The wind moved slowly across the fields of Eldermire, brushing through rows of pale grain like a hand trying to calm a restless child. An 18-year-old boy worked beneath the morning sun. Mud on his boots. Sweat on his brow. Silence in his eyes.
His name was Renn.
No surname. No title. No history worth speaking aloud. Just Renn—the farmhand who could harvest an entire field faster than three grown men, yet never smiled when he did it.
"Hey, Renn! You're going too fast again!" shouted an old farmer from the edge of the field. Renn didn't stop cutting the crops.
"I'll finish before noon," he replied calmly.
"That's not the problem! You make the rest of us look useless!"
A faint pause.
"…I'm not trying to."
The farmer sighed. "You never are."
Renn finally stood upright, brushing dirt off his hands. For a moment, he looked toward the horizon—where the sky always seemed slightly… fractured. Like something had once broken it.
Nights were worse. Because sleep did not bring rest.
Darkness. Fire without heat. A battlefield without ground. And a voice—deep, steady, familiar in a way that hurt to remember.
"Do not look back, young lord."
A tall figure stood behind him. Armor cracked. Sword bloodless. Eyes hidden beneath a broken helm. Renn always woke before the fall finished. Covered in sweat. Breathing too fast. Hand gripping nothing but air.
Every night the same dream. Every night the same voice.
"…Again."
He swung his legs off the bed. The floor creaked under his weight. Outside, a dog barked once in the distance—then stopped abruptly, as if it had sensed something it couldn't understand.
Renn stood motionless. Listening. Not to the village. But to something deeper— something that always felt just out of reach, like a word he had almost remembered his entire life.
Scene: Commoner's House
An old woman knocked on his door.
"Renn! Breakfast is ready. You're late again."
"I'm coming," he replied.
She hesitated. "You were talking in your sleep again."
Renn paused.
"…Was I? …It was just a dream."
But even he didn't believe it.