Elliot woke up early in the morning, it was quite hard for him to know what time it was as just a few little cracks let the rays of light into the shack. But Elliot already got used to it years ago, so it wasn’t a problem for him anymore.

It was already six years from the day that the old man had picked Elliot up, at that time he was just a baby and his memories were hazy at best. So he doesn't really remember how or where his grandfather found him.

But for some reason, he did remember the strong stench of blood and a long scream that came as if from the void, that was the first memory he can remember and it was the most vivid one till today.

Elliot stood up and went outside into the cold to go to the bathroom, after washing his hands in the snow he came back inside. He left the door ajar a little bit to let the fresh air into the shack, even though it would let some heat out it was better than dying from suffocation.

“Grandpa, wake up it's time.” Elliot nudged his grandpa with both of his small hands.

“*Cough* I am awake.” The old man opened his eyes and mumbled.

Elliot went to the kitchen to make some food for their trip while skipping breakfast for obvious reasons. He made a few pancakes from root porridge that he made the other day, with a little bit of salt and plant oil he kept on the side.

The old man returned to the house after relieving himself and saw Elliot in the kitchen making the food. He stood there for a second remembering the better days of his life with his daughter.

She always loved to make food for him and he always loved to eat it, but his daughter was a teenager when he last saw her and not young as Elliot.

The old man found it kinda weird that Elliot was so smart above and beyond for his age, not only could he read journals from just a few lessons of the alphabet, he even did things that were bizarre and would be hard to impossible for him to come up with.

Like Elliot insisted on washing hands before eating especially after he came back from his work, even though he never told him what he really did for a living, but he guessed that Elliot somehow already knew.

Elliot even asked many times to go with him to work, but every time he opposed that fearing for his safety. At first, when he picked him up he thought it would be terribly hard to take care of him alone, so he wanted to give him to someone to look after.

But to his surprise Elliot never cried as a child, only making some quiet noises when he was uncomfortable or wanted to go to the bathroom. When Elliot was able to move more freely at the age of two to three he would even start cleaning the house when left alone.

Once the old man brought a journal home because its cover had a metal plate on it, to his surprise Elliot took it and held it in front of the old man saying the same broken word over and over again. “WaNNt... WWaaant…” That is how the old man started to teach Elliot to read and to speak properly.

Genius, he thought he was a genius from birth. Maybe a son of a great noble family that was lost on a battlefield. He even thought to give him away to some random noble family for a better life, but it wasn't as simple as it sounds. If something went wrong, at best Elliot would find himself back in poverty in the slums of some city or worse dead and forgotten.

So the old man decided to raise Elliot as his grandchild and he was happy with his decision. It even felt for him like fate, for some reason Elliot's face was deadpan no matter what happened around him. Just like himself that could only show his cursed big smile whatever he went, Elliot could only be with his expressionless face as well.

From the age of five, Elliot started to cook and made meals that he himself would never think about by adding herbs and different plants, suddenly the tastes of the meals started to slowly improve. Now Elliot is six years old and he helps the old man to collect food and wood, or sometimes he even makes small animal traps when needed.

“Six years.” The old man stood at the doorway with a huge smile on his face looking at Elliot, a little bit of sadness could be seen in his eyes for some reason. After coughing a few times he entered the shack and sat by the table on his mattress.

Elliot came back soon after, “Here is some tea and some sweet roots that I found not far from here yesterday.” Elliot placed two cups of tea and a small plate with a few dried roots onto the table.

“You left the shack alone again, what did I tell you about going out? You are still too young to venture alone. What happens if you meet a wild beast, what would you do?” The old man said with concern.

“Don’t worry grandpa, I didn't go too far.” He sat in front of the old man and started to drink tea from his cup, but it could barely really be called tea, just a few dried plants with different colors that Elliot found around the area that gave out a pleasant smell.

The old man could only sigh and drink the tea with the pleasant smell hinting him to the past. After the "small breakfast", if you could call it that, Elliot and the old man wore heavy clothing, took two big backpacks, and went outside to gather food and wood.

Elliot went to check through the traps he placed while the old man was not far away collecting wood that could be used as fuel later on. For their luck three of the traps that they placed triggered and two of them had one small bird each.

It wouldn’t be much but for Elliot and the old man eating meat was a rarity if they are lucky that would happen only just a couple of times in three months. Elliot was filled with delight that of course wasn’t shown on his face but could still be seen through his eyes.

He ran back to the area where the old man was collecting wood and was just about to call for him when the bushes to his left started to shake and move. Elliot immediately stopped in his tracks because he knew that there were only a few things that could come from that forest and none of them made him happy.

Elliot turned around slowly and there he saw them, two big red eyes looking straight at him out of the bushes. A strong growl came with those two big eyes and a big wolf with gray fur came out rushing out of them.

Elliot completely froze, he wanted to move, he wanted to call for help but for some reason, he couldn’t. The wolf came closer and closer to Elliot, a strong wet dog's stench assaulted his nose.

The wolf's mouth opened in front of Elliot's face and he immediately closed his eyes out of instinct. Elliot expected a bite to come any second but to his surprise not only it didn’t come but instead he heard a loud wolf yelp while someone grabbed Elliot by the hand and started to pull him away.

Elliot opened his eyes to see his grandfather running away towards the shack while pulling him along. After a few minutes of running, he stopped and looked back, after not finding anything he had a big sigh of relief.

The old man grabbed Elliot's shoulders and started to yell, “Why haven't you shouted for me!? Why were you just standing there doing nothing!?” Even though the old man was still smiling you could still see the concern in his deep brown eyes.

“...I am sorry.” Elliot lowered his head and could only murmur in return, it all happened so fast and if it wasn't for the old man's help he wouldn't have gotten out of it in one piece.

The old man breathed in some cold air and calmed himself a little bit before giving Elliot a big hug and reassuring him, “Don’t worry it's all behind, let's go home.”

Elliot didn’t say a word and started to walk home behind his grandfather. After half an hour both of them came back to the shack, on their way they collected a little bit more wood and any edible plants they could find.

After coming home each of them went on their own doing, Elliot went to defeather the two birds and remove the uneatable parts before cooking one of them.

Meanwhile, the old man stored all the wood he got and started the fire in the fireplace, then he went back to a corner of a room and opened an old wooden chest, in this chest were all of his possessions.

The old man took a small wooden box out of the chest, the box was twenty centimeters long and there were beautiful decorative patterns on it. He slowly stroked the box once with his rough hand while remembering something once more from his past.

Elliot finished cooking and brought out the soup that they had eaten yesterday but this time there were a few small pieces of meat in both of the bowls as well. Elliot placed the bowels on the table but when he did so he found out that there was already a box in front of the old man.

“This is for you.” The old man moved the box to Elliot.

“What is this?” Asked Elliot a little bit confused.

“Open it up, and see.”

Elliot took the box into his hands, the box was really smooth with beautiful light blue flowery patterns on it. It looked a lot like a jewelry box but it was a little bit too long for any normal jewelry.

Elliot opened the box and to his surprise, he found inside it a beautiful knife, its handle was made of dark glossy material and its blade had a faint blue in color.

Surely if the old man sold this knife he would have gotten a nice price for it, but he gave it to Elliot which made him a little bit confused. He wanted to refuse the gift but before he could the old man started to talk.

“This knife is my family heirloom, I came from a small aristocratic household that fell from grace and this heirloom is the only thing that is left from it.” Deep sadness filled the old man's eyes even with his everlasting smile he couldn’t hide away the pain he felt.

The old man never talked about his past so Elliot could only listen with anticipation. At last, he would know something about his close grandfather that he didn’t even know the name of.

“Our family name was Blueheart. It said that our family founder was a great swordsman with the name “Blueheart The Great”. He got his name from the day when he slew an evil mage that killed thousands of people to create an evil artifact.” The old man looked at the ceiling with a thoughtful look as he remembered the legend that was passed in his family.

”But he didn’t get the name because he slew the mage he got it because when he interrupted the mage's sacrificial ceremony he was hit by a magical backlash, which for some reason made his heart glow with light blue color at night.”

“The most amazing part is that it could be seen even through all of the layers of muscles, bones, and flesh.”

“But to say the truth before that he wasn’t even that of a good swordsman, back then he was one of the soldiers behind a knight command that ambushed the mage in his weakest moment when he was unprepared.”

“When most of his companions died from the traps and undead guardians, he sneaked behind the mage and hit the artifact with the strongest swing he could muster. Luckily for him, the artifact was incomplete and immediately shattered, when it did it created a magical blast that hit him and the mage.”

“For his greater luck the mage immediately died and as for him, he survived for an unknown reason even though he was the closest to the artifact. After Blueheart returned home from his journey every night he would wake up from unexplained nightmares that would haunt him for the rest of his life and every time after those nightmares his heart would start to glow with a bluish light.”

"But nothing came only with its setbacks, he realized that he slowly started to become stronger and faster, and while striking with his sword could release blue energy, something only the greatest swordmasters could do at the time.”

“From that accident his legend began, he advanced in the ranking of the army with astonishing speed. He slew many famous bandits and even got the chance to kill a few more mages, something that almost no swordsman could dream of.”

“His legend continued to rise more and more, almost never stopping even before the end of his life. He was awarded a chunk of land for his heroic deeds and had many wives, and concubines with many kids of his own.”

“That's how the great Blueheart family was formed by combining many small families under a great man and so they prospered, but time passed and even Blueheart wasn’t stronger than time itself. On his deathbed, he asked a famous blacksmith to create a mithril dagger for him.”

“The dagger was just coated by mithril because at that time the metal was barely available in the market and even the great nobles had a hard time getting their hands on it, all because of its magical properties.”

“On the day that he got the dagger, he finished the ceremony that the mage started so many years ago and stabbed himself in his heart with the dagger, the dagger absorbed the weird energy that had invaded his heart so many years ago and became an artifact.”

“As for the ceremony, no one really knows what it did because its effects never were discovered and most likely it failed altogether. Before Blueheart died he gave out a vow that one day an heir will rise in the family, an heir that will rule the world.”

“From that day on the dagger went from head of the family to the next as a symbol of our family, but even though Blueheart gave out such a vow of glory it never came to be and the family continued to decline until it became a barely surviving merchant family with barely any land left.”

“As for today, I will be giving you this dagger as a symbol of being one of the family as being the next head. Would you please hold this burden and be part of my crumbled family.”

Elliot looked at the old man for a few moments thinking with what words to respond to him. In the end, he could only try to refuse the gift again.

“I can’t accept something so precious.” Elliot said as he shook his head.

“Actually it's not as precious as you think, you see in the legend they say that the dagger is a powerful artifact, but in reality, the legend is false the dagger is just a decorative piece of trash.”

“I even went to take this dagger to get appraised by a great appraiser but he said that it was a useless piece of metal, because the mithril already absorbed some kind of energy that wasn’t pure it couldn’t be reused again, so it won’t get you a big price even if you sold it as scrap.”

“But it's an heirloom for your family, you can’t just give me something so important...” Sayed Elliot again in his tries to return the knife.

With a sigh, the old man said with a saddened voice, “*Sigh* The Blueheart family is already dead and I am the only survivor and if you won’t accept it no one will. “

He placed one of his hands on Elliot's shoulder and continued, “I don’t really know how you feel but for me, after the day I named you, you already became part of my family and from that day I already wanted to give you this knife when you have gotten a little bit older.”

“But because of the accident today I think you should have it now, not only to protect yourself but to let you carry on the symbol of my family in the future too.”

Elliot stood there in a daze not knowing what to say he was feeling a warm feeling in his heart.

Elliot's grandfather's eyes became serious and with a powerful tone that had a tinge of charisma as if a great general was speaking and he asked, “Elliot I ask you again will you carry my family name and be the next head of the family after me.”

Elliot's body shook for a moment but then it immediately straightened up. “I will.” In reality, Elliot saw his grandfather as his family long ago, so he didn’t have to think about it twice.

“Good good...” The old man said as he smiled with a real genuine smile but suddenly his face paled.

*Cough* *cough* *COUGH* *COUGH!!*...

He placed a hand onto his mouth as he fell into a coughing fit, barely speaking a word he said, ”Water…”

Elliot immediately ran to the kitchen to get him a cup of water, but before he could return his grandfather's coughing stopped and after raising his hand he could see that it was soaked in blood.

After looking at it for a moment he immediately wiped it with a rag that he pulled out of his pocket and hid it just in time as Elliot came back with the cup.

Elliot gave him the water and said, “Grandpa, you should go get some rest.”

“Sure, thanks.” The old man answered as he went to sleep and once in a long time his smile was reflected in his heart as well.