All stories have a hint of truth in them.
- Storyteller Loco
---
There was a little bedtime story Ren liked to hear from his late mother.
The Story of the Cursed Dove of Blessing
Contradictory right? That was what he had thought as well.
It didn't stop it from being a great story and it went a little something like... this.
In Witch Forest there was a great Witch named Hex.
With the ability to turn a city into solid gold and the ability to trap the very same city underneath a mountain so large that its inhabitants starved to death, the Witch resided in her Witch's hut.
Then there was a man.
A man so Bright yet Sad, so Angry yet Calm, so Warm yet Cold.
Those traits attracted the witch out of her cabin as she met the man who deigned to travel to her abode.
Asking why he had come so deep into the forest, the man replied.
"To take revenge on the man who had slain my mother."
"So you want me to help you?" she asked with a curious tilt to her head.
"Yes." The Man nodded causing the Witch Hex to chuckle.
"You understand that a high price shall be paid for this?"
"No price is to high to slay my mother's killer, even if he is my father." The Man said resolutely causing the witch to laugh and give him a carved dove.
"This is the Cursed Dove of Blessing" She said. "If you can survive its three misfortunes, it shall reward you with four fortunes." The Witch explained.
"I shall watch you closely." The witch said as the man left the forest to embark on his quest for vengeance.
Then the first Misfortune struck.
It was a curse and a choice.
If he was to continue with his vengeance, the curse of the heart would steal all the brightness in his heart, leaving behind nothing more than a sad melted heart.
If he refused, he would forget all about his dead mother and murderer father and the dove would fly away from him without turning back.
He chose to continue and experienced many a nightmare from that day on.
Then the second Misfortune struck
Attracted to the scent of the dove growing in power, demons appeared blocking his way, bargaining for the power of the dove in return for the removal of all his Nightmares and the return of all his dreams.
If he were to refuse their bargain, they would feed the anger in his heart with the sins of the many, showing how unjust his world was and destroying the calm that once resided within.
He refused and grew angrier at the world as the unjust roamed freely, the just locked away by their schemes.
Then the third and final Misfortune arrived.
The Warmth locked in his blood turned into an ever approaching cold dubbed by one common name.
Death.
It had come for him.
He chose to continue.
Those events were startlingly similar to what Ren was experiencing right now.
Feeling the life seep out of his fingers, Ren stared at the ceiling made of cold unfeeling stone as an anguished roar echoed throughout.
'How did things ever get to this point?'
Closing his eyes which got heavier and heavier with each passing moment, he remembered the events of the day which had been the start of all this.
The day he was enlisted into the army.
---
He was the son of a candlemaker and a tailor with a little brother and little sister.
Before Ren's mother had died from the cursed disease of Bone rot, she worked with his father to sell clothes and candles alike in their little home.
Now only candles were sold in the shop front, Ren's Father making enough money to send all three of them to a public school where they would be taught the ways of the world.
That was before candle making fell on hard times.
Or rather, it was actually after candle making fell on hard times.
As it turned out, with the advent of Science developed by one of the towers, oil lamps and lightbulbs were more popular amongst the common folk looking to light up their nights.
And outside of a few religious sorts who remained their daily customers, the five or so regulars weren't enough to feed the four people.
Especially when three of them went to a public school
So one thing led to another and Ren had to watch as his father willingly went into the Summer tower to pay off their debts only to come back bleeding light.
Sunspots they called it.
Ren only ever knew that his father had sold himself off to the tower when they came over to his house to hand over a glowing man and a bag of one Ars.
It was a lot of money, but it did little good six of ten Mars went into paying their debts, the man who brought his father here wanting five Mars to cure his dad.
Something they were unable to do unless they either sold the store, stopped going to school, ate one paltry meal a day or gave all they had for their father's sake.
Ren decided to do none of those things.
Thanks to the fact that he went to school every other day, Ren knew that the Barbarians lived in a place filled to the brim with monsters and not that much food led to them to raid the borders every so often.
He also knew that the Noble lord watching over the land didn't want his food to be stolen, leading to the creation of an army.
An army that could provide one Mars to start with, with an additional one Jupes every month.
So he joined it.
"I want to join the army."
The man sitting at the table glanced upwards with dark eyes, heavy eye bags lying underneath before picking up a strange stick that spewed black ink.
"Name?" He asked
"Ren sir" Ren replied
"Drop the sir until you're enlisted. Age?"
"14"
"Not even an adult? Okay..." The man paused for a moment before penning down the numbers Ren recognized to be 1 and 4 then continued. "What do you do Ren?"
"I'm a Candlemaker's apprentice."
"Candlemaker's apprentice..." The recruiter's pen flew across the sheet of paper before asking another question. "Any known family members?"
"Do I need to tell you that?"
"..." The man turned and stared at Ren with a look that seemed to say how stupid that question even was prompting Ren to answer that it was just his Father, Brother and Sister.
"Date of Birth?"
Ren blinked his green eyes in confusion "What is that?"
"Unknown..." The recruiter murmured under his breath before looking at Ren a few more times and scribbling something down underneath what he already wrote.
"What is your address." He finally asked, marking the end of the questions that Ren had already answered.
Nodding his head and writing something down he said "Approved, now take the bag and get out of here kid. Next!"
Flinching at the loud voice but nevertheless following what he had seen earlier, Ren obeyed his words and nodded towards a soldier guarding a pile of several coins.
That was a lot of coins.
"You've got a day to say goodbye." The Soldier said, handing over the bag of coins which he opened to reveal Silver coins. "If you don't show up to the martialing area after dawn, a bounty of one Mars will be put on your head."
He waved Ren off as he stared at the Ten Jupes within, a strange feeling welling up in his chest. It was strange to see this much money in one place when Uras were what he usually dealt with, Sats being a much rarer commodity.
But a single Mars made of ten Jupes? That was... new.
"What are you waiting for? Get out of the way!"
Flinching as he was torn from his imagination, Ren nevertheless looped the string around his neck.
Feeling the heavy weight of the Silvers the size of a small cookie press heavily against his neck, Ren finally realized what it was that he was feeling.
Relief mixed in with fear.
'I'm actually doing this.'
Tightly holding onto his chest where his beating heart was.
And before he knew it, he was at home facing his glowing father who stared at the bag making up the final Mars that they needed for his treatment by the Tower that had caused him to become like that in the first place.
"..."
"..."
"Why did you do it son." He finally said, his glowing gaze staring deep into Ren's own pair of eyes.
With grey hair that wasn't from age but from ancestry, Martin the Candlemaker stared deep into Ren's eyes, his blue eyes reflecting off of Ren's green own.
"Why? Are you asking why Dad?" Ren stared at his Dad's hands which continued to glow even as they talked, the insides of his body fully visible even to Ren's eyes. "Can you even ask that question when you went and-"
"REN YOU WON'T TALK TO ME LIKE TH- COugh Kaff Cough."
Doubling over and coughing glowing blood onto the floor before the rest of it was caught by his hand, Ren instinctively rushed to his Dad's side, hand moving to hold him up only to get slapped on the face.
*SMack!
Falling onto the ground, the Candlemaker seemed stunned at the instinctual movement as Ren stared equally dumbfounded.
Tears welled up in Ren's eyes as he got up and off of the ground, bumping into the table holding the bag of Silver Jupes.
Staring dumbfoundedly as the Silver coins poured out and reflected the bare candlelight lighting up their home, its silver light glinted against the orange flame as the Candlemaker stared in silence.
The only thing accompanying him now was the glowing blood slowly dripping down from his mouth.
*CLatter BANG
Slamming the door behind him with anger and causing the old door to shudder with a mixture of age and weakness, Ren suddenly felt worry for the door's durability before he felt the sadness return all the same.
Falling onto where he stood, his back pressed against the doorway as tears began to pour freely.
Pressing strongly into his arms as he shriveled up into a ball, a small knock on the door caused him to flinch.
The soft glow piercing through the cracks underneath the door clued Ren in onto who it was.
Staying silent despite the fact that his Father had made it abundantly clear that he was here behind the door, the sound of something thudding on the other side of the door caused him to flinch a tiny bit more this time.
Holding in his sniffles, a soft voice laden with meaning whispered to him "I'm sorry Ren. I'm so sorry for hitting you."
"..."
"I'm a terrible father and I wish that I can turn back time." The Glowing dad continued, his voice piercing through the darkness of the night.
"No... You're not." Ren whispered.
The glowing man shifted in place as the silence crawled over them like a blanket.
"Can you..." He hesitated. "Can you open the door? I want to see the child that I raised."
Ren sniffled loudly, his body shifting away from the door he blocked with his body as the glowing man got up from the ground, his hand slowly opening the door.
He couldn't recall the night perfectly, but it ended with a shirt that was soaked through with tears and a Father who tried to stop coughing.
And before Ren could force his father to move towards his own bed, he stopped him with a soft push while taking something out of his pocket.
"Take this Ren."
Revealing a wooden dove, Ren blinked with teary and confused eyes before staring at the man who had raised him for all fourteen years of his life.
"Do you remember that story Myrta used to tell you all the time?"
Nodding slightly as the name Myrta struck open a few memories of his mother in her green eyed glory before she fell sick, Ren's father slowly pushed the wooden dove into Ren's hands.
"This is the wooden dove that your mother's mother's grandmother had given her, it's our own little family heirloom."
Hesitantly taking the wooden dove, Ren held it in his hands as his dad shifted uncomfortably in place.
"I love you?" He tried.
Ren held the dove in his hand before nodding his head, the tears mostly gone from his face by now. "I love you to Dad."
Smile placed onto his mouth before transforming into a grimace coated with glowing blood, Ren hurriedly tried to support his dad only to be waved off by him.
"Go to sleep my son" He said "You need to wake up bright and early to get to the martialing area, I'll take care of myself."
He laughed to himself weakly while swallowing down what little blood had pooled in his mouth. "Now go to sleep, I'll clean things up."
Hesitating for a few moments, Ren followed his father's words as he closed the door behind him.
Settling onto the bed while holding tightly onto the wooden dove with a thin thread running through its open foot, Ren stared at its delicately carved surface.
Then he balled his hands into a pair of fists.
'I'm sorry about this Dad, but you worry to much.'
Glancing at the doorway where a subtle glow continued to sneak out from the bottom most crack, if Ren strained his ears he would've been able to hear the shuffling of ropes being shifted around.
It might've just been his Dad doing some late night candle making, but the odds were low on that front.
Especially with how their stock never decreased except on days that the Church people came buying the candles.
No.
It was more likely that Ren's dad was locking the door up with the candle wick ropes.
Despite how well they burned, they were a surprisingly efficient way to lock things in place.
Ren would know with how they had kept things together when the city was briefly flooded that one time.
"I'm sorry about this son." Ren heard from beyond the door. The glowing Dad coughing into something damp as a splatter of glowing blood leaked into the room.
Staring at the bit of glowing blood which leaked out from underneath the door, Ren glanced at the floor leading into the basement.
"And I'm sorry about this Dad."
Taking out his personal savings stuck underneath the bed he poured it all onto the sheets, meticulously counting them all.
It came to a total of One hundred eighty seven Neps, seventy two Uras, twelve Sats and one Jupe, of which he took two sats and nine Uras and fifty Neps.
It wasn't much in comparison to all of the money he was going to be leaving behind, but since One Ura and fifty Neps could feed a single person for the day. With their sudden poorness, it would be able to tide his family over.
Especially when they only needed to feed three people.
Glancing at the dove in his hands that hardened his will to do this no matter what, he opened up the floorboards from where he had once tried to use it as a hiding place for his money.
Revealing the basement underneath, Ren paused to listen for any signs of movement before squeezing into the small gap.
"I love you Dad." Ren whispered as he made his escape into the night, trying to desperately ignore the large painting placed at the back of the shop counter.
With a green eyed woman smiling happily besides a grey haired man holding a small boy bearing the two features as she held two sleeping babes in her arms, Ren whispered once more as he slipped out of the Candle Shop.
"I miss you mom."
The Night wind rolled the fallen leaves against the stone pavement with a crackle as he made his way through the sleeping city.
+++
Tree