The Knight

A new constellation has been added to the night skies, The Knight, was what people called him, and this is his story. 

    Long ago, a boy lived alone, his life was cursed by the neverending war. The village he lived in had been tarnished, nothing was left but ash and smoke. He stood in the broken, empty house, there was nothing left for him in this place. He was never shroud by hate or resentment, he was the only survivor but he knew hate would surely drive him to insanity. Instead he grabbed what little he could find in the remains, a few burnt pieces of bread, grain, an old ragged blanket. After he tied his belongings, he prayed one last time to his family's graves and left the village. 

    On his travels he saw many towns that had fallen much like his, the people he had passed stared at him with distaste, he knew it was natural for them to feel hate towards an outsider. In one village, a child came up to him asking for bread. He pulled out his burnt bread and broke it in half to share, the child thanked him but still looked at him strangely. Not with distaste, but with curiosity rather. 

    “Your eyes are strange, mister.” she said, “They are different colors, one of them isn’t normal.” 

    The knight looked into a clouded window nearby, she was right. One of his eyes was a bright yellow, glowing in the sunlight. His memory was hazy, but he was sure he had never had this before. He found an old helmet that was left from the war, it was rusted and battered. He put it on, covering his mysterious eye. He did not know how this had happened, but he did know that people were looking at him with fear and disgust because of it. 

    He carried on out of the village, he didn’t know where his final destination would be, maybe at the heart of war. He could talk to the emperors and tell them the harm they are doing to their land. 

    The boy had made up his mind. He would go to the heart of the war and tell him what has come of this land. As he made his journey, he talked to villagers along the way. They talked of the war, and what their lives were like before the calamity. All of the stories made the knight sad, he was sad for the cursed land and he was sad for the families that had been lost, much like his own. 

    After a week's journey, he had finally found the heart of war. A sea of fallen soldiers, and a wave of fighting. The smell of blood was sickening and the two halves of war were clashing. To a normal bystander seeing this scene, they would only see people fighting, nothing more nothing less. But the young knight, with his eye of flaming gold, saw a demon of hate. Towering above the field, crazed eyes and grinning madly. His hands held out, thin threads dangling from his fingers. He was the puppet master and the soldiers were his puppets. He was the cause of the war.

    As the knight watched, anger pooled from him. He slowly stalked forward towards the demon. His eye glowed like a fallen star, as he got closer to the demon, he remembered all the villagers that had suffered from the war. All the ruined families, all the pain it had caused. 

    The demon tilted his fingers, all at once the soldiers charged for the young boy. The boy continued to move to the demon. His body was engulfed with a golden flame, swords and spears pierced through his body, but he was unfazed. A golden sword appeared in his hand. In a sharp swing, all the threads had been cut. 

    The boy jumped and plunged his sword into the demon, the beast let out a blood curdling scream before crumbling to the ground. 

    The war had been stopped. 

    As the knight descended to the ground, the soldiers had started to converse. Their will to fight had been broken, and they were now seeing each other as family rather than enemies. The two emperors had pulled white flags and were now compromising. 

    As the knight landed, the golden flame that had once covered him had extinguished, the sword that he wielded had vanished too. Hate was no longer in sight. At last he could be at peace. 

    Sun broke through the clouds above, and with the sun came three gods. They landed around the boy, he was a sad sight. Stabs and cuts covered his body from the soldier's rage, blood pooled at his feet, but a smile as bright as the sun above remained. 

    The gods had all agreed that his braveness would be rewarded, they told him that the sun himself had chosen him to wield his power. That he had done well to stop the war. The knight now understood how his eye had been turned to gold, and how he could see the demon none of the soldiers could. 

    As the knight passed in the human realm, he was placed into the stars with the sun. His helmet and sword with him. And the brightest star claimed his eye.

 

helina.torres-dindo1571

VT

YWP Alumni

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