Kirinna

Le chagrin ancestral est profond comme l’océan. ("Ancestral sorrow is deep like the ocean.")

"I wanted them to know, that me and my people, we will not betray them. But, to Order - our word is true. We will not go in the false-light that is the darkness. We will kill Dusk. We will kill Eclipse. And, the Syrendz-humans on their high horse need to understand that all species are important. Humans are not the masterrace. We can all live as one people, despite whether or not we have claws or hands." Princess Alisere spoke through the waterdrop.

The goddesses seemed to have disappeared. But, it was good they were there atall so that Aliseres' faith in them wouldn't deterioriate. Allioroah, Starlight, Lovemoon - they'd seemed to be the only good deities - but, it was still good to be vigilant.

Gods really do not want the best for anyone but themselves. And yet there are peoples who willingly subjugate themselves to them - Et c'est pourquoi elle les tuera tous. Les dieux sont des tyrans. Ni dieux ni maitres!

As she'd looked from her shoulder, crabs and skeleton-archers came in. She was being supported by more soldiers and warriors. She was happy, to see her people like this - strong and resilient, that, was the Yetise that she'd known in her youth, not a Yetise eternally-mourning and angsty.

If you want revenge, if you want your things back...

Alors il vaut mieux les prendre.

As the Princess effortlessly swam through the water and led more to the front, and as she was fighting, she was thinking:

"Right about now, I don't think I'd mind dying. If it is a Great Show to put those tyrants in their place, then I will gladly sacrifice myself so that no-one else will have to. There shouldn't be sacrifices nor struggles; but all Mortality has been forced. We will remove the yoke from OURSELVES - and, maybe Starlight will aid us. But, if she is a deceiver like the rest of 'em - we will revolt ourselves and drown the world. Remake it all again, and remake it with no force or constrain. No slavemasters!"

"They were saying that, was 'Dawn,' that is the way Order thinks. This world, already, was subjugated and tyrannized. It is not going according to our ancestors and to entropy. All needs to be vaccumed up by the whirlpools in the water. All needs to know Yetise is here, and that she is the autrice. Gods ain't the auteurs; Syrendz never was the autrice. Sea, is the maître. - but not the Goddess Sea. The sea that is of Agony - ça, c'est nous."

And now, she was using her Sea magic to spread her thoughts through the water. She knew the fish and the other sealife had known - but, if the landlubbers could access the water, they'd (re)learn this.

But, Starlight and Allioroah had validated her. She was sure now, that, both Chaos, and Yetise, was true.

And it'd also meant Chaos was still true because Yetise is both Chaos and the agent of Chaos. Yetise is the bed of Allioroah, herself, as she had to be somewhere. Order could take everything and subjugate everyone - but Chaos has to rest her pretty head somewheres. It is not just, that Chaos is cast completely out of the realm. The orderlies speak about 'fairness' when, they desire to dominate and kill everything - they are hypocrites.

Anath
First Chapter: A New Player Appears

"Say, can you recommend some good spots for local food here?" Asked the woman.

The bronzeman let out some sort of a weird whirring noise.

"My apologies, my friend. Perhaps my bronze is a bit rusty, but I fear I didn't catch your meaning." The woman answered politely.

The bronzeman continued making the same whirring sound.

"Hmm... That won't do," the woman muttered, "do you know the learned language? Fire tongue? High holy speech?" She tried, switching to each language as she spoke its name.

The same whirring sound was the only reply.

"Oh, for Void's sake!" The woman swore. "Can you cease with that annoying sound?!"

More whirring.

"That's it! I'm done with you!" She exclaimed, and tore the blades off the bronzeman's body. "See?! You wouldn't shut up, and now I had to do it for you!"

Finally some blessed silence. No more of that whirring sound.

"Oh well, guess you can't help me now." The woman said, resigned to her failure. "I'll go see if someone else has better advice. And attitude."

With the words, she forcefully stepped on the bronzeman's chassis, shattering the solid metal body as if it was nothing more than thin glass.

A gasp alerted her to the presence of an observer.

A human in a gilded wreath, male and not in the habit of bathing, if her nose was not misleading her.

"Who are you, Lyrani?" Asked the man. The woman opened her mouth to reply, but the stranger had already started yelling: "Intruder! Guards, intruder!"

"Can you please quiet down?!" Hissed the woman. "I am trying not to attract attention!"

"Impudent wretch! How dare you try to command me! Do you even know who I am?! I am Ka-" the human went quiet mid-word when the woman flicked him with her finger, shattering his skull.

"You are a corpse." The woman answered his falling body. "A fully expected outcome, and a very avoidable one as well."

More bronzemen appeared. Too many to fight.

It would be too much of a bother.

"Don't mind me, just passing through." The woman.

Of course, rude as they were, the bronzemen did in fact mind her.

"Hey! Careful with that, you could hurt someone!" She admonished one bronzeman as he swung his blade at her.

"Watch it! You almost hit me!" She said when she evaded another's attack.

The woman started running as she passed them. Though they might not pose a serious threat as foes, the bronzemen seemed unlikely to realize the futility of their actions, and having them follow her for the rest of her little vacation sounded quite tiring.

The woman darted from alley to alley, moving between bursts of blinding speed and nearly leisurely walk, until she could no longer see her pursuers.

"Phew, that was intense." The woman said, seemingly to no one. "I should complain to the master of this place. His guards are chasing after innocent tourists, rather than deigning to face off the invading armies."

Now, what was I doing... The woman wondered to herself. She was sure she was in the middle of something before that first bronzeman showed up and started everything.

Ah, yes - I was busy being lost! she finally remembered.

The Third Eclipse—Unto the innards of Dawn's Metropolis

Hissing, leaping light dashed over the ranks as they breached the lines and hunks of the outer wall. A tide led by the charge of the Kambaic riders, with the host of warriors from throughout the world, spilled into a new landscape of stony walkways and savage industry. A cityscape, taller than any mortal abode and stretching as far as the eye could see along the bowl that was the great walls, stretched on at an incline toward tier after tier of raised landscape, all culminating at the distant acropolis.

While the heatray turrets atop the walls had all too willingly annihilated all they could beyond the walls, not one of the turrets turned inward. For all his monstrous intention, Dawn appeared to lack the heart to raze his own city to squash the mortal incursion. Rather than meeting radiant finality, bells and horns tinged with tinny metal humming rang out across the cityscape. In growing cacophony, the wounded beast that is Lightbringer howled with growing intensity.

Distant rumblings of marching footsteps rang down alleyways of immaculate stone and bronze. Steamy hisses and jets of foamy white decorated the skyline with distant mushrooms and deep groans, as workshops and barracks belched unseen numbers of bronze warriors. Death was on the march, yet in the commotion of the fall and the spontaneous battle, it appeared sluggish. No host of metal monsters greeted those first to breach into the city. Only the pounding of impending doom, and the roads of opportunity. Through the alleys at the breach and through the narrow streets of the great buildings, light and adjoined roads could be seen.

This where the speed and the agility of the Kalyrrian army would be tested as Beliash led the one thousand man fleet-footed elites scaling and climbing the bronze metal surfaces to reach the devastating heatrays that scourge the lands outside of the city’s walls to destroy it while Khamul led the four thousand and so soldiers through its streets destroying anything and everything that posed a threat to them, but neither man had it easy.

Beliash and his fleet-footed elites knew what they were going to destroy but they did not know how, their approach to the turrets were lined with the dangers and unfamiliarity of the city’s construction. Their climb was already slow, only to be slowed down even more with the vents that would occasionally release its steam unleashing heat, pressure, and force. Beliash has already lost several of these elites to the vents alone, and a few more were lost on the climb from their smallest missteps in scaling the city.

Khamul’s problem was different. They knew how they were going to destroy but they could not tell what should be. Armed with bows and arrows, swords and axes, and soldiers riding chariots. They rushed through the bronze city like an unimpeded and relentless flood but in every corner they turned to, in every alleyway and main road Khamul led the army into, they saw nothing but more and more vents and structures of unrecognizable and indeterminable significance. If Khamul’s army was to make significant progress, then he could not waste time nor energy in mere savage acts of destruction.

But there, ever nearing the heart of the bronze city as signified by the dampening sounds of battle in the distance behind them replaced with a monotonous drone of continuously hissing vents and measured ticking noises met with a slow thundering rumble of metal slamming on metal, they saw the enemy clad purely in metal, measured and disciplined in their actions.

As the alleyways converged into streets, and streets into perfect canals climbing ever upward, the looming mass of a second wall emerged. It was unlike the great wall which surrounded the city, failing to meet it in height, breadth or the strange glossy stone which encased Lightbringer. Turrets mounted with blistering weaponry were nowhere to be seen, instead replaced by more conventional structures with crenelations and shadowed ports. Yet distant still was this second wall, behind which rose the hill and stairway toward the acropolis. Instead what greeted the mortals as they approached was kin not far from themselves.

Bronzemen gathered together in the streets, joined by their scythestriders, lancers atop buildings and strange new machines; all under the leadership of large champions who towered over their lesser peers in their terrible panoplies. However, gathered in greater strength than even the bronzemen were not machines, but men. Human beings, armed with simple tools, spears, short swords and slings were assembled in great numbers. Many wore rags, while others, more well armed and armored, wore illustrious bronze scales and flowing ancient tunics. All of them, however their station appeared, bore in likeness a golden laurel upon their head, joined by a branding of Dawn’s rising sun emblem.

Under the darkness of the eclipse, and seeing their enemies approaching the acropolis, a horn was blown by the armies of Dawn. Step by step, chant by chant, the human defenders began to advance like water flowing past boulders, their great bronze masters not moving an inch. From atop their buildings, mirrorlancers began to take aim and fire upon the tightly packed attackers, taking care not to smash the sides of buildings with their lancing heatrays. Slingers in the back of the human lines loaded their bullets, small metallic spheres lined with strange symbols, and threw them into the masses. When the bullets struck, small storms of cinders burst like trees in spring, showering all in blistering pain.

Throughout the city the commotion of more bronzemen assembling and city bells and horns being rung continued to spread. Even at this crucial moment, Dawn’s forces were slow to react, slow to advance in the wake of all their tumult leading to this fated confrontation. But if they were not fast, and could not break through with great speed, these extending jaws would soon close on their necks, casting all into oblivion.

Surrounded on all sides except where they had come from, the fighting on the streets was intense, loud and brutal, visceral and furious. Emotions flared from soldier to soldier against soldier to soldier. Khamul, and his army, for the first time in all their lives, and for years to come, would taste battle and revel in it. Knowing the enemy ahead, without any further speeches or strenuous epiphanies, Khamul knew and saw it in the eyes of every soldier in the army he wielded that they may never win this battle alive but for him, it would be penance for the sins of his mother.

The chariots with their swords, spears, and lances broke through the polished bronze wall of polearms and shields, the size and speed of their steeds catching blades and splintered hafts one after another until they bled and were beaten to death. Their valorous and feverous charge launching themselves deep into enemy formations that they caught archers and slingers at spearthrow-length, it was there that the battle grew intense exponentially as the snailpace bronze army were slowly waking to the sudden lightning fury of Passion’s creations. Quick and sudden puffs of hissing steam from the abominable automatons, and blood spilling from the heretical humans following a heretical god, and soldiers littered the battleground.

In Khamul’s eyes as he joined the heat of the battle, the world’s pace seemed to have slowed down considerably as he held a severed human head within his fingers, his body bruised, aching, and stained with human blood, as he was goring another human with his horns. He threw the poor sap at a fair distance, haplessly landing among the reforming line of blades and shields where was once occupied by the fleeing and terrified archers and slingers.

There, followed, was a small moment’s peace, a brief moment of heads lifting to account the living and the dead but now it was their turn. Khamul saw it and ordered his men to form their ranks as their archers began to launch a volley from their chariots. Then the battle was joined once more.

Up in the walls and ominous towers where pillars of light turned everything it touched into ash, Beliash and the climbers faced a different kind of opposition compared to Khamul. Though the heretical god refuses to turn the scorching weapons upon the self-perceived grand city there were defenses scattered across vantages that have been taking down Beliash and his climbers by the numbers.

Beliash and his climbers were like a swarm of ants climbing up against a large tree, they have taken down a few of the deadly defenses, but they have yet to take down one of the heatrays that cause luminous destruction outside of the city. They were scattered and disjointed, the still numerous defensive emplacements doing their work all too well. Finding cover behind crenelations upon a large covered area, Beliash and his rallied a number of his skirmishers to regroup, unfortunately not all were there, but wizened to the idea of finding their own cover as respite from the near relentless strikes.

One of the skirmishers, peered out of the crenellation and was immediately struck square to the head by one of the defenses. It was quick and sudden, but from where they hid they could see one of the towers, still alight, still striking whatever it was fixating on outside of the city as a hundred more projectiles from outside flew in return. There were plentiful of those deadly structures across the walls but the one they were looking at felt the closest, and if they took that down it would immensely help those from the outside looking for a way to get in and those who were already inside would easily receive reinforcements.

The idea made Beliash pause briefly, his mind wandering the thought of Khamul but then dismissed it. Both men knew why they were here, what was at stake, and what could happen. He kept his eyes upwards to the heatrays, and then glanced to the defensive emplacements before they fired shots that nearly nicked his horns. He saw an unconventional way upwards, marked by statues, unconventional looking handles, and several contact surfaces. In the spaces in between, Beliash saw the few stragglers among the climbers cowering in cover against the city’s defenses. There was a hard decision to make.

Beliash ordered his skirmishers to lighten their load and carry only what is desperately essential. It was in hopes that it would make their pace go faster and give them enough agility to dodge the shots coming from the defensive emplacements and with a deep bated breath, he rushed out like a desert cat, the defensive emplacements fired volleys and each one he dodged with varying degrees. His gambit display of foolish impetuousness and daring courage urged the rest of the skirmishers to do the same, followed by their separated comrades who were watching from a distance from the safety of their cover. But only when they reach the battlements of the walls will all of them finally have a grasp of whether or not it would still be enough.

Atop the walls and towers, soldiers of metal and flesh moved with sickly synchronization between the fire of arrows and the scorching touch of heatrays, yet none showed preparation for the reckless advance of Beliash.

Elsewhere, the great walls of the acropolis stood resolute and defiant, as an embankment of stone to stop the armies of monsters clawing at the very heart of Daylight’s last light. Outside the great walls, the fighting carried on evermore, but the gates stood as mighty as their bulwarks—though far from the impenetrable shell which wreathed the city until broken by divine work. Somewhere from within the city, soldiers carting great catapults let loose their boulders, smashing against the walls of the acropolis. The wall stood, but as the bullet shattered and split away, a small crater with lightning cracks ran the length of the impact, with trembling grains of stone falling away.

They need only to break the gates, to clear the way, to blitz the acropolis which stood so near to their reach. It was a task befitting the sons and daughters of Passion, who in her anguish knew such brutality, and now repaid it upon the spawn of the destroyer.

Up on the very battlements, hiding behind walls, crenellations, and facets that the city’s defenders would not dare deface, there were only over five hundred of them left, among those close to Beliash, even less so. Among the scattered, and the stragglers, they were making uncoordinated attempts to achieve some sort of objective victory, only to meet their doom by searing beams of intense light and fire. Over five hundred men was still plentiful but Beliash had lost almost half of his retinue from the climb upwards. It was evident that taking down the heatrays would be an impossible attempt, but not the gates.

It was just a few distances to run towards and the path forward was littered in nooks and spaces to hide behind. Beliash has been rewarded well for his own daring tenacity, but not much so to the men he leads. The realization and shock of their situation hadn’t set in yet and Beliash had no intentions in letting it happen.

Beliash rallied what remained and managed to gather some stragglers of his retinue, and wasted no time telling them his fairly mad plan.

In the streets below where the bronze began to color with the shades of red and rust, Khamul and his army was showing no signs of stopping as wave upon wave of human soldiers and bronze automatons crashed against their positions. All of their melee charioteers have been lost to battle but not all their horses were. Those who were able, mounted the surviving horses and were joined by their injured brethren-in-arms who could still hold a weapon. Whatever chariot that could be salvaged was used to cart their dead away from the fighting when possible.

Khamul’s army had outpaced its enemies and now found some respite in a large plaza, the injured were tended to with whatever scrap of cloth that could be salvaged from their dead, the archers took stock of their arrows and their numbers, and everyone else grimly accepted the idea to feed their warhounds with their fallen kin and the warhounds partook upon it with reverent gratitude. He sat down on a bronze-cast bench, clutching a side a part of his lower abdomen with his right arm as some means to topically alleviate whatever sharp pain that had accumulated from all the cuts, gashes, and bruises his body had been receiving.

The fury had not been lost among all of them, but it was starting to settle in their minds a sense of vain pessimism that perhaps they might not even win. Again and again, wave after wave, slick red upon shining bronze, and their enemies still felt unaccountable. Unending. Undying.

Khamul looked into the distance before him, he found himself in the place as before with Beliash before they split up and went on their own objectives. They were back to where they started. The beaten Lyranni chuckled grimly. He wondered how Beliash was doing. It was fortunate for them to have made it into the city before the gates crashed closed for a much larger army was left behind at the mercy of the heatrays, it may have been the Isklanas, or perhaps the other armies that they saw approach the city with the same contempt as they did.

Upon the gates of the great bronze city, Beliash’s mad plan was seeing success. Revealing their bodies to the senses of the mechanical defenses to draw their fire, only to disappear not a moment too soon so that their searing pillars of light would strike the city. The metal walls floors glowing white hot and flowing like warm honey

However, a few more of his soldiers died and many more were injured with varying severity. Beliash was no exception, his body was suffering cauterized gashes and bodily exhaustion. However, his army have found themselves upon the gate mechanism and have been successful obfuscating the defenses into firing against its own city.

They could see the mechanisms that operated the gates and the effects of the damaging beams being struck upon it. More bodies, and even more effort. Such words went through his mind as he struggled to lift his own body with his two legs as he watched more of his soldiers take their turns in drawing fire, some dying, others injured, and even more succeeding to dodge the searing pillars of light in time.

They heard a deep thunderous roar reverberating through the structure followed by sharp stinging bangs of metal crashing against metal. But the gate still stood, and so did the army below and by the gate, fettered but untouched by the great towering heatrays, roared in excitement and jubilation as they saw the gate budge against their efforts.

It was a call that encouraged and a high reminder of what was at stake. It was then that their position had been made subject under a heatray's tyrannical blinding false sunlight. The heat did not scorch, not yet. It was more like a lighthouse spotting for a ship lost in the darkness. The defensive emplacement ceased their firing, their strategy of baiting them to fire upon their own city stopped working, and entering in their direction was a subtle sound ringing at the edges of their eardrums.

They were outsmarted as Beliash realized that the heatray was drying them out, to stay was to die a slow death, to leave was to cease in their mission, but all was not lost as he saw the few rays reflecting against the meta surfaces. And scattered across the area were sheets, shards, and slivers of metal that reflected equally. Beliash ordered him to gather as much as they could carry and create a reflective surface enough to focus the light against a single point in the gate's failing mechanisms.

Meanwhile, Khamul finally stood, managing to regain some strength from the toll of his injuries, though he was far from being definitively well enough to fight again this battlefield had little to offer in such service. He could hear the same slow-paced thundering roar come closer to their direction once again, and once again he rallied his army to form their ranks as he saw the tips of their pikes as the army of the fallen god turned around the corners.

Khamul could no longer bother to account for how many of them had lost, that's how few of them only remained. All he felt and saw was a fellow kinsman on his side, carrying the same enthusiasm as he did, bearing the same fatalistic grin as he did, and wielding the same fury of Passion as he did. The one lingering thought on his mind remained to his friend, Beliash, whom he wished was doing well in his own mission as he saw the bronze army finally return to view.

Then he heard a deep thunderous roar behind them, right where the gate was but the roar only continued, growing louder and louder as they stood ready. “Beliash had done it.” Khamul had thought, “Whatever he and his men did, they did it.” It was like a dam that had been breached, the once-held-back water rushing with the force of a stormy day's flood as Khamul watched, his head turned and saw the flags, the banners, and the weapons of many races and of many nations coming in their direction.

The bronze army before them was unfazed and ready, and Khamul yelled to his men to ready themselves, listening to the continuous roaring growing louder and louder until it reached a point that it was loud enough for them to charge. And the son of a mad queen, redeeming his name and his clan and still stricken with pain and aches, led the battle without any hesitation. The battle was resumed, reinvigorated.

And the Moon Shall Overtake the Sun
First Part: Shattering Brazen Kneecaps

TOOOOT! the sound of the war frogs resounded in the halls of flame and of metal, a sign that the scouts had found the enemy - and a call for the army to come to their aid.

TOOOOT! answered the frogs of the brave vanguard, squeaking in panic as their holders charged at the war-machines with an assortment of knives, pans, and in a few cases, baked goods.

Dawn's servants may have faced many a mortal enemy in battle, but none like the one that besieged them now.

Perhaps because there was no other army like that of the azzagratite Töliŋir.

The children - for those that made up the army were no more than children, most of them not even yet into their adolescence - fueled their powers of illusion and trickery with sheer, unadulterated madness: with joy at the face of hell. With refusal to acknowledge the darkness that permeated Kirinna, and their own lives in particular - madness strong enough that it warped reality around them, forced existence to oblige their twisted vision of its nature.

There was no other way that these small children - small in both senses of the word, for even as adults the Töliŋir were only a little taller than three feet in height - would manage to defeat creatures shaped only for slaughter.

And the children were indeed winning. Crawling through improbably-placed pipes, they struck their foes from behind. Using rods of metal wrested from places to which they were welded by a divine hand, they tripped their enemies before pushing them into the furnaces.

And when the fight was won, and the machines lied dead in front of them (or among them, as a few children managed to find a way to enter the bronze beasts and control them from within) the time came for the Töliŋir to proceed to the next stage, burn-

"Looting." Apa reminded sternly. "Looting comes before burning".

Ot hid a torch behind his back and tried to look innocent, but the effect was slightly ruined by his hat catching on fire.

Again.

"Looting is an important stage of war," Apa continued, to the sound of the collective sigh of the Töliŋir at the thought of another lecture. "Anything we don't stea- ehm, I mean, borrow, could be used by the enemy against us later."

Alaŋ raised his hand.

"Yes, Alaŋ?" Apa granted him permission to speak.

"What's borrow?" He asked.

"Borrowing is taking something that didn't belong to you before you borrowed it." Apa patiently explained. As the oldest Töliŋir in the city (well, in another the city, but this city too, so... Apa stopped this line of thought. Her head was starting to hurt) she was used to silly questions like this.

Alaŋ raised his hand again.

"Yes, Alaŋ?"

"Soo... Like stealing?" He questioned.

"Yes, Alaŋ?"

"Then why didn't you just say steal?"

"Because if you steal, your Uthra might ground you." Apa said, finally sealing the matter. The Töliŋir around them nodded in understanding. None of them wanted to be grounded, and of course, the responsible Apa wanted that the least.

"e-HEM" Bala coughed. "We are still in a battlefield, and we cannot waste any moment. To looting, all of you!"

The Töliŋir scattered. As much as they liked talking, they had a factory to loot.

The Young Shepherd

It was early night. The four moons just began their ascent along their usual paths - and yet their flock, the stars, filled the skies like a shimmering field, to match the one on the earth below.

The long grass bent in the gentle, the supple stalks bending in the gentle and making the water droplets left after the recent rains glimmer like a million gems.

And the vast fields were empty - empty but for the herd of sheeps that slept in it, empty but for the occasional sheep still half-awake, grazing peacefully in the calmness of night, empty but for the young boy accompanying the sheep, their loyal shepherd.

And a wistful tune filled the air, keeping the young shepherd's company. For the shepherd was alone in the world, without kith or kin to call his own. But the young shepherd knew how to play his flute, and its music served as a home for him.

It was not a pretty thing, the flute - roughly carved from wood by an unskilled hand. But it was a gift, the young shepherd's prized possession since before arriving at his master's house, and he cherished it above all other things.

But who had given him that flute? The young shepherd did not remember - that is, if he even knew once. Was it a loving mother, carving one last gift with her caring hands to a son she would never see again? Was it an older brother, giving a silent - as much as such a thing could be said about a musical instrument- apology to a sibling he could not protect?

Or was the flute his only by mistake? Did someone lose his cherished keepsake at that wagon where it all began? Or was someone, when torn from among the starving children that filled that accursed place, was also torn from the last remnant they had of a lost life?

But regardless of its origins, the flute was a loyal companion to the young shepherd, keeping him company when no one else did. And the young shepherd repaid the flute in kind, taking care of the flute as one would of their most prized possession, even if it was an old thing too simple for even the master's children to covet.

And so the young shepherd played a tune on his flute, leaving the words that should have accompanied it unsung. It was not that he did not know the words - he could recite them by heart. But there was no one but him to sing, and no one but him to play, and the flute was dear to him, so his choice was clear.

And so the moons finished their ascent, and began descending. The young shepherd still played that same tune. He blearily fought the pull of sleep, fighting to stay awake. He did not get rest the last few days, and ate only a little. But tomorrow he would return to his master's house, and find brief respite from the harsh duty imposed on him at such a young age - but that was only if he did well.

Eventually, the sun rose, but the young shepherd was not there to welcome it. Whether he had frozen in the cold northern air, whether he was slain by fierce wolves, bare of weapon as he was, none would know. For he did not return to his master's house, and his flock had scattered.

Only his flute remained, thrown on the ground, forgotten - now that the one whose world it filled with happiness was no more.