The golden bronze sun began to descend low in the late afternoon sky, as long shadows began to stretch across angled plains, stretching from towering trees and the rare wooden and stone structures that dot the steepened landscape. Fertile fields of equally golden wheat & barley wave and set across the hilly plains, creating a pale-yellow ocean of grain that paints itself flowing wherever the eye chooses to land. Amid the golden sea of grain, lies a dusty and beaten dirt road that trails and paths between the prevalent yellow waves.
Trailing alone, walking south-east in direction, seeming to be trekking away from a humble village in the opposing distance, lies a stern yet humble appearing young man. His tanned, bronze skin declared his years of labor in the sun, and his darkened, tousled, umber hair with hints of sunlit highlights, also denoted his extensive time spent in the onerous sunlit day. His face bares an expression of arduous responsibility, fueled by honored obligation. Such a complex demeanor paints itself upon his rigid cheek bones, his sternly crested orbital ridge that hold soft and honest gleaming amber eyes. Even amid his scars, and dirt flecked pores, his honorable demeanor emanates itself through every expression and physical movement he enacts.
Over his shoulder he hefts a leather pack that reeks of reaped crops and vegetation, long past its ripened time. Its fetid stench would drive most to a state of induced illness, yet the young man takes a breath with every step, seeming to be unaffected. He passes the occasional farmer as he makes his journey, greeting each with a sense of respect, and friendliness, greeting them with a smile and making his way further down the road. Their rugged lives leaving them familiar with the scents and odors of daily farm life, left them to not bat an eye or cover their nose at the passing stench that accompanied the man. In turn they greet him with a half-earnest smile. The kind of smile that passes on a sense of pity and remorse. What they saw in the man, in his family and his farmstead, was what every farmer feared most. A dying and failed dream.
With each step he strides onwards, momentarily implanting his feet in the loose dusty path, creating a systemic path of footprints that temporarily documented his endurance before the winds would eventually sweep them away to be forgotten. He doesn't mind the half-hearted smiles of his neighbors. He knows that most of them mean no offense. That pity which might offend another man, slipped off of him, unable to keep hold of his state of mind. Where another would be antagonized, he felt a hint of honor, of respect. He felt their smiles were not looking down on him, but that they honored the sacrifice that he and his family had made through the years, even if those sacrifices seemed to be for naught.
Time passes over the next hour, as the sun completes its descent upon the horizon in the backdrop. Shadows fade away under the orange gleam of the setting sun, leaving the light not to bask upon the land, but to be kept amid the painted sky before the last drop of the sun's light fades away to be replaced by that of the moon. Emerging before the young man is an aged and severely kept farmstead. A brown and rotting barn, housing a single bullock lies next to a nearly equally decrepit farmhouse, amid a bevy of dying earth and grain. Evidence of countless repairs marks the lumberwork of both structures, denoting poorly crafted woodwork that has been repeatedly barred from toppling over - even if only barely.
The man, having completed his journey from the village, steps onto the property with an sense of familiarity denoted in his movements and where he set his eyes. He seemed to keep his eyes down towards the ground, keep his thoughts elsewhere, letting his body guide him through the nearly ruined property with a sensibility that illustrated this was his home. He mechanically snaked towards the creaking barn, closing the gate loudly behind him. As the wooden gate came to a knocking shut, the Bullock gave out a loud and groaning "Moo" as it slowly and limpingly made its way instinctively towards the rotting wooden trough.
With barely a grunt of relief, he sloughs the reeking leather pack off of his shoulder and lets it slosh and empty into the trough. He rings as much as he can out into the trough before hanging it to dry out on a nail in the barn wall.
"There you go Clarabelle" the man said softly as the bullock began to slowly gorge itself on the slop. He softly patted and massaged the space between the bovines ears, comforting the old and senile creature. He gives the bullock a few soft and comforting familiar pats along its hilly spine before turning away from the beast, keeps his eyes down, and makes his way out of the barn toward the farmhouse. Each step resounding, the dirt pounds and scuffs into the ground beneath his leather boots with every foothold. Though his gait fails to waiver, it is apparent that a burden sits foremost upon his mind, keeping his focus nearly entirely.
He finally makes it to the drooping door that hangs on its hinges upon the house of the property. He stops not even a foot from the door, never looking upwards, merely keeping his gaze fixated on the handle that fails to even bare a lock. Moss patchily covers the door as well as the surrounding carpentry that makes up the house. Greyed lightly processed and carpentered wood speckled by green mossy pores fills his vision, eyes fixated & staring at the rusted door handle. His feet finally fully perched in place.
He stops not out of fear, or due to anxious preemptions, but to listen. Apart from the slopping of bovine lips, and the dying chirps of birds heading to bed, a rasp could be heard soft and slowly but like clockwork. On the other side of the door bemoaned a quiet and consistent rasp of breathing, the breath of a dying man. The younger man, outside of the house and staring at the doors handle, finally closes his eyes after his countless hours of staring at the ground trapped within his thoughts. His thoughts finally quiet to a single voice of thought after a cacophony of voices had previously led amid the forum of tangents that made up his mind. The voice amidst his mental forum gathered focus, centered on the sound of the cracked breathing coming from the other side. It isn't a focus of survival, but of inevitability. He isn't scared of what lies on the other side of the door. He pities it.
Like that of the farmers that smiled at him melancholically, he now bore the pity. And again, it isn't wielded out of malice or out of a sense of superiority. It stems from respect, from honor, and from a complicated sense of love. The young man gives out a quiet exhale before gripping the handle firmly. He hefts the door to the side before being able to push it open, as a result of the doors hanging state on the rusting hinges. As he entered the house, it was apparent that space had be originally built with grander upkeep in mind with multiple rooms, but had been rundown to a state of only being able to maintain the primary living space as well as the kitchen adjacent from it.
Lying in the center of the main room underneath a hole ridden roof, was an older middle aged man lying in a bed, beneath a sea of warm yet aged blankets. His slow and creaking breaths take dominance audibly throughout the somber space. His breaths take a sudden change in utterance, giving a sharp gasp as his eyes dart open and he falls into a short fit of coughing. The young man instantly reached for his waterskin which he instinctively pours into the older mans dry and mucus-cracked mouth. The older man takes a breath of relief before slowly and solemnly placing his aged hand upon the younger mans shoulder.
"Thank you, my son" he wheezed softer than before but now with a sense of calm. His complexion, weight, and appearance all give way to his diseased status. For a man who should be middle-aged, he appears nearly elderly in his decrepit state. The younger man heads towards the kitchen where he procures some small loaves of bread before heading back next to his father. He begins to break one of the loaves and attempts to feed his father, but unexpectedly the dying man takes his hand and pushed away the offered meal.
"Thank you Aldric, but no. I've been declining for sometime now, and I feel my time is coming-"
"No Father, stop it" the young man Aldric was immediately upset at the refusal.
"You're going to get better, don't start about depriving me of food or water again, I can take care of you" Aldric said the words but new they were gilded.
"Enough Aldric" his father said sternly, but in doing so immediately fell into a coughing fit once more. Aldric lifted his waterskin once more to parch his father's throat.
"This has been a long time coming Aldric. I appreciate everything you have done for me my son. But my dream has brought me nothing but ruin with you as the only exception" he rasped but Aldric attempted to intervene once more.
"Father, please do not start-"
"If you respect me as your Father, you will allow me my final words." He quietly but sternly spoke, staring meaningfully into Aldric eyes. The look his father held as he stared into Aldric's amber eyes was unlike nearly any look his father had ever given him- at least since his mother had died.
