Ashen’s Journey: Chapter One
“Even a barren place can become a beautiful forest with time…” mutters Ashen as he is crouched down, examining a new sapling in a field full of nothing but rocks. He looks around and notices that there are no other plants in sight. He looks back at the small sapling and a small, pained smile forms on his face. “Take care, little one. I hope you will have friends before long” he says, while gently patting the plant with his large, gentle hand. As he stretches to a stand he raises his large, oak-branch limbs to the warm sun of the summer. He re-adjusts his simple green tunic and brown trousers, grabbing his walking stick, and beginning his journey towards the North in complete silence as he had no travel companions except for nature.
Ashen began allowing his thoughts to wander while he was walking through the rocky wasteland. His thoughts went back towards why he’s on this journey, as they often do. His tribe, The Guardians of the Forest, was having trouble with a neighboring settlement, a colony that was growing towards them at a terrifying pace. It was reaching towards them with its wicked, deforesting arm. The Guardians often asked the colony, who referred to their colony as ‘Liberty’, to kindly refrain from harming the forest in such a rapid manner without a hint of restraint. The colonials simply laughed at them. The Guardians began protesting and standing guard along the edge of the forest in an attempt to defend the forest peacefully, but this only worsened relations between The Guardians and Liberty.
This conflict came to a climax when The Guardians township was assaulted in the middle of the night by men who wore clothing from Liberty. They brought torches and turned their simple tents and wooden houses into brilliant bonfires with both the structure and the people as the fuel. The screams were horrid and brought tears to Ashen’s eyes as he choked back sobs. The Guardians refused to stand by idly as their people were slaughtered and attacked the flamebringers with their spears and bows. Quite a few colonials went down in the initial assault, but even greater numbers of guardians went down when the colonials brought out metal sticks that shot forth other pieces of metal, as if it were a mechanical bow with greater power. The guardians did not stand a chance and were quickly butchered. It was as the last guardian lay dying that Ashen came back. He had been out clearing his mind on a nightly walk when he heard screams and saw smoke from the direction of the village. He sprinted back home under the looming light of the full moon. When he finally was within view of his home, his family, he saw the village elder on his knees. The elder soon was knocked backwards after a loud bang emanated from the metal rod the colonials held. He looked around and saw his friends on the ground, unmoving, and the tent he lived in alone in flames. He heard the violent screams of people still trapped inside other buildings. He then looked back at the corpse of the elder lying in the dirt. He looked at the colonials and saw that he was unnoticed. He took a step backwards… then another… and another, before finally turning around and breaking into a teary-eyed sprint away from the ghastly horror unfolding in front of him. “I’ll never forgive myself” he croaks out from a throat raw from holding back pained sobs as he remembers that moment, the moment he ran from the monsters.
He had run South when he left the village and after running for what felt like hours he decided to lay down and try to sleep, although sleep did not come easily to him. When it did, it was full of nightmares. When he awoke he went back North, to confirm what he had seen was not just a fictitious nightmare. Upon arrival he saw the bloodied and charred corpses of his friends and ash where there were once buildings. He broke down in tears and laid in the ruined village until noon. He stood up, found a walking stick in the nearby woods, just slightly charred from the flames. He then decided that he will travel Northward, determined to find a place spoken of in tales and stories that could grant someone any wish, no matter how large, even if the wish is to resurrect the dead...
