Role

Chapter 5

Life, Fate, the Ends and the Beginnings. The Great Circle that makes ends
meet and life continue. From where I look, the world pulses like a living
heart in my hand. It looks so simple, just as the Elders taught, yet I
understand none of it. I sometimes believe they don't either.

Not long ago, I had a dream, no... I had a nightmare. I saw a day that was
like any other. The green-filtered light of the woods glittered on the stream
and bird song softly played through the air. I clambered up a pine on the
taller hill to look out over the forest. I dont remember the weather, for
some reason the details escape me but I remember what looked like a shadow.
Bands of leather-clad orcs were marching over our hills making the earth, the
trees and my heart tremble. I could see the village, as if the woods were
transparent, below me. I ran down the hill shouting and screaming but no one
seemed to hear. I had to watch the orcs close in and as they did so, I found
myself doing nothing. I lay down on the moss and curled into a ball like a
child in its cot. That moment, when the first orcs boot came to trample me
down, I woke. There, in a small pool of my own sweat, I clutched my chest and
felt a great fear of the future. I hurt but it wasnt physical. It felt like
more, as if my spirit ached with panic at an unseen terror. As the dream
faded from my mind I felt the panic flow away and the calm of the Vale fill
my thoughts with peace. I don't know what I did then but it was as if I was
still dreaming. The Lady, I believe, must have called. There was no sound, no
feeling but she must have because I followed.

Why do things happen as they do in dreams? I don't know but when destiny
pulls I suppose you must follow. Even armed with the wisdom of the Gods,
hero's have impaled themselves upon the pike of fate knowing it would end
them. I hope it doesn't end me.

And so as dawn came, my feet felt the path beneath them move. I left the Vale
with almost everything I needed. If only I'd known I'd left my heart where
home was.