Threads of Fate

Darin Locke: Year 780

The village of Briar's Hollow was a place of quiet, hard work. Nestled in a small valley far from the bustling cities and their mana markets, the people of the village relied on their hands, not magic, to get by. Though everyone in the kingdom was born with some capacity for magic, in Briar's Hollow, magic was seen as little more than a curiosity. The villagers preferred the feel of the soil beneath their hands, the satisfaction of a good harvest, or the strength in a well-crafted tool. Magic, to them, was unnatural, dangerous even, and they whispered among themselves about the risks it posed.

Darin Locke had been born into this world—an unremarkable child in the eyes of his parents and neighbors. But from an early age, Darin had felt a stirring within him, a desire to be more than just a simple villager. He had seen, once, a wandering mage pass through Briar's Hollow when he was a small boy. The mage had cast a simple light spell, making the torches on the village walls flicker and dance without touching them. That small, fleeting act had ignited something in Darin—a hunger to understand magic, to wield it, no matter how meager his abilities seemed.

But in Briar's Hollow, dreams of magic were met with derision.

"Darin, get your head out of the clouds!" his father would shout as Darin struggled with the simplest tasks on the farm. "Magic's for fools and lazy folk. There's no place for that nonsense here."

The other children were no kinder. They teased him for his obsession with magic, calling him names, mocking his attempts to practice spells. Darin's mana pool was so small that even the most basic spell—a spark to light a candle—took him hours of concentration, leaving him exhausted and frustrated. Yet he couldn't let go of his dream. Every failure was a reason to try harder, to push further, no matter how much the villagers ridiculed him.

"Why do you even bother?" one of the boys, Callan, sneered at Darin one day as they worked in the fields. "You'll never be a real mage. You can barely lift a stone with that pitiful mana of yours."

Darin didn't answer, though the words stung. Instead, he focused on the quiet determination growing inside him, a resolve that hardened with every insult. If anything, their mockery only strengthened his desire to prove them wrong, not for the sake of revenge, but to show that even someone like him—someone who was born with so little—could rise above it.

At night, when the village slept, Darin would slip out of his family's small house and practice alone in the nearby woods. He had managed to barter with a passing trader for a few old spellbooks and scrolls, most of them worn and tattered, the runes barely legible. But it was enough. By the dim light of a single candle, Darin poured over the texts, memorizing the incantations, visualizing the flow of mana through his body, trying—over and over—to make something happen.

The results were meager at first. Days turned into months, months into years, and still, Darin's progress was painfully slow. He could barely produce a flame the size of a coin, and each time he succeeded, the mana drain left him exhausted for days. But with each tiny success, Darin's mana pool grew, bit by bit, expanding with each hard-won lesson. The villagers never saw his progress. They only saw the awkward, quiet boy who seemed to fail at everything he did. But Darin didn't care. He was playing the long game, a game no one else in Briar's Hollow had the patience or vision to see.

Years passed, and Darin's dedication never wavered. He was now a young man, taller and stronger from years of manual labor, but his true strength lay in his quiet perseverance. His mana pool, though still small compared to those who were naturally gifted, had grown steadily through endless practice. He had learned to control it, to channel it with precision and discipline. The villagers still mocked him, still told him to give up his foolish dreams, but Darin was no longer the boy they could easily dismiss.