stone cold earth

it's the year one thousand, the dawn of a new age, sitting in his small room a boy was thinking, he looked at the village outside his window at his right the he looked at a map on his desk, the world is too big yet he is trapped in this small cage, he had no parents so the elder took care of him, fearing the dangers of the world the elder prohibited the young man leaving the village without his permission, you can't blame the old man he lost his first son when he let him wonder off, but he wasn't much of a father figure to the poor dreaming man, they in two separate houses, they barely have closure, so Zedd, the boy misfit, was set out to leave this village, it won't be easy, the first move he did was to participate in the work of the village's men; harvesting, building and delivering, after all the misfit was unwelcomed as a friend, it wasn't nice around him, he is never the one that starts the conversation but if he said a joke, it would be sarcastic one that you'd need his point of view to understand, but in common occasions his sarcasm make everyone else angrier than they are laughing, only the elder could have a good time around him in the very rare occasions he finds time to have quality time with his adopted son, well he isn't even a son he is just a boy he takes care of, he was the most reliable worker in the village despite he doesn't get paid, he only asks for a good word to be put for him, and it is put every time but it always is followed by a bad one, "The kid is a real one, you can rely on him to do any job you ask from him, but the little fucker takes everything as a fucking joke, one time I caught him looking at nothing, he was just staring, I looked but I didn't see anything, I asked what was he looking at, he said that there's something wrong, I looked for about five minutes and I didn't see shit, I thought he was just being sarcastic as always so I ignored him, I heard a loud sound as I walked away, I heard the litter fucker laughing, I thought that one of the men fell funny on his face, I turned around to see the crushed under three large logs, there was nothing we could to help so, the man's skull split in half like you split one them watermelons if you used a hammer instead of a a sword you bought from a shady merchant down the road, the blood poured until it formed a lake, yet the fucker was laughing, he was laughing at death, do you believe it? I know a war veteran that saw me kill rat and he looked at me and said I should've catched the little guy and threw him out instead, he killed more man than the hairs left on his balding head but he didn't like that I killed a damn rat, take my word, that kid, Zedd or whatever fancy name is his, he is screwed in the head more than them torture chambers fuckers, or than them necromancers, but he is still has a bit of humanity in him, there was this one begger that came at that year where the harvest was terrible, he stumbled on the wrong village, we pitied him so we gave him a blanket, but he was hungry, like he would eat a sheep alive type of hungry, but he was a good guy, he didn't steal from us, he was chasing this big fat rat to eat it, a cat caught the fat fucker and ran faster than the rat was running, he grabbed a stone and was about to cast it on the running fucker, the kid looked at him funny and said if he throws the stone he flush down a whole big ass rock down his throat, the poor man was terrified from the little demon, that's the first one, he protected the cats around and fed them, he was like all of them kids when they see a cat, but he is no kid at that point, not entirely at least, the second one was when sun came down that day, he got the rat from the cat, you how cats are so the rat was dead, be skinned it, cooked it, put some fancy spices some woman gave him, put it on some plate with a salad and big piece of bread, we were starving out there yet the little fucker was livin' the life, ye get me? so he took it and gave it to the begger and he sat and taught him things even I didn't know, first was them rats fuckers have a lot of viruses in them, in other words sicknesses, like fever and shit, ye get me? second thing is hunting, I've out there hunting few times but never knew, you don't catch 'em clever bastards by chasing or throwing shit at them, they can easily outrun you and hide and you'll never notice, instead you inticipate where they will go and put some kind of trap in there, I heard some city folk talk about traps but they are expensive either money or time wise, so what was the kid doing is make a big hole and cover it with leafs, before they escape it assuming they can you'd cat the fucker, third how to cook some random fucker you caught, you don't eat the fucking organs, assuming you don't know what you're dealing with, skin the fucker real good, put him in water and boil him and make sure the meat doesn't get all the way cooked unless you want them that way, you cook it however you like than you take it out and put a lot of spices, anything you could put your hands on, even the worst meat becomes delicious that way, assuming you don't have any you only need salt which is very easy to get, even the poorest of us at least has a stone of that shit, and here comes the most important part he says, salt is nearly as important as the meat itself, you put a food amount of it, like tenth the amount of meat you have, then spread real good and evenly, if the meat is thick you slice it open and put salt in there, and you got a nice meal like a some fucking king if not better, I counted how much it will cost, a stone of salt is a copper, you can't buy less, so we count a copper, about an hour of work at worst, the meat you hunt it yourself depending on what method you use it may take you from an instant to an hour, spices if you want to cook the best shit you could give ten copper to any random city merchant for a good amount of a set of spices, not the best but for some begger that's the best, a fire you could start it for free with barely any effort same as water, here comes the tricky, you know the thing you put the water in? yeah a pot, it's for one gold, well if you bought one of them silver ones, but you could also buy one for ten silver which is made by a cheaper metal, which is still to much for a begger, but you can also steal one from any home or merchant in the city and no one will care, gold is that cheap these days, back in my father's day a hundred gold gets you a nice house in a nice neighborhood in a nice city, today you need ten hundred the amount of that, any way, what was the topic, oh yeah the kid, he was a nice fella if you sought for an advice about a specific topic like that, and he isn't the type to keep secrets of how he does things from any body, he might be young, well he is nearly a man by now but when I bought my kid his first toy the elder bought him a dagger, when my kid was playing all over the village with all his stupid mates the kid was reading books, when I had my kid scared to death from thunder the kid beat a some thug into a pulp, when I was explaining to my the difference between men and women and why it is bad to sneak into the women's bath, the little fucker proposed to the daughter of the elder, the elder said that there was a reason he didn't treat the misfit like a son, but it's not like you think, the elder was open to the idea, but the girl already had other engagements behind her father's back she told her boyfriend to make the boy stay away of her, her boyfriend was way older than her, therefore older than her nearly twin barely related brother, he went there with one of his uncles, he was from the city so the elder didn't know anything about him or about his daughter even being in a relationship, one night a big fight broke out, the boy beat the shit out the man before his uncle could react, he broke his ribs, lucky they didn't pierce through his heart, I assume his uncle was a reasonable man who stopped the fight and took his nephew home, took the blame and had to take care of the poor man, but the fucker one night snuck out to take revenge on his own, he had a nasty a fever because his wounds weren't properly treated and died once he got here, the kid woke up early like everyday, ask me, I know, I once promised him to help him fix something in his house he cane to my house before the sun showed her face, he found the body, do you think he told the elder he had found the body? No, he went told him he had to talk with him, he told him the story, the elder was intrigued to know the ending, it was like one of them stories the cool guy would tell, then the conclusion, the elder started laughing, it was a damn fucking imaginary story, too good to be true, but it was the way it was told that it was good, if you look at it is I killed your daughter's boyfriend, he started laughing, it was the best story he heard, sure he was furious at his daughter but he realized that he shouldn't take it seriously until he could talk to his daughter properly, so the kid showed him the body, the body was just outside my house so I woke to the hysterical laughing of some kind of psychopath, the elder was out of his mind, I saw him laughing and spitting on the body, he held the boy and said he was proud of him, he said that the kid deserved better so he said he would let him do what he always wanted but not today, he said, he turned and called me, come and hear, you won't believe, he said, that day I realized how the kid came to be the way he is, he might barely had any contact with the elder but the elder was his one true father personality wise, even without this part you'd realize, so the kid left when he became sixteen, and now he is sixteen and a half, so his daughter is about that, I am about forty and I have a son about that age too, so how the elder came to be when his daughter is sixteen, if you assume there are men older than me you'd be right so there are men older than forty and none of them is the elder, so yeah, that fucker is nearly one hundred, every hair in his head is whiter than snow, skinny as one of 'em trees that would break in one punch, his daughter should be his granddaughter's daughter, so yeah, the elder was never a normal man to begin with, thinking of it, nobody knows his past, when I was born he already settled or came back to the village after he done everything a man would do worth mentioning, oh I am sorry, I got carried, so there, everything worth mentioning about the boy, he is now working as a watcher in a some ghost town or shire in some big ass tower, oh you already know? well what else is worth mentioning, I think not, if you don't believe me go there and see for yourself, but why are you searching for him? I know most people in this dirty tavern are killers, thieves, thugs, but I don't think he is worth anything of that sort, yeah he is a tough guy but you probably could find a tougher guy easier to convince to do the thing you want to do, and I am sure he didn't piss anyone off, why you looking at me funny? I didn't mean any disrespect I worked in these lines of work back when I was young, you're just a wonderer, so let me tell you how I came to know all this, in short I am the one who makes sure everything is done and controls everything that is done in the village, it all started when like I said, I worked in the lines of works of crime, I had it rough at first, but then slowly, I started succeeding, you see at first I was a no one, I woked for a gang but I was alone, it was an occasional event for my butt to be handed to me, but then I was tasked to command a group of thugs in heist, the biggest that the gang pulled ever, all thanks to my leading skills, I became a trusted member, the boss died, nothing big, he fell off stairs, I inherited the gang, to ensure loyalty I made a couple of men in my total control, gave them money, manipulated them, all that stuff, heavens will fall and they won't betray me, everything was going good, I made a good fortune, and then I came back home, aka my village, with my two men, I think I was 24, no, younger, by 24 I had a son, well fuck I think I am forty, time goes fast and I am not good at counting it, well I came back to the village some old geezer saw the buck I was carrying, a bag full of gold, that was the elder, he beat the shit out me and took my money in front of my man, my charm broke I never saw them again, but the geezer made me a different man, I thought I was invincible, I thought I owned the world, he beat that out of me with every hit of his walking stick, he made me the chief, a step under the elder, he saw my leadership skills, oh and my name is Andrew... Nice to meet you Rio, if you ever come by our village just tell me."