I awoke on something soft, it felt like fur. When I opened my eyes and looked around I was shocked. There was tall grass around me, through a wide gap I could see a campfire with a few logs around it. All I knew was that I was definitely in a forest, there were trees all around me, trees that basically blocked out all light from the sun or the moon, instead, the only light came from the campfire and the glowing orbs that hung from the trees like apples from an apple tree, but they were much larger, around the size of a human head. There was a construct made with sticks built over the campfire used for grilling two large rabbits.

Who did this?

Probably the guy that saved you.

Way to state the obvious.

I got up from the sleeping bag made of fur I had been sleeping in and began looking around carefully, crouching slightly. My entire body still hurt, every bone felt broken, every muscle felt sore and I had a stinging headache.

"Oh, you're up! But you should probably lay back down," a deep, calming voice suddenly said.

I turned on the spot, making the pain worse and looked into two green eyes that were visible through the open parts of a metal helmet that hid his entire face but the eyes. Immediately the images of my village burning came to mind, but conveniently they disappeared just as quickly.

Now that I know that a spell is influencing all this it's far too obvious... so many moments where I should have noticed.

I stepped back a little to get away, but I knew that my body wasn't capable of running.

"Don't worry boy, I'm not going to harm you," the man said as he walked past me and sat down on one of the logs, putting more wood into the fire.

I swallowed every drop of saliva I had in my mouth.

"W-Who are you?" I asked.

"Golbrant Rockweller, most commonly known as the Knight of Flowers," the man said, bowing slightly from his sitting position. "Since you're up you can probably eat for yourself, so why not sit down and wait with me till the meat's cooked?"

I was a bit confused, but also hungry... or just empty.

"Fine," I said as I sat down on a log, facing this Golbrant.

He took two sharp sticks and put a rabbit on each before handing one of them to me.

"Eat, it's really good," he said after he saw me hesitating.

It was silent for a little while.

"So, how did you end up here anyway?" Golbrant asked.

"I fell down... didn't you save me?" I said.

"SO from there huh?" Golbrant looked to his left and I did the same.

A good twenty metres to our left, hidden by high bushes and only narrow gaps between trees and the general darkness of the forest I hadn't noticed it before. There was a solid wall of rock sticking out of the ground.

"And I found you right around here boy... no idea who saved you," Golbrant admitted.

"What? So who saved me then?..."

Whoever did is either really good at hiding or already long gone.

"So... what made you fall down from there?" Golbrant asked.

"I... I'd rather not talk about that," I said.

Tears once again formed and ran down my face.

"You know, sometimes it's good to talk about things like that. So if you want someone to listen to, so... you know," Golbrant said.

How do I even know I can trust you?

You can.

What? How do you know that?

Golbrant Rockweller, the Knight of Flowers... the Oathbreaker... the Godkiller. I knew him.

You know him? Wait... for how long have you been dead anyway?

Oh... I died somewhere during the Age of Calsium... a good three or fur thousand years ago.

So... how old is that guy?

Hmm... from what I could gather from your memories... it should be around thirteen-sixteen... nine-hundred years... he's a good thirteen millennia-old, probably closer to fourteen.

"Wha-" I stopped myself.

Golbrant looked at me.

What?! Thirteen thousand years old? How?

Immortality, pretty sure you've heard of it. And there are a lot of old folks out there... I mean hell, we have king Gil who should be about five thousand now... oh and the Riftwalker as well... probably even older than Gil and Golbrant combined.

I knew my mouth was open gaping wide but I didn't care.

There are people that old?

Sure there are... what did you expect, this is a world full of magic, oversized house cats, immortal beings, deities and so on. But the important thing is that you can trust him and that I'm not some mind healer so you should probably talk to him about things like this, you know, get it off your heart.

I guess...

...

...

...

"We were attacked..." I said. "After the hunt... I noticed smoke in the sky. We ran, only to find the village burning, falling apart. And in the middle of all that were knights, hunting down neighbours, family friends... I ran to my house... to find my mother." Tears began flowing down my face and I began sobbing heavily.

"You don't have to boy," Golbrant said.

I shook my head.

"It's probably better if I talk about it," I stated.

Golbrant nodded.

"Should I take off my helmet? To look less like... one of them?"

"No, it's fine."

"Good, you'd probably be more scared of what's beneath.

Now I want to know... go, tell him to take it off.

I ignored Ira and continued talking.

"She was... she was already dead," I said. The images of her dead body came back to mind, over and over. The spell on me tried to suppress them but no matter how hard it tried they reappeared shortly after. "So my girlfriend and her brother, the three of us ran... but, but we were attacked. H-He was killed and I-" I stopped myself.

You can trust him but it's better not to talk about me.

"I grabbed her and... we ran away. When I reached the end of the forest... she... she wasn't strong enough to keep on... and then I... I jumped from the edge..." I broke out into loud sobbing.

I heard Golbrant running over to me as I fell to the ground, letting go of my half-eaten food.

"Are you alright boy?" he asked.

No... I wasn't alright. My entire body was shaking, every shake made my bones and muscles hurt like hell and the headache wasn't going anywhere. On top of that were my sobs, and the tears. I couldn't stop myself.

"Why... why did it have to happen to us?" I asked no one in particular. "Why. Why, why, why, why!" I began screaming and hitting the ground, throwing a tantrum like some little child.

"Calm down, monsters may lurk in the dark," Golbrant urged.

But I didn't stop.

"Boy calm yourself!" Golbrant said angrily.

His loud voice made me cower a little, it actually scared me.

"I know what happened is difficult for you, I know what happened is horrible. But you need to calm down and accept things as they are. The world is a dark, lonely and brutal place. Terrible things happen every day, every hour. Barely anyone lives an easy life. It's not like it is in books where the hero just gets whatever they want. Life is not a fairy tale!"

I stopped flailing about on the ground.

"I know... I know... but... I... I don't know what to do," I said.

Golbrant's words had carried a power with them that changed something in me, at least I thought so... until something in my head clicked. I heard an audible sigh from Golbrant before being flooded with memories I wanted to forget.

"Boy?" he asked, concerned.

But I just lay there, numb, my eyes wide, my mouth open, breathing quickly. My body ached even more than it did before and I heard screams of events long in the past all at once, screams from another life.

The spell... it broke.

I knew that, I felt that. Everything around me seemed to loom over me like a predator waiting to pounce. The trees, the grass, the stick with my half-eaten rabbit, the fire, Golbrant and the bushes. All of it seemed as if it wanted to attack me at any moment. I grit my teeth and forced a smile to appear on my face. I got onto my knees and tilted my head slightly backwards with my back nearly straight and looked at Golbrant with the brightest smile I could muster and widened eyes. When I talked my voice was weak and... strange. It had a slightly higher and uneven pitch to it.

"You're right... life is not a fairy tale!"