New Beginnings (II)

◇Ace

๑Theo

~Caleb

۶Ty

◯Trevor

Somewhere in the Kingdom of Matros.

A little five year old child was following his older brothers through the woods. As they had to take care of their little brother, who they despised, they never went too far into the woods but today, they did not care as they planned to return without him. Caleb was the youngest son of the Thornwoods, he had two older brothers and two older twin sisters. His father belonged to a small noble family of mediocre magical talent. However, his siblings managed to become tricasters as his father remained a tetracaster. His mother was the daughter of a merchant who married into nobility in an arranged marriage his father managed to put together.

Caleb was relatively weak compared to the rest of his family as even his mother was a dualcaster. On the other hand, he had yet to show any elemental influence. That is one of the reasons why his entire family hated him, He was no more than a weakness to them. A future stain in their family. So after they asked their father if they could go out into the deep parts of the woods today, he didn't object as he understood his children's intentions.

After they walked for an hour, they came to a stop by a cave, Caleb was tired and he needed a break. His brothers took out the poisonous berries they carried with them and told him to eat to his heart's content. Then they would leave and hope a beast would take care of the body.

After Caleb ate the berries his brothers told him to wait by the cave as they went to get water from a river nearby. He didn't want to be left alone but he thought his brothers were just taking care of him. After a few minutes he felt his insides burning as the toxins from the berries started spreading through his body.

His little body couldn't take the pain as when he tried to call for help nothing but little yelps came out. In a desperate measure he screamed inside his head with all his might.

~Help! Please somebody help! Anyone~

To his surprise, four different voices responded, all but one told him to f*ck off. What they didn't know is that they would all meet soon.

Caleb felt his body going limp, the poison from the berries was acting fast and he was slowly and painfully dying.

~Mama...papa… help me… someone… he...~ Caleb's eyes finally closed as he felt death's cold embrace.

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After a few hours Caleb's eyes opened again. But there was someone else behind them.

◇W-where am I?◇

๑I was wondering the same thing, if I had to guess, a forest๑

◇What the actual f*ck?! Who are you? Why are you inside my head?◇

๑I could ask you the same thing, but there's no need to get aggresssive๑

◯What is going on here? Why are there two voices in my head? Why am I awake? Didn't I die?◯

۶Well hello everyone. We are probably in heaven. They always said it was beautiful so can someone open the eyes please?۶

◇Well this is great, apparently I'm the only one with common sense here and I'm trapped with a hippie.◇

۶Who are you calling a hippie princess?۶

◇What did you call me you piece of sh*t◇ She mentally moved towards Ty.

๑Wait what? Are you moving?๑

◯Okay let's be real here we have lots of questions but you all should better present yourself, tell me who you are.◯ He mentally sneered at the others.

◇Why should we lis-◇

۶Well in that case, my name is Ty۶

๑Hello Ty, I'm Theo๑

◇What are we doing? Is this kindergarten?◇

◯My name is Trevor but most people know me or knew me as Trev◯

◇Fineeee, Ace here◇

This mental conversation took but a split second. They continued talking as they realized they could not do anything but lay on the floor as their now shared body was not responding. Then, they started to feel their heart beat again but as the blood started coursing through their veins, they felt an excruciating pain accompany it. The pain intensified with every pump and soon they passed out without emitting a sound.

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While they were unconscious, they went through a dream-like sequence of events.

Caleb woke up in his little cottage in the backyard of his family's manor. They didn't like to be around him at all. He put his clothes on and went into the manor for breakfast. He waited outside the house for a good hour before someone came out to let him in.

As he entered the house the scene changed. It showed his family at the breakfast table, he was given half the food the others had but as he was small it was more than enough. His family could be seen talking but no sound was coming through. After about half an hour, he was left to finish his meal alone before heading to the woods with his brothers.

The scene changed again and this time it showed him following his brothers through the woods, they kept walking without even looking at him until they came to a stop, one of his brothers gave him some weird looking berries of all colors ranging from white to black going through the entire spectrum with colors like yellow, green, red, pink, blue, brown, orange and purple. Caleb ate all of them as they looked enticing and was curious, he found them to be quite delicious except the yellow ones which turned out to be toxic.

They then went through the desperation and fear Caleb went through in his last moments after his family had killed him, or at least tried to, he had gone through a lot to be only five years old. He had no one in his life that cared for him but now, Ace, Ty, Trevor and Theo all silently made a promise to protect him and kill whoever tried to harm him again.

It all went black after that and they slowly started drifting into the void.

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Somewhere in the woods, there was a beautiful woman, with hair made out of different colored leaves, varying from bright green at the root to a deep orange at the tips. She had light green eyes and juicy plum-like lips. She wore a dress made out of different petal flowers that changed every now and then, one second it was made out of rose and tulip petals and the next cherry blossom and lily petals. Her skin, although made of pine wood, was soft to the touch when intended.

If not for the powerful aura she emitted, she would have caught the eye of entire villages. She felt an immense surge of power coming from inside the woods themselves, her territory. The energy surge was on par with the Primordials and slowly rising but it's life force was slowly fading away.

She called upon two Rosequeens and ordered them to keep guard while she went looking for the power source. Although it was dangerous, such anomaly should be preserved as was the will of the world.