For What Tomorrow Brings...

Chapter 1: Parousia

Main quote: "Plant tomorrow's flower in yesterday's soil and you will know your destiny once you make it your own." (Fiore's metaphorical will to Rafael)

When wills manifest into flower petals floating in the breeze...

April 14, 1204 A.D.

Auburn Hills

            Farmers plow the fields with their cattle. The shepherds tend to their flock. A man of both trades takes his job to the next level. He leads a herd of twenty sheep to green pasture while collecting potatoes and placing them in separate bags. My, what a laborer!

            He hears the call of a gentle woman in his household that brings him out of work. He bids adieu to his flock and brings the two bags on both his shoulders, not minding some have fallen on the ground, to be picked up by some disgruntled serfs.

            "It is that boy again! He always does this. T'is not healthy to do different things at once!"

            The grunting man there was Barak, one of the oldest and ablest farmers in the town.

            Lord Illustrio rules this estate Auburn Hills with firm kindness. They who do good are rewarded, yes but must meet his rather high expectations to impress the nobles.

            In his mind, noblesse oblige goes both ways. Committing to entitled duties to the serfs, the nobles in return can do as they desire for as long as it serves the common good. Twistable...

            Cousin Niña was the woman calling to him. "My lovely cousin, why do you call me?" They share loving embrace but tears flood the eyes of the younger beauty. "Your mother wishes to speak with you." The tall youngster wore only a white tunic and black shorts. He takes off sandals and hat as he enters their simple shack. He goes to his ailing mother. In spite of her weakened state due to a lifelong illness she bears, she was still young. Fiore was the name of the middle-aged beauty lying on the soft bed there. Niña was only 14 and yet she had been raised with the young man for as long as she can remember. "Rafael..." called out the 49-year-old woman. The man goes over to her and kneels by her bedside, holding her hands firmly. He was weeping. He knew...it was the time he had feared would come.

            "Eighteen years of raising you...and despite this, I have failed. Our poverty has not given us much save the roof on our heads and the food we grow on our small patch of land given to us by our kind Lord Illustrio. Forgive me. I have failed...to give you anything else...that would be taken...as a sign of my gratitude and love for you." But Rafael cried all throughout the ordeal. He had always been crying whenever he saw his mother lying in bed and unable to walk. His smile shone brighter than the sun from the outside, attracting the inquisitiveness of many a maiden but his heart was too fragile and perhaps too broken to entertain thoughts of bliss, of love and eros...maybe his agape was just his way of coping three years of bearing the pain of caring for an ill mother he knows will leave him at any time. "Speak no more...I cannot bear to lose you." But the woman replied, "You must bear...my pain will soon be gone but forgive me...because I cannot spare you from the suffering...that you will carry...as your cross for the rest of your life. Long...have I feared this day too but...just as martyrs...gaze at the sky and smile at their redemption, as the saints await their peaceful deaths in joy, so shall I...when I leave you the solution...to dispel your doubts...about yourself. Son, does it not...surprise you...that you possess...the complexion of nobility but were raised a serf?" His cousin brings to him an old box, containing a pendant with the crest of a black crescent moon, a coat of arms.