‘Calm… calm… take a deep breath…’
Tio Alma, a young man reaching his teens stood still amidst a clearing within a forest. In his arms were a bow and arrow, and in front of him was his target, painted circle atop a tree. He evoked the mantra his family had thought him and softly let loose a small, quiet sigh.
His once taut bowstring suddenly grew slack as he released his hold, and listened to the sharp sound of an arrow sailing through the air.
“...Still a bit off-center.” The arrowhead was close to the intended point of impact, close enough that most people wouldn’t care about the distance and call it a bullseye, but in the eyes of the young man of thirteen summers, it was a miss.
Tio was practicing in a small clearing not too far from the village, the place was filled with dead trees from the forest fire a year prior. A perfect spot to collect lumber and train.
The young man glanced at the sun’s position and winced, the sun was too far in the west to his liking. If he rushed back now, then he would return home by nightfall. Tio sighed and slung his bow over his shoulder, mentally preparing himself for the stern lecture of his sister for forgetting the time once again.
The Town of Lyra was small and close-knit, the people who resided in it knew everyone and had no real specialty as a town. Their lands were picturesque, but remained unfertile therefore farming was judged as a lost cause.
However, despite this, the nearby forests were rich and lush with wild-life and fruit-bearing trees. They were located on the border between two unallied nations, but had no real political power or significance.
Their people weren’t weak, in fact, they were over talented. But at the end of the day, worthless as they had no numbers.
It shouldn’t have had any worth.
...It shouldn’t have had any worth.
“So why…” Tio bit his lips hard enough to draw blood as tears flowed freely from his eyes, “So why… why did this happen…?”
The village was in flames.
Corpses of family, friends and foe, young and old, littered the paved streets. Their blood tainting it a deep red.
“Why?!” Tio raged, “Why?!”
His little sister, Aria, had been dragged outside and beaten, evident by the trail of blood leading from his family home’s porch to her corpse. The young child’s- his twin’s- dirty blond hair caked with dirt and dried blood.
‘We didn’t deserve this.’ “I shouldn’t have gone out.”
‘They didn’t deserve this.’ “I could have done something!”
‘Aria didn’t deserve this.’ “Why… why was I the only one…?!”
Moving on from his sister’s still warm corpse, the young man listlessly went around the village. He combed it over, turning over still burning wood, ignoring the burns forming on his hands.
Pain was no longer something capable of stopping him.
Not when his friends and family already suffered a worse fate.
He just wanted to find one person.
He just wanted to know if he wasn’t too late.
By the time night fell once more, the young man could finally smile once more.
He just wanted to know if he still had a chance to make amends.
‘Why didn’t you save us?’
Tio stood before a small field of raised dirt mounds, with various items ranging from a collection of stone to broken blades and hammers acting as gravestones.
In his arms, he held a small bundle of cloth holding a one year old toddler, Amelia Rose, the youngest daughter of the village chieftain.
“...I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.” The young man mourned. “...I’m sorry I didn’t help.”
There had been nobody else.
Nobody else had survived.
‘I won’t ask for forgiveness.’
He dropped the rose on top of his best friend’s grave and cried once more, this time, accompanied by the toddler he had saved in the basement.
‘I don’t have the right.’
Night crawled over, and Tio stopped beside a fallen tree for the night. The young man was currently lamenting his inability to care for a child, no... a toddler.
“Feeding a kid shouldn’t be this hard… especially when I don’t need to give her milk.” Even if he did, deer milk would work as a convenient substitute. It was how he survived childhood after all, since his mother died when he was born, the burden of birthing twins too much for her already aged body.
‘I should be able to get advice in Halvi.’ Halvi was a quaint town not too far from Lyra, Tio knew it well because he had made many trips with his siblings for trading purposes in the past.
‘I... should warn them, shouldn’t I.’
It was close to Lyra, and he had a few friends living in Halvi.
‘You’re already too late!’
He’ll see about getting help for the voices tormenting him in his head too.
Marduk was a knight, one of the best in his generation as the twentieth son of Duke Ravenholdt, the multi-century old family of knights. He religiously upheld his family’s code of honour and placed his king’s word above even God’s.
His king was gearing for war, and to cripple the enemy kingdom before anything happened, the king had ordered he and his squad to take the clothes of a bandit and attack town after town.
His king had ordered so, therefore, Marduk will make it so.
He had dreamed of this ever since he was a child. The chance to bring upon glory and fame for his family, to show his kingdom’s superiority as the strongest!
Why does he not feel any joy from flawlessly carrying out his king’s orders?
Why does he feel so empty, when all he’s doing is cutting down pheasant after pheasant?
“Lord Marduk!” One of the knights approached on horseback. His leather vest and leather helmet were still stained from the blood of the blond girl he cut down in Lyra. “We are nearing Town Helvi, what are your orders?”
“Surround the area.” Marduk glanced at the sun’s position, “And wait for night.”
‘Knights fight for justice, and yet, is this something I can call justice? Can I take pride in something like this?’
‘I didn’t take up my blade to kill children.’
‘But the king’s word is absolute.’
‘I don’t know what to do…’
Tio tightened the strap keeping Amelia to his back and jumped into the fray, taking out his bow and notching an arrow.
‘Calm… calm… take a deep breath.’
The door of a nearby building exploded, the body of a young older man embracing a young woman flying out of the hellfire. Behind them was a hooded figure, with two blades strapped to his arms.
As it had many times in the past, the fletched arrow tore through the air and struck true. Its tip dug deep into the hooded man’s forehead, knocking him back from the force and instantly killing him.
Tio felt nothing as he stared at the corpse. Something in his head snapped at the sight of him. His hands clenched into fist, shoulders trembling.
“T-Tiomat Alma, is that you child?” The older man asked, dumbstruck. “It is! By the gods, Tio, what are you doing here? You need to run!”
He was too busy staring at the man he killed.
‘The clothes match…’ Blood leaked from his clenched fists. ‘They’re the ones who attacked Lyra.’
“Child… no, Tio. What are you doing here? Wait, no, nevermind that we need to run!” The older man shouted in his ear, snapping him from his thoughts. “There’s too many of them to fight!”
‘DON’T YOU DARE RUN AWAY!’
Tio winced, his head was throbbing. “I… can’t.”
“What do you mean you can’t?”
The young man shook his head, banishing the voices shouting in his head and grabbed the strap of cloth that held Amelia on his back.
The older man staggered from the look in his eyes but quickly recovered, Tio pushed the bundle of cloth in his hands and snatched the discarded blades of the hooded man. His own were too small and fragile to be reliable.
“Tio, there’s too many of them. If you go in there, you’ll just die!”
The young man weathered a heavy sigh and ignored the older man’s warning. The fire raveging the village was so much like the ones that consumed his home.
‘Don’t you dare run now.’
Tio slammed his foot against the floor.
“Tio, dammit, wait!” The older man couldn’t chase after the young man. He had too much holding him back. The young woman who was his daughter, and Amelia who he handed over. “You… you better not die!”
Then they, too, would die.
‘At least like this, they can survive. This much is fine, I’ve done all I can.’ Tio reached behind him and drew an arrow. ‘I’m sorry, old man, but when Lyra burned down….’
‘Calm… calm… take a deep breath…’
The road was littered in corpses.
The buildings were desolated by flames.
Tio’s bow trembled in his arms.
The older man wearing a bloodied leather vest and helm in front of him was the first he ran into, his face masked with an expression of surprise.
‘When Lyra burned down… when I found Amelia…’ Tio jumped and pounced the bandit, the blades he stole falling in an arc, ‘When I found that toddler’s corpse… I swore to myself.’
For one time… is already too many.
Once the flames died down, and the bandits retreated, a young woman walked into the once bustling town and wept. The older man beside her grit his teeth and screamed.
‘Calm… calm… take a deep breath…’
