Chapter 19

"It isn't where you were born that is Home, but where you come from;

And the most surreal part is that you aren't from this world at all, my dear Soul."

~

The City of Descandville,

Kingdom of Hyll-Decanta,

Rainy Eventide,

The first Phrinight of the Second month,

Fiftieth Year of the Reign of Adon-Vericus IV

The little dark-haired boy ran and ran until the wind of his breath was long gone, crowds of people jeering at him for being the embodiment of a curse. Young and lost, there was none but hostility in this world when a man child could bring severe fate to his circle and kind.

In all truth, it was strange how greatly a mob of humans, intoxicated by hatred and vengeance and infatuated by the notion of shedding the blood of a fey infant, under the pretence of preserving their kind from his woes, could bring cruel misfortune to a young life for being a curse, where even the grounds that were their pretext could barely justify the cause as selfless; it was curious who the bringers of woes truly were.

For the fright and the death they brought to the heels of a darting child whose life was as his fleeting possession, people with tumultuous hatred were solely human by breed and none so in soul.

It was as if their hate fed them day after day when he was desperate to find rest for his aching body, and to try a single chance more at persisting within the realms of life.

He flew as far as his little feet could carry him, like a furiously hunted fledgling, until there was one couple that showed him kindness. Taking refuge in the arms of a mother, the boy drew into her warm embrace, until she was wrenched away from his grasp.

This young lad of about one and ten years of age, reached desperately, but in dismay, for his eyes were fated, accursed yet, to watch, with disbelief and tears as the family that had showed him compassion was being yanked away.

Torrid flames of a large dragon consumed them before his very eyes whilst they screamed, being tethered to the stakes. As he watched helplessly, the child drank of the bitter cup of understanding to inherit what being a curse truly meant.

That was only, however, a moment of misgiving himself, until his gaze met the men of power watching the incineration of his family and laughing in mockery, for they had commanded such cruel death. Despair and contempt were fiery emotions that aroused hailstorms within his being.

The child advanced forth to venge his loved ones, but just as he geared so, there was the voice of a baby crying, wrapped in swaddles and left in his arms. It was his little sister there for his care.

If there was a single slip letting path to his hope of being a blessing to his new found, yet perished family, it was to raise their young child in safety and well-deserved cherishment.

The hate of the people grew to seek him as he fled for cover, because the infant soul in his care required protection, lest her life be sought out by these wolves and claimed out of her rightful possession.

After all, in this dark world, none that belonged to one was justly treated and served so; unless such possession was the talents blent with their very blood, such as Curse was his.

In fright, the boy hid from the wrath of the people, until the child in his arms began wailing and they were found.

Just as he heard approaching feet of people surrounding him with torches of fire, Jehu awoke from his cold nightmare of the rewinding of his life, gasping for breath.

It was troubling how his past in reality was much more gruesome than any dark dreams that stood as a life-sized mirror of the bygone years.

Horrifyingly so, the feelings unearthed by the nightly terrors that plagued his rest were akin to those he had felt in the days of tribulation.

His native village was far in the southern savannahs that oft saw draughts, sufficiently enough to attain the designation of a Desert with society.

It was named Syn-darweild with no honourable virago that mothered the people or historical depths to polish its meaning. But it was rustic and cultured in the fashion of its inmates' abstractions and ideas and was worthy of being a lovely and quaint home.

On the fateful day of his birth, his dear village had been scourged by a Dragon raid, claiming a massive count of man and camels and other beast. And then, upon bringing her first son forth, Jehu's mother had passed.

He had been safely guarded from the perilous invasion, but it was not long before the men of their clan had diagnosed that his birth had marked the onslaught of multiple Dragon forages.

His father had defensively denied the contention for it was much too arbitrary but the men that dictated these opinions were staunch in their counter statement, for their verdict was bartered to their hostile judgements at the price of his young life.

The earliest three years of his life had been treacherous, for he was protected from the blood-thirst of his own people, by a single warrior: his father. Being precariously preserved so had been a divine blessing endorsed to his name.

They were phases, however, that had barely subsided into the conscious understanding of his juvenile mind, for he was far too young to be levied with such massive menhirs of deathly angst.

And then, at the completion of the age of three, he was a destitute child bereaved of his father.

If those were the dawning days of his life, he could gather why such stage was referred to as the 'break of dawn'. He had fled from the hot pursuit of the monstrous and bloodless people– his people, who scrounged for his breath to be distrained of his being.

That had been when, briefly beyond the margins of his village, he had found the Zebulyns and their kindness.

Home; home was a place where a soul was in peaceful respite. It could be within the walls of a house, or it could be beyond the borders imposed by a community, in the wildwoods, upon the branches of aged trees, or by the riverbed, or in the meadows or the wheat field, or in the arms of a loved one; but the most eternal of them all would in God's bosom after the pilgrimage life in this world has ended.

Jehu wondered if he could, as an accomplished gentleman, visit the village some day to offer his respects at the grave of his birth-givers. It would be a surreal moment to grasp.

However, reminiscence and sentiments aside, his versatile and fleeting life was still in his disposition.

Nathan Jehu looked around to see the environment new: it was the quaintly furnished bedchamber possessed by a soft cottage. He slowly exhaled, hearing the voice of rain outside.

Oddly, the sound thereof reminded him of his sister, Imogen Zebulynn, kindling his hiraeth, and he deeply wished to visit her.

She was all of his remnant family in this raging world; Imogen, for this moment, was a home he longed to visit.

~