Prologue
They are many; the choices we make. For the most part, we make choices, seeing only the immediate results and not as it is: a web. The everyday choices of any one individual connects, intertwines and weaves with every other choice, both the ones we consider to be important, and the ones to be trivial to make one single, unifying reality, binding the mighty and the meek alike, submitting them both to the same plain.
Although, at times, there are unexplainable rifts in the web, from which one can have the total liberty to start anew, making fresh choices, and weaving a new path.
Some would call these coincidences, fortune, chaos, or opportunities even. But there are times in which these coincidences, these opportunities allow for ordinary folk to become extraordinary.
And so it was, that by a strange rift, an unexplainable coincidence, an unsought opportunity, that one of Albion's greatest hero's came to be. However, this hero did not come to be in the conventional way. No hero is, but this one, was special in particular.
He had a name, one known only to those whom really knew him, loved ones and enemies alike. But his one, single, unifying name, is one that was known throughout the lands at the end of his days. A name that caused dread, adoration, worship, and even hatred, but the one thing that bound all of these feelings together, was the knowledge of what this Hero did.
The people of Albion knew him as Knight.
The people of the city of Saint Juan knew him as Serge.
And this, is his Fable.
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Sergio Alexander was on his way home as he always was; bored and hollow and not for the usual reasons either. Today, was an especially shitty day. He had just left the mall and was on his long, cold, way back to the first floor apartment where he lived with his dad and older sister. The date he had been on was for lack of a better word, aggravating and so had the previous dates as well. It was such a peculiar thing, the subtle sign that one gets farther in life by being a lesser human being.
He was struggling in school, trying to get by so he could get his damned diploma and head to study in Canada so he could do what he loved most; writing.
He actually placed a great deal of effort into trying to get good marks in honestly, while the cheaters in his class got by on an easier note without the same hard work.
He was kind and sweet, unafraid to admit he is wrong or to apologize, an idealist philanthropic human being obviously. But this was mistaken for weakness and so he was never taken seriously and was often disregarded and made fun of. What more, he didn't like fighting, and avoided it at all costs.
And as to girls, well, he often thought of himself as an idiot. He was honest, forward and affectionate with his dates and every time, they rejected him because of the same behavior. Everyone always told him not to do that, to ignore his date half the time and to be cold. He retorted in response that the girl that picked up on his personality would be someone special, someone worth knowing and being with. So far, he was alone, rejected time and again. He was too nice, if that is even possible.
Here he was, seventeen years old, single, angry, lonely, and virtually divorced by his mother living in a rough part of the rough city.
He hated most people in his life, or professed to anyway. But truthfully he was incapable of being a bad guy or of changing his ways from being a softie.
Still, on a more positive note, he had bought Fable II, one of his favorite games, that same afternoon.
He trudged through the concrete canyons, that composed the city of Saint Juan, through his usual route home. Zipping up his jacket and clutching at the video game in his cargo pants pocket he stole a gaze at the raunchy women at the local bar "The Crystals". He sighed and kept walking, he had read only very little into the game of Fable II and had concluded that he lived in a safer version of Bloodstone, which was nice that there were policemen around, however there were prostitutes, thieves and thugs everywhere. But oddly enough, he had never had any troubles with anyone, and he knew it was because he had the ability to be invisible to most people, even when he spoke. Thugs looked at him, but he knew, that they saw through him at the walls or rather the graffiti behind him. It was as if they were registering a gust of wind, or the trickle of movement at the corner of one's eye that disappears as soon as you look.
It just made him angrier, he wanted to be noticed, he wanted to be loved. He knew, he felt it to be a divine right of sorts to be recognized because he was a noble person, a genuinely incorruptible human being. Or so he thought.
Still, dad was right; In life you don't get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate.
He got home after slipping by the rough crowds out in the streets as if he was a ghost. It must have been a longer walk than he remembered, or perhaps he took his time a little more than he intended, a lot more than intended, it was 2 am. Sis and dad were dead asleep.
He skulked into his room where his older sister was sleeping and put on his PJs and stole away to the small living room and turned on the TV silently. He pressed the Xbox's eye and it glowed a lemon green, his 360 always seemed to be in a good mood. It had a humming rhythm that made it sound as though it was indeed humming a tune. He smiled in spite of the crappy day. His Xbox was always happy, rain or shine.
He put in the game and smiled in the dim light from the window blinds, he played for a few minutes noting the likeness in how his sister in the game; Rose, looked like his older sister in the real world when she was about eleven or twelve. Weird as well that his sister was also named after a flower; Violet.
As Rose or young Violet twisted the lever of magic box they had bought from the trader, fabled to grant wishes he tried pretending he was the hero himself. Somehow, it always gave his game more personality and entertained him more to speak for the hero, if only to himself.
Rose looked at the box as it opened saying with wanting words, desperately wanting her wish.
I wish……I wish
Sergio smiled and though silently.
I think I know your wish Rose. You want to live in that castle, Fairfax, wasn't it? Want to know mine?
Sergio frowned and felt that void in his heart, dug by dissatisfaction, endless disappointments and countless rejections, from people he held his heart to, to even his own mother. The monotony of a life without meaning or fulfillment, a great soul, trapped in a small body.
It was unfair……
No one ever gets their wish, and neither will Rose. He knew she was going to die, he just knew it. If there is one thing that is true about real fables and the game, is that the hero always, always suffers. Something bad was going to happen her, and to little Sparrow, him, himself. He just knew it.
I wish…….I wish I was the Hero, for once, I wish I could live in Albion. A place in which I am not what I was born as, but I am who I have it in myself to be.
There was a faint flash illuminating the shards of lit space in the living room, and the sound of broken glass and then darkness, like that of a deep dream.
Sergio was in a thoughtless state, but he heard and understood Theresa's voice.
Death is not your fate today little Sparrow…..
When he awoke again……
He would find, to his amazement, horror, joy, and agony that life itself…..
Granted his wish…..
