The sky wasn't blue, it was fractured.
Mana surged like a living tide, bending the ground beneath it.
"Fall back!" someone screamed...
Too late.
A figure stepped forward, untouched.
The world itself seemed to hesitate around them.
Authority had chosen.
And then...
everything collapsed.
Many Years Ago...
•Ashford Village•
"Again?" Asked a lightly armoured man. His sword dulled by time and his white beard scruffy.
"Again!" A young boy shouted, brandishing a short wooden sword. Its wielder untouched by blood and his chin still hairless.
Surrounded by bodies lying motionless, 14-year-old Valen, the village chief's son faced the captain of the guards. It had already been weeks since the rest could no longer compete with him, and while the old guard had retired years ago, his sword had dulled, and his face had lost its edge. He never lost the training instilled into him during his time at the military.
Valen charged, swinging his short wooden sword horizontally only to be met by an unyielding pauldron. Something the unruly soldier had stolen during his time in the military. His sword bounced off, rattling his wrist and causing him to lose grip on his weapon.
"Your weapon is your life. Lose either and the other will follow shortly," Said the old guard, stroking his fist-long beard down to his belly, then letting out a quiet chuckle at his own antics.
"Don't underestimate your opponent!" Valen barked back as he spun round whipping the spear perched on his back into the liver of the guard.
As the guard keeled over, contemplating his life of being beaten up by a child, Valen walked over to his post on the walls.
Today was the day his father and older brother were arriving home. Having lost his mother to illness when he was young, his father had opted to get the local nun to help raise him alongside the few orphans that the village had accumulated over the years.
"Ahhhhh what a waste of time, I could be training, or sleeping, or eating!" Valen whispered under his breath, not that anyone was around to hear him. They were all already helping each other up down at the guards training ground. Out of sheer boredom, Valen chose to practise his throwing. Picking up a few rocks from a nearby bucket, then lobbing them into the open field around the village.
The village was quaint, not at all large enough to satisfy the young man's sense of adventure. It wasn't even large enough to warrant a communications rune.
Although none of the nearby villages were.
They were all situated right on the edge of the borders after all, housing the family of the army that protected the borders. Why have a village rune when the captains could use them instead? They were expensive and rare, and the captains needed it more anyway.
"1, 2, 3," Valen counted the birds flying out of the trees, spooked by his half-decent throwing. While he was unbeatable in this quaint village in swordsmanship or even in spearmanship, his throwing skills left him wanting.
For a moment… the wind died. Completely.
"4, 5, 6, 7, 8..." Slowly losing interest in counting birds, having realized it was not his throwing that spooked them, Valen realized time had passed swiftly enough that his watch had finished. Or at least no one would blame him for ditching the watch early today.
As Valen walked through the small village, a few kids lined up behind him. Marching to the beat of his steps. The orphans considered him an older brother, and he considered them his siblings too.
"Shoo, Shoo, you'll make me stink if you keep hanging on to me," Valen laughed.
The childish giggles played softly in the air as they ran off back to the church, where the nun waved slowly at Valen. She was getting up in the years, and soon she would have to go back to the main church to spend her final years. She was only still here because of the children that she cared for.
"Sigh. Stop breaking all their equipment and try not to break yours either!" A deep sigh echoed across the open grass, Old Brenn the local blacksmith both the maker and maintainer of Valen's own gear, waved with his charred hands. Rumor had it that he burnt his hands while wrestling a Lava Dragon. Although he never confirmed it himself.
Valen walked some more, reaching his house, the chieftain's house to be exact. There his father's old friend, Uncle Argon, was tending to a fence, having been broken by a recent storm.
"There had been a surprising amount of storms lately." Valen thought as he approached his uncle.
He was talking to a few other adults, quietly whispering to each other with worried faces.
"Good evening uncle, good evening everyone." Chirped Valen. Oblivious to the room, ever optimistic.
"Ah, good evening little Valen. How was practice?"
"Practice? That's hardly practise anymore. I can't wait till I can follow my father on their expeditions!"
"Haha, ever the ambitious one aren't ya, come come, let's go inside."
"Of course, I am my father's son after all. And what's up with all the quiet whispering around town? Even the guards aren't telling me!"
"Oh nothing to be worried about, I'm sure they just took a trip to a neighbouring village."
"Who's they?"
"Well... A few of the foragers have been going missing, but again nothing for you to worry about, leave it to the adults."
Valen looked slightly displeased about being kept in the dark, after all as the strongest there what could possibly put him in danger? And the village was his responsibility when his family wasn't there. But with a light sigh, he moved slowly to enter his home.
Just as he grabbed the door handle, a faint horn sounded in the distance. It's rumbling spreading from the forest, shaking the timber that formed the village.
"Father?"
"No, that's not a welcoming horn, it's a warning horn from one of the patrols. But you aren't on shift so they can deal with it, now let's go inside and eat. I'm starving" Argon's face betrayed him, showing signs of hesitation and curiosity.
"Ok, Ok." Valen responded, quietly alarmed by the urgency in his uncle's voice. And why had he kept pushing to go inside? Valen was confused but trusted him, a loyal man who had come to help rebuild this village after one particularly close border skirmish.
Valen's father was the local captain of the army, as far as he knew, managing this portion of the borders. His brother being his father's right hand man. And today was the last day of their shift. Tomorrow morning, would be when they arrived home.
Later that evening, after the house had been cleared and the fence rebuilt, the forge had stopped billowing and the kids stopped playing. Valen found himself to be restless. Unable to relax, he did what any other reasonable person would, and started tending to his sword. While the majority of his equipment was maintained by Old Brenn, his father had forbidden him from having his real sword be tended to by anyone but himself. A dull blade is as useless as a big stick, as his father loved to say. A real warrior must know how to tend to his own gear on the move, his brother would say. Ironic as they both had personal smiths to do it for them, but Valen took their advice and lessons seriously. Spending time with old Brenn learning the basics of repairing. Over time it had become somewhat therapeutic. The repetitiveness of sharpening a blade helped him focus, helped him calm his ever turbulent mind.
Slowly, but surely little Valen closed his eyes. His blade still clutched in his palm as he sat in front of a raging flame. Ready for whatever life threw at him the next day, or so he thought.