❝ SANCTUARY. ❞ ↫ᵏ. ᵇᵃᵏᵘᵍᵒᵘ | ᵇⁿʰᵃ

•●•chapter 11 ~•: the past. pt. 2

[Author: Hey guys, thanks for 3k reads. I see you guys like my story. btw, for those who read the last chapter before everyone else, I made a small error. Just go back to where [F/n] and the others go inside the inn to meet Ojiro. So Mineta DOESN'T join them for the chat.

Okay, hope you enjoy the chapter.]

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The shallow cold stream continued down a gorge.

Of an icy neverland, the East Nation never thawed away its unforgiving weather.

A pair of small feet in woolen boots trudged on the tundras snowy forest, pulling a small sleigh. Drained in thirst, the feet made their way to the cold river. Pulling out a bottle satch, they scooped up the cold water and drink it empty before refilling it again. It was unsettling but he had to do it. It was survival. He had learned to do just that.

And yet, he was but a 7-year-old boy.

But then something caught his eye amongst the cold lands. Something was floating in the stream. In familiar-looking rags. Something familiar to his culture.

'Someone from the village of barbarians?'

The body continued to drift up the shallow stream, with no telling that the person was alive. The boy thought not and began running into the cold river to retrieve the body.

The body was around his size, a boy, possibly his age too. With wet red hair and a scratch mark across his right eye. He seemed injured by a small head wound. But was he alive? The body began to groan and shiver. That was proof enough.

The 7-year-old carried the spiky-haired boy out of the stream and into his sleigh. He covered the body under a red cape that has white feathers at the front. Leaving his half-body barren in the cold.

Pulling a sleigh behind, becoming heavier because of the unconscious redhead under the cape. The child heaved shivering sighs, his breath turning into vapor each time. His body was getting colder the more he stayed outside. He wasn't far from his shelter, but he was about to reach his exhaustion. He had to push, he had to.

Finally, surpassing a snowy hillock, the child pulled the heavily loaded sleigh high up to his hidden fort. Hidden away from the dark knights so he wouldn't be found. He could tell the knights already left, so the coast was clear for now.

He finally pulled the sleigh into his small home. It was close to the tallest peak anywhere. Probably the tallest in the whole East Nation. He could probably see the South-East border wall if he climbed up top.

Another tremor went off, along with clashing swords, piercing flesh, and cries of anguish echoing into the dead isolated forest. The boy sighed, almost angrily.

'This war...dammit all.'

The boy's shelter was nothing but a small cave hidden amongst the thick pine. He finally placed the heavy sleigh aside, and tried to start a fire. But the spark failed to come out hard, he struck the two rocks together. Frustrated, he threw the rock aside and silently cussed. He turned his view out to the snow world that was now the East Nation, with scattered black patches of destruction.

Far beyond his field of vision, was the royal castle.

The 7-year-old boy clenched his fists. The same black patches of burnt villages was the same as his home. His village. His people. His family. Everything he knew. Gone. Extinct.