#saphix

Who am I? I crossed the street and came across a theater, I liked the music I heard within. Maybe I was a musician? So I took up an instrument and joined a band. Many others knew which instrument they liked but I did not. While they practiced every day I only practiced once a week. They became so much better than me much more quickly, soon I was no longer able to keep up. Perhaps, I thought, I was not a musician.

I walked to the local library, there I read a book. I liked the book and thought that maybe I could be a writer? So I put my pen to the paper, and once a month I wrote a poem for a year. Other writers whom I met had written novels, they had put in the work day after day and had something great to show for their efforts. All I had were a few poems that no one read but I liked to look back at from time to time. Perhaps, I thought, I was not a writer.

Then I realized I gave much of my time to others, I thought I was generous. So I set out to find others who were generous, others who helped people. Some of them gave every second they had to helping others, I could never keep up with their pace. Perhaps, I thought, I am not so generous.

Maybe, I thought, I am kind? I found people I thought I could help. I offered them my ear, and I gave their worries a listen. They told me so many things. Some things I wish I had not heard. Some things I felt I should speak to them about. Then, I thought, perhaps I am not so kind.

I sat in a park for a long time as I thought. I thought of all the things I thought I might be, a musician, a writer, someone who was generous, and someone who was kind. All of these I thought I might be, but I am not any one of these things I have come to see.

I am someone who enjoys music but I am not devoted to it. I am someone who enjoys writing but it is not so much a passion as a hobby. I am generous but I am not selfless. I am kind but I am not blind.

I am all of these things, but I am not so much of these things that I am one of them. I wondered for some time who I am, I searched for someone like me but I could not find a single person. I realized I am not like any other person. So, I asked myself again, who am I?

Raucous screaming came from the town square. Townsfolk scattered in every direction possible, tripping and falling over each other and trampling anything that was laying in their path. In the opposite direction came the towns-guard, the city-watch. While the townsfolk panicked and flushed out, they were soon replaced with the garrison. Men quivered in their boots once they reached the town square and bore witness to what incited the panic. Some few deserted their posts but none moved an inch in toward the center of the square for at its center did a most majestic and terrifying beast make rest.

“My lord you cannot,” the man protected by armor of the finest quality forbade. Worn by the countless times it had saved his very life.

“But I can, and I must, for it is my duty to my people to stand before any such threat that cannot be met by force alone.”

“This threat is beyond our men, we must see to a proper evacuation and-“

“Escort my people to safety if you must, but I will not abandon my lands to this creature no matter how impressive it may be. Has it not been peaceful thus far?”

“That doesn’t mean-“

“Has it been peaceful thus far?” the lord repeated sternly.

“It has, my lord.”

“Then we will see what it wishes.”

Moving through the city streets the lord, accompanied by his guardsman, made his way toward the town square. At the center of the fortifications that were meant to protect from invaders but were useless to an invader of this nature. At the center of the square the most noble dragon did wait.

Laying his hand on the shoulder of one of his guardsmen the man jumped at the fright, but calmed when he saw the stoic and cool expression of his liege. Guided aside by the hand of his lord he made way so that his liege may pass.

Stepping forward from the men surrounding the beast in the square, none capable of figuring out what they would do should the worst come to pass. Many were like to flee, but the lord wondered how many would fight against the imminent threat of death. A thought he held only long enough to entertain his thoughts as he took a most leisurely pace toward his guest.

“Dragon,” he spoke clearly into the stillness of the moment, “legends have spoken of your kind but I fear you have stricken fear into the common folk by jumping out of those very legends and into my domain. To what might I owe this pleasure?”

“A question,” the ancient being spoke directly into the mind of the lord, never to any other did it appear that the beast spoke. “Wouldst thou most humbly accept destruction of this town, your land, that another may grow and flourish?”

Adjusting his stance, the lord looked over the men surrounded, none had heard the beast spoke but he knew what it had asked. “I would not, such a request must be summarily denied. My people are my most chief concern as is their well-being. Is there aught I can do to influence your decision to leaving these lands in peace?”

“Already hast thou done so,” the dragon did reply once more before preparing to take wing.

“May I make a request then?” the lord interjected.

“Thou may.”

“What did bring you hear with this request?”

My father was a king man, a humble man. My mother died a few years ago, age had taken her and now it too had taken my father. Together they rest eternally upon the hill behind our home. We were never wealthy, but my father left me enough that I might live a comfortable life until I married of my own volition. Instead I have chosen a different life.

With my pack in tow I searched the house for where my father kept it, the source and reminder of so many stories of the world he had seen. My father was a merchant, eventually, but first he was a traveler of the world. Not an adventurer like so many others who were far more daring he kept to the safe roads and saw the world. It was his tales of these far-off places that lit the fire in my heart when I was only a child.

Now that I am grown, a woman of my own right, I have nothing left to keep me from my dreams. Today I set out for my new life. My inheritance spent on the equipment I need, most importantly of them all the sword I now wear on my hip. Strong leather boots and a pack filled with rations for the road, camping material.

Before me is the world.

Still, I need only one last thing from my home before I can leave it behind for good. The box that lit up my young eyes with wonder. A small, broken little thing. Never in all of my years, in all of his attempts, had my father been able to get it open like the merchant had once said. Still, that was never its worth. For me it was always the proof of all of those stories my father had once told me. Every place he had traveled to and all of the sights he had seen were within the grasp of anyone who only wished to walk forward and claim them. This box was proof that the wondrous bazaar of the Rafaari had existed.

Finding the box deep within my fathers room I slipped it away into my pack. Offering my last respects to the place where my father had created a life for himself, my mother, and given me mine.

Now it was time to make my own, and it began the moment my boot first touched the dirt just outside my door.

Children shouted, screamed, and laughed as they ran through the bazaar. Colors of every imaginable shade and tint painted the streets. Adventurers, merchants, kings, and the common folk all walked these streets as equally as another. The Rafaari caravans had long since come together to make this place their home, a home of commerce and trade that outshined all the rest of the world. Far from the conflicts of man, elf, and the more bestial races. Here among the sands there was no fighting as there was nothing to fight for. Rich trade came to these lands for the peace the fruitless desert brought to the area.

“Anything you like, you like?” a plump creature much alike a cat that stood on its hind legs asked a passing traveler.

“Nothing, ser,” responded the young man. Brown cloak worn over his shoulders, a fresh look upon his young face. “I have traveled many nights to see a sight such as this and it is mine intent to take it in each and all before I might depart.”

“Ah! But what is it, you would wonder, that you might miss if you did not make a purchase of the bazaar before you depart, you depart? Come come, come into my shop, see my wares, see what it is you might take when you depart, you depart.”

“I have but spare few coins from the kingdom of man,” the young traveler said, revealing his small sack of coins.

Scurrying back into his shop the plump shop-keep did scurry about to find an item of interest, an old container that had never opened in a hundred lifetimes. A worthless trinket, for what could a container hold if it would never open. Yet, a purpose it might yet serve for the young master with little coin he thought.

“All coins we accept here,” the shop-keep did say when he returned from within. Placing the container down before the traveler. “Be they from the kingdom of man or the elves of the father do we give only the best of price, of price, For this container here has not opened for many lifetimes, but it is yet a reminder of so many years past, years past. Is it not such a good momento for a young man to spare only just a few coins to the Rafaari, the Rafaari?”

HEHEEHE sneaky bonus at the end because live laugh love Tumblr. I'll prob do something with the eye but I still dk what so uhmmm yeah.

Rocks scattered and fled from the top of the cliff. Knocked aside by the trespass of the adventurers boots laid firmly into the summit of the tallest mountain of the range. Casting aside his cloak, his pack, the adventurer sat upon stone as he peered out over the peak and witnessing the great open, flat ground of pebbles that lay between him and the opening of a cave cut deep into the mountain. No mountain, he was sure, would have such an unnatural cave as this on its summit.

For certain he was that he had finally reached the right place. This place which might offer him and his family, his town, the freedom from oppression that they sought. Freedom from the yoke of the Empire. Deliverance from their woes. It was all his town could do to afford to send him alone on this journey, rusted sword for protection and a pack near only large enough to carry the most essential of essentials. Many nights had he slept under the stars and upon the dirt that he might see his dreams before him instead of in the stars. Only now was it finally at hand.

Here among the clouds did he set forward into the open realm of pebbles and stones. Standing at the center of the field. Here did he strike his sword down deep into the dirt, the rock, that he might not retrieve it again. Here he sat. Waiting for the arrival of the one whom he was told to expect.

Long was the day. Warmth of the sun turned to the cool breath of night. So cold to the touch upon this peak was it that his body shivered and quaked. Yet remain he did. For some more hours yet need her remain before he was finally acknowledged by the one whom he sought.

Old and great was the beast that set foot forward from the deepest depths of the cave before him. Great was his maw, and long was his form. Each foot set out with a great thundering as his majesty did waken all who might bear witness to him. Scales adorned its body, scars traced along each side where countless blows of the sword had made efforts to slay this majestic beast. Nigh on the size of a lesser lords castle did this creature appear at full size. Close did it come to the man that knelt before him in awe.

“O’ great dragon… I beg of ye, spare me and my people. Deliver us from the unjust Count who would see our town laid to waste. Go to him, to his castle, and destroy all those who would do us harm by suffering us of their unmatchable taxes. I beg of you O’ great dragon. Deliver me, this simple man and his simple way of life, this great boon.”

Respond the dragon did not. Question his request the dragon did not. Take wing did the dragon thusly do in reply to the man’s humble request. Spreading its wings that it might encompass the heavens with its wingspan. Knocking the man to the ground with the strength of the gust that it took to launch itself into the air with a quickened run, the thunder of the gods as its feet made each contact with the grounds surface.

With great effort did the dragon gain lift and fly in the direction of the Count and his men. Leaving the man battered and beaten by his experience to lay upon the pebbles of the mountains peak and wonder.

Birds chirp as they fly between treetops.

Orange, gold, brown, leaves sway with the blowing of the wind.

Hooves of a horse clap against the stonework of the road with a satisfying click as if a musical tune, echoing.

Wood snaps, crash of crates and boxes against the stone, horses neigh loudly. Birds cease their flight. The sound of the wind disappears under the swearing of a man,

“Y’ve gon’ and don’ it now Paulie, gon’ and don’ it ‘gain,” the larger, rotund man rose high from his pedestal at the front of the carriage. Straight up, unburdened by the reigns.

Calming the horses, holding the reigns tight, was that of the smaller man, lanky and dressed in last year’s clothes that belonged even then to the year before that. “I.. I,” he stammers as he focuses on calming the horses. Calling out to them, shushing them gently. It pained him to see them like this.

“I, I,” the larger man repeated back at him mockingly. “Y’ weren’t thinkin’ Paulie, that’s what y’ were doin’, not bloody watchin’ the road like y’ were supposed ta, and look’in what you gon’ and done now. Why I oughta tell the boss what y’ gon’ and done again.”

“I-it-weren’t me last t-time Jaune, y-you know-“Jaune turned violently to face, Paulie throwing him nearly backward off the wagon.

“What is it I know Paulie, what is it why don’ you tell me?”

Paulie let go of the reigns, held the side of the cart and pulled himself back atop it- “N-nothing Jaune, nothin’ I-I didn’ mean nothin’ by it, just that-“

“Just nothing, right?” Jaune said, crossing his large arms over his broad chest.

“R-right Jaune.. j-just nothin’,” Paulie resigned as he settled the horses further, saw to the reigns.

“Bloody right,” Jaune snorted, stepping back down off the wagon carefully, using the front wheel for support. Finding it a slow and arduous process on account of his massive size.

Leaves cracked underneath his boot, every step toward the rear of the wagon was announced with the pronounced sound of autumn. Groaning over the exertion Jaune lowered himself to check the cart. It was the back right wheel, it had cracked in two in a most uneven way because of the misplaced broken stones along the path.

“Wheel’s all bent outta shape,” he barked back toward the front, where Paulie yet remained.”Yer gonna have to go inta the forest, find us some sticks and wood, can ya do that Paulie? Can ya do at least that?”

Paulie came about from the back of the wagon, forcing Jaune onto his back foot from the fright, “Why you want me to go and do that Jaune? To fix the wagon?”

“No!” he shouted, temper leaking into his voice. Heart racing from Paulie’s suddenness. “For a fire Paulie, we ain’t gonna be risking movin’ this wagon out in the dark. Not like this. Cracks anymore and we’ll be stranded out on the side ‘f the road in the dark, and I don’t need tah tell you how bad that is, do I Paulie?”

“N-no Jaune…”

“Well, then get to it!” Jaune barked.