Pain of the Past (a Preminger fanfiction)

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The events after his father's death passed by for Preminger in a haze. The sympathetic glances, the funeral, the fresh grave resting on the hilltop; such things hung over the young boy like a dream. His father had gone quietly in his sleep, the cold and the hunger catching up to him in his old age.

Each morning Preminger sat on the hill by his fathers grave, listening to the cry of the winds in the treetops and letting the bitter air turn his skin red. The world had lost its vibrancy now that this beautiful soul had parted. The snow had since left since his fathers death like nature was allowing for the time of mourning. The soil had softened for burial and the crows had returned to the field to guard the grave with somber eyes. Preminger was a shadow on the hill, present each morning with the dawn and each night at dusk. He became like a ghost without his father.

Soon the world fell back into its usual rhythm. The snow came, the food grew scarce, and eventually the question of Preminger's future became local gossip. Now alone on the farm and without family to claim him, the boy had been staying with a local family. He stayed quiet most days, locked away in the small spare room he'd ben given. He knew he wouldn't stay long. In a week or so after the worst of the storm had passed, a carriage would come in from the city and take him away to an orphanage far from here.

Despite the horrid dose of reality he received every time he looked upon his fathers grave, he spent each morning visiting the hill, never knowing when the day would come that he'd be taken from him forever.

In early spring, the day arrived. A medium sized, horse drawn carriage came with the dawn and quietly it rounded up the supplies that were to be taken to the city. Preminger went with it. He sat in the back beside a bundle of firewood, closing his eyes and listening to the melody of the wheels against the frozen ground.

It was a four day journey to the city and a four day wait before his life changed forever. He had never left that quiet little town in the valley, never left the shelter of his fathers wings. But his father was gone now and that place was nothing more to him than a ghost town; sad old homes filled with gaunt faces and pitying eyes. He shut his minds eye to it, feeling as that chapter of his life came to a stark close.

Preminger rode into the sunrise, carrying with him only one keepsake — the words of his father, more precious to him than gold.

You're going to rule this land one day, Preminger. They'll try and stop you; the whole world will push against you, but you stand your ground and you climb to the very top.

And never forget, I am always here with you.