“Mom, Dad. I am leaving.” I said and I could feel their hearts shatter. As well as their backs, farm work was hard in this foreign land without a young son to help with the day to day.
“My boy, my boy…” Mother whimpered but Father held her back with a sweeping hug.
He set her down with his large callused hands. Then turned his steely eyes to me. A gray like mine yet sharper than the edge of a sword.
The morning breeze stuck moisture to my skin, and I could feel my courage seeping away.
“Son. Are certain of this? It will be hard, harder than anything you have done before.”
I gulped down my saliva and along with it stale-fear. “I have to go. I’ll join the army, and fight for this land we call home.”
“Even if it kills you?” Father towered over me, years ran away in fear and I was just a child once more, looking up at the man that raised me.
“Even if it does.” I could hear my mother’s worry choke her, there wasn’t any regret in it, just fear, overbearing fear that threatened to claw over to me and grasp my heart.
I stamped my foot down on the hardwood floor.
Outside the village smoldered with the cinders that remained after the raiders left. The dead burning up in great pyres, the Aimon being put to work even injured to rebuild homes lost and fortunes destroyed. Families lay broken.
Aether unfurled abundantly through the land and cursing the Livestock with its plague. Famine would fall over the land, the Raider while dead themselves would spread horror and pain through the common folk, their goals met, their plans for disaster accomplished.
I, Lumo of Darnel, can’t sit by and watch this happen again. “Father, you didn’t raise me any other way.” I said and reaffirmed my resolution.
“Well then.” Father said and pulled me into a crushing hug. A hug that smelt like tha fields after days of work, flowing like the breeze in the shade - drinking water and potentially a bit of liquor - away from mother’s eyes. There was overflowing love there, of a father that had held a son upon his shoulders from his tiny arms when he was just the span of two palms tall.
“Go and make us proud, Lumo. Keep your eyes and ears open and take in all the things you’ll experience. See the world, take flight, and fight for what your heart tells you is right. And remember, you always have your nest in this home.”
“When I’ve grown weary or accomplished from battle, I’ll come here to say hello.” I nodded and separated from father with not a hint of relunctance. I went to my room and got my stuff in a little rack-sack hand sewn by my amateur fingers before hugging the lady of the house a tearful goodbye.
Then I took the road West, away from the Eastern Frontier and deeper into the Safe Lands, away from rampant Aimon and Raiding Barbarians.
My steps took me to the recruitment barracks in the Capital away from the Capital, in the very heart of the tri-fort area. A burgeoning town with incredible opportunities and people hoping to strike it rich.
Single or double floored homes with roofs slanted away from the roads of turf grass, a dark green, and wood of soft pink, well polished and sanded without a splinter in sight. Some homes sported bulging windows with white support of putty-metal, and others held themselves up with round pillars of a white-yellow tree, glimmering in the sunlight.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It was then that I became a private of the army, a conscript, a man in basic training, and one of the weakest amongst the many. Set in a corpse of men without Aimon, I underwent two months of harsh training.
I learned how to respect those of a higher rank, how to shout my heart out, how to fight, and how to train, I was taught how to sleep in the toughest of environments and how to walk a thousand miles without strain.
I learned to tie knots and dig up stones and dirt. I became able to ride horses and hold a shield in rank with others.
We were all taught to consume Aether whilst in battle with our enchanted spear and dagger as well as the most important piece of equipment of the imperial army, the boots.
Maneuver training became the most important, all consuming part of my training and life for one and a half months, and it remained so well after I became a soldier fully and became deployed under the care of General Joy and her Fort.
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Combat, live combat amongst Barbarians and Aimon holders left me terrified. I barely survived. Everyone else on my squadron was either maimed or killed, though we had been entirely too unfortunate to be targeted by a Poison/Earth Type apparently.
Unlucky, that is how the decimation of 50 men with nary but one remaining combatant, was categorized and that stung.
As a reward for my service in that brutal battle I was granted the Privilige of System Awakening. I met up one night in a private room in the barracks with a Military Aimon, whose duty was to remain accept tethers and have those be shattered.
He looked sickly and weak, his smile was soft and withered, his eyes were set on me as I introduced myself and through the entire process yet I gleamed no fire in them. He spoke, and he was a learned Aimon, for sure. Much more intelligent and capable of conversation than I expected them to be.
Despite that I couldn’t help my revulsion from showing. Conversation died and the process continued in silence.
I awakened to my System, a military officer explained the basics and the bond was shattered from a distance. I only heard a groan and a thud right behind the door.
I felt the heel of my boot stick to the wooden floors until I left and walked across the open training ground to my bunk, taking off my boots and seeing dried blood on the back of both. I don’t know why, but that night I couldn’t fall asleep, and the repeat of my haunting first battle wasn’t the thing to keep me up.
Ever since then, it has been two years. I’ve fought in countless skirmishes and participated in three raids against barbarian outposts, two village defenses, and one massive battle in the plains North of Fort Joy.
I rose through the ranks of the Human centric part of the army. 100 Man commander Lumo of the West. That became my official title. Wind Walker Lumo became the name under which I was known within the ranks.
Maneuvering came as second nature to me after constant effort. Through intense training of my Attributes and then careful investment of my free points. I still stand proud at Level 9 with more attributes than most.
Tenacious and powerful, with the voice and presence to match. I can go toe to toe with the weakest of Aimon and am able to keep my wits about me even in the tensest moments. Not to toot my own horn, but with my Explosiveness standing at a whopping 14 I stand amongst the most surprising opponents for man an Aimon to face alike.
It is with these merits under my belt that I threw my position in the Western Army away and joined the ranks of - the much more Aimon focused, Fort Natsuki.
I visited Mother and father. They were well. House built on stilts and stone foundations. Walls around the village and patrols moving about and near the village often enough to keep it safe from raids.
The village itself had changed a lot, with tens of families of soldiers having been moved to promote safety and importance, with my rise in rank as a catalyst and the raid that spurred me into the army as the background.
Why? Had I come to this place, forgoing rank and status, a monthly wage with paid leave, and frequent dates with the Barracks Aimon to grow my Aether and potentially become one of the Chosen few in the Barony that have ascended into the First Tier.
My platoon asked so, my mother and father, random people in the village, my new supervisors, and my old ones.
Lady Joy herself descended from the gilded parapets of the fortress to question my motivations. That was almost as surreal as the reason I had left her employee and moved to her brother’s and competitor’s side without remorse, casting all I had worked hard to gain to the trash-heap.
Death. A specific death in fact.
The death of a new Barracks Aimon, a Bonding Aimon that had been only recently given the go-ahead after months of training and rehabilitation. Captured as it had been from a Barbarian a year back and warped into something she didn’t recognize.
I shivered now as I thought of that night. My stomach roiled and my throat clenched shut, forcing the vomit back down only for it to push back harder still.
I shut the creaking door behind me and pulled my chair out. It flew slick across Fuchsia-Wood flooring.
I set my elbows on the table and placed my chin on my intertwined fingers.
“There is a tension about you.” I spoke and the words surprised me. That was a bit forward.
“Aye. I’m about to kill myself.” The Aimon responded and I lost my marbles.
“No reaction?” She asked. She had a long scaled snout, with two sharp teeth jutting out of her upper jaw. Her eyes where of molten gold, running out of their sockets and down her cheeks, around the base of her snout and to her neck which lost some of the scale, replaced by fur. That fur; tip of chestnut with rivers of gold flowing beneath.
She stood up and took of the uniform that had been throw off her. Purposefully with a low v-line to accentuate what breasts she had, despite being monstrous in appearance, for the pleasure of those that enjoyed such disgusting acts.
“I’m going to shove my claws into my Molten Chest.”
“Would that be enough to kill you?” I asked and she looked at me with befuddlement.
I shrugged.
“I don’t know what to do or say. I mean. Why do you want to kill yourself?”
“Why?” She said and reared her antlered head back as if to burst out in laughter, but only more of that molten gold burst out of her eyes. She opened her arms, fists clenched.
From around one of her arms, as it opened a leathery wing unfurled from the other, a few patches of burnt leather fell slowly to the floor.
“I am a Dragon, soldier. I am pride incarnate. I am power in flesh, and I am defiance brought to bare. I will not allow myself to yield and brake at the torture of you Imperials. My Partner died in honorable battle defending his home, I shall die not giving a single point of Aether to the likes of you.” She smoldered, a gale blowing out her nose, it smelled of death, and chains.
She looked at me as if she owned the world. She looked and challenged. She smiled a toothy grin one that promised violence.
In this moment, she is heard.
I pulled my hands from the table slowly, and stood straight in the chair.
“Sit down. Let us talk. I have suddenly found myself with a fascination for this monstrous species we call Aimon.”
She scoffed at my wording, and sat none the less. “I didn’t expect this of the Wind walker.”
“I didn’t either. I came here to destroy Aimon and Barbarians, and to stop them from raiding our homes, to protect my parents and all those parents for the children whom can not. Yet here I am. Listening to your last words before you take your own life.”
“Very well. What do you want to know?”