Before the Storm Takes Wing

The wind stirred beneath my wings, carrying the scent of distant rain. I rode the currents above the winding road, where travelers moved like beads on a string. A heavy-laden cart trundled below, its wooden frame groaning under the weight of goods meant for another man's table. The merchants leading it—lesser birds of the world—were blissfully unaware of the dark tide swelling from the forests at their flanks. But I saw. I always saw.

The forest had gone silent.

Then came the scream, sharp and jagged as a broken branch. The trees spat forth ruin—a beast of hulking flesh, skin like rotted bark, with goblins flitting at its heels like hungry crows. The merchants scattered, scrambling for shelter where none existed. The cart twisted in the fray, its wheel catching against a stone, its burdens tumbling free to bury the last of their hopes.

But the storm had not yet arrived.

A war cry split the air, bright and sharp as lightning. Three figures emerged on the road, young samurai untested by the years but tempered by purpose. They fell upon the scene like a storm breaking upon the earth.

One fought from afar, a bow singing in his hands. Arrows flitted swift and deadly, each a whisper of death guided by steady fingers. He was named for the flower of carnage, and his arrows found their mark with a reaper’s grace. Goblins fell, clutching at their throats, their shrieks rising to the heavens. Yet still, they came.

Another, stout as a boulder, wove prayers into the earth. He spoke, and the land answered. Stone rippled like water beneath the ogre’s feet, grasping at its ankles with the weight of mountains. The beast roared, straining against unseen bonds. With a chant and a thrust of his hands, he summoned a tetsubō wrought from the land itself, and as the ogre broke free, it met him in kind. Earth met flesh, and bone splintered.

The third was motion, wind and hooves entwined. A unicorn upon his steed, he wove through the chaos, seeking not battle but salvation. Beneath the toppled cart, the merchants gasped for air, their world reduced to splinters and shattered wares. The rider did not hesitate. His steed surged forward, and with a warrior’s grace, he heaved the cart free, dragging the helpless from their wooden tomb.

For a moment, the world held its breath.

The ogre howled, a raw, wounded sound. The earth-born weapon fell again, ending its wretched song. The goblins, seeing fate’s decree, scattered like leaves before the gale, vanishing into the gloom of the woods.

And so, the storm passed.

I circled above, watching as the young warriors gathered themselves. Their breath was heavy, their limbs weary, but their eyes shone with something untouched by battle’s weight. Something unbroken. The merchants, shaken yet whole, bowed in gratitude, their words trembling upon their lips. The road stretched onward, the path ahead unseen, yet now, beneath their feet, it felt more certain.

I turned with the wind, casting one last glance at the scene below. The world had not yet decided what these young samurai would become. Fate had set them upon their course, but it had not written their end.

Not yet.

With a final beat of my wings, I soared higher, where the sky was vast and waiting.

The storm had not yet come.

But soon, it would.