Alright, the rest of it's up. Yes, it's short. I'm not one for lengthy, gigantic chapters. Sue me.
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Chapter 1 – Destiny
Chapter 1 – Destiny
The sun shattered into thousands of shades of red, orange and purple, and every color in between. It dipped low beneath the horizon, and cast huge shadows back against the earth. The slopes of distant mountains to the east were framed against the evening sky, casting huge shadows back behind them. The birds began to return to their nests, and the first crickets began their nightly song. The day-goers made their way back to home, and the night-goers began to work their way out.
Dust swept up and behind tanned leather boots. Said boots were attached to the legs of a boy nearing the end of adolescence. He was slightly above average height, standing at 5” 9 and his head of muzzled black hair was nearing shagginess. A rucksack was slung over his shoulders, and bumped against his back every time he placed a foot down on the dirt road.
His name was Harvey.
After several minutes of monotonous walking, he stood in front of a short, but large house, one of the few in the village, and not far from the business center to boot. It was sturdily built, flat-roofed, and comfortable. He pulled open the heavy-set door and a plethora of aromas hit him. He stepped into the house, and felt the warmness of being welcomed. He slipped his bag off of his shoulders and on to straw-lined floor.
“Hello, Harvey” a friendly, motherly voice said. It came from a tall, svelte woman with black hair that fell in straight lines down her back. She was long limbed, and her features were all angles. She stood over a huge pot of stew, steam rising in lazy wisps off of it. She turned around a showed Harvey a tiny smile, the kind that people give when they’re not very used to it.
“Hey, Misses Windfall” Harvey replied. He sat himself down on a stool on the sides of an elevated wooden board that acted as a table. “Mind if I stay for supper?”
“Not at all” she replied. “Julia’s not back yet” she said, answering the question Harvey had yet to ask. “She’ll be out a bit later than usual. It’s getting closer to winter, so the hunt’s harder.”
“Right, I understand” Harvey said, but frowned. She seemed to sense it, and turned to look at him, trying to seem concerned. Mrs. Maria Roselight Windfall never seemed to show genuine emotion. Sometimes, it was like she wasn’t human. But she was, as far as Harvey could tell. He had known the woman most of his life, and had grown accustomed to it.
She took four flax bowls, and started ladling stew into two of them. One of the bowls went in front of Harvey and the other on the other end of the table, where the woman promptly sat. Harvey sat for a second and simply enjoyed the aromas wafting from the stew. Misses Windfall may not be very empathetic, but she sure could cook. The picked up a wooden spoon and worked a mouthful of beef, peas and carrots around so his tongue wouldn’t burn as easily. He wasn’t very successful.
He was already halfway into his second bowl of stew when the door of the house opened once again. In its frame, stood a girl of 17, brown haired, green eyed and of clear skin. She carried a wooden bow over one shoulder and a quiver of arrows over her other. She stepped through the doorway and set both on hooks on the wall. Her name was Julia Roselight, and Harvey found her unfathomably beautiful. He had known her since he was six; their families had been friends. When Harvey’s mother had died, they had accepted him like a son. They were the only family he had, and several times it crossed his mind how incestuous his feelings for Julia seemed.
“Sorry I’m late” was the first thing she said. “The hunt was really tough today.” She sat down beside the table on a bail of hay, and graciously accepted the bowl of stew her mother set out. “Getting closer to winter, so stuff’s going into hibernation now. We hardly got by this week.” She finished the stew, set the bowl aside and leaned back. She glanced sidelong at Harvey, who quickly occupied himself with the floor. He ate the last of his stew and picked his sack up from the ground.
“Well, I ought to be going” he said, and began his way to the door.
“Wait a moment, Harvey” Mrs. Windfall said. She rose from the table and strode over to a cabinet set along the wall. Out of it, she pulled a small burlap pouch, which she offered to Harvey. It had a comfortable weight to it. He peered inside, and two dozen silver discs glittered back at him. It was the most money he had ever held in his hand. “Happy Birthday, Harvey.”
It was the eleventh of October. Harvey’s birthday was the twelfth. He had forgotten. “Misses Windfall…you don’t have to do this…”
“It’s the least we could do.”
A man, round in the stomach and bright in the eyes, stood in the doorway. Age filled his lines of laughter, and his once brown beard was almost entirely white. Mister Thomas Windfall was a man that lived his life with a smile on his face and a generous hand open at all times. “If you’re not going to celebrate your own birthday, we have to.” He clasped an age-worn hand on Harvey’s shoulder. “You’ll be seventeen, my boy. You need to find a career.” He closed the other around the pouch in Harvey’s hand. “This’ll get you started. I can get you out to Poulis on the weekend. I’ll call in some favors, get you an apprenticeship.” He leaned in closer, a habit of his that meant he truly meant what he was saying. “You’re like a son to me, Harvey. And if you think of me at all like a father, then this is something I’m doing.” He smiled from one cheek to the other.
Throughout this, Harvey listened. He looked up into the aging man’s face, and a smile of his own spread. “Thank you, really. This is…more than I could have asked for.”
“That’s why I didn’t ask!” The potbellied man let out a hearty laugh. “It’s a gift, now you accept it. That’s what your mother taught you to do, isn’t it?” He lifted his head, and looked past Harvey to his daughter. He smiled from ear to ear again. “Now, Julia, don’t you have something for Harvey?”
She smiled as Harvey turned his head to her. “Follow me” she said as she walked past him and through the open door of the house. He obediently did. She led him up a hill at the rear of the house and stared into the distance of the mountains far in the east.
“I wonder what’s past there…” she said as Harvey came to a stand beside her. “Past those mountains…”
Harvey couldn’t help but notice how the sunset bent around the curves in her face. He felt the blood rush to his cheeks and looked away. She must have seen him, because she laughed. “Smooth” he thought. He heard her move, and turned his head back.
Her face was right in front of his.
Her hands were around his.
Her lips were on his.
He nearly passed out. He spent a half a second bewildered, though it felt to him more like a century. His muscles turned to jelly, and he was surprised he didn’t melt into his boots. It wasn’t deep or strong. It was gentle. She didn’t push it further. He didn’t either. There was simply the gentleness and caring of it. It really lasted only a couple seconds, but it felt like an eternity. When she pulled away, her eyes were closed and her mouth turned into a gentle smile. She opened her eyes, and her smile widened at the boy’s expression.
“Happy Birthday, Harvey.”
And she walked back home.
He stood there. And stood. And stood. And when his mind had rebooted itself, he closed a hand around his mouth, as if to hold the memory there. In the twelve years he had known Julia, and in the ten he had known her like a sister, she had never kissed him. They didn’t talk much about ‘them’. He didn’t even know if she liked him the way he did her. But she had kissed him, on the day before his seventeenth birthday.
What a present.
He made his way home.
It wasn’t much compared to the Windfalls. A shack of reinforced logs sheltered by straw and fortified by weekly repair. It baked in the summer and the chilly winds leaked through in the winter. Harvey had to crouch to fit his head through the low hole that acted as a door. The inside wasn’t much else. One wall was completely taken up by a squat row of shelves. It showcased his mother’s last possessions; a lock of Harvey’s hair when he was three, a rusted bronze ring, a velvet jewelry box and a book.
The last was a supposed gift from his father to his mother. His father had died when he was 2; Harvey had never known him. The book was an inch and a half thick, the pages were browning along the edges and its spine was bent inward. It was covered with some form of black cloth, and on its cover a symbol of six circles intertwined within another, larger one was laid in a silver color.
The book fascinated him. It was written in Old, the glyphs used before the alphabet had been established. He had spent years teaching himself it. The book’s purpose was a mystery. It was something between a story, a recording, and a manual. He sat himself down on the pile of straw that served as his bed and cracked the book open. The very first words of the book were those that attracted him most.
“’It is said: that when the gods created the land upon which we tread, they created another one. A parallel world, like another side of a coin.’” He had memorized the passage. The words struck out at his mind. The tugged at a part of him that couldn’t reach, a place he couldn’t find, a sensation he couldn’t describe. It was like hearing someone tell you something about yourself. Something that you already knew…somehow…
He couldn’t remember how long he sat there, thinking. But when he looked out at the night sky, stars were beginning to appear. He placed the book back on the shelves, washed his face in a bowl of water from the same morning, and settled down on his bed.
He was seventeen years old tomorrow morning. He had had his first kiss. He had money that he could spend on an apprenticeship. He had a book.
As the crickets began their song, he drifted off to sleep, thinking about his destiny.