time for useless thoughts.

He walked around the village, simply pondering what he ought to do; his direction was chosen at random, his way toward the western side, which he had not visited that often. The houses remained stylistically the same: one floor, fairly small, made out of mainly wood, while the foundation was stone, which might not be the material for insulation during the winter. But he assumed that they must’ve filled the foundations with another material, perhaps hay.

During his studies, he never had to familiarize himself with buildings and how to construct them, but he had a feeling that it was something that he ought to learn about sooner rather than later. By virtue of studying the writings of the previous priests, it was easy to recognize that the population of the village would gradually increase.

And if his guesses were correct, the population would increase a lot more than one would think. Given that most of the population was fairly young and still capable of birthing more children, moving in from other nearby villages was also increasing.

Ulken Reven was more or less right. The village was the size of a small town, and it would keep growing, and with that, his responsibilities would grow as well. Perhaps that would keep his mind preoccupied and thoughts filled with regret would not conquer him.

It took almost thirty minutes to walk to the western edge of the village. To no one’s surprise, there were more fields covered with snow, and beyond them was a forest that surrounded the village from all directions.

He could see the tall mountains past them, their peaks piercing the clouds above, touching the heavens as if they were a bridge to them. Mountains felt sacred to most priests, as it was not a coincidence that the Angels inhabited the tallest of the mountains located hundreds of kilometers to the southeast of here.

Three grand peaks that were apparently so imposing that anyone who saw them up close would feel the dread of their own, little existence. They were so tall that you couldn't see the peaks of the mountains; many even questioned if there were peaks and if the mountains would continue all the way to the heavens, perhaps touching the moon as it went by.

He wanted to visit those grand mountains—not just the ones where the Angels perhaps lived, but these ones as well.

His thoughts were disturbed by laughter not far from him. Kanrel looked around, trying to find the cause of such joy, and soon discovered a group of children partaking in a snowfight. They were hiding behind man-made obstacles, mainly barriers and mounds dug into the snow.

They threw snowballs at each other in rapid succession; most balls thrown flew past their targets, but at times one would hit, and after a few angry vows of revenge, a barrage of snowballs would be aimed at the direction where the hitting ball came from.

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Kanrel was familiar with the practice, but he had never in his life taken part in such a thing. To his eyes, at first, it looked dangerous, but he soon realized that it really wasn’t. What harm was there truly in children taking part in the joys of winter? It didn’t matter if a child would get slightly hurt; either way, it would soon recover and, indeed, seek revenge.

Perhaps this was one of the last days of spring when they could play in such a manner. The snow would melt, and there was nothing the kids could do about that. There would be so many months before there’d be new snow on the ground again.

He chose to approach them, as he did wonder whose children they were, if he had perhaps met their parents, or if he had met any of the children in passing.

Kanrel stopped not too far away from them, waiting for one of the kids to notice him instead of demanding they stop playing just to give an adult their precious time.

It didn’t take long for one of the kids to notice and yell loudly, “Truce! Let the training end for now; we have an adult here! We must not show our battle techniques to the enemies of all children!” The girl stood up with her hands up, only to duck back down when a barrage of snowballs was about to hit her.

Even when Kanrel was slightly baffled by her words, he still quickly formed a code to stop the snowballs from hitting her in the face. They stopped in midair, floating with no motion whatsoever.

The girl who had ducked looked up at the snowballs above her; her eyes could tell it all. At first, she was in utter confusion; such a thing wasn’t very normal; then came wonder and excitement in all of its shades as a wide smile arrived on her face, her eyes sparking as she got up and ran toward Kanrel.

“He is the wizard my dad told me about! The one that has been performing at Vien’s!” She announced loudly as she ran, soon causing at least six other children to peek from their hiding spots and follow her at least as eagerly.

Kanrel took an alarmed step back as seven children ran toward him. He hadn’t expected something like this to happen, but soon he found his composure, relaxed himself, and waited for the children to gather around him.

They were kids, after all, not men wearing dark robes and grotesque masks.

The group soon all stood before him, and he studied their faces: three girls and four boys. The girl who first noticed him was slightly older than the others, so without hesitation in his mind, Kanrel figured that she was the leader of this little army.

“Your dad told me that I am a wizard?” He couldn’t help but ask, saying such a thing was more or less outrageous, but he wasn’t too bothered about it.

“Yes, Dad said you use magic, so that would mean that you are a wizard, like in the fairy tales mom always tells!” She explained; she spoke rather quickly, even when she had just now run a good twenty meters, and had thrown snowballs for who knows how long, yet she wasn’t out of breath at all.

Kanrel knew that he would be.

“I see, and I understand the confusion, but I am actually a priest, not a wizard.”

The girl looked slightly confused. “But you use magic? Priests just walk around with a book in hand and hold sermons, or whatever."

"Well, we do that as well. But we are really good at magic too!” Kanrel couldn’t help but defend his occupation.

“Can you prove that you’re a priest?” Another kid asked, he peered shyly at Kanrel from behind the first girl.

Kanrel stared at the kids; he was at a loss. “How can I? If you believe that only a wizard is capable of magic.”

There wasn’t much of an answer at first; the kids just peered at each other, and then the ever-so-clever girl said with the widest grin she could conjure, “I don’t know.”

After a long sigh, Kanrel took his notebook from his pocket and began to write. As he wrote, he spoke the words, “Today I met a gang of children; they were practicing warfare with snowballs; the possibility of a revolt run by children is a great possibility.”

He then stopped writing and peered at the children. He brought an awkward smile to his face and asked, “Is this more like it?”

The girl in front just shook her head and sighed. “You’re really not that funny, so it must be true that you’re a priest."

Kanrel just shrugged, as her statement was correct and acceptable; he really wasn’t funny at all, and he really didn’t know how to be funny. Such things seemed far too complicated to him.

“But the reason why I approached you is quite simple, for I have a question born from curiosity... What kind of stories have you heard about your home village, or perhaps the areas around it?”

The girl crossed her hands and pondered for a few moments, only to ask a question in return: “What will we get in return? Dad told me once that knowledge is valuable.” She had a slight smirk on her face.

It was Kanrel’s turn to sigh. Kids these days are too smart for their own good, but then again, he didn’t really know any kids. “How about a favor? Even though I am not a wizard, I still practice magic,” he suggested.

The girl’s slight smirk flourished and came into bloom; she had, in fact, bartered for the best thing that she could get from him: “Deal!” Without even a moment of hesitation, she offered her small hand to Kanrel, who took it after cursing to himself. They shook hands, and Kanrel couldn’t help but feel that he had made yet another mistake.

Who knows what the girl was going to ask him in return?

The information Kanrel received was mostly things he already knew, either from his studies at the academy or from the books that he had read in the village:

It was known, or at least understood, that the kingdom did not always reach this far north, nor really that far from the southern coastal regions of the continent. In a way, the kingdom and its people were blessed by the immeasurable power that was given to them by the Angels.

They would not have expanded as far as they did, lest it be for the Priesthood. And it is known that the kingdom would have perished under the tide of the Wildkin without the blessing and the Priesthood.

If mankind was besieged and almost hunted into extinction by Wildkin, then how is it possible that other cultures, peoples, and nations would exist?

Hunted into extinction was more or less a distorted understanding of the matter—something blown out of proportion.

Sure, it might be so that the Wildkin would end up hunting all of mankind until they no longer existed. But in reality, it would take hundreds of years for this tide to truly topple all of the human nations, cultures, tribes, and all that does exist. After all, the world is a lot larger than we think it to be.

So the population of this village might’ve once been that of a tribe that had always lived here, and it might be so for the majority of the places in the kingdom. But now they were mixed with the people of the kingdom. Or they did not exist at all, for it is shown by history that mankind isn’t that much better than the Wildkin and their quest to devour the world.

But the new information that he had either missed in the books that were in the village or just the adults of the village didn’t really talk about was the ground. According to the story told by the children, the further you went into the northwestern forest, the ground would whisper; it would speak to those who traversed deep within.

He thanked the children for the things that they told him and promised that they could “cash in” the favor whenever they wanted to or needed to. With this new information, he walked back to the tavern. There were many more questions that he ought to ask. Perhaps some adults knew more about the ground and how it "spoke."

Spring… If only he could enjoy his time like those children could. If only he wasn’t what he had become...

The warm evening sun gently caressed his face, rekindling those memories he had of his childhood. If only one could forget and if only there was no regret. The warmth was cold on his face, and the sun brought no understanding of beauty to him. The flowers that defied the last snow that was left were just flowers. For him, there remained not even a speck of wonder.