Chapter 2
Enter: Aragon

Far to the north, ten thousand miles across the northern seas, there lied the Northern Realms. The Northern Realms was a large continent with a big population of humans, animals, and other creatures that was inhabitant to these parts of the world.

In a village with brown, wooden buildings that looked like medieval buildings, inside a house was a boy of nineteen years old lying on his bed with a blanket covering his body. He had black hair that looked spiky, and his skin was slender.

His name was Aragon, a boy who dreams of living with the dragons that his people considered as myths and legends and non-existing. However, Aragon believed the dragons lived far beyond the seas, but his people laughed at his words. They did not believe, but he will make them eat their words one day when he is ready on a journey to the Realms beyond theirs.

Aragon shifted under the blanket, opening his blue eyes and let out a yawn before he swung his legs to the edge of the bed. He sighed before standing up and stretched his arms wide. He relaxed, before taking his clothes on. His clothing looked very medievalist with a brown leather tunic, and brown jeans. His boots were a black color.

"Are you awake, Aragon?" A sweet, angelic voice came from behind his door.

"Yes, Mom. I am awake," he called back as the door opened to reveal a beautiful, middle-aged woman in her forties as her raven black hair hung from the back of her head. Her beautiful sapphire blue eyes shined with life as they stared into Aragon's blue eyes.

"Looks like you're ready for a long day, my son," the woman smiled beautifully to him as she looked at him.

"Eh, just some swordsmanship and woodwork," Aragon shrugged his shoulders. "No big deal."

"The same as usual," the woman, who was known as Rebecca, chuckled as she turned around. "Breakfast is ready if you want some." She then left his room as Aragon followed after her into the living room of their house.

A boy at the age of twenty one looked to Aragon as he grinned to the young man. "Tell me, brother. Did you dream about dragons again?"

"So, what if I did, Orion?" Aragon crossed his arms as he narrowed his eyes to his elder brother.

"Well, you always seem to be wanting to live with them," Orion started. "So, I thought you might be good to leave us."

"Don't be mean or say that, Orion." Their mother scolded the elder brother, who frowned.

"What? It's the truth, mother." Orion huffed before returning to his breakfast.

Orion was a man with a muscular body, brown eyebrows and green eyes. His blue tunic was different from Aragon's in term of color, but it was also made of leather. His jeans were gray instead of brown in comparison to Aragon's jeans. Orion's hair was raven black like their mother's.

Orion ate his chicken leg before gulping his food down, as he stood up from the table and spoke up. "I'll be leaving now. My mentor needs me." He turned and left his family into silence.

Aragon sighed in distress about his brother's words, but he let them slip aside from his mind as his mother assured him with her soft words.

"Don't listen to your brother, Aragon. He'll come around with more meaning to his words." She was being honest in her sentence.

"Still...why do I feel like he's right?" Aragon questioned to neither her nor himself. He mumbled lowly to himself, "Maybe he's right...I don't belong here if I want to live with dragons..."

"Just be yourself, and one day, he'll be ashamed of himself," Rebecca told her son.

"I hope so..." Aragon finished his breakfast as he heard a bell ringing from outside. "Shoot! I'm running late!" He quickly stood up from his chair and ran out of the front door to the village outside.

Aragon rushed to the woodsman's house as he passed by some people and greeted them in his rush. He stopped in front of an old man in his late sixties who had gray hair and a beard that matches his hair. His eyes were a silver color.

The man looked intensely at the young boy who panted in front of him. "You've almost arrived late, young lad. You'll have work in twenty minutes. Get yourself prepared."

"I...I'm sorry!" Aragon gasped for breath as he took a big inhale before exhaling his breath he did not know he had withheld within him.

The man smiled. "It's fine, Aragon. You'll be cutting some wood today for the fireplace, as well as doing some extra work for nearly coming late."

Aragon saluted to the man, who chuckled at him before the boy began to work.

He started out with cutting some wood his master had given him. Aragon used his ax to cut the woods to two pieces, and his mentor took the broken woods to wagon where he placed the wood pieces on. Aragon continued doing this for the past hour before he got sweaty from all the work alone.

"You may take fifteen minutes break, my lad." His mentor eventually told him.

Aragon stopped what he was doing and he walked over to a chair and sat down on it while wiping the sweat from his forehead with a hand.

This is some hard work, he commented silently to himself. I wonder what he'll do with the wood I cut for him...oh, the fireplace. Of course.

The fifteen minutes were soon over as Aragon returned to cut the last woods for the morning before he eventually goes to the sword training area with his mentor for some swordsmanship.

Arriving at the training area, Aragon and his mentor, who was called Alfred, began to work on their training with their respective given swords by the soldiers of the village. Aragon stood on one side while Alfred was on the other, and they took fighting stances before they charged and clashed swords with each other. Each sound of the blades hitting echoed through the area as the two men dueled each other.

This lasted until the last hour of the afternoon where they took a break from work for the evening that arrived quicker than Aragon had expected.

Aragon soon walked home to his mother and brother, walking into the living room as he and Orion waited for dinner to come on the table. The dinner arrived, and the three began to dig into the food.

Aragon soon finished his meal and he stood up from his chair, stretching his arms as Orion commented, "You sure look tired, Aragon."

"After a full day of wood-cutting and sword training, yeah," Aragon agreed with his brother before letting out a yawn. "You sure get tired for that."

Orion chuckled. "I've been cutting some trees down in the forest near the village, sword trained to get better at defending myself, and took the rest a break."

Aragon smirked. "So, we've done the usual things, dear brother."

"Yup." Orion grinned as well. "I wonder what's in for tomorrow?"

"Who knows," Aragon shrugged in reply. "We can't foresee the future, after all."

"Nope." Orion agreed with his young brother there. "But, we can always see what it might bring to us if we look and watch our step carefully. Danger still lurks around every corner, after all, Aragon."

Rebecca stood up and took the dishes out to the kitchen to wash them. She decided to let her boys speak with each other.

Aragon let out another yawn, shaking his head before deciding, "Well...I'm tired, so I'll go sleep early. See you tomorrow?"

"Yeah." Orion nodded as Aragon turned and left for his room, leaving the elder brother in his thoughts. I can't lose him if he wants to live with the dragons...I'm probably going to regret thinking of this if he still wants that in the future.

Orion shrugged as he yawned before walking to his room and took an early sleep as well.

The sun rose the next morning, and the birds chirped happily in their nests as the humans in the village awoke from their slumber. They began to walk out of their homes as they started with getting to work for the day.

Aragon, on the other hand, was still asleep in his comfy bed in his room. He shifted a bit before his closed right eye twitched a little, and he woke up with a small gasp. He looked out of his window, seeing the sun was up.

"Shoot! Not again!" Aragon shot right out of his bed and got dressed, with his clothes on rather messy before he ran out of his house after taking a quick breakfast. Aragon rushed to Alfred's house, stopping in front of a glaring man before the boy adjusted his clothes while he rubbed the back of his neck. "Uh...I slept in, didn't I?"

Alfred sighed, shaking his head in dismay before tossing Aragon the ax.

Aragon immediately began to cut the wood to two pieces like the day prior. This had taken him two hours unlike before, as Alfred was getting a bit annoyed with the boy's sleeping habits of sleeping over his usual time to get to work.

Aragon finished his woodcutting with his ax before he took twenty minutes a break. He wiped the sweat from his forehead, and Alfred walked out of his house with two cup of mugs in his hands.

"Just a little reward for finishing your work, Aragon." Alfred handed the first cup to the boy, who gratefully took it and sniffed it once before taking a sip of the tea that was filled in the mug.

Aragon took three more sips of his tea before handing Alfred the cup as the man walked back inside his house and returned a moment later. Aragon smiled to his mentor, as Alfred returned the gesture before he motioned him to follow. Aragon blinked, but complied to the man's wish as they walked away from the village.

Aragon looked behind him, seeing the village coming away from his vision as he glanced back to Alfred, who stopped in the middle of his walk, and Aragon did the same.

Alfred turned to the boy, speaking in a voice that was unlike before; it sounded rough and old. "Aragon...I would've wished that my days would stay with you forever, but...it looks like my time has come."

Aragon blinked, tilting his head in confusion. "Why?" he asked his mentor.

"Because, look at the sun." Alfred spoke before pointing a finger into the air, Aragon followed the meaning of his pointing, as the boy felt a wind blowing against him just as Aragon returned to look at Alfred...who was no longer there.

Aragon gasped, seeing no body in front of him as he looked around for his mentor. "Alfred?! Where are you?!" He called out, but received no answer or reply. Aragon panicked, no longer able to spend time with his favorite human in the whole village without having to spar with others. Aragon groaned, resting his head on his hands as he stood in the area he was at.

He silently sobbed at what had happened.

Aragon returned to the village after having sometime to himself, his eyes looking as tired as ever. He did not know why, but it must've been an side effect from his mentor's disappearance, which had come out of nowhere.

The boy stopped as he was almost inside his village when a village elder walked up to him. The elder looked in his mid-sixties and had gray hair and gray eyes.

"Aragon, what's wrong?" the elder asked to the boy.

"Nothing," the boy simply replied.

"Really? You look troubled by something," the elder noted, smiling gently to him. "Come on, you can tell me once we return you to your house."

Aragon silently nodded as he followed the elder in silence back to his house. When they arrived there, Rebecca was outside the front door, tending to her small garden near the house's walls. She noticed them at last as she stopped doing what she has been working on after seeing the troubled expression on her young son.

"He's been silent since I came to him," the elder told Rebecca. "Rebecca, whatever happens to him, come and tell me if anything's wrong."

"Sure thing, elder." Rebecca nodded to him before the elder turned and left them in peace. Rebecca then looked to her son, motioning him to follow her inside.

Aragon did follow her, but he stayed in silence for a few minutes before her soft voice began speaking to him.

"Son, what is wrong? You can tell me," Rebecca spoke softly to him, stroking his hair as Aragon sighed in distress.

"It's about Alfred..." he finally whispered.

"What happened?" His mother asked.

"He's gone." Was the only thing he spoke as it hit Rebecca's head before she sighed.

"He was an old man, Aragon. His time had come to disappear from all his work," she told her son.

"But, who will train me in swordsmanship further?" Aragon asked her, his eyes going into tears, but Rebecca wiped them gently with her hand. "He can't be replaced. He was like a father figure to us, you know."

"I know, son." Rebecca sighed, shaking her head. "But, life just moves on after their jobs are done. You can't change time or the future of people, Aragon."

Aragon lowered his head in sadness, sniffing before he looked to his mother. "I promise that I'll find someone else to train me, mom."

"That's the way, son." Rebecca smiled warmly to his words. "You can find someone to train you in one of the cities outside our village's land. Just promise you'll find a messenger to give us a message about your arrival in one of them."

"I will." Aragon nodded before he let out a yawn. His mother smiled to him as he stretched his arms. "I'll do that tomorrow. I need rest."

"Alright, son." Rebecca nodded as he walked into his room for his rest. Rebecca looked behind her. "Promise me you'll keep an eye out for him, Orion." She saw her eldest son with his arms crossed as he gave her a nod of his head.

"I promise, Mother." Orion promised.

Aragon was in his room, his head resting on his hands as he stared up at the ceiling in the room while he frowned.

It felt like she want me to leave, he thought to himself. I promise to be safe tomorrow, mom.

He let out a yawn before closing his eyes as he slept through the night.

Author's Note:

Here's chapter two, everyone. I hope you're enjoying this story so far. I promise that the next chapter will be a bit longer than the beginning chapters of this act.

I don't have anything to say, so I am leaving for now to get to work on the next couple of chapters.

Until then, my friends!