Animation Source Forums

This is a story I have been mulling over in my head for a few years. This is all I have so far so enjoy.









Crunch…Crunch…Crunch. The footfalls of his heavy boots echo through the village. Ashes rain down from the heavens, the occasional fires flicker like a dying candle. He walks over to the burnt remnants of a hut. As he places his hand blackened, wooden doorframe, it crumbles with the slightest touch. He bends down picking up a doll that survived the fire, the lifeless dull eyes look up at him, reflecting a sickly twisted smile.
Suddenly someone shouts, “Sir” he turns and looks behind him, a lone soldier stands there, his armor and sword are besmirched with gore.
He replies, “Yes, what is it?”
“We have cleansed the village of any survivors.”
He looks past the soldier at the crumbled forms being dragged into a large pile. He drops the doll and crushes it into the ground with his foot. As he walks over to the pile, he feels something grab at his leg. Looking down he sees a man who is bleeding heavily from a wound to the torso. The man weakly says, “Why did you attack our village? We did nothing to warrant an attack.”
“Because” he replies, “You were hiding members of the resistance and you know the law. Anyone caught harboring traitors will be executed and his village wiped off the face of the map.”
The man says, “We never were hiding any members of the resistance.”
He pulls out a torn piece of fabric out of the purse on his belt holding it aloft so the fallen man can see it; the symbol of a white dragon belching fire from his mouth against a blue field. He says, “This is the symbol of the Pernai. My soldiers found it on the body of a man here in this village. You were hiding him and his allies here even though you knew it was against the law.”
He gestures to the soldier nearest to come over to him. The soldier quickly rushes over saying, “Yes, my Lord?”
“Give me your axe.”
The soldier looks questioningly at him then at the man on the ground then back at the Lord saying, “Why sir? He is not a threat.” The Lord plunges his sword into the man’s stomach, watching the blood spurt from his abdomen, and listening as the soldier falls to the ground with a thud. He takes the mans axe from his lifeless grip then turns to the wounded villager. He exclaims, “Now it is time for you to die!”
Before the man can cry out, his head is loped off. It twirls around then rests at the feet of the man who had removed it. He looks up, a greedy grin spreads across his face. He says, “No one is to question my orders. I expect that when I give you an order, you follow it, is that understood?”
The men all reply in unison, “Sir yes sir!’
“Good! Now drag this piece of filth away from me and light the pyre.”
He turns and walks to his horse mounting it as the flames consume the innocents of the village.
Miles away in a small village surrounded by large trees, Iceo gets up to help his father with the morning chores. He opens the wooden door to his bedroom listening, as it scrapes the floor. “I have got to get father to readjust the door otherwise it will dig right through to the ground!” He walks down the hall to the small kitchen at the back of the house. The floor has a fire pit in the center off it, a kettle and cooking pot lay nearby on the ground. He hears rustling behind him, as he turns seeing his brother Brad bent over the washbasin on the counter. Brad looks at Iceo saying, “You look like you have seen a ghost, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing. You just startled me is all.”
Brad smirks then goes back to drying his face with a rough linen towel.