The Meager Vigil
Every year, the harvest of the grain bustled the little hamlet of Prifil. The bundles of green wheat were carefully taken to the giant windmill in the center of the village. Grinding each grain with care, soft green flour channeled down the chute and were collected by the housewives.
Bere came from the poorest family of Prifil. At the tender age of eighteen, Bere was preparing to attend the University of Svar in the southwest to pursue her dream in blacksmithing. While she loved her family and their work, the way the scythes dance in the fields of wheat enchanted her to learn more about the bending of metal.
Friday was her final day of harvesting wheat with her family.
Her father and mother went back to Prifil, woven baskets filled with green wheat upon their backs.
Bere’s younger sister, Hyia, patted Bere’s back and smiled at her. She never spoke a word, but Bere always knew what she was thinking with her smile on her little face. Skin pale as the moon and hair red as blood, she was a beauty to behold.
“I’ll come back in a little bit, OK?” Bere smiled.
Hyia nodded, and skipped happily after her mother and father in the far distance.
After two long hours, Bere was at last prepared to take her final harvest back to Prifil. With her bare feet she stepped in the newly cut green wheat, almost bouncing back to the hamlet. The far distance did not show Prifil, yet once you get closer and closer to the village, the awesome size of the windmill and the bustling of the villagers makes you appreciate the life of the smaller people.
As Bere walked closer to the unending horizon of wheat, she noticed a whiff of smoke poke out from the horizon.
“That’s odd...” Bere murmurred. “It’s not time yet to bake. Did someone burn the bread again...?”
Bere sighed and rushed to the whiff of smoke in the distance. It was still some time before Bere reached about a mile near the village to see the whiff of smoke was a by product of the huge fire set upon the windmilll and surrounding houses.
“Haha...” Bere gasped in shock and dropped her harvest behind her. She made a full sprint to Prifil, not caring if the fires around her burned her sides and harvest gown. She patted the fires out while she ran, looking at every direction in Prifil.
Bodies strewn in the single routed streets, some dangling from their houses, others were run through on the windmill spikes. The stench of death and charring bodies overwhelmed Bere, but she had to find someone with a pulse. Anyone.
After a few turns, she came upon her straw and wooden house where her family was supposed to be after the harvest. It was a burning inferno. The door smoked, trying its best to keep the blaze within. To serve the last purpose of its life.
She gritted her teeth and slammed against the door with her small shoulder. The door gave way and shattered into hundreds of splinters. Couches, benches, the kitchen table...everything was set ablaze. Upon the kitchen table, two large bodies were found thrown on top of each other and were blackened to the bone. Bere almost threw up on the spot and would let the red flames carry her to her parents.
Red.
Hyia.
Bere snapped out of her sorrow and looked around for any sign of her in the flames. There was none. Jumping out of the house through the window, she looked in every direction for any sign of her sister. She knew she was the only girl in the village to have red hair.
She thanked the stars as she saw red hair sticking in the mud, followed by small foot prints running away from Prifil. Bere hastily followed the trail, but it ended cold outside the village as she noticed that there were no foot prints on the rocky outcrops east of the village.
Climbing the outcrop to see the vast planes of Era, there was no sign of life, blood, or death.
It took a full day for the fires to die down. Burnt corpses littered the street, sometimes tripping Bere in terror. But they were her family.
A grave was made for every single member of Prifil. All the buildings were knocked down by Bere, except for the giant windmill which was too cumbersome to take down. There was just too many bodies that the village space needed to be destroyed.
Placing hundreds of blue candles upon the graves tired her body, though she knew it would mean a lot to her people. The night sky glittered in the heavens and to Bere’s surprise, wisps of greens, purples and blues went up to the stars. Where exactly, she was not sure. But she knew they will be at peace now.
Yet Bere cannot be at peace until she finds Hyia and whoever destroyed her village.
This painting is available in high quality wallpaper resolution as a Patreon reward.
Please look at my Pateron for more details.
https://www.patreon.com/oomikami?ty=h