In the Van'Heatah family kitchen, Mira fumbled through the icebox, looking around for something to take his mind off the great pork disaster. Pickings were slim, but after a few moments of digging, he settled on some chicken cutlets. The scent of the burnt meat still lingered in the air, taunting the ever-hungry teen. He delicately marched the remains of their ruined feast over to the waste bin. Mira had sadness in his eyes as he dropped the ribs into the trash, raising a hand to his forehead to salute the fallen meal after discarding it. He turned back to the stove with a raised brow, raw chicken in one hand, rubbing his chin with the other, pondering the answer to a new riddle. "So..." Mira asked the oven. "How do you work?"

  In the freshly fallen woods behind the home, Sachi sat quietly on a stump, pondering the tale his father had just told him. He stared at patches of snow that somehow had clung to the ground throughout his father's woodcutting, unsure how to process the words he had just heard. After a few minutes that felt like hours, he found the strength to meet his father's gaze again.

  "So... we're monsters?"

  The boy spoke plainly, the question being rhetorical in nature. Wilhelm didn't wince in the slightest at the assertion, for it was a question he had always feared his son would ask him—and one he had asked himself a hundred times over.

  "The Elves," Sachi continued. "They..." His voice suddenly cut off, halted by his own stomach's churn. "They've enslaved the Humans—so many Clans all around the world—for centuries. And the last Elven Lord... he-..." He paused, findind it hard to keep so many details in order. "What was his name again?"

  "Artur..." said Wilhelm coldly. "His name was Artur Pel'Dregan... and as you said, he was the foulest breed of monster our world can breed. He was petty and sadistic—the worst kind of Lord. He sent his Knights across Battle like a plague, trampling millions in each nation they marched through, all the way from Camelot to this land where the Human Clan felt the full force of his cruelty. Thankfully, around five hundred years ago, in the Age of Heroes, the God of Wrath challenged Artur and freed the ancient Humans of these lands."

  "Arén did that?" Sachi's eyes gleamed in wonder at the mention of such a legendary warrior. Every child in every Kingdom had heard some tale or another of Arén's life, for he was a Mortal who challenged the very meaning of "mortality" through his ascension to Godhood.

  "Aye." Wilhelm looked on with a proud smile. "He did. Those were back in days before Arén had earned his prestigious title, and before the Mortals of our world named this Age after him. Back then, Arén was just a young mixed-breed kid like you, wandering the lands for a good fight."

  "Woah..." Sachi couldn't help but trail off in amazement at the thought that Arén had freed the people of his homeland land so long ago.

  "After that," continued Wilhelm. "The Corvus family rose up and formed this kingdom, so it's no wonder some Humans still hold some spite towards folks like us for hailing from Artur's Clan." Wilhelm looked to the ground in shame. In that moment, the big Elv knew his selfish desire to keep his son free of guilt was a wrong. "I'm sorry, Sachi—this is all my fault. Somewhere in my heart, I always knew it would take more time for the people of this Kingdom to forgive us. I hoped it would be sooner, that you wouldn't feel the barbs of our Clan's misdeeds." Wilhelm approached his son and stood over him. "But it doesn't have to stay that way forever..." His tone and stance shifted. Shame subsided, and confident passion now replaced the man's tone. "I came here with a dream—a dream that this nation would be different from the unjust land of Camelot where I was raised, and I haven't given up on that dream just yet, son." He looked down to his child with the shining passion of a thousand emeralds in his eyes, "I promise you: I'll change the Corvus Kingdom somehow. I'll make it a place where you and your brother can be seen as yourselves. It'll be a world where children, be they Human, Elv, Titan, or any combination of Clans, aren't taught to hate one another from birth!" Wilhelm turned his bright eyes skyward, "A society where we build together! A land of love! A place where we can truly be..." Wilhelm's booming declaration suddenly ended, as if he remembered something important. The confidence once brimming from his face left, and a frown formed without his permission. Sachi's father spoke softly, "One day... one day we'll all hold it. And when it's over—by the Gods, I can't wait for it to be over—then we'll all be free..." His stare was still far away, lost in clouds too high to touch.

  Sachi was used to his father trailing off. He had thought many times, and told Mira under a vow of secrecy, that his father's mind had been slipping away for quite some time. The vast majority of the time, Wilhelm was as sharp as a pin, and most knew him as a pleasant joker around both Palos and Posidon. He would hum merrily as he dragged his rickety wagon full of silver wares down the gravel paths and cobblestone streets, never bothered by the uneven roads or dirty looks people would occasionally give out for free. The long-eared farmer was always looking to wag his chin, occasionally coming across as desperate when meeting new people. Wilhelm was always coming up with quick-witted ways to poke fun at people, but he always did so with a respectful smile to let them in on the joke. When they teased him back, he would laugh alongside them harder than anyone. It also was common for him to fall into telling long-winded tales without permission or warning. After all, Wilhelm had gathered many miscellaneous tidbits of knowledge and lessons through his long life, and he was hungry to share them all. Sachi had noticed his father's odd gaffes before today, and he had no doubt that as the years went on, they would only grow more prominent.

  Wilhelm found Sachi again and shook his head quickly, snapping himself from the daze. "My point, son... is that as Mortals, we make assumptions. Tell me, when you see a Titan on the street, what do you do?"

  Sachi scratched his head as he thought of those rare sightings of men and women who stood taller than houses attempting to stroll through Palos or Posidon. "I hug the wall, usually."

  The long-eared Elv raised a finger. "So, you assume they would step on you if given the chance..."

  "Well, not on purpose... I hope."

  "Well, there are many Mortals in this world who assume we would throw chains on them again if they didn't hug their walls." The bald man smiled thinly. "It's our job to prove they're wrong—anyone who doubts us—not the other way around! We are the Van'Heatahs. We don't represent Humans, or Elves—no! We represent ourselves." He tapped a fist on his son's heart. "That's all you will ever have to be in this world, Sachi. You have a kind soul, be true to the world about who you are—they'll recognize you once they see how genuine you are ."

  Sachi smiled at his father's words, feeling a need to look away in embarrassment for a second.

  Wilhelm went on. "Don't you ever let some rotten bully shape who you want to be or who you see when you look in the mirror each morning. And as for your mother.... those boys know nothing of her. They never saw her kindness, her strength... the love she held for everyone who knew her. If they did, they'd bite off their own foul tongues! Your mother was caring... she was an elegant woman—not a cruel bone in her body! If she were here today, I know that above all else in this world, she'd stand behind you and be proud of the man you're becoming." Wilhelm and his son shared a moment of pleasant silence among the stumps and fallen oaks around them. Sachi was getting strong, and Wilhelm knew it was only a matter of time until his son would be the only one swinging the hammer and pulling the cart to Posidon.

  Sachi felt reassured in himself. Though he'd never met his mother, his father's words of faith had flushed Faron's hatred from his adolescent mind. Instead, self-doubt was replaced with a vision of a magnificent mother smiling proudly at him. "I-... I wanna help with your dream..."

  Wilhelm couldn't have been prouder hearing those words uttered from his son's mouth. "I know, son... and one day you will." The sweaty Elv closed his eyes and chuckled as he rustled his son's spiked hair. "There's so many broken people in this world, Sachi. Let's do our best to save them." He smiled down at his almost-grown son, not a doubt in his mind that the boy would grow into something amazing. "Now come on, let's make sure your clutz of an older brother didn't burn our house down."

  Sachi snickered, feeling oddly happy to have been trusted with the truth of his father's Clan. "Yeah... let's go home."

  Sachi and Wilhelm were only a few hundred paces from the house when they spotted the black smoke leaking from their kitchen. The pair looked at one another with disgust and horror, twin jaws forcing their way toward the dirt. Sachi threw his hands over his head, allowing them to flatten his spiky hair.

  That fucking idiot!

  "Mira? Mira?!" Wilhelm screamed as he dashed into the plume of smoke fearlessly.

  "I knew we shouldn't have trusted him alone with the oven!" Sachi yelled after his father. "He does this every time!" The young Elv couldn't stop himself from screaming "You fool!" loudly to himself, then sprinted around to the side of the house to find anything capable of putting out the fire.

  When Wilhelm reached the doorway he saw his adopted son losing a war against the blaze. The window curtain above the sink had caught on fire somehow, and Mira was attempting to kill the flames by swinging an oven mitt wildly at the curtains. This only worsened the now roaring inferno, making the oven's fiery roar grow stronger and expel even more smoke. When Mira noticed his adoptive father, his heart sank into his stomach. His eyes went wide as saucerpans, and he fibbed poorly.

  "Yoo..." The boy's golden eyes darted to the smoking oven and back. "I can explain."

  Wilhelm ran in and pushed Mira aside, knocking the blue-haired fool to the floor. He grabbed the curtain rod and heaved the culprit of the inferno out the back door and into frosty grass. Sachi arrived at the back door just in time with a bundled shirt filled with as much snow as he could gather; the perfect amount to put the window shade out of its misery for good. The Van'Heatah family had slain the flaming curtain. Wilhelm panted in the kitchen as his adrenaline wore off, relieved he got back in time to prevent the whole house from burning down but still miffed at the fire's culprit. He looked over to Mira in awe of the boy's stupidity. "Really? Another window shade?"

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  "It's not my fault!" Mira hopped up and patted a bit of ash off himself, waving the putrid smoke out of his face. "It always gets in the way!"

  "How does it get in the way?" Wilhelm growled as he stared down at the child, teeth nearly bared. "Are you cooking in the sink!?"

  "It just does!" retorted Mira with a hiss in his tone.

  "Relax, you two." Sachi cut in. "We'll figure something else out for dinner. And don't worry, I'll cook." Mira and Wilhelm glared at one another and then walked into the living room, both men satisfied by the promise of a new meal. Sachi sighed and took another look outside at the curtain rod that had almost burned his home to the ground.

  You just can't trust him...

  Sachi tossed a few leftover bits of burnt chicken away and stretched his back, readying himself for the labor of cooking. He slinked over to the icebox and did some digging. He found sausages first. Surely, they would be quick to cook in a pan. But as his hand stretched out, another item caught his gaze; a ten-pound bag of frozen prawns his father had bought yesterday from a fisherman in Posidon. The long-eared boy tensed up at first, knowing his father was saving this treat for a special occasion. Prawns certainly didn't come cheap, and it was rather hard to find such high-quality shellfish out of season. They had to be foreign, brought to Posidon's port on some ship that had traveled thousands of miles to sell them to the highest bidder. But the day had been long for all the Van'Heatah boys, and Wilhelm had promised them a feast. Sachi chuckled to himself as he pulled the frosted bag out.

  Oh, well, I can always replace 'em when I get paid next week.

  He took the bag out of the icebox and brushed the chill off. Just out their kitchen window, the sun finally disappeared. Light faded from the sky, leaving only dim candles and the stars outside their windows to light their late supper. It didn't take long for the aroma of Sachi's cooking to fill their house, erasing the putrid stench of flaming curtain and two failed meals. By the hour's end, the family sat down to eat.

  Mira loved Sachi's cooking, even more than Mr. Van'Heatah's. It wasn't that Wilhelm was a bad cook; he was simply afraid to use a hefty amount of spice, leaving his recipes slightly bland and without complexity. As the three ate, they laughed and cheered while recounting old stories and lovingly mocking one another—making their ancestors proud as they filled their bellies and hooted back and forth in laughter. Wilhelm couldn't help but poke fun at Mira as they ate, whose endless pit of a stomach never seized to amaze him—especially for such a small boy.

  "Ta-ah-ah! I swear, Mira, "If I have to keep feeding you like this we'll have to start mining for gold!" Wilhelm continued to slap the table in amusement of his blue-haired pig of a son.

  "I already told you, one day I'll pay you back for everything!" said Mira, trying as best he could to defend himself with his mouth full of crustacean. Sachi was usually embarrassed by his adopted brother's uncouth manner of eating, but tonight it felt right to laugh along with his father at the mess Mira was making. Outside the warmth of their table, the cold grew icier in the Meadows. The winter, knowing its time was ending, raged against the coming spring with its last icy breath, blessing the fresh grass around their home with a crispy frost for one last time that season.

  After every night's supper, Mira was tasked with cleaning the dishes. It was the one chore that he actually enjoyed doing, and he was rather fast at it with his the lightning-fast hands his Radiant Art allowed him to use. It was also the only household job Sachi could trust Mira to do without supervision, since the worst thing he could do was chip a dish. It had been five years since the island boy had moved in with them, but he had always been a slow learner. He still knew very little about the culture of the Green Edge that Sachi had been born into, much less the Corvus Kingdom as a whole, and even though his heart was in the right place, Mira frequently disrespected Human traditions without meaning to. Sachi had asked Mira about his life back on Spring Island many times, but his explanations were often vague and confusing. The one thing Sachi knew for sure was that Mira and his siblings fought, they fought a lot, and their fights were far more than the tussles any bully had bothered Sachi with.

  After the dishes were finished, the boys got ready for bed, making sure to brush their teeth and wash their faces lest they suffer their father's wrath. They shared a room, something that Sachi had always hated and Mira had always enjoyed. The blue-haired troublemaker was always waking Sachi in the middle of the night, looking to sneak out or cause mischief, but Sachi always refused. There was a curfew in the Green Edge for a reason. And besides, Sachi's father would be furious if he caught them out.

  Wilhelm blew out the candle in his sons' room before closing the door, saying one last goodnight to the tiresome boys before leaving them for then evening. "Sleep well, you two. I'm glad we talked today, Sachi. I know you'll help me as best you can. And Mira, ya lightning-bug, I'm sorry again about the ribs. I promise to make it up to you next week."

  "Don't worry about it, Willy," Mira yawned deeply as the words escaped him. "The prawns were even better."

  Sachi scowled at his brother for his bad manners. "It's..." He stopped himself. There was no use at this point. "Whatever... Goodnight, father. Thank you again for what you taught me today." Wilhelm nodded and closed the door behind him. He trotted back downstairs to their humble living room. Now that the boys were upstairs, he had some time to stretch his legs and relax before heading to his smithy out back. Beside their staircase sat a small bar cart. Wilhelm didn't have much of a taste for liquor, but after today's bout with a potential house-fire he felt that a stiff drink was needed.

  Wilhelm let out a sigh of exhaustion while putting the ice in his glass. The Van'Heatahs didn't own any nice rocks glasses, so he simply poured the dark brown whisky into a coffee mug. On the bar cart sat a set of framed flash-photographs, the most valuable in Wilhelm's heart out of the dozens of captured moments that hung throughout their small home. The moment on the left was taken more recently, just two years ago at a fair in the South Meadows. In the flash-captured moment, Wilhelm stood proudly smiling with each son close to his sides, rustling at the tops of both their wild haircuts. Mira's face was lit up with joy, for it was the first time he had ever been to a fair. Sachi on the other hand, looked annoyed; he hated having his image captured because he never thought he looked good in them.

  Wilhelm chuckled as he looked down at his grumpy son. His eyes wandered right to the older moment captured seventeen years ago. The photo was of Wilhelm, looking about the same as he did the night he gazed upon the framed image, apart from one or two less wrinkles on his face. Besides him stood a woman. The young lady was tall, her head leaning down to rest on Wilhelm's shoulder. She was looking up to the Elv with eyes full of happiness. The smiling woman's complexion was darker than Sachi's or Wilhelm's, and her head bled with a mane of curled, sanguine hair that reached past her waist. The woman's eyes were an almost-black shade of brown, yet they somehow sparkled in the same way as a moonless sky. She wore a smile that could bring comfort to the shyest of children with so much as a glance—teeth white and perfect, squinted eyes showing how genuine the smile was. Wilhelm's arm lay gently over the woman's shoulder in that captured moment, the pair looking happy standing beside the Ol'Phanx. Looking down on that frozen memory in the bleak of night, Wilhelm felt a sense of nostalgia creep through him.

  He picked up the older flash-photo, along with his drink, and brought it over to the couch where he could kick his feet up on the coffee table. He propped up the memory's frame carefully and raised his glass to it, almost like it served as his drinking buddy for the night. He took a long sip from his mug. When the glass left his lips, he let out an exhale of satisfaction. "Ahhhh... Flynn Lancaster, you may be an uptight bastard... but hot damn! You make the smoothest whisky on this hill." He glanced down at the woman in the still image and smirked. "You'd be proud of him. At least... I hope you would be." Suddenly a thought came into his head—one that made him burst out laughing unexpectedly. He covered his mouth, knowing his giggles would bring the sounds of children's footsteps if he wasn't able to contain himself. He spoke again to the image in a whisper. "You'd hate Mira, though—trust me." He looked away from the flash-photo and shook his head from side to side, realizing how ridiculous he would look if either of his sons were spying on him. He took another swig of the smooth Lancaster whisky and strolled over to his bookshelf to distract himself further. He pulled down an old leather-bound book, the spine of which read "The Golden Age Chronicles" in thick black ink.

  He brought the leather beast back to the couch with him, where he would stay up for many more hours, and many more glasses of the smooth liquor, until eventually his eyes could not stay open any longer. He closed his book after several hundred pages, reaching about halfway through it, and stretched his arms to let out an involuntary yawn that could be heard throughout the house. He looked over to their wall clock, the small hand almost reaching three. Before heading up to bed he made sure to pick up the memory of himself and the red-haired woman, giving it a final once over for slightly too long.

  Suddenly, a loud knock pounded at the door, shaking their candle-lit home.

  Wilhelm was startled. "Who would knock at such a late hour?" He put the frame's face down quickly, and hard too—so roughly that the corner of the glass cracked, covering the woman's face with a web of cracked glass. Wilhelm stumbled over to the door chuckling to himself. "Ta-ah-ah! Maybe that damn Lancaster heard me praising his drink."

  When Wilhelm swung the door open, he needed to blink several times to process what stood in front of him, for he was greeted by a revolver's barrel aimed between the eyes. A ghoulish form adorned in the remains of a tattered purple cloak stood haunting his stoop. The wide-shouldered figure stood without speaking for a few moments, simply gripping the handgun more tightly as he studied the Elv before him. Wilhelm couldn't help but let his eyes drift in that silence, where he was able to note the scuffed boots of black leather worn by the purple-cloaked goon that went halfway up the calf. These weren't work-boots crafted for tasks such as farming, nor shaped like any hiking boot Wilhelm had seen on his travels to the Kingdom where his son was born. These boots were miliary-grade. Yet it wasn't the fit of the man's footwear that caused Wilhelm pause, it was the level of wear—the titanium-toed combat boots had been shredded to a point where the metals beneath had been exposed to the world, and all too many chunks of the soles were missing.

  A cold chill entered the Van'Heatah home from the cruel world they tried to survive in. The stranger pulled down his hood; on his face he gleamed in excitement with a friend's smile. His nose was large, upturned like a pig's, with eyes toned deep blue like a still sea. The stranger's curly hair was black and matted, carrying a stench that made it apparent he hadn't showered in months. His skin was bronzed and dry, as if he had walked through a desert just before knocking on the Van'Heatahs' front door. The man's ears were long and pointed at the ends, and on his left ear he wore a silver clasp on his cartilage, just like Wilhelm and Sachi.

  The cloaked man looked down the sights of his revolver, grinning from ear to ear. The tone of his voice was sinister and melodic, with every syllable carrying gravitas. "How long has it been, Wilhelm...?"

  A shot rang through the icy night air, stirring a few crows resting in the East Meadow.

  (To Be Continued...)

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