Category: Serenity

In the shadow of the towering Grayspire Mountains, the small village of Emberlin lay nestled among the pines. Life in Emberlin was simple but harsh, and no one felt its sting more keenly than a young woman named Anya. From her earliest memories, Anya believed herself cursed with misfortune. Her family’s fields yielded less grain than their neighbors’, their goats gave less milk, and the small loom in their home seemed to snap more threads than it wove.

Anya often sat by the village well, watching others go about their lives. She envied the baker with her golden loaves, the cobbler who whistled while he worked, and the blacksmith with his forge that roared like a dragon. To her, everyone else seemed blessed with talents and good fortune that had eluded her. “Why does the world give so much to others and so little to me?” she often muttered under her breath. (more…)

Lyra lived in a village where beauty overflowed, though she rarely noticed it. The hills rolled gently beyond the fields, kissed by the light of dawn. A river wove its silver thread through the valley, and birds sang harmonies that danced with the breeze. But Lyra, her gaze fixed on the ground, saw only the soil she tilled, the paths she trudged, the weeds she pulled. The wonders around her were a constant she had grown blind to.

Each day was much the same. At dawn, Lyra would rise and step into her well-worn boots. Her hands, rough from years of labor, would grip the handle of her hoe as she worked the fields from morning until dusk. She heard the birdsong, but it felt like background noise. She saw the colors of the sunrise, but they passed over her like fleeting shadows. Life was functional, rhythmic, and ordinary. (more…)