In a world where creatures of the night attack those who wish to protect the community, there stands a fortification of honesty and dishonesty, love and hate, the answer to be heard, and the fatal silence that brings death and despair. This building houses the children of the future to bring forth the battle of life and death for all, and satisfy the deepest of desires with their power.
This world… is Albion.
Sorry. Had to do the dramatic movie voice prologue enterance. Heehee.
James is the main character that you play as in Fable. The other main character is Lillian. Any variations of these names are presumably the either one of them. Meaning any nicknames such as Lilly, Lil, Jimmy, or Jim or something similar, is the character it represents and you should assume so.
Lillian is just a couple months younger than James, and she is ten years old at the time. She has naturally black hair and amethyst eyes. She loves to play horseshoe and has a certain love of Balverines. She enjoys taking time to tend to the garden with her mother and has a knack for figuring out complex problems. She gets great pleasure from doing tasks and helping out villagers as much as she can, and takes time out of her day to help out the general store. She gets rewarded with five gold pieces a day. Lillian is rather skilled at bargaining and seeing the truth in things, so nothing gets by her that she doesn't like. She speaks her mind, and has many different hobbies. She gets bored easily, and has no problem making up games to pass time.
Lillian also tends to sense danger…
There's not much more I want to explain right now, so enjoy the story. :]
The morning sun rose from the horizon and awakened me for the new day. I smiled and rubbed the drowsiness away from my eyes. It was Theresa's birthday. I can't wait to give her the freshly picked Oakvale Daisy's I found in my family's garden. My mother is the only woman in Albion to raise her daisies in a specific manner to make them blue instead of the original purple. I'm not sure what her secret is, but she'll tell me one day. I just know it.
Theresa is my best friend's sister. My best friend is James. He and Theresa live with the father down the road in the old Perrylou house. Mr. Perrylou died last year from complications with pneumonia. They moved in immediately. James' mother always wanted a house near a hill. The village we live in, Oakvale, is a lovely town just west of Barrow Fields, and east of a camp home to thieves and bandits. Oakvale is a fairly large town compared to the size of others, as mother puts it. The grass is a lush green, and there are paths of dirt and dead weeds that give us the directional trails to places of importance. It has a fair amount of people who live here, and no school, which I find rather annoying. All the children are home schooled, which takes time away from more important things such as cleaning, and taking care of the animals and crop. There's a tavern just down the road from here, down the hill next to the shore. Mother goes there often and brings back a man named Bertram. He stays the night in mother's quarters a few times a week. I ask her why he's always here, but she only replies with "You'll know when you come of age, my dear."
I still wonder what that means.
Either way, I hold resentment for the tavern. That man makes my mother different. She usually sings during the day while tending to the garden, but she's stopped since she started bringing him home with us.
I bet she misses father.
Mother speaks of father very little, but the tone of her voice makes me wonder about him. What was he like? Did he smile like brother does? What color were his eyes?
When I speak of him, and ask about him, she always replies with the same answer. "Everyone knew who he was, but only then did they learn the meaning of fear when he bestilled directly into their hearts."
But anyway, today is supposed to be a happy day.
I immediately got out of bed, crossed the day off in my calendar, and dressed up in my most comfortable attire. I put on my loose black baggy pants and white tank top. I ran down the dirt path past two houses and walked inside the open one-roomed house where James lay on his bed, sound asleep. His father sat at the dining room table, only fit for two people even though four lived in the house.
"Good morning, sir." I greeted warmly. He flashed me a bright smile.
"Good morning, Lillian. How are you on this wonderfully bright morning?" He asked.
"Fine, thank you. And yourself?"
"Excellent. Did you hear? Theresa and James' mother is coming home today for the birthday party." He smiled. I grinned back.
"I did, and what exciting news it is."
"Theresa's playing in the fields near the road to Barrow Fields if you're interested." He said. I waved goodbye to him as I picked up her present waiting at the general store and ran down the path to greet her.
"Happy birthday." I smiled and handed over the daises I had gathered for her, along with a ribbon made from rose petals. She grinned.
"Just like I had imagined. I knew you would bring me these flowers." She smiled. I believed Theresa had a special gift, as did she, that her dreams were prophetic. She could see into the future, and her dreams were the only way she could. Her smile had faded into nothingness. "I also seen terrible things. I believe the village is in danger. James will bring me chocolates, and then there was shouting, but I woke up after then. I believe I'm not supposed to warn anyone, and that's why I had woke up.
"Terrible things are about to happen. Today, I presume. I must forewarn you not to leave the village. You have to be here when it happens. You have to keep James safe, for there's nothing I can do." She wasn't speaking, this was her darker side, her visionary side. And I believed her. I nodded and agreed to watch over James.
"You know, Terry, sometimes you scare me." She giggled silently.
"It's not my intention." She has such good grammar it's hard to tell what she's really saying. And when she's explaining her dreams, it's hard to tell if it's her talking, or another force stronger than human kind can imagine.
We began to play a game of horseshoe while we waited for her party to start. Down the road, James was sprinting towards us with a box of chocolates in his hand. The box was wrapped delicately in gold paper with a bright red ribbon in his hands. Theresa was right again.
"Oh, brother, did you forget my birthday again this year?" She teased. "It's quite alright. I knew you'd bring me a box of chocolates, I saw it in my dream." She told him. The wind began to pick up and clouds began to hover over us, tauntingly as they darkened, welcoming the brutality that was about to happen. I walked towards the fence that surrounded the crop field that had not yet begun to grow we were standing in. Down the road, I could see a man running from Barrow Fields, a popular trading community among Albion.
"Bandits!
"Run, hide! They're com-" He was cut short and he fell down to the ground, a now bloody arrow sticking out of his back. I gasped in horror.
"This is it! My dream…" Theresa began, then stopped herself. "Hide! We must hide!" Pulling James to the ground next to me, we hide in the small field behind vines that had crawled up along side of the fence. I could hear the roars from the large group of bandits as they ran up the road and into Oakvale. The roars were followed by metal clashing between the guards and bandits, followed by blood chilling screams. I began to cry silently, worrying about my mother and Blaise, my younger brother. I peered through the fence and awaited quietly, hoping the group wasn't large enough to put a dent in our population.
We waited hours in field as we watched our hometown light up in a firey blaze. There was nothing we could do, or anyone could do, due to the lack of communication among the small city-states of Albion.
"We have to go find our families." I told him. He shook his head, fear in his eyes. "Please, you're with me right, Theresa?" I asked and turned to my brown haired friend, but to my dismay, she was no where to be found. My heart stopped.
"Theresa?" I called out. No answer. I turned back to James.
"If you're not going to leave, then I will." I told him. I stood up and turned all the way around. Bandits were no where to be found. They had disappeared. I walked away from James and headed up the hill and through the roofed bridge, headed towards my home turning every corner carefully. I felt a hand on my shoulder and jerked around to meet eyes with James. Breathing in relief, I turned back around and headed into the residential area of the town. As soon as we entered, I could see James' house on fire, and in front of his house, lay his father with a knife in his back. James immediately ran towards him and fell to his knees. I walked forward and sat next to him, he began crying intensely. His father was all he had left, basically. His mother was always gone.
Then, there was a shriek. We looked up from the corpse that lie in front of us.
"Ahhhhahahah! Got another one!" We heard from two houses down. Oh no, mother. I stood up.
"Mother!" But I knew it was no use. I began to run but stopped dead in my tracks as a man wearing a brown vest and baggy pants exited my home. He screamed the infamous bandit cry and headed towards James and I with a katana in his hand. I backed up slowly, too afraid to begin running, and froze.
A bright flash lit up the town, and he fell dead before me.
Behind him was a man with a neon, glowing tattoo on his face. He was rather tall, with white hair that had been slicked back. He wore a thick, armored, purple trench coat with its collar popped and purple fingerless gloves.
"We must leave. It's not safe here." He stated as he walked forward. I backed away and fell next to James. The man looked agitated.
"They're all dead. You don't want to join them do you?" He asked, even though we knew it wasn't a question, I shook my head anyway.
"Then… give me your hand." He said, holding out his hands to us, his palms facing toward the sky in a very kind gesture. I hesitated, backing away a little. As I tried to push myself away from him, James' hand appeared beside me as he reached out to the untrustworthy man. I glanced at him with a glare.
"I want to live." He told me. I believed in James' judgment, so I reached out and grabbed the mysterious saviors' hand. In a bright flash, we traveled through dimensions and time, arriving at another mysterious place. My stomach felt woozy, but I retained my energy.. and lunch, unlike James who threw up on the ground next to me. I scooted away from him. The older gentlemen who just saved us look disgusted, and a little disappointed.
"Hmm.. thought you would have a stronger stomach than that, my friend. Now come on." He said as he held out his hand to pick us up off the ground. I pulled myself away from him and stood up myself as James began to fight him off.
"Save your energy, boy, it's not me you want to fight." James let his arms fall, and his world was crashing down upon him. He didn't care that I was watching him cry, or that his family had been stripped from him. Mine had as well, but I must appear strong to this man. He might be pulling us away from Oakvale for a more torturous death. I could not appear weak.
I can't afford to appear weak.
He looked to both of us.
"There's nothing left for you in Oakvale, and if you had stayed, you'd be as dead as the rest of them." He watched us as we began to show our more emotional, vulnerable side. I stayed strong. I have to stay strong until I'm alone.
"Now come on." He began to walk away, not bothering to look back to see if we were following. I paused before looking at James.
"Come on, we need to survive. He might really be helping us." I told him. He just let tears roll down his cheeks and followed with me. We watched this man and trailed behind him like lost puppy dogs.
"My name is Maze, and I'm the head of the Guild of Heroes. You must've heard of it. You'll find no where safer in Albion. Nor a better place to call your home." He glanced back at us. "And if it's vengeance you want, you'll need the training only we can offer." We arrived at a tall building surrounded by large grey bricks and torches. It seemed like a castle, a palace for the matter, of protection. The doors are large and wooden, which reminds me of a fairytale chamber.
"Here we are. I'll introduce you to the Guildmaster. He'll be your guide from now on." He glanced at us and opened the doors. There are large stairs leading up to a smaller scale of the Albion terrain. There are cards along the sides of it, colored coated cards. The room is a small room with many large openings leading to other rooms. There are two small rooms off of each side: one with a blue light and one with a green. I glance upwards to see a delicate colored glass design with the Albion symbol for a warrior. I glanced around the room, all eyes were on me and James. We received sympathetic looks and some humorous looks.
"The only survivors. It's a shame is what it is." It made my heart sting to think of such a tragedy.
"I have two new students for you. Put them in the dorm upstairs with the girl." Maze told an older gentlemen. He looked a lot like my grandfather. He was balding, with fuzzy white hairs on the sides of his head, the back of his head, and around his lips. He looked us over.
"You two don't look much like Hero material to me, but Maze knows what he's doing, I suppose." He sighed. I glared at him, which he shrugged off.
"Well, follow me then." He stated and walked up the stairs. I began to follow him slowly, but took a moment to glance back at Maze, who watched us walk up the stairs. He just nodded to me, because I knew James wasn't looking at him, and I turned away.
"You two will be sharing this room with Whisper, one of our brightest young pupils." The guildmaster said as we entered the room. It was a rather large room, larger than my home's one and only room, with a bright red theme and luxury beds instead of planks with blankets.
"But you'll meet her in the morning, she's down in the library studying. You need to get your sleep, tomorrow starts your extensive training." He said and walked away. James sat down on one bed, and I sat down on the other, leaving one more for this mysterious room mate.
We sat in silence for the longest time.
"We only have each other now, James." I told him. He looked up. His eyes watered, which made my eyes water. "We'll be okay. I know we will."
We have to be. For our family's sake.
For revenge's sake.
[I also know I'm not a very good writer, so please bare with me. I tend to move too fast]
