The Deal

Introduction

In a world where the echo of running water had become a myth, the village of Elmswood lay parched under a relentless sun. The land was barren, its once fertile soil now a tapestry of deep cracks and dusty ravines. The people of Elmswood, hardened by the sun and shaped by the scarcity, moved through their days with a somber persistence, each one a quiet testament to survival.

Joren, a young man whose eyes held the faded blue of the rare sky, lived on the fringes of this desolate village. His home, if it could be called that, was little more than a collection of weathered stones and sun-baked mud, assembled into the semblance of a shelter. Here, he and his mother, Mara, eked out a meager existence, coaxing life from a garden that was more dust than soil.

Each morning, before the sun claimed the horizon, Joren would rise to the cool touch of the pre-dawn air. The world was silent then, save for the whisper of the wind that carried no moisture but spoke of a time when the earth was not so thirsty. It was during these quiet hours that Joren felt closest to the old stories his grandfather had once told—stories of rivers so wide you couldn't see across them, and rains that lasted for days.

The day was marked by the rhythm of survival. Joren and his mother labored side by side in their failing garden, where only the hardiest of plants could survive. They moved with a practiced efficiency, each motion a careful negotiation with the earth, as if they could persuade it to give more than it held.