Wayward Sons (mentor/mentee thread, closed to Fez)

[Skie and Avery]

Salvarian sheep were a special lot. Thick, hardy, with wool that was especially dense. The yarn spun from it could be itchy and hot, but there was nothing better when the rest of the world went cold. It was spring now. The ice from the long winter was melting away, the snowbanks collapsing and flooding the lowlands. The streams were bubbling over, and fresh green was emerging from beneath the frost. It was time to shear.

Engels was a quiet hamlet nestled in the hills. Filled with more pigs and sheep than people, it was used to the damp. Each stone house had a pitchfork leaning against the porch, and thick muddy boots sitting by the door. The bell tower of the church watched over the town like a lone sentry. There was no other building as pretty, with stained glass depictions of saints staring out to the horizon. The only building with more square footage was the pub.

Skie had just emerged, searching around the side for the outhouse when she paused. Heavy steps were pounding on the slick, muddy road leading up to town from the fields. She almost missed the beat under the sound of the pigs squealing in their pens and the birds singing in the trees that dotted the ever-brightening horizon.

A young farmhand, a boy no more than twelve, was running desperately up the slope to Engels. Blue eyes wide, freckled face red with effort and panic, his breath was heaving as he began to cry out.

"Help! HELP! The sheep! The sheperds! They're all GONE!"

[Fez_The_Kid]

Hooves gouged onto mire in slow, yet purposeful steps. The steed grunted, sauntering down a verdant slope recently voided of snow and now compatible with seasonal husbandry. The Salvarian backwoods stretched for as far as it could see, faint cordillera marking its extremity in the far-flung distance, a reminder of an obnoxious memory that had never left its mind--a harrowing mnemonic. The sun lurked somewhere behind the treeline, still yet to rise and uncover the day. Rivulets splashed as the translucent water met the hack's steps, the snow’s stead that had been occupying the spot for days prior. It opted for a drink, but for Anubis’ contentment, decided to carry on to the village of Engels.

The horseman's gaze remained on the brightening horizon. "Let's hope we find us a bed,” he said, hearing it grunt shortly afterwards. “Find me a bed, I meant.”

Springy turfs shrunk to the boggy walkways of the remote village. Mediocre stone dwellings lay at either side of the road, butting up against one another. The road commenced with the presence of a grim-looking church, its bleak bell tower thrust into the dusk sky. Anubis surveyed the premises until he caught what looked like a tavern, the only place of interest for the frequent traveler, save for the less frequent clergymen that would find interest in the pious property square ahead. The few screeching hogs he had heard behind one of the houses, he considered, were the only souls he encountered thus far.

Upon passing the church, the young Salvarian dismounted and hitched the gelding, stepping over the pub’s verdena in time to hear a child’s yell. He stepped into the path once more, watching as the fountainhead stood fifty paces away, standing at the top of a slope. Doors swung open and the locals soon assembled at the spot. Biting the inside of his mouth, he followed in the steps of the peasantry.

“What’s happened?” a yokel demanded. All eyes were on the panic-stricken boy.

“The sheep!--the shepherds!--they’re all gone!” he said.

“Gone!?” cried a woman.

“I ain’t leavin’ my pigs!” the farmer announced.

“Who will retrieve our sheep, then?” another woman pondered, thunderstruck.

“I will.” Eyes fell on the swordsman, the outsider in Engels, the needle in the haystack. All eyes, old and young studied him closely.

“Will ye help?”

“Aye, but not for free,” he said.

“We have no coin, but we can all make out something quite worth yer while!” The pig farmer bore a toothless grin.

“Alright. Stay calm, one and all,” he called. “I’ll bring you your sheep.”

“If you can, bring the bastards that stole our sheep back here alive…” he stared deep in Anubis’ eyes. “We ought to teach ‘em a lesson.”

Anubis nodded quietly, recognizing the motive behind his words in contempt. The group had dispersed, and he sat squatting before the child. "Tell me everything you know.”