Seed of Hope

Chapter 2: A place with time

Sitting cross-legged on a rock, Fenja overlooked the beach, her bow and quiver resting at her side, her icy blonde braid tousled by the sea spray. The sky was clearing after the violent storm the night before, and the salty air filled her lungs. In front of her, the waves crashed against the rocks before dying on the pebble-strewn shore, only to retreat in an endless, eternal dance. The wild landscape of Navika exuded a certain serenity, a peace Fenja cherished.

Fenja watched Aisling from a distance. Her young companion was kneeling in a small garden of oceanic plants she had carefully cultivated right in the sand. She seemed focused, her slender hands delicately handling the stems and roots with precise care. The seaweed and other marine vegetation, which should never have thrived here, were flourishing under her attentive care. It was as if the sea itself accepted this intrusion of life upon its shore.

The young healer had this strange determination to make anything grow, anywhere, even in the most barren or unlikely places. It was her way of fighting despair: she made life triumph, every time, with a quiet stubbornness.

It was a familiar sight for Fenja. A rare one in such a harsh world. On Nimrach, everyone learned to fight from childhood, a tradition passed down from the first survivors. Those who had fled Earth after the Apocalypse had carried with them the sense of injustice that gnawed at them. An injustice that had fueled anger, and then vengeance.

They were all prepared, every one of them. From the start, they had been taught that humanity would one day return to Earth to reclaim its Kingdom, devastated by the war between angels and demons. But this dream of returning had never resonated with Fenja. She was among those for whom Earth was nothing more than a distant memory, a myth passed down by the elders. What was the point of fighting for a world they had never known? Why join a war that didn't concern them, a war they had been victims of before even understanding it?

At twenty-two years old, Fenja did not dream of distant lands. She didn't want to waste her time training for a battle that might never come. In her eyes, humanity's survival depended on their ability to adapt to Nimrach, to accept this world as their new home. Many, more and more of them, thought the same among the younger generation. They had grown up here, beneath the storms of this wild world, far from the dreams of vengeance held by their elders.

Aisling too, and yet she wasn't one of them.

Fenja looked away for a moment, gazing at the distant Sea of Mists, losing herself in thought. Aisling was an orphan, just like her. Perhaps that was the foundation of their friendship, Aisling being the closest thing she had to a little sister. Fenja's parents had died at sea when she was three, taken by a storm while trying to travel from their home island to that of Navika. She had been taken in by the hunters, and especially Ceorl, the master hunter, who taught her how to survive, how to track game, how to slip between trees like a shadow. But Aisling... it was different.

The young woman had been found as a baby, abandoned near the Reflecting Pool like an offering. Adopted by Ren, Aisling had grown up under the protection of the Keeper of Memories, destined to become the next Keeper in turn. Yet that destiny seemed to weigh more heavily on her, perhaps more than she was willing to admit.

For Fenja, this was yet another reason to distance herself from these legends of justice and reconquest. Earth was no longer their world. Nimrach, harsh and unforgiving as it was, was their home now. They needed to learn to respect it, to take what they could from it, to survive here-not in fleeting dreams of distant battles.

Aisling, on the other hand, seemed obsessed with finding a solution, with understanding the role humanity had to play in this cosmic war that was beyond them. Fenja found her admirable, in a way, but also hopelessly idealistic, not to say naive.