The village of Plaht has a major problem.
It's a pretty peaceful place most of the time. A large and bustling one, to be sure, so much so that it hardly feels appropriate these days to call it a "village" at all. It's smack-dab in the center of bright green hills and walled by dense forest on two sides. A lively river runs through it and the farmlands that stretch throughout are beautiful even if they're quaint, the vast expanses of golden wheat constantly moving in a warm, gentle breeze.
Cross the river over an old stone-brick bridge coated in moss and you'll reach the village square. You'll recognize it right away by the big fountain in the center. That fountain spouts an eternal stream of sparkling clean water, said to be the very place where the village was founded centuries ago, the spot forever blessed by a forest sprite so long as the surrounding nature is treated with respect.
There's a bakery near the fountain with sweets so delicious that people stop in during their travels to the capital just to try it. Those visitors may also stop by the market stalls and the grocers that sell fresh fruit and vegetables, or venture north towards the mountains to buy healthy and hardy livestock from the farmers. And many of these visitors might say that Plaht is the loveliest place in all of Aurita.
But it's not perfect. Because there is, as established, a major problem, and that problem has a name.
"It doesn't look like much if you don't know what's in there", most of the villagers will tell you. When they say this, they are almost always pointing at a twisty hill. Atop it is a sloping cottage surrounded by trees with spindling branches and dark, dangling leaves, nearly obscured from view. The home, when it can be seen through the foliage and only at very specific angles, has a tall chimney and what looks to be a greenhouse behind it. It seems like a nice place to live, even if it's a little lonely.
"What's so bad about that place?" The unsuspecting visitor will usually ask.
The locals will look over their shoulder to make sure that no one is eavesdropping. And they will often look up at the sky, as if they are suspicious of even the birds. They will lean in and whisper hoarsely into that newcomer's ear:
"The warlock," they'll hiss. "Yorak, the Great and Terrible."
Most of the younger villagers have never seen Yorak. Not in person. He almost never opens his doors to visitors, and this is in the rare case that someone is brave enough to venture too far in that direction, and in the even less likely case that someone ventures there and is not chased away by some manner of magick. Yorak is also not one to leave the safety of his refuge to go shopping for groceries, or to make small talk by the fountain. He is an enigma. A specter that haunts that hill.
The older folks— the elders and some of the adults— they HAVE seen him. So far, they have all lived to tell the tale, but no one is pushing their luck.
Without fail, the villagers have all taught their children to steer clear of the house on the hill. They tell the little ones that if they see Yorak peering out through his window or tending to his gardens, they must avert their eyes and tell no one. That they must avoid suspicious animals, because one can never be too careful with magick folk. Yorak could easily have summoned familiars. A wolf, or a crow, or a frog... any one of them could be an agent of Yorak in disguise, waiting to give its master a signal to cast a hex upon you and your household.
Lance McClain has heard these scary stories since his early childhood.
His parents place herbs above the farmhouse's door meant to repel the curses of witches and warlocks, and there are protective Laphamian runes on the backs of their scarecrows and some of their tools and on the inner walls of the barn. Lance is still scolded, even though he is now technically an adult, if he spends too much time in that part of town. Even if he's nowhere near that suspicious-looking cottage.
He doesn't often look at it or think about it. He tries not to. But, still, he is curious about the warlock that's supposed to reside there. Talking about him is so taboo that Lance has never actually heard a description.
Lance is in the famous local bakery, making one of his standard deliveries of milk and eggs, when he has that thought for the first time in a while. The owner and his husband linger nearby. No one else seems to be eating or shopping— it's so hot out that everyone is probably near the river or staying in the shade. And so, it just so happens that Lance is in the company of the only people in town that will talk about Yorak without shushing him. The only people that do not seem to be afraid of him.
"Hey," Lance says through a mouthful of free 'thank you for your services' bread, immediately getting Takashi's attention. "Have you actually seen the guy we're not supposed to talk about?"
Takashi flashes a glance at Adam. Adam has to squint these days to see what people are trying to tell him with their faces. He broke his glasses a short while ago, shattering the lenses into pieces, and the nearest place that can get him new ones is a long ride away. Even people as well off as those two have trouble getting their hands on certain things.
"I have," Takashi answers once his husband tells him it's okay with a nod. "Several times."
"Up close?"
"Close enough."
"What does he look like?"
"What do YOU think he looks like?"
Lance frowns. He doesn't have the patience for cryptic games like these. Especially not today. The sun will set before he knows it, and then he won't have time to take his horse out towards the Feldakor mountains in search of jewel caves.
"I guess I was picturing the stereotype," Lance answers in a huff. "Hunched over. Long beard, long fingers. Scary voice."
"You are... completely and entirely wrong." Takashi says that with a surprising bite of mockery. Adam laughs at him. Lance scoffs.
"Well, how would I know?! Nobody will talk about it!"
There's a silence. Takashi and Adam exchange a glance. Takashi looks out the windows and confirms that no one is in any hurry to buy a pastry. So he puts up the sign indicating that he is busy taking his lunch and shuts the door. And suddenly, it feels like Lance is part of a clandestine mission. And Adam is suddenly interested in focusing on putting away all of the supplies and getting the business ready for future customers.
"Sit down," Takashi commands. "I'm going to tell you something that nobody else will."
"Why me?" Lance asks. He is not making any sort of accusation. He genuinely doesn't know. Takashi smiles a bit nervously.
"You're... always trying to expand your horizons. To see beyond Plaht, right?" Lance nods. Takashi sighs and resigns himself to a creaky wooden chair. Lance finally does what he's told and sits across from him at the little table, still clutching the last of his bread. "Right. And I think we've known each other long enough that I can safely say you don't just go along with whatever everybody tells you."
"You're not wrong," Lance grants him. "My parents don't like me poking around in the caves, but I know what I'm doing." Lance doesn't mention the fact that he's recently decided to found an adventuring crew and that his parents would have his head if they knew.
"Right. So... everybody in the village will tell you that Yorak is a menace to society. But tell me— can you name a single thing he's actually done?"
Lance's frowns deepens. He's more or less glaring at the knots in the wood. He knows there is an apparent laundry list of crimes. But it's the sort of thing that happens so often that he thinks little of it. He doesn't keep track.
"He... caused that bridge collapse a couple of years back, right? The rope bridge by the Wiebian swamp."
"It got struck by lightning."
"Chief said Yorak summoned the lightning," Lance recalls. The village chieftain seems, to Lance, like he jumps to conclusions too often. About anything he doesn't understand. Anything foreign or strange.
"But did Yorak say that? Did anybody ask him? Can anyone prove it?"
"I... don't really know how you would prove something like that."
"So we can't prove that Yorak didn't do it. Why are we so quick to assume that that alone is proof he DID? That's not how logic works. And it certainly wouldn't hold up in a proper trial."
Lance has never thought about it that way. He has to admit that much. He's never been a part of the "run Yorak out of town with torches and pitchforks" crowd— he's always assumed that the warlock will leave him alone as long as Lance does the same. And still, he has never really considered that Yorak... well, that he hasn't really done anything. Besides live in a creepy house and be a bit of a grouch, and last Lance checked, neither of those things are crimes.
"...I guess you have a point," Lance relents. "I don't wanna assume the guy is totally harmless, either, but... the town HAS been in a frenzy about him for, uh. A while. I don't even know how long. The chief's son said he's, like, three hundred years old or something."
Takashi shakes his head with a friendly laugh.
"Oh, no. Yorak is probably about sixty at the oldest. Which, incidentally, is pretty young for... whatever you'd call him. Magick folks like that. And that's why your description is so off... he looks about your age."
"Really?!"
"Yep. And almost the same as any other person. It's just the pointy ears that give him away, I think. And he may or may not have fangs?"
"I THINK there are fangs," Adam shouts from somewhere behind the counter. He's pretending to sweep. "Little ones, but still."
"He sounds strangely normal," Lance mumbles. His voice comes out disappointed, for some reason. Maybe he thought it was cool, deep down, that they had a monster that lived in town, and finding out that Yorak was just some guy was underwhelming. "Does he at least wear the robes?"
"He DOES wear robes. That part is true. He dresses unusually. And he does use a cauldron."
"For potions," Lance says as ominously as he can, wiggling his fingers as he gestures outwards with his hands.
"Yeah. And soup."
"...Oh." That makes sense, but Lance has trouble picturing a warlock making soup. But they have to eat something, he guesses. Or maybe they don't. He doesn't know. He knows they live longer than mortal folk and practice magick, and that's the extent of his understanding. "Why, uh... why does everybody hate him so much? If he hasn't done anything?"
"He can be hard to get along with," Takashi says bluntly. "He's not used to talking to people. Past that... I really can't say. It's a rivalry that's been going on longer than I've been alive. He's not the first one to live in that cottage and they hated the ones that came before, too."
"If you have an opinion on his demeanor I think you're done more than catch a glimpse of the guy," Lance says, and he is making an accusation this time. "Is the chief right? Are you secretly in contact with the warlock, sir?"
Takashi smiles again. This one is thinner, so subtle that it almost mirrors the perfectly straight line across his nose. There is a secret etches into that smile. One that he does not yet have any intention of confessing.
"Maybe."
That's all he says. Takashi changes the subject and says it's about time he prepares the shop for the lunch rush, and then Lance is ushered back out onto the cobblestone street.
Takashi did not say much, but he said enough. Lance starts to think the occasional kindly thought about the house on the hill. His life otherwise remains the same. Sometimes he glimpses those stone slabs through the gaps in the leaves and thinks to himself that it's not an ugly house. Not at all, he thinks. Once, he waits for his father to return from the grocer's and stands atop a nearby wall and tries to spot the greenhouse that he knows is up there and wonders what it would be like to meet Yorak. Only once, and he denies that that was what he was doing when his father asks him. He makes up some story about watching the birds.
But nothing actually changes for Lance, or for Yorak, until the rain stops.
A dry season is nothing to be too worried about. They're somewhat common. Lance IS a farmer by trade, whether he chose the career for himself or not, so he would know. His family knows that a dry spell has arrived well before anyone else in the village does. And so his father and his older brothers try to calm everyone else, to insist that a little dry stretch is no reason for a village-wide panic.
The assurances of the McClains are, of course, too late. No one can remember the last time the ever-abundant village of Plaht went a whole month without one drop of rain. Lance has heard on the grapevine that similar dry stretches have been creeping their way southward, that they have already struck the mining towns of Jitan and Lukh, and that in some parts it's been several months now. What if Plaht is next? the villagers wail. Who's to say that it will ever rain again? Hysterical, to be sure, but that doesn't stop people from voicing such fears at the village meetings. Every time Lance's father or one of his brothers returns from a gathering in the village hall, they seem more tired than they did the last time. There's no reasoning with Plaht when it has arrived at a consensus, for good or for ill, and Plaht has decided to assume the absolute worst.
Finally, the chief decides that it's time to properly address this panic. A meeting is called. The sort of meeting that everyone, including the young ones, is allowed to attend. Lance regroups with his friends Hunk and Katherine (no one calls her Katherine). Hunk gives him a solemn pat on the back before he runs back to his father, and Lance is seated with the McClains. His parents are deemed important enough that they take a seat near the front and no one protests. Lance has always thought that the village hall feels more like a church than a civic building. The benches are similar to pews and the elevated podium up front is reminiscent of a pulpit.
"Settle down, now!" The orange-haired man standing up there commands silence. He's not the chieftain. Not yet. His father is, but he's ill, and getting up there in years. It is understood that Coran will replace his father soon. He technically needs the election of the council first, but nepotism runs deep in Plaht and none of the council members would dream of voting for anyone else. "I need order! This meeting shall come to order!"
A lull spreads throughout the crowd like a warm evening wave. Coran nods once the quiet is all-encompassing. The scribe nods back. He's good at note-taking, but his voice is nervous as he calls things to order, announcing the date and time. He makes a record of all present. And he clarifies that the usual chief will be stepping back to attend to his health, making Coran the acting chieftain for now.
"Enough of this," One of the council members scoffs. His son gives him the eye. "Enough of these useless formalities! We all know what the problem is. It just so happens that most of you are not man enough to speak its name aloud."
From that alone, Lance has a feeling he knows what the tone of this meeting will be. Only one thing— one person— is addressed in such whispers.
"Now, now, Councilman Griffin." Coran shushes him with a gloved hand. "I was about to address that myself, if you would have patience."
Seriously? Lance thinks. You, too?
Lance knows that Chief Smythe, Coran's father, is a suspicious man, and that he would probably start the meeting the same way. But he didn't know, before today, that Coran takes after his dad. Or that he at least pretends to in order to maintain the silent promise that guarantees him his future role— the understanding that the status quo of Plaht is not to be disturbed under any circumstances. For good or for ill.
"So you agree!" Lance's eldest brother, Luis, declares. He's one of the newest members of the village council. "Yorak is to blame, is he not?"
Lance tries not to sigh as everyone shouts their agreement. Accusations are hurled around the room a mile a minute before the scribe brings order once more.
"It is the most likely explanation," Coran says a bit smugly as he twirls his mustache. "Such a sudden and severe drought could easily be the work of the supernatural. And if that is the case, I must say that he has gone too far! To cause the occasional accident is one thing, but to curse the entire village is another thing entirely!"
"I must agree with the acting chieftain," Councilman Griffin says, and of course he does, because he's just agreeing with himself at this point. "Yorak has been a plague upon this land for far too long, and I say that we put a stop to it once and for all!"
Lance hopes they don't resort to such a thing. He has a feeling that the villagers are underestimating their fabricated enemy and that the confrontation won't go the way they've planned. There is a brief uproar, but one figure rises and makes his voice project as far as he can without shouting.
"The drought could be supernatural. But what reason is that to assume that it is?"
Takashi, so frequently, is the only detractor when things are like this. He's standing to make his voice and his dissent heard. Coran huffs irritatedly.
"You do not mean to suggest—"
"What I mean to suggest is that we are supposed to be rational and civilized people who do not jump into a state of terror of potential witchcraft at every possible occasion! There is NO evidence to suggest that Yorak is responsible. There is no evidence that he even COULD do something this massive. A common warlock is not omnipotent."
"Ha!" A quiet and calculating voice dismisses Takashi with a simple laugh. Councilman Leifstader and his family run the local library and hall of records. "Of course you would say something like that."
"If you have something to say, then say it plainly, councilman."
"I will. It is no secret that you have been providing the warlock with food and goods... or do you mean to deny it?"
Lance hears several falls of horror, but they don't change Takashi's resolved expression. Lance has never heard these rumors. He believes them, though, based on the little that he has heard from Takashi himself. Takashi's gentle voice too easily betrays fondness. There's not a malicious bone in his body, Lance is certain.
"And if I do? Everyone deserves food. It's not a crime. Or do you mean to suggest that you fully intend to see him starved to death?"
"What if I do? Have you forgotten who we are talking about here?!"
"Now, councilman," Coran interrupts, "Shirogane may do whatever he pleases with his own property and align himself with whoever he sees fit." Takashi opens his mouth as if to thank the acting chieftain, but is cut off before he can say another word. "BUT he cannot do so and also expect to have all of the villagers on his side if it seems to us that he is willfully aiding our mutual enemy."
Takashi crosses his arms and stares up at the podium as everybody turns to look expectantly at him.
"These are consequences that I am prepared to accept," he says calmly. "I, for one, am NOT prepared to turn my back on a friend simply because it will make me less popular. And I feel shame for any man that would."
A heavy sigh, and Adam stands.
"And I must stand by my husband on this, as in all things."
"Your mutual dissent is noted," Coran says. He is not hostile, but this doesn't mean he welcomes their decision. The scribe writes it down. Both men take their seats once more. Lance notices more glares directed at Adam than at Takashi. He knows the reason why, and it's an absurd reason.
Takashi's argument doesn't seem to sway the room much. There's an uncertainty that lasts all of a minute before it rekindles itself into righteous fury. The village's men, mostly the councilmen, decide to confront Yorak at his home, and to do so with arms. Not torches and pitchforks, but axes and swords. Lance would have preferred the former.
As the meeting dissolves, Lance is fearful of what will come. His father grips his shoulder and tells him that he is forbidden from participating in the mob.
"Oh, don't worry," Lance says bitterly. "I wasn't planning on it."