Chapter 8: Good Old Days; Long Forgotten

"When has there ever been a time I have lied to you?" A lad of nineteen asked another.

His body relaxing as he sat on top of a rock, looking over a lake. With his best friend since childhood right down the side of the rock, who did the same.

"Where should I start?" The other asked, with a rolling from his eyes.

Though they might have been the same in age. They were far from being the same individuals.

The boy who made self claimed king of the large rock. With his shoulder length hair whipped out when the wind picked up and his jade eyes looking almost sorry to what his friend said to him just moments ago. Pale skin under diluted clothes was bitten red from being out in the sun to long.

"Oh, Hasad, come on!" The pale one mock cried to the other.

Hasad, a thin boy, with tanner skin and mud hair to his chin. His cheeks even darker than the rest of him from being out for too long. His matching clothes did the same as his friend when a light breeze came by.

"No! I am sick of this!"

"It's a simple question."

"That needs more than one answer and you know that!"

The pale lad stood on top of the rock. Not angry. Hurt.

"If there something wrong and you don't have cheats to speak of it. Then you can leave it be!"

"Ha! You'd finally made me laugh of those lines you call jokes."

Then they both laughed. Knowing that this was a pointless battle for the both of them.

"Forgive?"

"Do we even need to?"

"Yes, you are right."

"But, Hasad, I do mean what I said before."

"Caldy, you know can do a lot of dullard things. But I can never be mad at you."

"Thank you. And please don't call me that! Please, call me by my given name!" Giving an odd smile.

"Sorry, Caldwell, it's so much easier to say sometimes."

"That changes nothing!"

Again the duo laughed and went on their day as they did so many times before. Not caring for whatever might come by them.

There is that saying; that there is a time where things can be simple as the sun's warmth. But there is also a saying when those times come to end as the seasons can only copy it.

"I don't want to do this."

"Do we really have a choice?"

"We are like brothers, no?"

"Even brothers fight. Though don't tell Caldy that, it would break his heart."

"Not like this."

"Please. Give my regards to him, that king of yours."

"He's your king too."

"Once he was, now he's a traitor to everything from his people to the laws of old."

"And what of your friend? In a means for he is not your brother no more."

"May he find his peace." Wiping the blade clean of the ancestry.

"Will you find yours? If not, you know I will come looking for you, as it is in my blood. A hunt is a hunt to the bitter end."

The man looked up at the new formed foe, seen as more as entitlement than foul ways, recalling of a time they were once on a path of friendship.

"Yes. When I am dead or the me they designed has burnt to ash." Leaving the room, never returning to it and forever lost in a dark storm of death.

It was later that battering day, the king's men found the stone gone. Along with his son. The only sign that kept peace within the land was forever lost. The only thing that was left behind for others to see was a body and words written in blood.

The war is far from over. Two of bond and blood . . .

The rest was washed away, due to the light rain that founded itself within the castle's walls. All who wanted to know, never lived to find the answer.

Caldwell never did see his friend after he helped fake his death to accepted from all the darkness had to give. Seeing the writing on the wall, as he passed through the halls in hope to find his friend was still there.

The words made it clear.

"I'll save you Hasad. Even if I have to give up my soul to do so."

If Hasad was by his side then, he would have told him it wasn't worth it and not do it. But he never was to say it.