Book 2 Season's Change Spring's Revenge

Part 1 & 2 Out of Time

I came from a land whose people were divided, separated by their systems of beliefs; beliefs that were so vastly different that even the great distances between nations were not enough far enough apart to prevent discord. We were as different as the sun and the moon and constantly on the verge of war. The people were divided over ideals of freedom and the rights of one person being equal to the rights of another. This separated us as much as the vast land did. My people believed in freedom for all. We were willing to fight to our deaths defending freedom and the rights of all people. But are we ever truly free?

These were the things I believed in, the things that drove me. They had been ingrained in me since birth. I had been raised to believe in and, taught to fight for the idea of freedom. I told myself time and time again that I could die defending freedom. I knew deep in my heart I would. I was a boy on the cusp of becoming a man, young impressionable and already set in my ways. Every bit a spoiled prince; young and naive. I knew nothing else until the winter I met a dark elf.

As was the custom with my people, the people of Westendorunn, when I reached my 16th year I went on a sacred journey to find my purpose and learn what no parent can teach a boy. Unlike most boys in the kingdom, I knew not where I would find this wisdom. After days of prayer and preparation my direction was known to me, but not my destination. So, I traveled south believing that my journey would end before our borders did and I would return home long before Winter's first frost kissed the ground. That is not how my journey started.

Instead, my destination was never revealed to me. So, I traveled on; South on Moon Shadow's back through the pass and into the unknown lands below it. I ran afoul of some of the natives and found myself battling the poison the horrid little beast left in me for my life. My life was forever changed that fateful night. The last thing I can remember of that night was a set of shining silver eyes breaking the darkness and the flash of two swirling blades. When I woke, I was unable to move or care for myself in even the simplest ways. I spent Winter's reign relearning how to do everything that I already knew how to do and so much more. I thought I knew my blade my armor my way of fighting and all I needed to know to survive. I thought I knew my god and I thought I knew myself. I was wrong.

As I recovered, I learned more than I could have ever imagined about the person I wanted to be. By the time Winter passed, I was whole again and my soul reclaimed by a Goddess whose name I did not know. She gave strength to my blades, wisdom to my ways and gentle guidance when I needed it.

My world had expanded to include the Goddess that saved me and the being that sheltered me through Winter's deadly embrace. I discovered thoughts and emotions I didn't know I had and a strength of honor and a sense of duty that I could not deny. I still believed in freedom and choice. My world needed to be expanded beyond the northern home I was born in and the caves I had come to call home. And so it was.

I had so much to learn about my world. I just didn't expect to be so young, barely a man when I discovered the truth of the world, I lived in. I didn't expect to realize that there was so much I did not know. So many things I hadn't experienced. I found myself wondering: freedom, true freedom, did it really exist? In a world where one man could exert his will over any other being and subvert the other's will, I came to think not. For me, freedom was a choice and all people should be free to choose, shouldn't they? Yet even I was bound by duty and honor. Was that a choice? Duty and honor? Honor was. I chose honor. I believed every man, woman, and child should be free to make their own choices, free to live and die how they choose. Free. I never understood this clearly until the day I happened upon the man I had sworn would pay for his crimes against my unlikely companion.

My conviction in my beliefs and the measure of my honor had never been tested as much as they were that day. I did not know where my rights to my beliefs ended and someone else's began. I was still a boy, innocent and untried. My blades had never been wet by the blood of my enemy if that enemy was as I was, human. Honest and true battle was not known to me. I did not understand the horrors and the pain, the guilt and what I thought was shame that I would feel after. I did not know to what lengths I would go to preserve my ideals.