edelweiss

a looming shadow of hope

Cold air filled James's lungs much like the smoke from his cigarette as he walked through the village. Winter was rolling in and it was not hiding its existence or its fury. The village had already accumulated a thick layer of snow and ice before and it was only the second week of October. The snow seemed to both stand out but fit in with the village's drab and dreadful atmosphere.

He had long since forgotten life outside the village. He instead was used to the constant bombardment of Lycan attacks, people dying in odd ways and women vanishing to castle dimitrescu never to return, hell his own sister vanished up in the castle. It was all normal at this point. The villagers constantly said that the priestess and lords of the village would protect them, and yet they consistently failed to even manage the village. He knew first hand why the lords and Mother Miranda never helped, the constant infighting, the constant tension, and the blatant mistrust between the lords. One of the only people who even seemed to actually give the slightest shit about the village residents was Lord Heisenberg, and that was solely due to the fact he ran the only factory in town, which provided a lot of people work when Lord heisenberg chose to hire and provide more traditional metal items to the people.

The other was James's father, the duke. The Duke had taken in James when he was young and the relation between the two had been discovered by his father, the early years of his life seems to blur together in his mind after years of trauma. The man had been patient enough to try to work James through the lingering pain of his parents and Duke was one of the people who helped James understand his powers, his emotions and was one of the people who was there to accept James when it seemed no one else would when he had come out as trans. He was a person James knew that he could trust.

But to the rest of the village he was seen as different and outcast. A no name kid who sat with the lords Miranda and the duke. He was an outsider amongst village royalty. The villagers were always skeptical of him and they never were outwardly cruel but James always felt the distrust from seeds planted by his father's shady actions towards them. Even a few of the lords were viewed as nothing more than a quiet pest. To them he was nothing more than a small inconvenience that they seemingly had to tolerate.