Prologue

A Chapter by Solteras

Prologue The Light of the Stars

He couldn't hear her dying. Earth rumbled and water churned, wind whipped and fire burned. And yet, he couldn't hear her. He didn't know"he was too afraid to have known.

Once there was a strange and unusual village draped in mystery and shadowed by fear. And in this village of Sun Veil, where the villagers cowered from the drum of thunder and the slash of lightning, there were spoken rumors and whispers of a long lost legend, forgotten by time and distorted by fear.

In the beginning there was no fear for there was light, a light that cascaded over the entire land, shining over the top of snow-capped Colossus to the wild fields of the Outer World, stretching even to the dense and endless forest of Shroud, which semi-surrounded the world. It had been said, passed on the whiff of whispers, that the stars fell from the heavens and gave birth to the village of Sun Veil. One light shined brighter than all the others, and it was named Eos, and it beamed from the Great Tower to the stream and fields below and to the homes of the villagers, creating the grass, the trees, the animals, and all things.

Before fear, before the shadow of Shroud haunted the village of Sun Veil, the ancient ancestors basked in peace and in the rays of the glorious sun, and the radiant village shone like a star, the face of the Great Tower gleaming with a broad smile, an inextinguishable fire burning within.

Sun Veil prospered during this time, but it ever remained just a small village occupied by an indigenous people that dwelt in peace and harmony.

However, one day Eos promised a future of hope and courage, a promise it revealed to them in the form of four small, human infants. The villagers adored the promise, and at the very sight of the infants their faces flushed with an overwhelming sense of joy.

“Four become two and two become one, and one will claim all,” Eos professed to the villagers, speaking in a language that was immediately understood; even though, they understood little of what it declared. Yet, Eos was not finished.

“Beware the one, who will save the village of Sun Veil,” Eos said, speaking of “balance” and “the future,” commanding that they nurture and protect the four. Elated but troubled by the promise of Eos, the ancient ancestors wondered about the purpose of the gifts.

“What do you mean balance? We love our village and we love one another; we are perfect here!” They announced, their faces beaming with joy.

Eos replied with a grave warning: “Because one day your joy will fade and fear will veil the sun.”

And so, before departing from the village, the sphere of light presented these special children to four separate families, bestowing upon them a gift beyond all gifts that contained the very future of all living things, for those four small creatures shared a destiny, a destiny that would be subjected to the gambles of fate and the horrors of fear.

As insidious and subtle as the spider in the dark, fear crept into that peaceful village, and the villagers, who slept in silence, thought nothing of the dreams that drifted into nightmares. Sun Veil had indeed learned to fear, and the next day the villagers looked to the sun and realized that Sun Veil was no longer perfect. Just as fear veiled the sun for the first time"heavy clouds swallowed the light of the sun"the eyes and hearts of the villagers were unveiled, too aware of the imperfection around them. So they worked; they sweated and bled with life. But they adapted, and the lumberjacks chopped down trees and builders built the first homes. Excavators searched the wide fields and commenced the first trades, and bakers baked and cooks cooked, and together, though haunted by the world around them, they built the very foundations of the village of Sun Veil. Together, they thrived with life.

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