In the evening the Harvestlands are a lushes sea of golden wheat and grass. Tilled fields all ripe with crops and food being hacked away at by farmers and their families. On one such field, on the farm known as Beginshold, a scruffy boy is smashing a tree with a sword.
Welt's hands had long-since gone numb: the awkward vibrations of the blunt sword hitting the sturdy oak did nothing but cause him itching on his palms and aches in his wrist. His upper arms felt dead, groaning with every swing.
He'd been here for a few hours, a tree in the middle of the Beginshold family's largest wheat field.
The harvest season was busy in the Harvsetlands - all of the food ready to be reaped and exported throughout the world made it seem like the endless fields had come alive.
The nonstop work of the farmers reminded Welt of the story of the Champion of Fruit, who raised an army of the dead to pick apples.
Drun said they were still alive, allegedly. On this side of the Bulwark, no less.
Speaking of Drun, he had retreated to bed in the farm's guesthouse about an hour ago. The lamplight flickered ever so slightly through the cracks around the shut, wooden window, making the mud below gleam with the colour of the flame.
An endless amount of study and training awaited Welt in the morning. He could tell by the sound of scrawling on parchment and flipping of book pages that had filled the guesthouse up until an hour ago. The guest house that had been made their home these past few months was filled with huge, leather-bound tomes on all types of history and stories, as well as compendiums on monster hunting techniques.
Crows sounded and soared above in the sunset-hued sky, their paths a little more erratic and darting than usual. An Omen.
Omens came in many forms, and recognising them was a part of Welt's job as a travelling hunter. He was often made to study them as part of Drun's curriculum. They could range from erratic crows, to foxes walking on their hind legs, to children breaking out in hives.
Omens were often unsettling, and Welt had developed a good sense for them. He could almost instinctively tell when something was an omen: an odd sensation running through him like a cold shock.
Omens were a good sign for Welt and Drun for one simple reason:
More work.
Feeling secure in the oncoming misfortune of others was something Welt wrestled with often. Profiting off the countryside's struggles was what he and his father had done for the best part of a decade. However, they rationalized it as being problem-solvers, not problem causers.
People often saw it differently, though. Seeing the enormous man and his scruffy son approach their village was as much of an Omen to them as the crows.
They were bad luck, in a sense.
Welt hadn't been able to make many, if any, friends in the past decade of life with Drun. His father took him in after...
Let's not think about that.
Anyways, it had been a difficult start to life for Welt. Trading the hardships of being a Lantern to being a monster hunter didn't improve his life's normalcy by much, either. Tremendously better, for sure, but still not a normal life.
Once, Welt had snuck off from a job to play with some village children, only for them to run away screaming when he showed them a Smokewolf claw that he kept on him. Another time, he'd gotten bullied for his eye colour. Suffice to say, he wasn't great at interacting with people his age because of a litany of bad experiences.
So now, at the age of seventeen, he kept his hood up and stuck to the jobs.
At least, he's about seventeen. No clue when his real birthday was.
Of course, Welt still felt pretty lonely and left out seeing others his age running around and having fun. Not enough to upset him, but it sometimes made him feel small. The reputation he and Drun had gained was that of an Omen, so now he couldn't even try to talk to people of his age. The Harvestlands were peaceful enough that rumours of them spread across its many villages and farms.
'The Bear of the East his Pale Cub.'
Who's a cub? Pisses me off, ungrateful villages calling us weird names.
The minds of the Harvestlands were so small, so narrow to Welt. He wanted to meet people out in the world - up the slope North to the Bulwark, or even a long walk East to the Misty Shores. He was certain that, out there, people had a wider view of the world. Wider than even his.
RUN.
Welt heard a whisper. Had that Lyla girl followed them back to Beginshold?
He looked around, but couldn't see anyone among the wheat stalks, nor anywhere around the tree.
"Hello?"
RUN.
Was this an Omen? Whispers on the wind weren't something he'd ever read about, Omens were often visible. It's voice sounded familiar.
RUN.
It was the whisper he'd heard in the cave, the one that told him about the rock.
Welt's body felt heavy, a larger amount of weight pushing down on him, making his wounded leg flare with pain.
RUN.
He looked around frantically, trying to find the source of things happening to him. He looked to the sky, no more crows, and the evening was quickly disappearing.
The setting sun seemed to rapidly fall, as if hiding behind the hills, casting deep and sudden darkness across the world. A sudden, sharp gust of wind hit against Welt's skin, making the hairs on his neck stand on end.
Something was coming.
RUN.
Welt turned, and went to face the guest house. He Froze.
Not because of shock. He was frozen by something. By someone.
"Life befalls you, child." A crooked voice spoke from behind.
The guest house erupted in a ball of fire.