A flowery incense rides the wind. Red, white and pink tulle flowers are blooming in the garden.
“This is a good village. The soil has... power.”
A young man remarked. His figure atop a horse cut an elegant picture, but the armor worn under his blue cloak, and the sword wrapped on his waist clearly distinguished him as a warrior.
As his horse approaches, he takes in the scenery. Eventually, the chief and some other higher-ups approach him.
"Welcome to Kiko Village!"
"Thank you for the welcome, I’m flattered. I'm Lieutenant Hell Levi.”
A woman greeted the man, Levi, and he responded. Her posture was straight, and her gaze towering, despite her old age. Levi was not too surprised; this was a frontier town, after all.
One of the villagers accompanying the woman offers Levi a horse gag, so he dismounts and obliges.
“Will you be having dinner with us tonight?”
"The survey will take about three days, so yes."
"Then let me welcome you at my house.”
"Thank you. I’ll start gathering information tomorrow. For now—I’ll have to hear your account."
For the past two years, winds from The Great Ice Field in the north have been spreading around the north. Villagers reported massive crop failures and fodder was short as well. As a result, food prices soared.
Banditry became more common and the security situation continued to worsen too. Levi had faced some himself and had a tough time. Northern-bred horses were notoriously tough, after all. He’d had to flee.
His cowardice then was the reason for Levi’s demotion to the frontier.
Wandering about was a fun experience. The village was refreshingly lively; his usual postings were desolate fortresses and towns, thoroughly ransacked by the Eberians during their war.
Finding himself at the fields, Levi saw around 20 boys and girls playing. The game they were playing was quite odd. One by one, each child took up a stick with a ring attached to it and swung the stick. The goal was to see how far the ring could fly.
While it might have seemed just a fun game, Levi found it complex once he imagined himself playing it. It would require complex wrist movements.
Another group of children seemed to be ganging up on one child—or so it seemed. But the boy smoothly evaded every person that came at him. No matter how they attacked—in waves, together, or randomly—he beat them off each time.
Levi was too intrigued to just watch. He approached the boy, under the guise of a questioning.
Not that a child would give him any profound answers.
The boy turned to face him, completely unmoved or unpressured. He was beautifully dressed and well-groomed—obviously quite different from the others.
But his eyes. Levi felt both repelled and sucked in. Those weren’t the eyes of a human, let alone a child.
“You’re... Marco? The chief’s son?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm. How old are you?”
“Eight.”
“Eight... Marco, what do you think of this village?”
“It’s nice.”
The response was average. Levi had merely been stringing up words to cover up his fear of the boy, and he felt somewhat deflated at the end. But the boy’s continuation surprised him.
“The livestock’s well-bred and strong. Look at that horse.” Marco gestured at a farmer and his mammoth of a horse.
Levi’s eyes widened at the sight. No doubt the result of the thicker miasma contents in the atmosphere.
“...It must take quite the farmer to care for that thing.”
“Not if the farmer is cruel and ruthless. He’s been handling horses for 10 years.”
Was this an analogy? Levi turned his head and found one.
The horse would be the village of Kiko, and the farmer Count Hellevi, its feudal lord. The village was incorporated into his territory about 10 years back, too...
“Cruel, huh?”
“Yep. Every time he misbehaves, the beast’s ration gets smaller.”
“Hmm...”
“Now, the beast is old and weak. It can't rebel against its master, of course.”
Levi grunted.
No comments:
Post a Comment