An Interconnected Web (Sanders Sides Fantasy AU)

Multitudes of People

In his mind, he was small.

Everyone else was big, like elephants. Elephants with wise and old minds. People who knew what they were doing. He was merely just an ant. A small ant that only knew how to follow others.

And that's all he'd ever be.

-------

The boy named Virgil set off, down the mountain, heading onwards towards a place he knew nothing of. And yet he knew this, this minuscule thing, could and would change everything. The unknown, the torture of life, and the world's dark and ghastly grasps on him.

The boy, Virgil, had arms, skinny as toothpicks. His legs like the noodles from Bet's best dish. His eyes were sunken and dimed. Black as ebony, his hair the same. He was small for the age of 19. And if you had to take a gander at his height, you would presume he was hardly 5'2.

He'd been walking down a path for what felt like 3 days but he knew, by the sun's position, that it had been 30 minutes. He was already tired and the sun's rays, along with his asthma, weren't helping the trip at all. But he needed to keep going. The reward would be something so wonderful, even if it cost him so much.

As the sun hit midday, he was at a crossroads. A dual of signs sat before him. The one to the left, old and cracked with splinters sticking out, read, 'The Small Boy'. The other, pointing to the right, carved of marble and gold, read, 'The Mighty Prince'.

It was a test, he knew.

Knowing. Something that didn't occur to him commonly. But this time he knew what this was. And he knew the only way to pass would be to choose the things that he felt, whether it was literally correct or not.

And so he chose the sign to the left. Knowing he was nothing. A crumpled newspaper that anyone would leave tumbling in the light, summer's breeze.

He stopped. Looking at the path below him. The path which had been a mediocrely done cobblestone was now soil. Soil, it's only use was being stepped on. And he continued once more, knowing in his heart that this was the correct way.

As he went, a dark forest approached him towards the right and a sparkling and swishing ocean, the left. Once again, he met a crossroad with the common two signs. And yet, something was different here. There was a third sign; it was asking a question. The question being, "Whom do you love?"

Unlike last time, both signs had no distinct qualities. But they did, for sure, read two different things. The left sign, heading towards the ocean, read, 'Father'. And the one to the looming forest read, 'Mother'.

Virgil felt nothing towards either of his parents. There had never been any sense of love or affection in his family.

That being, this next question would be something hard to choose.

Virgil would soon regret staying at that sign for a long time, pondering the question. He would also soon regret not bringing any type of thing to protect himself. The events of the next period of time would bring him to a fate worse than any other; this one would leave him in a bottomless pit of despair.

The prospect of others.

-------

"What a stupid area of land this is! Everywhere you look, there's just grass. Grass. Grass. Grass. Where're the homes? The people? A tree? Possibly? I wish I could just tell him where to shove it and move onnnn. This is so boriiiing. It's not like I'm going to find him out here, anywa-"

The man, holding a sword and wearing an annoyed, yet still beautiful face, stopped. In front of him, only 10 yards away, was a young man, standing still on a dirt path, looking at something.