"Shades of Prophet" by Dylan Cline

"Humanity was not designed as creatures of peace. We were not born to this world to live in idle contentment, or supreme happiness.

No, this day, it is not your smiles and well-wishes I have come to claim. Rather, it is your hidden hatred... you pain... the dark places within your own souls; these are the things I have come for. These, my people, are the seeds of discontent. The flames of change."

~Words of the Prophet~

It was those words that would set into play the events that would later precede the dawning of a nation. Many - indeed, most - people have forgotten our nations roots amid the fancy of legend. For better or for ill, that day was the beginning. Our beginning. That day... that man... was a catalyst for things to come. He was the spark of change.

Historians have changed the facts. Blurred the truths with their own fantastical lies. But I... I was there, and I remember.


"Vince, come quick! Sam found a turtle by the lake!"
I glanced up from the stubborn weed that refused to be pulled by my ten-year-old hands, glancing eagerly at my mother and waiting for the nod that would send me flying through our small village to the lake that fed our community.

With a small grin, she straightened from were she knelt among the weed-enshrouded garden. "You'd best hurry. Turtles are like to disappear when you least expect it," she said, indulging my childhood wonderment as she often would with a grin and a small shake of her head.

Step for step, Eric and I surged through our small farming village. Sam was standing along the bank of the river that fed our fields, and filled our village wells. Panting, Eric and I stood beside Sam, and watched as the turtle - as if sensing the innate danger of playful children - surged into the waters, loosing itself amongst the stones and weeds beneath the river water.

Undaunted by the disappearance of the turtle, and now finding ourselves with a gloriously chore-free afternoon, we played amongst the streets of our village. Sam - our local tom-boy and ever smiling companion - brushed a stray hair from her forehead as Eric, smiling, danced around her, calling out insults and making fun.

Sam, as always, smiled quietly as she reached out and cuffed Eric in the side of the head, sending him sprawling to the ground. Her midnight-black hair, and deep blue eyes shimmered keenly as Eric - in typical fashion - grinned and tackled her.

I watched with amusement as Eric and Sam rolled through the dust and grass, biting, slapping, and kicking each other. It was a regular event throughout my childhood. Eric, with his fiery red hair, and slate-grey eyes would eventually scream out something along the lines of "I give up!" and the duo would stop and pick themselves up, and we three would carry on with our play.

That is to say, typically, we would continue with our play. That day however, we were witnesses to a beginning. We did not know it then of course. We children hardly took notice of the dark wagon as it rolled into our village. Were it not for me, I daresay we would have idlely gone about our play.

It was not the wagon that caught my attention, but rather the man that stepped out from the shadows within. Tall and well-cut, he moved with a grace that I had not ever seen before. Upon his hip hung an ornate scabbard, containing what I knew to be a sword - something that were it not for the tales my parents told me of the times before the Great Peace, would have been an entirely foreign object.

Eric and Sam tugged at my sleeves, urging me back to play. I waved them off with a grunt of annoyance, as I watched the man slowly take in the village. His eyes took in everything, and with the curiosity and wonderment that only children possessed, I stood and studied the man. Upon completing his survey of our village, he quietly began to speak, and it was then that I noticed the others. It seemed that everyone in the village - from the fat jolly mayor who was like to give us children small candies and sweets, to sullen old Mr. Olrick - had turned from their work to circle around this strange man.

"I have come here, not to sell you tales of the outside world, or barter for goods and services, but to tell you a truth. A simple truth, but one that our leaders would seek to hide from us." His voice, like water softly flowing over river stones, would forever reside in my memory.

The stranger slowly turned in a circle, his arms outstretched as if to encompass us all. "We live in a time of peace," he said quietly as he came to a stop. "For far too long, we have pushed aside our true nature. We have ignored the very things which make us what we are!" His voice gained in power, and even I - a mere boy of ten - could feel the waves of intensity within his words.

"We are a balance! We, alone amongst all the One God's creatures, have the power for infinite kindness, or base chaos." He paused for a moment before continuing. "Humanity," he said, his voice falling to barely above a whisper, "was not designed to be creatures of peace. We were not born to this world to live in idle contentment, or supreme happiness."

Smiling, the man regarded us calmly, "No, this day, it is not your smiles and well-wishes I have come to claim. Rather, it is your hidden hatred... you pain... the dark places within your own souls; these are the things I have come for. These, my people, are the seeds of discontent. The flames of change."

The village elder moved as if to say something, but the man cut him off. "Our leaders would have us believe that this thing... this 'Great Peace' as they call it, is what we were put on this land to achieve. This, my people, is a lie. Too long, we have grown fat and content within the walls that our Priests, our Kings, our very own parents, have built around us."

We stood rooted there, as if stuck in a trance, as the man spoke his final words to our village. "What, after all, is happiness without pain? Peace without war? Light without dark?" His eyes roamed over the men and women of the village. "The One God has spoken to me, my friends, and he tells me that here - this very village - will be the beginning. This village, my friends, will be the start of something so much greater... purer... than the false peace which has been laid upon us." Smiling, he then climbed back up into his wagon and without a backwards glance, left.

Slowly, the people of our village came to themselves, and after idly commenting to one another about the odd event that had just transpired, went back to their work. Many would forget the man in the days that would follow, marking him as an oddity and not worth a second though. I however, did not forget. Alone amongst the rest of our village, Sam, Eric and myself would never - could never - forget the man who would come later to be known simply as Prophet.