Prologue
There is a story among the songs, it speaks of a hero with crimson hair, they will come and save our kingdom and our world from the evil lurking in the shadows of every man’s mind. Brace yourselves for this era is one of darkness, if we are not careful we will be corrupted by this evil. Fear, for the dragon awakens and it does not forgive. Tremble, for the final judgment is nigh and everyone will suffer. Only the crimson lining will save us!
Pray! For the end is near!~~~
I giggle as I heard my mother tell me the story she always told me before sleeping. It was an ancient story, as old as the words, where no kingdom was defined yet, and every man was a savage. I always loved this legend, I felt a deep connection to it even though I was a child. It reminded me somehow of my father, who had died when I was born, my mum used to speak of him often. Remembering that, it always felt as if my mother telling me this story had happened a very long time ago, when there was only a few years back. I always had these memories of my mum and I in a beautiful property wearing fancy dresses, maybe it was a memory of a past life.
I had always believed that we have a deeper history behind us, that we are not in this time because of pure coincidence, but because our souls had to reincarnate in this exact moment. My mum used to believe the same, she would tell me how the number of lines on our hands showed us how many lives we’ve lived, and if our lines were really marked, then that means we’ve had a strong experience in our past lives, that could be a strong love or hatred, a beautiful life or a devastating death, etc. I was always one for the mystic things, I believed in tarot reading, the horoscopes and everything imaginable. This was partly because i always felt a strong connection to nature, every time I was in our forest, I would find myself lost in thought and in peace no other place could give me. I loved going to our forest, mostly because it was entirely ours and no one would bother me there, but also because ever since I was little, my mum would sing me a song about a maiden who lived in a willow until the day a man fell in love with her and brought down her tree to marry her, upon walking a few meters away from her tree, she died and became a flower. I would imagine that maiden when I walked through the forest and the pain she must have felt when that man killed her precious tree.
I always thought that if I could travel back in time I would go back a few centuries, to the era of Vikings and become a shield maiden. I always loved how Vikings were the only ones that let women fight alongside them, I just hated how men always felt superior to women disparaging them only letting them stay at home with their children. Even though the Vikings were not the best feminists ever, they were slightly better that everyone else back then.
I was currently at the forest and found myself amused of how my mind would derive when I was here. It was getting dark and my mum would be worried. I walked back to the cottage and stopped for a while to admire the moon reflecting in the lake. It was precious, my words couldn’t even begin to describe the beauty of it. I would come here more often to paint this marvelous landscape.
As I walked back to our house, the wind started blowing so I decided to braid my long red hair to prevent it from tangling. I got home and said hi to my mum, I went to change and came back to help her with dinner. I loved my life, it was so peaceful, like a dream come true.
