Chapter 1
I awake suddenly in the still, quiet hours before the sun rises.
The cold winter breeze slipping under my sheets. I try to rest my head, hoping to fall asleep again, on the makeshift pillow I made out of leaves and crushed twigs I found in the woods (In the East, never the West). But it is useless. There will be no more sleep for me this night.
The morning sun rises to greet the people of the great kingdom Fiare . In my own opinion I didn’t think it so great, I traveled there last grinning moon, the castle itself reeked of death. I try once more to close my eyes and feel the comfort of dreaming another world. Just as I close my eyes…
"Aldrin! Get out of bed you’ll be late for work with Gareth.” Sapphire says. Irritated I get out of bed, “Coming mother.” I yell back. My short brown hair is a mess, I comb it, wash my face with a small tub full of water, and then slip on a pair of trousers and an old shirt left behind from my father. The father I barely knew. He left when I was just a child. Mother says he was a woodsman, using his craft to make a living. Another lady, a close friend of the family, said he used to work for The Twisted Fates guild, a very well known assassination guild. I don’t know what to believe anymore, so many different theories about him. As I run down the stairs of our old cottage I smell the sweet aroma of one of mothers baked breads.
“Smells like apples again.”, I say quietly to myself. Mother is the town baker. Her cakes are marvelous, but her pies are to die for. She works so had so that we can keep living in our little two bedroom cottage, and to provide food for us to eat and fresh water for us to drink. Her curly red hair, is usually always tied up, her eyes are the shade of the light blue sky when the sun is at it's highest point in the sky, and her face is a face that shows great love and compassion to anyone it meets. As I head for the door mother stops me and gives me a loaf of her homemade bread, “Have a great day pounding iron.” She says with a smile. “Thank you mother for the bread, and I will.” I replied, trying very hard to keep my eyes open.
As I step outside in the cold winter air, I see the sun start to rise behind the kingdom of Fiare brightening the village of Lasta. Our small village looks so peaceful in the quiet hours before all the housewives start on their daily chores, and the children star to play and scream. There were only fourteen small little cottages, a small market for trading different types of merchandise, one forge, for creating weapons, and armor, for the royal garrison of Faire, and, The Drunken Archer, the old tavern were most of the village people go to indulge their various needs. "Damn, I'm gonna be late for working at the forge!" I say to myself. I start to quicken my pace, so that I could make it all the way to the forge in time.
