Content Warning: none

Under the sun, dew was glimmering as it rested on the crops around his field. It was a brisk foggy morning as the farmer named Rex walked through the fields inspecting his new crops. The fog seemed to shine along with the dew as the suns rays reflected off of them. It had been a long year and this years harvest would determine if he had to travel to the city to find farmhands or not. After all his family would head to the World Fair in a couple of days so he would need help in their absence. His family alone had always been enough to tend the farm themselves ever since he brought them here, however, these last couple of years had been harder since his youngest son had left to be a ranger.

He had been sad watching his son leave and sad that it affected his daughter so. It took her some time but she eventually returned to her normal, cheerful self and he was happy for that. He remembered back when he had been part of bloody wars, part of the beginning of this place people called “The World”. He had been through so much and was happy that he had been able to settle down here in the region of Dysi. He had met his wife, Irema, in one of the free cities outside of The World’s domain and decided to settle down here in Dysi after. He had to make some sacrifices but it was worth it. Everything he had done had been to protect and provide for his family. He contemplated whether he should take his daughter with him into the city or not, for she had only been to a couple of the nearby villages before.

As he walked through his gayo (a plant native to the region of Dysi which resembles a mix between a squash and a pear) crop he noticed that some birds were circling around something near the edge of his crop field. He paid it no mind and went about his business pulling out a couple of weeds that had intertwined themselves beneath the gayo bushes, thinking about where he might be able to find honest workers nowadays. The World had started to accumulate tension due to turmoil between certain factions in the surrounding free cities. This region of Dysi had its own share of problems with its border being shared with three free cities and the constant bandit uprisings that kept taking hold of farmlands and villages.

'Kraa...Kraa...Kraa' The cries of the circling birds grew louder and snapped him out of his own thoughts. Now he was curious as to what the birds were causing such a ruckus for. He couldn’t see the ground under the birds because the fog was too thick so he got up from picking weeds and started walking over to where the birds were. As he approached the birds he focused his sight on a shadow that lay on the ground beneath the birds. Right away he assumed that it was an animal that had just found a place to live out the last moments of its life. 'It happens more than one would think on my farm', he thought to himself.

Rex once again fell into thought and began to think about his farm and how this place would be the perfect place to spend the last years of his life at, surrounded by his loved ones and watching his children grow. As he was caught up in his thoughts he kept walking towards the shadow and the fog finally cleared. The shadow on the ground took the form of a human’s body. Rex picked up his pace and arrived at what was a young boy lying on the ground.

The boy had short dark black hair and a light complexion. He looked as if he was the same age as his daughter who was in her late teens. The boy was wearing a black leather jerkin with a black linen cloth shirt beneath it. His trousers were also black, and looked to be made of wool or cotton and were tucked into his slim black boots. Rex noticed that there was a scabbard on the boy’s belt but a sword was nowhere to be seen.

The boy was lying still and looked to be unconscious or dead. The boy had a gash on the left side of his head where blood had dried in his hair. Rex bent down to check if the boy was alive. There was still a pulse but the boy looked to be in bad shape so Rex hurriedly went and got a voe (a giant type of ox farmers use) and a cart. He then carefully picked up the boy and placed him on the cart. He removed the boy’s scabbard and took it with him to the front of the cart.

As Rex led the cart back to his homestead from the field he looked back at the boy lying still in his cart and wondered who he was or where he came from. He wasn’t dressed in attire that people in the region of Dysi wore. The boy looked like he was from one of the free cities but Rex couldn’t pinpoint exactly where. He himself had once been a ranger and had personally been to various regions in 'The World'.

Rex used to know many different people from many different regions although now that he was retired and older his memory was fading for he had been around for a long time now. He looked down at the scabbard and examined the intricate engravings of what looked like shadows or demons. Rex became worried as he continued to study the boy's scabbard and wondered about what this boy did for a living and why he needed a weapon. Rex then set the scabbard down next to him and tried not to dwell on it, thinking about where he would put the boy.

His wife, Irema, would want to take care of the boy until he was healed enough to be on his way, which was understandable because of the boy’s current condition. However he was worried that this boy would spark his daughter’s interest for she rarely ever left the farm and she had always been curious since she was a little child. He still had a lot of work to do today but now that this boy had showed up he was going to have to monitor him closely. He would still have to get some work done so he decided that he would just leave the boy with his wife until later.

As the cart trudged along the dirt path among the fields and up to the front of his home he noticed that smoke was rising from the chimney. He knew that Irema would be getting breakfast ready for the family. He pulled the cart to a stop, got off and fed an apple to his voe. He then went around to the back of the cart and looked at the boy who still lay unconscious. He picked up the boy and put him over his shoulder. As he walked up the wooden steps of the porch and opened the door he was hit with the beautiful aroma of his wife’s delicious gayo stew.