Chapter Text
foreword 1
~
There are absolutely no records of the feud's beginning. Neither of when it started, nor of why it started. The only basis for the conflict on the side of the Univir was an unsourced, unsupported claim that the Univir Tribe was driven out of the village of Sharance at some point in the past for unjust reasons. The villagers of Sharance claimed the folktale of a voluntary departure on the part of the Univir, and the subsequent decline of the sacred Tree.
At this point in time, it can be assumed that the truth lies somewhere between the two stories; and if it lies elsewhere entirely, it is of no immediate practical matter. The conflict came to an end with the reunification of the Univir with the village of Sharance, and nobody has sought to resume it in the centuries since.
However, as all historians know, those who forget the mistakes of history are doomed to repeat them.
The feud that split Sharance held power over its people for generations upon generations. Every person that set foot in local territory, man and monsterkind alike, was instantly subject to its rules. I include in this volume an account of my experience with and involvement in the human-monster conflict of Sharance in hope that it can be studied and used to understand similar conflicts, and that whatever such incidents the future holds may be resolved peacefully.
~
He ceased speaking mid-sentence, his own silence ringing in his head.
"Just what is it that you are asking of me?"
Kuruna's gaze was hard and unyielding. Her eyes narrowed even further than they already had, suspicion and anger cold enough to defy the desert heat resting behind them.
The two were alone in the elder's tent, tension hanging in the air and the table between them seeming miles long to Ondorus' anxious eye. Any noise from outside was muffled by thick cloth walls, leaving them in a strained silence that should have been foreign to the close friendship they shared. It was this topic, Ondorus knew, this topic alone that could challenge the faith they had in each other. The one subject upon which they could not agree less, and upon which he swallowed all his objections for the sake of dignity and legacy and domestic peace and Kuruna's honor.
It was a subject that Ondorus would normally never broach. No matter what he had heard, or read, or hypothesized. No matter how much it hurt, when he glanced to the east and thought of green hills.
But something had changed.
Something in the univir man resisted the sense of here it is, here it comes, countered that spark of future-facing exhiliaration and terror with a dark and heavy weight of what's a day to a century, what could ever change so simply as this? Decades had left him passive and complacent, he knew. Passivity ran deeper in him than his non-confrontational nature could explain. The prospect of variety worried him as much as it excited him, left him soul-tired and longing for things he couldn't have. The pursuit of his own dreams was a childhood delusion pressed flat by duty.
But something needed to change.
Confronting Kuruna would hurt. It would contradict every strand of his being, every fleck of Rune that kept him breathing. He would struggle to look her in the eye and form the words that would make her face twist in offense and her heart twist in perceived betrayal. He would get off easy for it, transgression never to be mentioned again, but if it were received poorly it would stain his conscience forever. The coward Ondorus, who wounded his lifelong friend and failed his lofty ideals in one shot.
But something needed to change.
One last time. One last time, he would put himself aside for the sake of someone else's hope. One last time, and it would be over. All the pain would vanish, and there would be no more need for lies and fake, placid smiles. The thorn would come free with one last, agonizing tug, and the festering wound would drain. That was the promise of the corrected future, and this day was the key.
He trusted in Micah to change it all.
Ondorus breathed out, and in. He lifted his head, looked his one and only kinsman in the eye, and spoke heresy.