Return of the Fallen Volume 9 Chapter 1
“Wake up…”
A soft-voiced called out.
“Big brother! Hurry and wake up. Fathers calling for you!”
Slowly opening his eyes, a small young boy sat up. Wiping the sleep from his eyes, the young boy turned to the calling soft voice and stretched out his thin hand.
“Thank you for waking me, Alta.”
The young boy rubbed the young girl’s head and the young girl smiled sweetly. Before her attitude suddenly shifted and she slapped his hand away.
“Of course I can wake big brother up all by myself, Alta is a big girl after all.”
The young boy nodded before pinching the girl’s cheeks.
“Ouch what was that for!?”
“That’s to bring you back to reality. When you really are a big girl, won’t that make me an old man? heh.”
Alta pouted before slapping her big brother in the chest a few times but because she was so small, her tiny hands felt like someone was hitting him with a pillow and nothing more.
“Stupid brother. Take this and this and this.”
As she said this, the young boy lurched forward and scooped his little sister up, and threw her onto the bed before tossing both the blankets and all of the pillows on top of her.
A shout from the distance came in through an open wind.
“Boy, why are you still not here. If I have to come in there myself, you’re hides gonna get the switch!”
The young boy gulped before shouting back.
“Sorry father, Alta was supposed to wake me but she’s still not up yet!”
Alta dug her way out beneath the blankets just in time to see her older brother trying to hold his laughter in. She quickly grabbed a pillow from the bed and launched it at his face but before it hit he had already shut the door behind him and the pillow struck nothing but the door with a low.
*thud*
“Stupid brother!”
Coming down the steps, the young boy ran into a kitchen carved entirely from wood. Once he came upon the kitchen he saw his mother kneading something on the counter. She looked at him and smiled brightly.
“Son, where’s your sister. Don’t tell me, did you pull one on her again?”
The boy ignored his mother’s gaze.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about. I just woke up and haven’t seen her.”
Just as he said that from up above several thuds rang out.
*Boom thud thud bang*
The mother rolled her eyes.
“So Alta is just stomping around in your room for no reason then.”
The boy shrugged sheepishly before quickly swiping a few slices of bread covered in butter from the counter and dashing toward the door but before he could leave, the door slammed in front of him with a snap of his mother’s fingers.
“Young man, I know you’re not about to leave without giving me a kiss goodbye.”
“Mommmm. I have to go, dad’s already yelling for me. If I’m late my butt will be red for a week.”
His mother stood there with hands on her hips and said nothing else. A glare and her silence were all she needed because a second later, the young boy quickly hugged his mother. He barely stood higher than her waist so she leaned down and planted a fat kiss on his forehead. He groaned as the kiss was too wet. Something his mother did on purpose just to mess with him he was sure of it.
Very quickly he gave her a peck on the cheek but that wasn’t enough as she refused to let him go until he gave her a real kiss on her cheek. Finally, he relented and she released him. With a flick of her finger, a ring on her hand glowed and the door reopened. As soon as he was out the door he was about to run ahead when his mother called back to him.
“Don’t forget this.”
His mother had a lunch packed in a small basket. The boy ran in grabbed it and ran out.
“Now hurry up and go to your father and you’d better not dare wipe my kiss from your forehead or I’ll know it young man!”
The boy had just reached outside and his hand had instinctively come up to his face but hearing his mother yammering and the hidden threat, he decided it best to leave the wet kiss there. He groaned once more before telling himself.
(I’m not wiping it because I’m deciding not you.)
Running out the door in mild defeat, the first thing to greet him was a wide expanding forest. His home was a little more than halfway up inside of a large tree. In every direction, there were more and more homes just like his. Each one with a family similar to his. Across from him about 50 feet away, another door opened opposite of his from within a tree. An old person saw him and laughed.
“Mama give you another kiss this morning.”
The boy ignored the old lady and raced to the edge of a wooden platform. Extending his hand outward, a vine unfurled from the tree and went to his hand, wrapping around his hand and upper forearm. Without another word, he jumped from the platform and the vine quickly lowered him down accordingly.
The moment he touched the ground, the vine unwrapped itself and rewrapped itself around the base of the tree.
As soon as he was on the ground, a large man stood in front of him and glared down at him.
“Father I can explain.”
The man ignored the boy’s words and grabbed him by his arm roughly.
“Don’t want to hear it, just hurry up and come.”
The boy had no choice in the matter and was promptly dragged along deeper into the forest.
Many others saw this but none dared stepped in. They all knew the man’s temper. Besides, they knew he wouldn’t go too far…hopefully.
Dragging the boy through the forest, the two went deeper and deeper until they reached a fairly darker part of the forest. The man snatched the basket of food from his son before tossing the boy to the ground.
Setting the basket down carefully he then walked over and quickly found two sticks similar in length on the ground. Picking them up, he threw one to his son and held the other firmly in one hand.
The boy knew this well as he had done this many times over and over and over again for more than two years now.
Picking up the stick which was around 3 feet long, the boy gripped it with both hands and his expression changed.
The man saw this and a small smile formed on his lips before he shouted.
“Begin!”
—————————————————————————-
A while later, the young boy opened his eyes. He was laying on a soft comfortable bed. The smell of bitter herbs and medicine filled his nose. Right after he smelled this a pain struck him and spread through his whole body.
*Urh*
“It seems your father’s instilled some more lessons into you boy.”
An old yet calming voice came from across the room. A person wrapped in a dark cloak was leaned over a large workbench. Many apparatus, tools, and glass containers were scattered all over this work table, along with books and old parchments. In the old man’s hands, which were covered in burns and other scars, he held a small grey flower with a pair of golden sheers.
Slowly and methodically he cut tiny pieces from this flower’s petals and allowed them to fall onto a small metal scale.
The boy tried to sit up but the sharp pain he felt on his whole body caused him to spasm in agony.
“Wait just a moment, I’ll feed you a potion after this last bit. Just lay there and wait.”
The boy was used to this already and did just that. He did his best to try and keep still as the old man finished up whatever he was doing.
“Master, what are you concocting this time?”
The old man finished cutting the petals from the flower and carefully used a small spoon and scooped up a certain amount of this flower before putting it into a pestle and then grinding the flower into a fine powdery substance.
“I’m working on a new potion that should speed up the growth rate of crops.”
“Crops Master, but we always have food and have never run out in the great forest. No ones ever starved to death. Why would we need even more food, wouldn’t it be a waste?”
The old man put everything down before grabbing something from a shelf. It was a small clear vial with a green liquid swirling inside of it. Walking over he held it near the boy but before he gave it to him he pulled his hand back and asked.
“Boy, why do you need this healing potion. In time, won’t your body naturally heal? Won’t it just be a waste to give it to you?”
The boy was confused by his own words basically being thrown back in his face but something began to spark in his mind.
The old man quickly grabbed the boy’s mouth open and dumped the contents of the vial in. The foul-tasting sludge was vile and bitter but the boy swallowed it all. The very next moment the pain in his body began to vanish and the bruises covering him from head to toe receded and he was healed.
“Listen here boy, the world is not so simple. Just like how you don’t technically need my potion to heal, without it, it could take weeks for you to fully recover. Just because we here in the forest don’t need more food, that isn’t the case for those who live outside of the great forest. As you know, I am not from this place. I have seen the outside world and have traveled from one side of the great Feya continent to the other. Many places suffer from famine, disease, war, and more. Tell me, boy, what do you think desperation does to those without when they see those with abundance.”
The boy started to realize how naive he was.
The old man walked back to his workbench and began sifting through documents.
“If everyone has enough, maybe, just maybe we won’t have to harm one another. Maybe we can all come together. Just maybe we can all finally get along and a real lasting peace can form. That my boy Zephris is what I am trying to achieve. Peace of our time.”
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