The Weight of Exhaustion

Chapter Eighteen: The Second Loss

Surprise surprise! Not the pov you were expecting huh!

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Kukri Favre has grown used to the whispers growing up, and it seems that moving to the farthest town possible couldn't stop them.

The gossip that nipped her heel probably started before she was even born and spread up at her birth. She was born in the capital of the server. A large sprawling city that breeds rumors and has gossip wildfires like no other.

As a child, she never noticed them but when Kukri did, she never could go back. She wished then that she could go back, before she realized that she would never be known for her accomplishments but for the sheer fact her family was one of the last remaining strands connected to Players.

Such a large family tree filled with dying branches and withered roots. They were lucky to be around, for in the past, their family had some human children. Such an unlucky thing at the time turned lucky, for it was the sole reason their family name still existed. Whatever Void Spawn that hunted Players seemed uninterested in Humans, even with Player blood running through their veins.

Kukri grew up known as one of the last ties to Players. Humanity seemed to be grasping at straws, wishing, hoping their counterparts would come back. Everyone treated her like she was something special, but she wasn't. She was Human, like them.

The only ones that didn't treat her differently was her family, and then she met her soon to be best friend, Silius.

Of course, at the time, she didn't realize that he would soon be her husband. Silius didn't care for her family name, not caring for the fact that Players once dominated her family.

He truly cared about a few things; Exploration, family, and history. She enjoyed the explorations they would go on, mapping out parts of the city they yet have been in as dates.

They got married a few years later, and a year after that, her family would grow one more branch.

That's when they decided they should move. Silius knew how the city was with her family's name and blood, and Kukri didn't want her child to grow up to discover that everyone knew who you were yet didn't care for what you could do.

So they packed their bags and moved to the smallest village way out in the forest. Silius was giddy at the fact, spouting off myths of portals and other worlds being hidden away in the forests around the world. Kukri loved that he could get excited about something so simple.

Gossip shot through the roof upon their arrival; each person trying to guess why someone would move to their tiny place. It wasn't anything she wasn't used to. The fact that she wanted a quiet life seemed absurd to the folks, wondering why they would move from the Capital.

She didn't explain it. This was a village where she, and soon her child, could be known for her expertise, not her family's bloodline.

Time whizzing by like nobody's business, filled with love and newfound freedom. Yet, also heartbreak and sorrow. Seven months passed, the town grew used to her presence and the knowledge that not two people moved in, but soon to be three. To her surprise and the town's, it was not one child but two.

Yet, while one cried out with healthy lungs, the other laid still.

Both of them were unconsolable, and in their grief, managed to misspell their living child's name.

The whispering started back up, but this time carrying sorrow. The whole town mourned the loss of someone they didn't even have the chance of knowing. The whispers died down once more.

Then the war came.

It began again a year after when Silius was forced to join the war the Admin was waging along with several others in their little town. He promised to write, as did everyone else who was drafted into the war, yet each day brought no new letters or cards.