Lonely Ruins

Cynthia rises out of her stoop and with a stretch of her stiff back and wiping the sweat from her eyes surveys the family field.

Or at least what would be her family field.

It had been three? years since the Broken Hero had visited this village, taking all the women with any sort of beauty and most of able bodied men and boys for the work gangs in the capital or the army.

Leaving behind the infirm or to young… and for the hell of it had blasted craters into the countryside, ostensibly to "help lighten the load of those left behind to tend the land." At least that is how Grandpa always ended the tale when he repeats it.

Cynthia had been lucky enough to be in the woods chasing down Bess the spunky milk cow when the Broken Hero had strolled through the village, and thus had not been scooped up by his entourage.

She sighs, for the good it did her. Not for the first time she allowed herself the room to fantasize about her life being better if the Broken Hero had taken her to the capital with the rest.

Surely the girls were not being mistreated, after all the legends of the summoned hero implied that he would draw his other worldly powers from the women around him.

Though what exactly that meant was left out of the fireside tales of the back country farmers.

Instead she went back to tilling the field by hand, even if they had been able to sow enough to feed themselves and the livestock to pull a plow the black glass lined craters left as a reminder to the village had not faded a bit and prevented more than a dozen steps being seeded in a straight line.

Another two or three years before the infants left behind with her and the elders would be old enough to even pretend to help with the chores.

Cynthia finishes up in this field and begins the trek to where the real work was to be done.

Those left behind had quickly learned that, just because the Broken one himself had not visited since, the agents of the government were invested in making sure they only worked the 'traditional' fields despite the damages.

So after some trial and error they had found a balance between making it look like they were doing as they were told, while secretly working on clearing and cultivating fields

Hard to tell that this was much more than a glorified meadow right now.

Her job for this year was to get this section cleared then the village could work together on getting it seeded.

thunk, thunk, thunk.

Goes her barely sharpened ax against the tree.

It falls with a crash against the rock outcrop she used to read under in happier times.

To Cynthia's surprise the tree does not stop where she expected but rather takes a section of the rock down with it.

She peers into the hole in the outcropping. dark and dust outline faintly benches and alcoves and something glittering at the far end.

Stepping back she examines the shape of the outcrop critically for the first time and discovers that it might have been a stone building at one time but is now so weather worn that there are next to know hard human made edges any more and what might be a window is blocked by the growth of the Forest.

Back when she was not the only able bodied person in the village her mother had insisted all the children observe some of the holy days to the Goddess and Cynthia had been the most keen out of all of them.

Now as she crawled past tree limbs to explore the inside of the building she sees that the glittering comes.from a crystal held in the hands of the most ornate depiction of the goddess that she had ever seen despite the clear age.

Most of the depictions the village used were little paper things made during the winter as copies of the few wooden statuettes and carved murals in the shrine.

This stood fully the hight of two men with its lines untouched by age and the carved lines clear and well defined like even dust would not gather in them out of reverence.

Usually The Goddess was depicted as holding whatever was the artist making the depiction wanted a blessing for:

weapons and armor in times of trouble when strength and defense was needed,

tools when a harvest or a particularly tough crafting project needed blessed.

Supposedly according to information handed down through the elders from when the village had a priestess there were three items the official depictions rotated through based on which aspect was needed.

Cynthia assumed that the orb glittering in the statues' hands was one such official item.

she was not sure if the orb was sparkling with its own light or collecting every beam no matter how faint.

What she did know was that the orb was…sad.

Instinctively she reached out and touched, she did not like when things were sad which is why she worked so hard for the village

The Elders were sad.

Sad that their children had been taken.

Sad that they could do very little to help restore the village and tend the grandchildren and great grand children.

She touched the orb and felt a sense of relief emanate from it as the world fell away around her.

She was looking out and around now, her vision distorted by curved glass all around her.

Cynthia did not feel panicked, as if someone else was reassuring her. But the rage coming off that person as they comforted her was still palpable despite feeling like it was at a distance.

A man entered her field of bison though he seemed to be so small despite carrying himself like he expected everything to bow to his ever whim.

This could be none other than the Broken Hero.