[Center][img]https://i.postimg.cc/dV59HGJp/Leon-new.png[/img][h1][color=fff200]The Sun Seeker's Sorrow[/color][/h1][h3][color=fff200]Abyssal Forge Chapter 3[/color][/h3] [hr][hr] [b][colour=fff200]Event:[/colour][/b] Abyssal Forge | [b][colour=fff200]Location:[/colour][/b] In the Fog[hr][hr][/center] [hider=Authors Note] I find it important to note that this post was written roughly 4 weeks ago and therefore prior to recent events. [/hider] [center][youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGTkAVsrfg8[/youtube][/center] The fog cleared to reveal a sparse canopy of trees above him. The branches rustled gently with a quiet breeze shaking the apples that hung from the stems. He was lying down in the grass just starting up and watching nature move. The distant call of cicadas ensured that this was a place of life. The sun shining through was nothing like the dim scrapings of Halge Larchelon. It was warm, it was home. A group of voices sounding a short distance away brought his attention from idle gazing. Their cheerful and youthful tone made him sit up to see what the fun was about. He got up and rested back on his hands. He saw his friends, only, they were younger; not one of them could have been older than fourteen. In surprise, he looked at his own hands, saw they reflected the same youth, and came to recognise that his heart had felt lighter. They were at the precipice of starting that journey toward adulthood and looking toward the horizon with the brightest of dreams and ambitions. Dory stood by a large pond with Manfred right behind her guiding her hand. The square-headed soldier boy was teaching her to skip rocks across the water’s surface. He hadn’t seen what she had in him but her smile was undeniable. She was happy like that. Yvain and Jomurr sat at opposite ends of a small chess table. Their expressions were locked in the intensity of the game. Born of blue blood, they were always looking to prove their position in the world. Perhaps they found worth in their progress of learning it. Miiras hung from a tree by his legs and juggled three apples while Atzi and Juulet giggled together at his antics. To their right, an easel had been set up where Tku was painting the scenery. Yuli seemed content to look at the Obenjan’s progress while Carmillia braided her hair. On a big rock overlooking the water, Zarina sat looking outward. A yasoi girl sat wrapped between her arms with her head leaning on the Virangish girl’s shoulder. Zarina’s runaway had finally come back home to her. Leon smiled widely, it was the orchard he called home, the caravans had made the stop. He didn’t know how many travellers would be with him until next year. People came and went in the wanderer’s life faster than a pair of cheap boots. But for now, he took in the moment and hoped it would last forever. These people were more than any vagrant who tagged onto the trail. And they were all here, except… There was a rustle in the bushes behind him. Leon tried to look but before he had the chance, she was already upon him. She pounced like a tiger, wrapped her arms over his shoulders from behind, and laughed at her successful ambush. [color=DEB887]”Gaut yoo!”[/color] Kaureerah spoke in a playful voice. He laughed along and allowed himself to be dragged down back to the grass. The moment didn’t last long. Before he knew it, Kaureerah let go and was standing over him with her hands on her hips. [color=DEB887]”Yoo faurgaut augen, deedn’t yoo? Aur aure yoo joost beeing lezy? Deener ees aup soon.”[/color] Lazy didn’t sound too far from the truth. Honestly, he was struggling to wrench himself from this moment as it was. He wanted to reply and thought he had. His words seemed lost and weightless in the dream. She reached a webbed hand down to him and helped him to his feet. Kaureerah led him aimlessly through the trees as they ran along with a skip in their steps. It was like the teens he had seen when he first came home to this place. They waded through the woods with bright smiles and occasionally giggling at nothing in particular. She would glance back now and then just so their eyes could meet then quickly turn back to look where she was going. It was the skipping of two kids finding their first love, unsure if they should dwell too long in that feeling or if they were even [i]allowed[/i] to feel that way, but never staying away from it for too long. It made them happy in a way they had never known before. A scary but bright frontier for the soul. They made their way into a clearing parted by a lone hill. She brought him up to see a single caravan cart resting atop it. It was painted a subtle yellow with red trimmings. A thin steady smoke billowed out from a metal piping at the top. A few side windows were open and dust brown curtains gently billowed in the wind. It was the cart he grew up in. The woman who had raised him was sitting on the stairs to the door just ahead. Leon froze. It had been so very long since he had seen his nonna and now she was only meters away. He didn’t know if it was wasting time with her to be standing still, but he couldn’t help it. He let Kaureerah slip through his grasp and continue forward to the cart. Eleanor looked so very frail. She was wrapped in a blanket despite the warm weather. She looked at the approaching eeaiko with glassy eyes close to losing their vision entirely. He couldn’t grasp it back then, but he knew it now. His nonna wasn’t long for this world. Leon teared up and his throat grew tight. He was just happy to have one more chance to see her. When Kaureerah reached her, his nonna greeted her with warmth and practically pinched her cheek with a thin, bony hand to the chuckles of the eeaiko. Eleanor gave Leon a very approving smile with what focus she had left. [color=e4e8bc]”Is this your new girlfriend, Leon? Hmmm, this one is much better than the last one you brought here. You said [i]she[/i] was a princess? Bah, hardly.”[/color] She brought her attention back to Kaureerah and smiled before nodding back to the door, ushering the eeaiko to get her dinner. [color=e4e8bc]”No, I like this one much better.”[/color] Kaureerah turned back to Leon. [color=DEB887]”Caume aun, seelly!”[/color] Out of his stupor, he took a step forward to join them. Maybe they could serve up some food and talk over the campfire pit. There was so much he wanted to say to her, to them, but if time would only allow for a single meal, then he would keep it brief. However, the second the performer boy took another step forward, Eleanor looked up and directly at him. She had lost her smile and glared with a neutral, uncaring expression. [color=e4e8bc]”Oh, you can’t join us, Leon.”[/color] His smile faded as a sense of dread washed over him. [color=e4e8bc]”Did you forget?”[/color] [color=e4e8bc]”You have somewhere else to be.”[/color] She sat up with strain and looked beyond him. He was urged to turn around, and when he obliged, he saw a stone staircase on the hill. It led upward to the sky and was seemingly never-ending. Its end shrunk past the point of his perception. Never ending, never ending. He struggled to recognise these steps. While he was surprised by the presence, he had a vague notion that he had seen them before, it held some place in his memory that he couldn’t seem to access. But from what he did recall, he remembered them being warm and inviting. He remembered them as a thing of happiness. Leon didn’t feel the same way now. Its stone bricks seemed cold and lifeless; it loomed over him like a titan before an ant. He took a cautious step back. [color=fff200]”N-no… I think I want to stay here, with yo-”[/color] He turned around to see that he was alone on the hill. The cart was no longer there, nor his nonna, nor Kaureerah. He looked around to find them and saw nothing but the apple trees on all sides, and the staircase. He saw that the apple trees looked… more lifeless. Their leaves faded from a vibrant green; some had turned brown and hung lifelessly. The sounds of cicadas had come to a halt. All he could hear was the cold wind brushing through the leaves of this desolate place. A familiar pressurised feeling returned in his chest. He looked down to his hands which confirmed he was nineteen again. [color=fff200][i]That was right, aside from Miiras and his nonna, none of these people had ever come to the orchard.[/i][/color] He remembered now, they all had their places to be… A foul wind blew through the trees as he remembered they were all on the brink of war. His breathing grew shallower as the thought set in. They may not be safe, they could be hurt. He took a step forward away from the staircase to find them. Then the visions hit him. Dorothea drank alone in a tavern, sending herself into another stupor over the passing of Manfred. She took a sense of security in the bottle, but the tides of war sent bitter eyes her way. A group of disgruntled peasants took advantage to rob and kill their duchess with a knife in the back. She didn’t put up much of a fight, she was helpless. Yvain lay fallen in a small clearing propped up by the countless spears that pierced him. The valiant knight who had ridden out for the glory of his ideals and country was felled in an ambush. His face had lost its look of optimism for a bravely fought war. He died alone in the woods with no one who cared enough to bury him. The crows were circling. Zarina lay face down, bleeding out in the mud of a Palapar coffee plantation. Sickles and pitchforks were stabbed into her back and all her murderers seemed to care about was looting the armour off her body. Would her family even know? Would Miret even look for her? Tku… Carmillia… Jomurr… Yuli… Leon felt weak at the knees and fell to the ground. He brought his hands up to his face and closed his eyes. He just wanted it to stop, he didn’t want to see any more, but he couldn’t stop it. It felt like an eternity… When time allowed him the strength to look again, he was somewhere else. The tiled streets of San Sameno sprawled out before him with the tall buildings flanking either side. Just ahead, was the tree where he married Bayani and Tala under. Their bodies hung together from one of its branches. For whatever reason, against his will, Leon found himself getting to his feet and slowly stumbling toward the couple in the throes of his defeat and grief. They had met the end of revolutionaries. They fought the good fight and instead of living out their achievements with pride, they met the end of a noose for it. Tala never even fought, she died for the association. He made it to the tree; he watched their feet dangle with only the gentle breeze to give them motion. He had so little energy left, how much more would the world take from him? In a slow, painful motion, he craned his neck up to look at the couple… And met the lifeless eyes of Kaureerah. It was them who hung from the wedded tree. He couldn’t breathe. It was them who met the end of revolutionaries. His hands trembled. The world struck back against their attempts to better it. His jaw clenched. She stared back at him with such sorrow. He started to cry. Leon had set out to change the world and Kaureerah went to join him because she wanted the same. But she was never born to climb that staircase like he was. Selfishly, he couldn’t tell her no, he wanted her to join him, he wanted her to be with him. He brought her to a place where she doesn’t belong… He thought that he could pursue the power to change the world and hold onto his love. But what life would she lead? Living ever in the shadow of the person who was supposed to be her partner and equal. Could he expect her to be content with continuously being his lesser in the pages of history? It only made sense that as long as they were together she would wish to join him. That was love after all. She would run to be with him and die for the effort. His ambition killed her. It was all his fault that she was dead. He screamed. He screamed and screamed and screamed. He fell down onto the grass of the orchard hill and thrashed about in ways the conscious mind could no longer control. His body flailed violently against the grass, his skin pushing across the dirt beneath it, the small rocks scraped his skin. He wanted to be out, he wanted to be out of this place, he wanted to leave he wanted to leave he wanted to leave he wanted to leave. But it was no dream. It was reality waiting to catch him. Then his hand met with a familiar stone tile step. [color=DEB887]"If yoo ever have to ask if the ends jaustefy the meens, know thet they don't."[/color] But what means could be worse than the tragedy he hoped to prevent? What methods were worse than a world that would take innocent people so carelessly from him? He couldn’t finish the thought before the fog started rolling back in. [hr][hr]