Roran had always been a wanderer, a man who preferred the quiet of the forest trails to the noise of the towns. It was on one of these trails that he first encountered the boy.

The lad was no older than fifteen, his clothes tattered and his face gaunt with hunger. He flinched at every sound around him, his dark eyes darting like a cornered animal. Roran recognized the signs immediately; the boy was a runaway, and not just from a harsh home. The rusted iron collar around his neck and the lotus mark on his face practically marked him as a slave.

He remembered how his heart twisted at the sight of the poor boy. He had no love for the laws of the land, especially those that allowed one man to own another. Quietly, he knelt and held out a piece of bread.

The boy briefly hesitated for a moment, his thin frame trembling as he looked up at his face and down at the bread, before snatching the bread from his hand and devouring it like a starving wolf.

“What’s your name?” Roran asked softly.

“Ryn,” the boy whispered, his voice hoarse, probably because he hadn't drunk any water.

Over the next few days, Roran nursed the boy back to health, sharing his meager supplies and teaching him how to navigate the forest. Ryn was sharp and quick to learn, and fiercely determined. He spoke little of his past, but Roman didn’t press. He knew enough to guess the horrors Ryn had endured.

As the days turned into weeks, Roran found himself growing attached to the boy. He saw in Ryn a reflection of his younger self; he was practically a son to him, someone who refused to be broken by the world. For the first time in years, Roran felt a sense of purpose.

Like he was a father…..

But peace was fleeting.

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“Hey, I'm Ryn’s owner, Have you seen him anywhere around here?”

His owner had been searching for him the entire time. She looked to be a very nice lady, but the way Ryn was acting when he saw the woman said it all.

“Umm—” but before he could say anything Ryn ran for it.

And that was a mistake.

He couldn't do anything as they dragged them away, the woman thanking him all the while. He didn't want to put his village at risk of a war with a noble; the woman was clearly from a very wealthy household, and the king would not take lightly to anyone, of all people, getting into a fight with one of his most valuable occupants. So he could only turn his face away as Ryn pleaded for him to do something.

"Please, do something!”

“HELP ME!”

================

When he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was the sky, framed by the jagged remnants of what had once been his roof. The familiar walls of his office were no more, now replaced by the broken shards of wood and debris scattered across the ash-covered earth beneath him.

Every muscle in his body screamed in protest as he attempted to move, his limbs stiff and uncooperative, as if the very act of moving were a foreign concept to his body. Pain shot through his joints as he tried to push himself up, his body protesting the effort as though it had forgotten how to function.

Eventually, after a while, he forced himself upright, feeling a sharp jolt of pain lancing through his ribs as a mouthful of blood fell from his mouth, coating his trembling hands in blood. The metallic taste lingered as his vision swam, and the loose scarf around his neck slipped free, fluttering to the ground in a singed, frayed heap.

Attempting to move was even more difficult, evidenced by the fact that his feet felt like lead, dragging against the ground with every step he took. He swayed, nearly collapsing, but managed to steady himself by planting his foot firmly against the floor before bracing himself against what remained of a wall.

"What in the gods' name...?" he could only mutter, his voice sounding hoarse from the lack of water as he attempted to get a better look at his surroundings.

Everything around him lay in ruins. At first, he had believed it was only his office that had been destroyed, but after scrambling up a small hill of rocks and scattered debris, the view that greeted him was both breathtaking and terrible.

The village was in ruins, with wooden houses reduced to splintered debris scattered across the ground. The border walls in the distance were torn apart, and the once-pristine cobblestone streets he'd been so proud of were now buried beneath layers of soot and debris.

He staggered down the hill, his legs barely able to support him as he moved through the wreckage. Scattered items littered the ground, some of them half-buried in dirt and debris alongside a few half-buried dead carcasses. After a while, his foot caught on a broken cart, and he nearly collapsed, catching himself just in the nick of time before he could fall to the ground.

"Is anyone alive?" he called out, "Can anyone hear me!?”

He was about to continue walking when something at the edge of his vision caught his attention, it was a faint glow, subtle enough to be overlooked by most. But he wasn’t the type to ignore things like that.

“What is that?’’

End.