Mythas' Return: The Lost Princess

Prologue

Prologue

Challop watched as a gentle drizzle began to fall over the valley behind their cottage. The smell of warm acorn bread permeated the air as his wife, Morlia, began cutting root vegetables for the stew she would soon prepare. Challop looked away from the window, as its view began to streak with raindrops, and continued skinning the rabbit he had trapped earlier near the mountainside. It was a quiet and simple life after their exile, just as they had hoped. Challop's hands were still calloused from hauling the lumber and stone to build their humble cabin, but he preferred it this way - as it made hard work feel less cumbersome.

He noticed an itching deep within his cloven foot, and took the paring dagger he had been using for the rabbit to gently pry a pebble out from betwixt his hoof's split.

"That does not hurt you, dear?" Morlia asked, tenderly. Challop only shook his head, standing up to retrieve a stone to sharpen his blade. He was a satyr of few words, but his wife surely enjoyed the picture he painted: a strong and lumbering man with warm ashen skin that reminded her of fresh charcoal, paired with a pair of seal brown legs that stood sinewy, muscles tensing beneath their fur as they carried each of his hefty steps when he clacked across the room.

"I still cannot imagine having hooves such you, Challop," his wife noted as she peered down at her own feet, which appeared more like that of a horse.

Morlia was a faun; their only difference to their brother race, satyrs, was just that: their hooves. However, most races in Loncyre believed otherwise. The common distinction, according to legend, was that fauns were born good and satyrs, evil. It had been said that the gods placed the crack in their hooves to represent their eternally broken souls. In their homeland, the country known as Yagrivan, interaction between the brother and sister races was to be kept to a cordial minimum. Friendships were frowned upon by most and usually prohibited by parents, and marriage between them was strictly forbidden by ancient law.

Challop peered into the hearth of their mudbrick oven, taking a deep breath and relaxing his long ears for a moment as the acorn loaf's aroma filled his nostrils. He tapped the crust of it with his fingernail, and raised his eyebrows at the crackling sound.

"Ready." he chuffed, rubbing his hands together.

"Step back, dear. Allow me." Morlia nudged her husband with her small horns. She clasped her dainty hands together, bringing them to her cherry stained lips and blowing a soft chant of magicka between them; it sounded almost like a bird call. When she parted her palms, streaks of ice glittered over her pale skin. She grabbed the iron pan, which sizzled and steamed against her hands as she quickly moved it toward their small dining table, carved from a humble tree stump.

Challop scooted the rabbit aside, pinching the loose skin between his fingers and folding it gently over a small cable of twine that draped across the doorway to their cellar. He would have to salt it before nightfall, and then tan it once the sun returned. The rain's pattering began to grow louder as the storm blew toward their home. Usually, the mountains that cradled their cottage helped protect them from the brunt of most harsh winds, but this thunderstorm seemed especially brutish as its pitch black clouds loomed over the sunset in the distance.

The satyr sharply inhaled, then holding his breath as he began to slice into the rabbit's underbelly, starting to dress it properly for their stew. As Challop carved around the stomach of the animal, one of his ears perked at the sound of swift knocking on their front door. The wind howled over their rooftop, and he decided to try and finish his task before opening the door, if at all. They were not expecting visitors, as they mostly kept to themselves after they crossed Yagrivan's border nearly a year prior, settling in Cerros, Man's Land.