Wings of Sorrow

Chapter One: Yearnings of the Wind

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Note: This was written for an English assignment, so the final product will probably be different, less... Englishy.

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The rain beating down on Eiutah's head and shoulders mingled with the
tears flowing down his cheeks. He sat completely alone, without
another person around for miles. Eiutah, usually quiet and reserved,
now sat by the edge of a cliff where the sea met the land, trying to
stop crying. It was the rain. The familiar feeling of the droplets of
water had dredged up unwelcome memories.


Eiutah had medium-length blue hair pulled back and bound in a
ponytail wrapped in white cloth. His emerald eyes were hidden beneath
his bangs. The sword he had acquired from his brother Frionel was
strapped to his belt as always. Various scars from his years of
training with the blade covered his hands, and several more adorned
his face. He had the look of an experienced, albeit poor or
unfortunate, swordsman. This was compounded by his face, which had
been devoid of any emotion, nearly without fail, since that day four
years ago.


The cove where Eiutah sat, Widow's Cove, was a graveyard set by the
sea to honor those lost to the depths. All around were gravestones
and memorial statues, the quality of which varying with the
wealthiness of the family of the deceased. A few trees weakly reached
for the sun above, but most had been torn down to make more room for
the burial sites. The day itself was dark, as the rainclouds
tormenting Eiutah blocked the sun, making it hard to tell the time of
day. Eiutah had been trying unsuccessfully for hours to catch some
fish in the bay, but the task had not been on his mind since the rain
began. The wind picked up, blowing the tears from Eiutah's face and
thrashing his hair about wildly. A few birds, unable to fly in the
strong winds, landed in one of the nearby willows.


If one wanted to find Eiutah at any given time, they could probably
find him fishing in Widow's Cove, hunting in the Dead Wood, or
sitting alone reading in his room back in Dynia. Eiutah rarely
socialized with anyone besides his house-mate Kaila, and even with
her, his conversations were short and sparse. Overall, many people
disliked Eiutah for his insociability and general dislike of people.
If they had known all that Eiutah had gone through in his short
eighteen years on the planet, they'd probably sympathize with him and
tolerate his stoicism. As it was, however, many saw him as bitter and
unlikable.


Finally giving up for the day, Eiutah sighed and pulled back the
line on his finishing . His attempts in vain to catch something were
only frustrating him further and causing him to break down harder. He
would have to return home empty-handed for the second time in the
past few weeks. This would mean that Eiutah and Kaila would have to
pick up a few extra mercenary jobs to pay for food for the
month.


The two of them had started a small mercenary business
when they had moved to Dynia a year or so ago. After trying
unsuccessfully to apply for several jobs, they had decided to just
start a small system where they picked up various jobs for a preset
amount of money. The jobs they did ranged from menial housework to
dangerous ones such as guarding widows on their way to mourn in
Widow's Cove.


As Eiutah walked slowly back towards the Dead Wood to pass through
it to Dynia, he glanced around for one final look at his silent
refuge. Widow's Cove was almost always completely desolate, and even
when someone came to mourn, they mostly kept to themselves. The trek
through the Dead Wood was too dangerous and arduous for most
townsfolk to regularly make. Even Eiutah had trouble sometimes, as
some of the animals could be aggressive at times. More than once
Eiutah had been attacked by a wolf or other predator and had had to
limp back to town to receive treatment. Many people warned him that
one day his constant trips through the Dead Wood would lead to him
being crippled or mortally wounded, but Eiutah remained confident
that he could fight off any animal before that happened.


Pausing briefly to wipe the remnant tears from his eyes, Eiutah
couldn't help but let out a cold laugh at the situation.


"This rain..." he muttered to himself. "This rain is
just like that it was that day four years ago." Unable to
contain his pent up rage any longer, Eiutah dropped to his knees and
howled at the top of his lungs as a fresh wave of tears stained his
face. "Damn it!" He raised his head to face the heavens and
bellowed "Why do you mock me?!"


'Who am I to think I can defy fate?' he thought pounding his fist
into the ground. 'One can scream at the tides from dusk to dawn, yet
they will not heed him. In this matter, I am no better off.'


Finally regaining his composure, he staggered back to his feet and
slowly walked away from the bay. He knew that by the time he returned
home he would have to remove all evidence of his crying or else Kaila
would harangue him for hours about it. She meant well, but tended to
be a little overbearing at times when Eiutah showed that his past had
been bothering him again. Lately the two of them had been drifting
apart due to him cutting her off even more than usual.


Eiutah walked slowly through Dead Wood, the rain still beating down
on him. He wandered along the path, which he knew so well that he
could walk it with his eyes closed. Suddenly the winds changed,
blowing just as strong in the opposite direction. Eiutah almost lost
his footing on the steep forest terrain and had to grab a nearby tree
branch to support himself. After a moment he began to think of how
strange the winds were behaving. They acted arbitrarily, without any
sort of rhyme or reason. Eiutah bitterly thought that that's how he
wanted to live his life, following his every whim without worrying
about it. He stood for several long minutes, leaning against the
tree, feeling the rain, heavy as ever, thinking about how much he
wanted to find his own path in life. He didn't want to go home, not
yet. And yet he trudged along, never straying too far from the beaten
path.