Chapter I: Toil (Part I)
At a young age, I was brutally made aware of what it really meant to live in an unfair world.
This revelation did not come to me initially, when I was first born into this world, raised on the frontier of my kingdom. It did not come to me when I spent the better part of my young life toiling away on a farm as expendable labor, next to my 14 other siblings. It did not come in some grand form of discovery or diligent study.
No… it happened on a rather ordinary day. In the year 2487 of the Imperial Calendar, on a particularly wintry night…
(Music: "Mist in the Mire", Henrik Oja)
"Enos!"
"Wha-"
I stirred from my deep ponderance, looking to my mother with weary eyes; A beautiful woman with night-black hair and a milky-warm smile that somewhat-ailed the long-standing depression that'd hung over me with every damn second that passed.
Since my birth into this daunting world.
"Yes… mother?"
My hesitation to use the term, 'mother', stemmed from a secret I had told no soul since I first emerged from the womb. She thankfully didn't seem to take notice, and continued on with her request.
"Could you take these coins and go buy a few groceries from the town market?"
The softness, the kindness in her voice serenaded my burdened spirit as she took my hand, gently placing a few Imperial brass pennies in my hand and closing it. She was one of the only few in this entire township to treat me with such kindness- It probably wasn't much of a leap to assume she was one of the only few in this world.
"A carton of milk from Trader Alrun, a few sticks of butter from Farmer Malte, and five loaves of bread from Baker Elma."
I nodded quietly, pocketing the coin in my poorly-stitched trousers and hurried for the door, eager to get away from the agonizing monotony of the farmstead. As I trudged down the trail towards the distant settlement, which stood above the farmlands but was overshadowed by the mountain ranges behind it, I glanced a few times towards my siblings working the fields around our farmstead.
Minutes passed as I came ever closer towards the distant settlement; We seemed only a few miles from the township, and it was then that I began to admire the mystical properties of the environment around me.
The miasma of a fresh breeze, which billowed through the lively trees and over the untoiled grass like a loving and comfortable spirit of the heavens; The subtle cacophony of sounds within the forests and throughout the glades; Grasshoppers, rabbits, foxes and the like, but also other creatures, ones that I wanted badly to understand but had no source of gathering information.
The epic vastness of the land before me was breathtaking; I never thought my eyes would glimpse such a fantastical view of life before now, and I was proven so severely wrong- The billowing fields of hills and grasslands, the bountiful forests and wildlife, the clean air and brisk winds of magical auras that swirled around me, emanating a comforting, body-wrapping warmth that strengthened my resolve to live…
There was no doubt. I was in a fantasy world.
This was my second life.