1001 Sins | ✔

the crow road

They say if you seek forgiveness, be prepared to walk through the fiery depths of hell with a grin on your face and they say if you think you deserve retribution and punishment instead, look into your heart for you are already in hell.

Many years ago, there was a tree that was hidden among hundreds of others in a forest on the outskirts of the kingdom of Aaerith, hidden among lush grasses and flowers and more hideous than everything in that forest. It's withered branches were twisted together until it looked like anything but a tree.

Many years ago, it was known to be the tree that granted forgiveness to all kinds of sins, no matter how vile they were, receiving it's payment in blood. Now, it is said that any man who seeks that tree finds himself lost for an eternity.

Now man must journey through the only path they know how to, the old way they had abandoned. Through that narrow path, where the spirits watch and judge the heart of men, seeking those who are true.

***

There was once a magician that lived in the countryside just off the ports of Thador, he lived among illiterate farmers where his little power brought awe and fame to him. His ability to foreshadow drew them to him and attracted the attention of merchants who traveled through the countryside in the hope of good fortune, and sometimes they sought the magician out, looking up at him for the little crumbs he threw out to them about their futures.

For years, he swindled many and destroyed homes, all the while getting away with it. This man grew from his teen years into adulthood, and as he did, bad luck befell him and he went blind in one eye after an unfortunate accident. Because of his sins, the gods abandoned him and ceased the visions he normally saw. The magician had enough to live comfortably in the countryside and he spent so much time wallowing in his loneliness and battling the monsters in his head.

Until the day his apprentice -- a boy of sixteen called Icarus --  ran away. A long while he waited and waited as the sun set in the sky, painting it a deep orange, but Icarus never returned.

This magician decided to set out and find his apprentice, he saddled a horse and went down the road, ignoring the whispers and the greetings from the farmers toiling by their lands.

"Sir Astor!" A persistent voice broke into his thoughts. He slowed the horses pace and waited for the runner to catch up to him. It was the zealous son of the countryside mayor who had a knack for his persistent questions and he was perhaps one of the few people who referred to the magician by his name, others just called him the magician. Astor was certain that without the mayor's son, he would have forgotten his name.

Astor had to angle his face to see the mayor's son pushed back his thick hair from his face and wiped the sweat from his olive skin with the hem of his tunic.

"Where are you headed to this evening, they say there is a storm coming," He rushed and quickly added. "Can't you smell it?"

Truly, the winds were fiercer than it had been this morning, Astor might not have his godsgiven gifts like before but he could still sense a change in the weather. He might have noticed it before, if he hadn't been hiding behind shut doors all day, in his dark and musty room.

"I am afraid Icarus has run away," He admitted grudgingly. "I will ride out to the town near here and see if he might have been seen."

Even if he were completely blind, he still would have felt the unruly boy break into a grin.

"Then I must come with you at once, it is not safe for a man like you to be out in the dark alone." He beamed, Astor heard the unspoken words, a blind man like you, inspite the fact he was only half blind.