Aiden Archard

"Hey, sleepyhead! Wake up already!!" cried a brown matted haired kid of seven or eight. He wore a thin piece of white cloth and half-torn pants under a soldier's vest. The kid, named Jovian, had an extremely oval face with almost no fats on his cheeks and with his green pupiled eyes, one would be a little fearful while talking to him.

Jovian shook his little brother who was sleeping beside him. His brother was, from what it looked like, five years old with a dashing blonde hair and a little freckled face. Unlike his brother, he still had his baby fats on his cheeks and looked quite cute despite his malnourishment. After having his head shook like a fruit in a mixer, Jovian's little brother finally woke up, his pearl blue eyes still filled with sleepiness but a crease had fallen on his forehead.

"Go away!!!" he said as he flung his arm towards Jovian but he had already backed off from his range. Jovian gave a small laugh as his little brother, grudgingly woke up after a whole bunch of pinches and near missed counter-attacks.

Aiden, his little brother sat up straight and looked around with his sleepy pearl eyes. "No fire… no monsters… guess, this is not a dream, after all…"

"Of course, you nincompoop! Damn! How much do you have to sleep to even forget the difference between dream and reality? You were not like this a few months ago!" Jovian exclaimed. Aiden pouted a little but didn't reply a whole lot, just cussed under his breath.

'Asshole!'

"I know you cussed right now! Geez!" Jovian said as he turned his gaze away from his little brother to the scenery infront of him. Aiden was a little shocked at how his brother knew he had cussed at him but then again, given Jovian's own whole dictionary and school of cuss words and vulgar signs and also the fact that it was he who taught Aiden all about cuss words, at the mere age of five, gave little room of doubt of his special ability when it came to cussing. His brother was a big mystery but currently, he was more confused at something other than his brother and that was the strange dream he had. The scenery, the monster, the flames, the white wings, it was all so weird but fascinating. More than all the ones he had previously.

Truth be told, Aiden had started having strange dreams almost two months. At first it was only strange snippets of what seemed like someone's life but then it took way weird turns. Brothers turning on each other, husbands and wives battling each other out to death, children crying, it was all pretty gore and grim but Aiden always blacked his minds out on those times. The only plus point of all these was that he had obtained a ridiculous ability of closing his mind off when the scene infront of his became too gorish. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to reproduce such results in real life. He still flinches his eyes open when getting beaten to the ground by his brother in the name of practice. But today's dose of strange dream was really weird. Such vividness… such clarity… it was unheard of, as per his practical knowledge. But since thinking about it won't get him anywhere, he reluctantly diverted my thoughts.

Sighing to himself, Aiden too turned towards the scenery which his brother was looking at but then something caught his attention. Looking down, he saw a small white feather was lying on top of the back of his hand. The feather was quite light and looking at it, Aiden felt a little dizzy but then he shook himself out of his stupor.

'Strange...' he thought as he pocketed the feather and looked infront like his brother. As they both sat on the top of an abandoned stone tower in the outskirts of a forest, they saw a beautiful ripe-orange colored sun setting, getting hidden slowly by the silhouettes of the dark trees. Slowly and steadily, the bright red of the sky gave way to the light darkness of the space and the myriads of stars which dotted it. The temperature too dropped quite quickly and soon it was almost freezing.

Sensing the drastic change in temperature, both of the stood up and headed down the tower. By the time they had descended the abandoned tower, it was fairly dark and the winter dusk had fallen in full glory with the temperature was dropping further and further. Wearing a few woolen gloves on their hands, a wornout sweater and wrapping a coarse shawl over their overly exposed faces, they gt ready for their night hunt. In addition, Jovian picked out his adventuring gears and wore his leather studded armor and wore his one and only iron sword over his waist. But he didn't stop there. He took out another leather strap with an attacked sheath and handed it to Aiden.

Aiden looked quite surprised at the weapon he was handed. He took the leather strip and the weapon and looked at Jovian with his blue eyes, baffled, "What's am I gonna do with these, bro?"

Jovian smiled at him and said in an excited voice, "I'm going to teach you how to hunt, Aiden! Before your Baptism next week, I'm gonna see to it that you get all the basic hunting skills to the bones. Gotta get yourself a little beefed up so that the God's don't throw you out of their presence in the fit." He said, jokingly and I gave a sarcastic laugh at him, not feeling at all pleased by his lie.

Aiden's eyes sparkled with excitement and within moments he wore the leather strip and unsheathed the weapon his brother gave him. A long dagger. Not a fancy one but a more modest one. It had a length near 11 inches, a little shorter than the average with a sharpened edge and a black pommel. In his hand, it seemed a little large but given his young age and the growth spurt he was experiencing, it was all worth it.

After doing a few exercises with it, both of them went hunting.

…

Aiden's POV

"Remember, the night's is the hunting time of the monsters."

"Don't think like a human now, think like a predator and sense the monsters you're hunting."

"Hold your dagger tightly dammit! This is not a game, you piece of slime-shit!"

"Gosh! Use your fucking brain, you nincompoop!!!!"

A barrage of curses and knuckle-punches riddled my temple as big brother Jovian taught me the skills to hunt efficiently. He is a tough nut, I will admit but when teaching others, he is a demon. A god-frickin' demon I say. All the while we were hunting, he kept on cussing and admonishing me for every small mistake I made and his annoying attitude distracted me all the while, making me commit more mistakes which attracted more curses. A viscous cycle. At the end of it, I was only able to hunt a few Snow Rabbits, one of the most weakest monsters in the Ruther's Forest, the forest which we looked from the top of the abandoned tower. The weakest monster is obviously a forest slime but nobody wants to fight with them, given their pitiful strength and Experience.

At the end of the hunting, it was nearly eight and we had amassed a nice count of a dozen dead rabbits and a few doles of a Red Horned Deer, a typical of the forest. My brother expertly dissected the monsters and stored every part of the doles from their skins, organs, eyes even tongue and penis in his sack before continuing. At the end, only a few bones and the skull of the doles were left which we buried deftly with the rabbits, whom we had skinned and meat sliced off and preserved along with the meat of the dole.

After burying all the bones and leftovers, we resumed our journey back to the city.

…

My name is Aiden Archard and I lived in the Lexington city for nearly my entire life along with my parents and three siblings and one on the way. We lived in one of the most poorest portion of the city, fenced and barbed away from the rest of the populace, my brother's Adventure Guild token being the only thing which is preventing the authorities from throwing our family out.

My family consists of my father, Jonathan Archard, a deject, drunkard and gambler who once was the third or fourth son of a branch family of a nobility. Unfortunately, everything went down for him and he soon lost his nobility and after marrying my mother lived in the slums, wasting his days away in booze, drugs and gambling.

My mother, Lily Archard is one of the prostitutes in the local brothel and made a little over 1 Silver every day but had most of it spent by my father. Other than them, there is Jovian who is my older brother, me, the second brother, William, the little brother and one else who was en way. And for a fact, none of my brothers are related to me, biologically. Jovian, the eldest is clearly the biological son of my father given his sharp oval shaped face and brown colored hair but I'm totally different from him. I had a head full of almost pure white blonde hair with pearly blue eyes, a long straight nose with pink lips. I stood only a head smaller than Jovian but I had a more muscular body than him, or that's what I want to say but to him, it's only fat.

My brother worked in the Adventure Guild as a Copper ranked adventurer and normally, it wouldn't be enough to stop eviction but somehow Jovian was able to gain the trust of the brank head and was able to avoid eviction.

As for me, I'm still a minor but after completing my Baptism next week, I would be able to take some minor jobs. Mind you, even after Baptism I would be a minor but given my family's financial condition and my father's crazy behaviors, I won't be able to avoid working. That's for sure.

My little brother William, is again not biologically my brother and I'm sure that the child who is still in my mother's womb is not too.

…

The trip to the city was uneventful, which is an immensely good thing, not for my brother but definitely for me for I won't be able even scratch the backs of higher-grade monsters before getting downed by them. Near the city gates, like usual, we pay them one rabbit for our entry into the city. It is not usual for citizen to pay to enter the city but for us, low rung people, we're not even considered as citizen and thus must pay or rather 'gift' these soldiers something.

Soon after entering, we headed towards to the Adventure Guild to sell and it didn't take even half an hour for my brother to finish trading with the Guild and handed them the token of his completed job as I waited outside for him. Today's harvest was quite good as we not only were able to hunt a few doles of Red Horned Deer and a dozen rabbits but Jovian was also able to complete his quest racking a good 2 Silvers for ourselves. We decided unanimously to hide a Silver and 50 Coppers from father while 'hand' the remaining 50 Coppers for the family as he said it. Dumbass. (1 Silver = 100 Coppers and 1 Gold = 1000 Silvers.)

After completing the transaction we head directly towards home with salivating mouths as we thought what kind of dishes mother could make from the meats of these rabbits.

…