Dread and Fear

Prologue

A man is crouched in the snowy bank of the river Achelois, crystalline water seeping over and into his worn boots. His charcoaled beard has just caught the last bitter snowflakes before their descent, and although he shivers, he is not cold. No, he is far from cold. He has had a lifetime of well-being and wealth, permitting him to purchase the best of the best for his winter attire.        

He has spent the last ten years complaining of everything he could think of; his aching bones, the relentless weather, the mishaps of a marriage too soon committed. In ten years, he has not stopped to sleep restfully, nor eat plentifully, nor miss his mother in the way befitted of a human mind. There is always something to be dissatisfied with, he finds, regardless of his financial fortune.

To his aid, he is not yet familiar with the logistics and complications of a life driven by politics that mix with the culture he was born into. He has not yet felt the ache of choosing one over the other. This grumbling, fortunate man has not seen anything of what power might be, and yet, he carries the burden of everything.

He shivers, but he is not cold. It ripples through him as the water touches his skin and the pain dissipates; a touch from his mother who has long been trapped in these waters, and an augury of his offspring's potential.

His hands move from his sides to the water and from the water to his face. It is not nihilistic, but existential. A cry for something worth more than he has ever achieved himself but he could still play a part in.

His boy, Astrophel, a sharp mind already reading and counting at his meagre two years, has turned to the drying piles of firewood in the far corner of their winter home. He counts to his father, counts and counts again until his voice is sore. His mother is worried by his obsession; why won't he stop? She blames his name; they did not choose a someone worth worship.

But at the end of the day, once the counting has stopped and dinner has been eaten, Astrophel returns to the dwindling pile of wood and extracts two sticks. With small but steady hands, he lays them both on the dinner table, silently. One, an unremarkable and pale twig of birch, which lays flat and unmoving against the glaze; with the right pressure, it might be malleable. The other, a winding and severe branch of walnut. No matter how he might try, he cannot flatten it, but he may hold it still.

The man burns both in the fire. The next day, he is presented with the same two pieces of wood. They are not identical, but bear such striking resemblance to the former that he is astonished. He burns them again. When he ensures there is nor birch or walnut in the firewood, he is left aghast when Astrophel brings the same two branches in again.

He dips his fingers back in the water for just a moment longer; he could never overindulge. He could never overexert. A resolve had passed over him to ensure that these branches, regardless of incredulity he felt, should manifest somewhere. Perhaps not in his lifetime, but in the next one over.

A man is crouched in the snowy bank of the River Achelois, but he finally steps away. 

Glossary:

Augury: a sign of the future or an omen. Originally interpreted through movement and behaviour of birds by ancient Greeks and Romans. Today, the word has a far more generalised meaning. 

 Nihilistic: rejection of morals and/or principles in the belief that life is meaningless.