War never began the same way for everyone.
For rulers, it began with reports, maps, and information about lost territories. For soldiers, it began with an order and the possibility that they might never return home. For ordinary citizens, it often began with a distant noise, followed by the realization that the streets where they had grown up were no longer safe.
The victors usually wrote about conquests, strategies, and great battles. The defeated, when they survived, remembered the dead, the destroyed cities, and everything they would never recover. Even after a war ended, its consequences remained for generations, fueling resentments that could give rise to new conflicts.
And there was something particularly cruel about wars between supernatural entities.
