Every now and then he glanced at the lowering sun just to ensure he was going north, though most of the time he would discover that he was not. He wondered aimlessly, not sure of where he was or who he was or, worst of all why he was.
Avion still wore his dyer wolf winter cloak and his black wool pants, but he had taken off the distinctive Vartanian silk shirt, replacing it with a simple shirt he found in an abandoned house. Gone, too, was his mask, the signature of who he was before.
The Hideous Prince he was called and now he was done with that persona forever. Avion immediately after leaving that place he pulled the mask from his face and thrown it onto the ground, he was done with it.
Commonly he was now dressed no longer was he dressed as person of the higher class of a prince of a warring Empire. He abandoned everything, his wealth, his status, and his prestige. He wanted nothing more to do with a empire that murdered indiscriminately, such as his empire had done
He hated his families’ Empire, and he even hated himself for being too weak to make a difference, Strength ruled on the Chronos Continent and if you didn’t have strength you were no better than a dead dog.
Though Avion wasn’t exactly certain of what to do, he wanted to feel the people’s pain, experience their sufferings, and their weariness, No matter how naive it may have seemed, he believed… he believed that he made the right choice.
But no matter how deep Avion despaired, how lost he might be, he would never go back on his actions, for that is not who is he.
He wandered that first week after leaving, occasionally finding water at a small stream. By late afternoon his stomach began to growl. He’d need a way to hunt; savaging berries wasn’t going to cut it, and so he started out, halfheartedly, to find implements for a spear, perhaps. He got distracted rather quickly, though, as the smell of stew cooking settled into his nose.
Avion had no interest in meeting anyone, but his stomach wouldn’t just let him ignore that nicely smelling aroma that led him to lie on a ground outside a small cluster of houses. In the center of the village burned a roaring cook fire with a large cauldron set atop it tended by a pair of old women. Avion noted well that the many habitants of the village were mostly very old or very young; the only people near his age were women, many pregnant, probably from when the bandit-gangs came hunting. Like so many other villages of the empire, this one radiated the unbearable pain of the protracted war.
The ridiculous, horrid reality of a world gone insane strung the young man anew, but it was, after all just another in a long string of profound disappointments. He surveyed the area, looking for a way to sneak in, preferring to remain unseen and unnoticed. He glanced to the western sky, estimating another hour till noon. The villagers were gathering to enjoy their meals.
“More and more would likely come out of their small cabins,” Avion thought, wondering how much of the meal would be left for him to steal.
“This isn’t right,” He sighed mocking his foolishness with a decisive snort, standing up, brushing himself off, and then proceeding to walk down into the village.
Avion having been spotted was then met by many curious stares. More than one person yelped in surprise more than one mother pulled her children to the side. Avion understood their fear; on his week long journey he had come across many villages burnt to the ground to where nothing was left but black smoke and ash.
“I come in peace.” He said holding out his hands before him in an unthreateningly manner.
“Far enough!” one old man said to him, brandishing a pitchfork Avions way. “Ye got no business here, so turn yourself about and be gone!”
“I am hungry and tired,” Avion replied. “I hoped that I might share some of your food.”
“So ye think we’ve enough to be handing out?” The old man asked.
“I will work for it,” Avion promised. “Repair a roof; repair a wall, or gathering wood. Whatever you need, I could surely use a meal, friend.”
“Which army are you running from?” asked an old woman seeing how young Avion was. “16 to 17 years of age yer are, have you deserted” she said looking over at him. “Yer voice sounds like Vartanian, but yer clothes’er more akin to Turban. So which?”
“I found these cloths as my own were to worn.” Avion explained, not wanting his distinctive clothing to link him to neither Turban nor Vartania. The thought of anyone confusing him as a member of either Empire disgusted him.
“Turian then,” pronounced the old man. His snarl and the way he then gripped the pitchfork made Avion know that it wasn’t a good thing.
“I serve in neither Empire’s army.”
“But ye did.” said the woman.
Avion shook his head. “No, Not Turban or Vartania. I am but a traveler from a distant land.”
“Bullshit!” said the old man.
“Far to the north across the Gulf of Vartania where the Elf King rules with great compassion in love.”
“Never heard of it,” the old man said again. Those around him nodded in agreement.
It then occurred to Avion just how paranoid these villagers were. And how worldly he had become in such a short time. He thought back to his privileged beginnings in the Vartanian Crown city, in the days when he could barely stumble across a pond of water without the attendants panicking. Never could he have imagined the road he had journeyed! The enormity of his travels. Only now did it occur to him how little he actually knew about the Chronos Continent.
“I am not a part of this awful war.” He said.
The old woman’s eyes narrowed. “I am not for believing yer.”
“Then how did ye get that scar across yer eye, then?”Asked the old man.
Avion lifted his hand to touch the wound on his face, Where his eldest brother in his fury slashed him across the eye with a iron sword, luckily Avion kept his sight.
“My older brother in his anger scarred me.” He said
“I’m still not for believing ye!” the old woman said with a hiss. “Now, ye turn about and be-gone from here, or me and old fellow will stick you with the pitchfork. Four points o’ pain young in’.
“Aye,” the old man said, prodding the pitchfork towards Avion. But Avion didn’t flinch.
“Go on!” the old man insisted, thrusting the fork closer.
Unconsciously Avion reacted. As the pitchfork stabbed at him, Avion went forward and only slightly to the side, just enough so that the old man couldn’t shift the weapons angle to catch up to him. Once past the dangerous end of the pitchfork Avion moved with brutal efficiently, grabbing the shaft just below its head with his right hand, then shattered beneath the head the weapon, leaving the old man with a short staff.
Avion then stepped back out of reach before those around him had even registered his moves.
With a yelp of surprise, the old man took the stump of the staff and lifted it above his head like a club, stumble rushing at Avion with something between terror and outrage.
Avion dropped the broken pitchfork and brought his arms up above his head in a diagonal cross just as the old man chopped down at his head. Avion easily caught the club in the crook of his blacking arms and, with a sudden uncrossing, tugged the piece of wood from the old man’s grasp. Avion caught it immediately and sent it into a furious spin, twirling it in one hand, working it expertly behind his back and out the other side as he handed it off to his other hand. The old man fell back, throwing his arms up before his face and whining pitifully. No one else made a sound, transfixed by the dazzling maneuvers of this stranger.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Avion’s display went on for many heartbeats, spinning the staff, leaping and twisting, swift shifts and breaks in the momentum where Avion transferred all of his energy into a sudden and brutal stab into the ground.
“By the gods,” one woman mouthed.
“Wow,” a young boy whispered, only because he could find no louder voice then his.”
“Who are ye?” the old woman said taking a step back, catching her breath.
“No one who matters, no one who cares,” Avion answered, moving away from the planted pitchfork. “Just a hungry 17 year old youth begging for food and willing to work for it. Nothing more.”
“Begging?” a younger woman asked skeptically. She clutched a toddler tight in her arms. “Or threatening to take it if not given?”
Avion looked at her closely, reading the anger on her dirty face. She might have been a pretty girl once, an attractive young woman with blue eyes and wheat-colored hair. Perhaps once soft and inviting like a place to hide from the world, her hair now lay matted and scrappily, unkept and uncut. The war had played hard on her; the only sparkle in her eyes was one of hatred, reflected in bloodshot lines and weary bags. There remained no soft lines there, just a sharp and hardened person who had seen and borne too much and eaten too little.
Avion had no answers for her. He gave a helpless little shrug, and then with a slight bow he turned and started to walk away.
“Now where are ye going?” the old man asked behind him.
“As far as I need to pass beyond this war.”
“But ye isn’t going away hungry!” the old woman declared. Avion then stopped and turned looking to her face. “No ones to say that we folk o’ Fraloon village let’s a tired youngster walk away hungry! Get back here and eat yer stew, and we’ll find some work for ye to pay for it.”
“Might start by cutting me a new handle for me fork,” the old man said, and several others laughed.
But not the young woman with the toddler, though. Obliviously displeased by the turn of events, she held her young child close and glared at Avion. He looked back at her curiously, trying to convey a sense of calm, but the glower did not relent.
…….
Time passed, repairing the pitchfork proved no difficult task; for there were other implements about whose handles had long outlived their specialized heads. With that chore completed quickly, Avion moved to help where he could, determine to pay back the village folk equitably and more for their generosity in these dire times.
In truth there wasn’t much stew they shared that night, just a few rotten fish in a cauldron of water with a paltry mix of root vegetables. But to Avion it tasted like hope itself, a quiet little reminder that many people- perhaps most-were possessed of a kind and generous nature, the one flickering candle in the dark, dark world. Reflecting on that forgotten point of light, Avion silently chastised himself for his gloom and despair. For a moment, just a brief moment, he thought of returning home, to plead with his Emperor father to end this war make peace with the Turian Emperor, But he knew better, his father wanted to rule the Continent, so even if he somehow stopped the war with Turban there were still nine other empires on the continent, so no matter how much he wished it war on Chronos was unstoppable.
More time passed, Darkness fell and supper ended. The villagers worked together to clean up the common area about the large cook fire. As the meager and downtrodden folk of Fraloon moved about the flickering flames, Avion felt he was witnessing the walk of the dead, shambling out of the graveyards and battlefields toward an uncertain eternity. His heart ached as he considered the condition of the land and the folk, of the misery that two selfish Kings willingly inflicted upon so many undeserving victims.
“If only I had more power.” He mumbled, to himself clenching his fist. Two men in their attempt for becoming the sole emperor of the continent destroyed these peoples world. It seemed, much more easily than army of well-meaning folk could save or repair it. But truthfully there weren’t many of those and if there were they were hidden away somewhere watching as the people suffer in sorrow.
Avion sat before the fire for a long while lost in thought, long past the others who had wandered back to their cabins. Staring into the flames as they continue to twig the logs, Avion envisioned the smoke screaming from the log as the escape of life itself. The inexorable journey towards the realm of death. He took the dark image one step further, seeing the flame as his own hopes and dreams, diminishing to glowing embers and fading fast into the dark reality of a smoky-black night.
“I don’t think I have ever seen a man sit so still and quiet for so long,” said a woman, interrupting his communication with the dancing flickers. The edge in that voice, not complimentary, drew him out of his introspection even more then the words themselves. He looked up to see the young mother who had questioned him sharply when he had first entered the village. The toddler stood now in the shadows behind her, which seemed to relieve some of her vulnerability, as was evident of her aggressive stance.
“All the work is done.” he answered.
“And so is the meal you begged, uh, worked for,” She added, her words dripping of sarcasm.
Avion eyes narrowed. “I did what I could.”
The woman snorted. “A young man, very strong and quick, who can fight well…and here you sit, staring into the fire.”
That description of his fighting ability tipped her hand.
“Your husband is off fighting in the war,” Avion said softly.
She snorted again, helplessly, angrily, pitifully and looked to the side, “My husband got struck to the ground by a Turban soldiers spear,” she said, chewing every word out with outrage. “He’d likely be there still if the animals hadn’t dragged him away to fill their bellies. To many to bury, you know.”
“I know.” He said lowering his head.
“And here you sit, because your work is done,” she retorted. “Here you sit all whole and breathing and eating the food of the folk, who don’t have enough to give, while men and women fall to the spear and the sword and the magic.”
Avion stared at her hard. She shifted to put her hands on her hips, returning his look without blinking. He wanted to tell her about who he was and why he was there, but he couldn’t. He wanted to blurt it all out, to stand and stomp his feet, to scream about the futility of it all. But he couldn’t.
Her posture her expression, the power forged by pain in her voice, denied him his indignation, even mocked his self-pity. He had his life. But her husband and many other husband and sons had not theirs.
“What side are you on, stranger?”
“Doesn’t matter.” Avion dared to stand up straight before her. “Both sides are wrong.”
SMACK…
He saw it coming but didn’t try to stop it. She slapped him across the face.
“My husband’s dead,” she said. “Dead! The man I love is gone.”
Avion didn’t say that he was sorry, but his expression surly admitted as much. Not that it mattered.
“They are both gone?” the woman gave a helpless laugh. “You’re saying there’s no reason we eat mud and go to cold beds? That’s your answer? That’s the answer of the brave warrior who can dodge a pitchfork and snap its iron head from its iron handle with ease?”
Avion soften. “Do you wish that I had fought and saved your husband?” He said trying to send a knot of appeasement and understanding, but the question sounded ridiculous even to his own ears. His face stung where she slapped him again.
“I wish you had got stuck to ground and not him!” She spun away from him and only then did Avion realize all the village folk had gathered again to hear their exchange. They looked on with horror; a few were embarrassed, perhaps, but Avion saw that many heads were nodding in agreement with the woman.
“It’s all a matter of chance!” the woman said walking back and forth before the onlookers. “That’s why, it is, yes? A hundred men go out, and twenty die! A thousand men go out, and more die.” She turned to him sharply. “But the more that go, the more come home, don’t they? A thousand targets to spread the bite of the Turban spear means that each has more of a chance to miss that bite. So why weren’t you there?” She launched herself at him. “Why are you here instead of showing yourself as a target to the archers and the spearmen?”
This time Avion didn’t let her strike him because he knew the situation could escalate quickly and dangerously for everyone. He caught her wrists, left and right as she punched, pinning them back to her sides. She began to wail openly, keening against the injustice of it all, he instinctly tried to pull her closer to comfort her, but she tore away from him, spinning about forcefully and quickly that she lost her balance and tumbled to the dirt, where she half sat, half lay on one elbow, her other forearm slapped across her eyes.
Avion’s instincts again told him to go to her, but he didn’t dare. He looked up at the many faces staring at him, judging him. He held his hands out questionably, starting to back away.
A trio of women went to their fallen friend, one pausing just long enough to look up at Avion and mutter, “Get ye gone from here.” Her words sparking more calls the woman’s rant had touched a deep nerve here.
They weren’t interested in his truth. All that mattered to them was the injustice that a young, obviously a capable man was sitting here, seemly untouched by the devastating reality that had visited upon all of their homes.
Avion took another step back from the outraged woman and held his hands up again, a helpless and ultimately sad look appeared upon his face as he walked away.
When he went back into the empty forest, wandering the dark trails to where after a seemly an unknown amount of time passed he was standing before a lake. At this lake he saw beautiful woman with blond hair standing at the epicenter. This woman her beauty to heavenly to put into words. “What is she?” he thought. He was starting feel all to dirty to even gaze up at her.
Avion felt that he was to dirty, to mortal, to damn insignificant to stand in her presence, It was only when she started to dance that Avion fell to his knees.
This woman before him was pure and shined brighter then the brightest star. “A goddess he mumbled.” As he watched her dance.
Her movements were faintly discernible, as if a thin cloud was shielding the moon; her figure was fluttering in the wind, like a revolving snowflake that blew by the stream of wind. She was truly beautiful.
As he was watches her dance Avion didn’t notice until the very last second that a Majestic White Dragon had closed its claws upon him. Encasing him in the brightest of lights.
“Is this what you wish?” the Dragon asked signing as it gazed at the woman standing on top of the lake.
“It is.” She said. Smiling, as her body began breaking apart into pixels of light. The White Dragon, upon hearing her say as such, slightly bows as it and watches the woman vanish from that place. Those pixels of lights becoming stars, as they fly upwards into the heavens.
“Your will be done.” The dragon thought, as it slowly raised its head, and so, since it was her will, The White Dragon releases its Dragon’s soul, to where, all that the Dragon was, what it is, flowed into Avions body.
……
Strength Ruled on the Chronos continent. And what other was stronger than the strength of the Dragon.