FicWad

By the time the first rumors of war reached us, first brought to our town in the southern mountains by merchants and common travelers, the war had likely spread far inland from the northern coast where the armies of the Red Sword nation had first gone ashore. Just a mere kid at that time, still attached to the skirt of my mother, I understood little of the worries of the adults, and even less about the world.

My world consisted of little more than thoughts of food, play and my parents and the rest of the family. Like other children, I would sometimes go with my mother or aunts to the fields or to the communal kitchens, quite proud when we were allowed to 'help' with small tasks that kept us occupied. Certainly we would get into mischief at times, still being kids after all, though most of us soon came to dread the woman we knew as the Hawk-- the Jarl's wife.

Although I was too young to become a target for her temper most of the time, I heard my older siblings talking about her in secret, likening her to one of the all seeing witches of the tales sometimes told by the fireplace late at night. But when the first refugees started coming by our town, bringing with them fearful stories of a war that was very real.

Hells, even I, not exactly the most keen-minded of children, knew that something wasn't right when the first group of refugees appeared when we were out working in the field. Certainly I was a bit too dreamy to really react at the appearance of a number of people who had clearly had a difficult time at the road, but I didn't truly become afraid until my mother dragged me back to the house.

After that first incident, I was rarely allowed out of the house anymore, most of the time I was left in the care of one of my older sisters or went with my mother only when she worked in the kitchens. With a number of the Jarl's men standing guard outside, and in a place that I couldn't wander out of without being seen, she probably felt that it was safe enough to take me there.

I do have to admit though, as the weeks passed, I soon grew bored. And I certainly should be thankful for my parents and my siblings for standing my company, as I have been told later that I was an expert whiner.

Even at that time though, most of the people of the town didn't truly believe that the war would ever reach us, despite of an increasing stream of refugees passed our home. Of-course, many warned us, and a number of townspeople did leave when the Jarl sent half of his men to aid the king's army. But humans have been and always will be creatures who may not believe in what they find terrifying, instead they often choose to stay with what they know and feel safe with.

And the morning when the wings of great and terrible creatures, like nothing we had seen before, shadowed the sky above our village. By then it was certainly much too late, the war had inevitably found us.