Next part of the little story in my head that refuses to just die. I'm not sure how many parts there are since it keeps going, but it's probably halfway done.
I hope you enjoy it.
Things blurred after that. I spent most of my days with the blacksmith, either working alongside him on the forge or learning how to swing a sword, my parents begrudgingly happy I had finally started doing something, mostly because I was also learning to be a Blacksmith on the side.
So, I spent the years focused entirely on my own goal and hearing the occasional new tales of Logan coming from the infrequent travelers that came to town. I had pretty much committed most of those to memory, but I was always looking to hear them again.
But the rhythm I had gotten used to changed one day, when the tales regarding Logan had stopped reaching our village for a while and we were once again visited by Royal Knights.
The knights visiting the village were silent and simply asked for directions to the chief’s house where they then stayed for a couple of hours, one of the knights inside with the chief while the others stood outside, silently.
After an eternity, the knight who entered the chief’s home came out with the chief behind him, his face pale as a ghost. The chief had asked everyone to listen to him and the visitors, who then revealed the reason of their visit.
I couldn’t believe what I had just heard! The knights then called Logan a traitor to the kingdom, they called him a monster who had killed the king and left the royal family in disarray. They carried parchments with his face which had listed several more supposed crimes under it.
As soon as the man I presumed to be the head knight had finished speaking the rest of the men moved around the village, plastering the parchments on every surface they found and asking everyone if they had heard something about Logan or his whereabouts.
They called him a criminal, a murderer, but I refused to believe it. I refused to believe that the same man who did so many great things would end up becoming a monster. That the selfless hero was now a wandering killer.
I was about to scream at the knights, rage at them even, but I was immediately restrained by my teacher, the blacksmith, of all people. I’m thankful for that, had he not stopped me I would have probably been killed, either me or my family. These knights don’t take kindly to people insulting them.
Once the images depicting the man and his crimes found themselves all over town, they continued their job, recounting the things he had “done” to the people of our kingdom, but at that point I refused to listen, simply going to my own room to think. My family had thought that was the end of my dream.
I didn’t consider the possibility at first, but when doubt started to fill my mind… I simply redoubled my efforts in training myself, my goal shifting from adventuring and becoming like Logan to finding the man and confronting him directly about his supposed crimes.
The goal was still the same, to be a hero, but now I also wanted to ask my own hero what had happened to him.
It wasn’t as easy as before though, as soon as the knights had left everyone in town started gossiping about Logan and, by extension, started to whisper their worries about the kid that tried to mold himself into the new Logan, and now they feared I would turn into a monster too.
Eventually, my own parents had started to worry about it and tried to talk me out of it. The result of the discussion had me now living with the Blacksmith permanently, who was still kind to me despite everything and offered me to stay with him after things with my parents got too heated.
In the end, their paranoia and my own refusal to stop had resulted on me being completely alone, not even my distant family or the rest of the villagers had wanted to speak to me, the Blacksmith being the last and only person still supporting me.
Eventually we got closer, kind of like father and son, and even though he was running out of things to teach me I still wanted to listen to him. We both fell into a rhythm, working and learning day after day.
The man and I had become family by now. One day he told me he had wanted to start a family of his own in this village, where he was born, alongside some of his adventuring friends. The man taught me as much as he could, his lessons ranged from everything to survival to sword related. I even learned how to work the forge on my own.
Thanks to the fact that he lives all alone, wounded and incapable of adventuring anymore, I think I can understand the reason as to why he’s all alone now. A part of me believes he maybe started to see me as a son as time passed maybe that’s why we ended up growing so close.
However, the blacksmith was soon running out of things to teach me. By now I had dominated (or at least understood) most of the things he wished to teach me and soon I would have nothing more to learn. That’s when I intended to start my journey, once the old man was sure I was ready.
More time passed and I started to get cold feet, not because I was afraid of leaving, but because I had wanted to stay with the blacksmith. Even though he had and still was teaching me everything he could, a part of me wanted to stay even if there was nothing more to learn and simply enjoy the peaceful days in the village.
Of course, it just so happens that the moment I think of living in peace the village was attacked by bandits.
…I really wish we had more time together.
