Horizon: Justice Calling

Prologue

All-mother be praised. Grata thought, emerging from the hut that served as her resting place.

A new dawn was rising once again in the sacred land, the sun's golden rays illuminating the snow-capped mountains of The Embrace. As Grata turned and knelt before the Sacred Mountain, white snowflakes drifted off the leaves, glittering like pale jewels as they slowly fell to the ground. Though it had been years since she had been cast out of the tribe, in moments such as these, Grata could almost forget the pain and regret of the past. Pushing away the poignant memories that filled her mind, the outcast turned to face All-mother mountain and, still on her knees, began to pray.

"All-mother, hear my words. Enlighten my head with truth, inflame my heart with strength and wisdom like the light that shines over the world. Show me your grace, All-Mother, for it is this day life begins anew-"

Her prayer was interrupted by a sudden cooing and laughter coming from her hut. Smiling, Grata rose to her feet and made her way back to the hut, gently picking up the baby in her arms and turning to face the sacred mountain once again. The child squealed in surprise as a snowflake landed on the tip of his nose, waving his arms as if attempting to catch the snow.

"What's that now, don't like the snow?" Grata asked, placing the child in a cradleboard. "But we cannot stay in today. Today is a special day." Slowly, Grata pulled a bracelet from her wrist and placed it around the baby's own wrist. The child gurgled and cooed, curious at the object that had just been handed to him and let out a laugh of delight as one of the beads glinted in the sunlight.

"Here, wear this... it belonged to my son."

For a moment, Grata felt a small tear form in her eye as the melancholic feeling swept over her once more. To hold a child once more in her arms! While this baby was not her own child, the feeling that once had gave her so much joy, now merely felt bittersweet in her throat.

"Today I speak your name, boy." Grata declared, lifting the child onto her back and grasping her spear. "May All-Mother bless it and speak it back."

Pity filled the outcast woman's heart as she made her way out of the clearing that made up her camp and began walking towards the Sacred Mountain. Ordinarily, it would be the mother who declared a newborn's name... if this child had one. Grata still vividly recalled the day when she had heard the rumours - the discovery of two children within the heart of All-Mother mountain, with no woman who could possibly have been their mother. Word had spread quickly around Mother's Watch and The Embrace - the children of the Metal Devil had been sent to their lands, who would grow to awaken their father once more from his eternal shame and defeat and destroy the Nora once and for all.

Grata had scoffed when she had first heard those rumours, for how can a new life be born without a mother and her womb to grow it? It was only until she had been visited by the High Matriarchs themselves and been asked to raise a motherless child did she had even begun to suspect that maybe... just maybe, the rumours were not entirely false.

The outcast woman sighed as she trekked through the forest and began to follow the trail leading to All-Mother mountain. Being made an outcast was a punishment reserved for those who had committed a crime or broke tribal law. What had this child, innocent of any crime, done to deserve such a fate? She had silently cursed the woman who gave birth to this boy and the other child, whoever she may be. For what kind of mother gives birth to a child and simply abandons them to their fates? Even so, she had prayed every day to the goddess to bless and protect this child since the day she was entrusted to raise the boy.

"Do you know how the world came to be, little one?" Grata began, crouching down behind a thicket of leaves and branches as a herd of machines emerged from the trees and onto the trail. "In the beginning, all life came from All-Mother. People, beasts... and machines. All were her children."