1 The Other Side

A dark plane stretched endlessly. Nothing was present in this darkness, nor would someone be able to tell if there was. The darkness itself wouldn't know.

"Rin!" a voice rang out in the darkness, the only noise.

'Where am I?' Torrin thought as his consciousness floated through the never ending darkness.

'Is this a dream?'

"Rin! Rin!" the voice continued shouting.

A small feminine voice broke through the void, echoing from all directions, echoing into the endless dark.

'Rin? Are they talking to me?' His thoughts felt jumbled and he tried to raise his arm to massage his temples, but soon realized he didn't even have an arm, at least not one he could feel or control.

'Am I asleep?' He thought again, trying to make sense of what was happening.

He had been at the celebratory feast in the palace. The event was to celebrate Torrin Sesh's engagement--his engagement--to the Princess of Darule Kingdom, Perria Darule.

The two had known each other their entire lives due to his father being one of the four Dukes of the kingdom, the highest honor below King. Since the two were the same age, they became best friends and later began to realize their love for one another.

When Torrin broke through the "mortal realm" to become a High Warrior at the age of 16, the King himself offered his daughter in marriage to the amazingly talented warrior. The King knew of Torrin and Perria's close relationship and knew of Torrin's character; the boy was destined to be a hero of the realm at this rate and the king wasted no time in cementing the connection between the two families as soon as possible.

"RIN!" The voice exploded through the void again, more insistent this time and Torrin began to feel a pain in his chest.

'Pain? Pain! Yes! I can feel, which means I must be alive,' he thought, but still couldn't move his body.

Feeling emboldened by the pain, he tried reaching out his senses--his will--into the void, trying to wrangle together vital essence to see if he could return feeling to the rest of his body, not just his aching chest. Maybe then he'd be able to move.

He concentrated his thoughts and will into the task, exploding his senses forth!

Nothing happened.

'Well, since that didn't work, I guess I'll just wait... Maybe feeling will return to my body on its own, like in my chest... No stimulus in this darkness except the annoying voice and this pain... No way to sense the vital essence of the world... What is going on?!' Torrin continued trying to puzzle out the situation and thought back to the last thing he could remember.

The banquet was astounding. People from all over Darule Kingdom came far and wide to attend, there were even guests from foreign kingdoms. Master chefs were hired from far and wide to put together the most sumptuous feast.

Torrin had enjoyed the fare; people lined up to meet him, with their gaudy dresses and overly fancy suits. They spoke to him kindly with varying accents from across the map, bowing or shaking his hand and wishing him well.

Before the main course was served, a servant he didn't know advised him that the princess had summoned him to meet in her room. He knew the way so he swiftly arrived alone, expecting her to just be nervous from all the people that would be focused on her tonight, he quickly put together a plan to tease her.

He knocked lightly on the door and received no reply so he waited patiently outside. No one came to open the door, so he had laughed while knocking on the door again, encouraging Perria not to be nervous, advising her many nice people were excited to meet her and that there were only around 1,000 guests.

Still no reply came. He nervously put his ear to the door, trying to piece together what may be going on inside to delay the princess answering. He heard nothing and began to worry.

He tried twisting the knob to the door and found that it turned easily, pushing his way inside. The sight that greeted him would haunt him for eternity. He noticed a crystalline slipper on the floor and his eyes followed the leg it was attached to when he suddenly came to a stop.

The leg wasn't attached to a body. A lake of blood pooled beneath the limb, slowly leaking from the jagged cut that had detached it, dying the jade white skin red.

He became frantic, eyes roving around the room. He saw other body parts scattered around, blood dripping from the walls like a fresh coat of paint.

He'd drawn his sword then and entered the room, bile rising from his stomach as vital essence began to stir in his surroundings, searching for anyone hiding, searching for his fiancee.

There was something on the Princess' vanity where she did her make-up and Torrin slowly approached. A horror stricken expression lined the Princess' decapitated head that sat neatly on the vanity, blood slowly dripping onto the floor like the first signs of a storm.

He'd felt it then, a slight fluctuation of energy. As he'd turned towards the disturbance, mustering courage and vital essence to destroy whatever had done this, he'd been stopped. His muscles froze and he couldn't move.

A shadow had coalesced, approaching him, and he knew no more.

"RIN!"

As his memories returned, so did his rage and panic. The pain in his chest intensified and his eyes finally shot open. Coughing exploded from his lungs and water shot from his mouth as air rushed in to replace it. He lay on the ground taking shaky breaths as air wheezed in and out of his raw throat.

'Fuck that hurts!' Torrin continued coughing as his eyes took in the scene around him.

A bubbling river could be heard right behind him and three small children, one girl and two boys, stood in front of him with tears and snot running down their faces.

"Rin! We thought you'd died! Why would you trick us like that?!" The girl shouted, wiping her snot on the back of her hand before hitting Torrin in the shoulder with her small fist.

"Ow!" a reedy voice shouted, sounding young and petulant.

Torrin realized it was his voice! Long gone was the smooth baritone that carried a hidden maturity and authority beyond his years, replaced by a high pitched squealing.

"Why are you hitting me?!" Torrin exclaimed, confusion and anger tinging the shout. Torrin looked at his assailant, a young girl with straw blonde hair reaching her shoulders with her thin eyebrows pinched into a scowl. Small water drops fell from her hair, down her soaking wet shoddy wool dress, forming a circle of mud around her bare feet.

"Why are you playing dead?!" She retorted, mirroring his confusion, also adding just enough anger to make Torrin recoil slightly.

"I wasn't playing anything! Where are we anyways? What's going on?" Torrin's voice was slowly getting more and more whiny as he continued.

"Rin, you're unbelievable! I can't! I just! UGH!" The small girl seemed to give up, not even able to complete a sentence as she waved her hands vigorously, her foot continually stomped the ground with each exclamation, mud spraying with each hit.

She threw her hands in the air and turned around, walking towards a line of trees that surrounded their small clearing.

'What the hell is her problem? Beats me up then runs off like I've done something to her...' Torrin couldn't help but sigh after thinking this.

'Why am I even worried about some little girl? I need to figure out what's going on.' Torrin's thoughts were still muddled, a headache throbbing behind his eyes.

His attention turned to the two young boys as he sought answers, eyes narrowing.

"Can one of you explain what's going on?" though his voice was high pitched, his words held a certain gravitas to them.

The two boys had long since dried their snot and tears. Puffing out their chests with hands on their hips as if they were there to save the day, they answered.

"We was all playing swords and sorcerers, when you fell in the water, Rin! You was bobbin' around and the current kept takin' you farther away! Only Martha knows how to swim, so she jumped right in and finally, we was able to get you out but..." The boy on his right trailed off and it looked like his heroic facade was cracking, tears returning to the corner of his eyes as he looked at the ground sullenly, the left most boy continuing the story, "But... You wasn't breathin'... We thought you'd done got dead, but Martha wouldn't give up, she kept hittin' you on the chest, yellin' your name, sayin' she was gone get the water out of you!"

The boys both smiled slightly as they finished the tale, wiping their eyes again, sniffling slightly.

'How did I get into a river from the palace? I need to get back and see if they found who killed Perria...' Thinking this, tears welled up in Torrin's eyes as well and he tried to stand.

Torrin couldn't get up as his body felt like he'd been run over by a carriage, so he stopped trying.

'And who is this Rin they keep talking about? And why is my voice so shrill? That water must have messed up my throat or something,' he thought as he looked back to the two boys while leaning back on his elbows for stability.

The boys looked to be twins or at least brothers. They didn't look completely identical, but the similarity was so close a less discerning eye couldn't tell otherwise. They both had sandy brown hair with hazel eyes, a round nose, with thick lips and pudgy cheeks. They couldn't be more than 5 or 6 years old, he guessed.

One of the boys noticed his attempt to get up and nudged the other one. They both approached Torrin and helped him off the ground, standing him up on shaky legs. He noticed with great panic and fear that he was not even eye level with the two boys, he was shorter.

'What... What the hell? What is going on?!' Torrin's mind began to reel as he noticed the height discrepancy. 'Why am I so short all of a sudden?!'

The boys held onto his arms as they slowly led him towards a forest. Not even half an hour had passed since he was revived by Martha's continual punches, but control was slowly returning to his wrecked body.

"Boys! Boys!" A voice came from the woods, it held an elderly tone of authority, but it wasn't overbearing, it held a trace of worry and sincerity as it approached.

'Now what's happening? First, my fiancee is brutally murdered and then I'm somehow drowned in a river... I'm suddenly short?! Nothing is making sense... Hopefully the owner of this voice can straighten things out.' he thought with a bit of hope.

An older lady burst through the trees into the clearing by the lake, holding Martha on her hip. She stood about 5'8", towering over Torrin's small form, and wore a severe expression on her face that mainly conveyed a sense of urgency and worry.

Her graying hair was set in a bun on the top of her head. Her wrinkled face hid a beauty that must have been prevalent in her youth, thinning eyebrows scrunched together in worry above her cerulean blue eyes.

Seeing the three boys standing together, her lips began to rise in a small smile, relief visible on her face as it relaxed. Her dark robe seemed to have small cuts and tears from running through the bushes and trees of the woods.

"Torrin Lark! What a sorry state you're in!" She admonished as she approached, setting down Martha and circling Torrin, prodding as if she were a shopkeeper checking over a new delivery of goods for damages, "Looks like you'll survive boy... Thank all the gods above..."

As she trailed off, she stooped down and wrapped Torrin in a hug. He stood there in a daze thinking, 'Torrin Lark? Who is that?! Lark? Not even close to Sesh... She must be losing it with her old age.'

The trip through the woods was quite quick and Torrin silently took in everything that was said as they walked along. As they went, Torrin tried sensing the vital essence of the world, but noticed the strangeness of the day continuing.

He couldn't find a single trace of essence in the air, but he did however find something else. Some other powerful energy suffused the air, he could feel the power of it was equal to, if not stronger than vital essence, but it definitely wasn't vital essence. He knew vital essence intimately, having trained with it for over six years.

'Am I... How do I even put this? Am I somehow in a different world? A different body, even? There's not a speck of vital essence around anywhere...'

This was the only thing he could come up with. When he found Perria and that shadow in her room, he must have been killed along with her. Instead of blissful, heavenly choirs and feasts, he was greeted with terrifyingly endless darkness and a lungful of water, not to even mention this childish body.

'Did Little Lark die in that water, and my soul possessed the corpse? He even has the same name of Torrin, which is exceedingly strange...' As he thought of Little Lark, memories from the body slowly seeped into him.

He was 6 years old, from the Village of Velin, population around 200. He was told his father was a great warrior who died during an expansion into the Beast Lands and his mother died in childbirth, so he had no family and lived in the orphanage. He'd spend his free time playing with Martha, Tom, and Tim; running through the forest outside town and play-fighting with sticks, acting like warriors and mages.

'Mages, is it?' he thought as they walked towards an opening in a small wall.

The village was surrounded by a wall, only standing slightly taller than an adult, a little over six feet. One guard stood beside the entrance, wearing a white woolen shirt and brown pants, a leather belt around his waist carried a longsword in it's scabbard.

'No armor for the guards here, eh? A small village indeed. Must not see too much trouble if they're this lightly guarded.'

The village consisted of a simple smithy that doubled as a general goods store, a bakery on one corner of the dirt road, a butcher next door to the bakery, and a town hall. The most popular place seemed to be the public bathhouse. Those were the main attractions of this village. The remainder of the small village was taken up by wooden houses, simple affairs with no more than two rooms off the main room, usually a bedroom and a wash room.

The only other establishment was the orphanage, where Torrin and a few other kids lived. It wasn't much bigger than the other houses and as they arrived, Torrin remembered that there was only one additional room compared to the other houses of the village.

"Go and get cleaned up, Torrin, we'll be having dinner in about an hour, and someone bring him a change of clothes," the old woman, Thalia he finally remembered, advised as she headed towards the cook pot hanging over a small fire in the corner of the main living room.

Torrin was led to a small room, not much bigger than a closet, that contained a small wash basin with a plugged hole in the bottom, with a spigot hanging over it. A small chamber pot sat stinking in the far corner of the room with a small venting window high on the wall to let in light and let out the horrendous smell. He looked into a circular mirror, no bigger than an adult's head, hanging on the wall above the basin.

'I really am in a different body...' he lamented as he washed his dirt stricken face and hands, studying the face that looked back at him. He had dried off during the walk to the village.

A tangled mop of blondish brown hair sat atop his small head, hanging across his forehead and framing his angular face, small ears poking through the mess. He saw a small ski-slope like nose ending in a point centering his face, thin lips, and golden-hazel eyes surrounded by long lashes. A light smattering of freckles stood out on his lightly tanned skin. His small eyebrows raised in surprise as he studied himself.

"I really must be in a different world..." he mumbled as he tried to process everything happening.

The strange shadow in Perria's room, the infinite darkness, a different energy to vital essence in the air, waking up on a river bank with lungs full of water in a stranger's body. The only thing he could think of was his soul took a wrong turn and ended up in the corpse of Torrin Lark instead of heaven.

"This place doesn't even have proper utilities..." Torrin grumbled to himself as he stood to go to the main room that held the kitchen. The wash basin and chamber pot left a poor impression on him as he was used to dealing with proper plumbing, with toilets and sinks.

Seeing the state of the "kitchen" didn't help to remedy his growing annoyance. The room had a waist-high counter across the back wall. A sink-type hole sat in the middle of it with another spigot hanging above. In the corner sat an open area that contained a small cooking area, including a small fire and stand to hang a cook pot above it.

'From a Prince to a Pauper this quickly...' Torrin lamented as he scanned the room.

An enticing scent rose in the air from whatever was boiling away above the flames and it wafted straight to Torrin's nose, making his stomach rumble.

"Tim! Tom! Martha! Torrin! Let's get in here and eat!" Thalia called as Torrin sat on a thin cushion on the dirt floor in front of a large square chunk of wood he assumed was the "table". Turning and seeing Torrin already seated she continued, "After dinner we'll go over lessons and then I want you resting, Torrin."

'Lessons?' Torrin wondered as further information from Little Lark trickled into his mind, 'Reading... Writing... Math... History... and oh? Mana gathering?'