The Idlethon- Boy and Beast

First Impressions

The birds shrill squawking, like a maidens throat getting slit, woke him up again. Waking up like this every day for the last week. The borads (owl like birds) had migrated back to Galand, a beautiful island with blue-tinted soil and dry leaved forests. This boys' homeland. His eyelids felt heavy, head full as if the sharp chirping was cutting through his brain. He forgot to shut his curtains but fortunately the clouds were so thick it acted like a blanket to block out any light from the night sky. The calls finally ended and the darkness of his room allowed him to slowly drift off. But then a more unique noise caught his attention. Who would be walking around at this hour? With such heavy boots, too? Drearily, he got up from his fur covers and out of his room.

He stood at the bottom of the stairs, the darkness only granting him a ghostly outline of a figure walking around the main room, collecting things. Another bugler? He spotted a knife strapped to the banister, just for situations like this. He cautiously untied it, the weight felt strange in his hand, like something so evil didn't belong in the hand of one so young. He didn't dare warn his mother as would prefer his danger then to hers. Slowly and silently as he could he stepped down each step. The figure opened the front door just as the clouds evacuated the sky. The light illuminated the room to show the familiar figure of his father. He held a heavy-looking bag on his shoulder, wearing iron armor and a sheathed sword. No... He told them he was leaving tomorrow. This felden had deep red rings around his eyes and thinning black hair. He turned to see his young boy, looking grief struck. The blade slipped from the boys hand for its clatter to fill the solid silence pressing against his ears. Even he knew his father wouldn't come back from this war. The boy walked to his father but he held up a hand, telling him to halt. He couldn't bare a goodbye. He looked at his son one final time, soaking in his features, of his mother and of himself. For now he had a small, weak figure, barely able to raise a shield. Pride fluttered within him momentarily, as with adulthood, he would grow into the man he always knew he would be, perhaps in his generation they would finally gain independence from the geoptic-decorious Empire. He turned and shut the door. The clouds covered the moons once more, and all the boy was left with was the fading footsteps of his father in the darkness. Sullen, he managed to walk back up the stairs to try to go back to sleep. Body so weighted with emotion it turned his limbs to lead. He was hoping this was just a bad dream. But when he heard his mothers weeping in the next room he knew when he slept his nightmares would be a favored escape.

With the days to come Darro couldn't rest, the sunlight did not bring warmth; the food did not fill him. He couldn't sleep, not from the noisy birds but the weight in his gut. It was like he had eaten a boulder. He missed his father, greatly. The house seemed to turn to a graveyard, silent and unwelcoming. His mother would not come out of her room.

The geoptic-decorious Empire had only formed because azir feldens illegally invaded the geoptics homeland to overharvest crystals for their staffs and wands. This gave geoptics leverage to form a powerful bond with the decorious, both desiring their lands to remain untouched more so then other races. Since geoptics are powerful traditional mages and decorious are skilled in animal-control (traditional magic) and current magic they were formidable. Now the remaining races, centuries of being under their thumb, were fighting back. This was sparked from the azir feldon which originated from the Strongholds in the arctic to rather die on their feet then living on their knees. They were after all a strong people. But why did his father have to go- why was he born an azir felden? Why was any of this happening, why couldn't the fighting just stop? Those thoughts brought angry tears to sting his eyes and a scream that would never leave his lips.

A few days later as he was walking through the streets while going nowhere he saw a banner. It was outside the gates moving up and down as whoever was carrying it was on hase-back (a shorter, fatter looking horse with scales instead of hair). The banner- the child recognized the crest, it belonged to the generals. He had to catch up with them he had to convince them to bring his father back, or to at least see him one last time!