Nero returned to his quarters after watching Xersies lead the others into battle. He received constant reports from the yellow patron and was kept informed about the battle. He knew it was a war that had been won, but he had no reason or desire to follow his subjects in destroying the city or the rest of the world. Instead, he lay down to rest. A few Polykenas were naturally positioned as guards outside his door until Shire returned from the battlefield, but there was no longer any threat in this world, and no one would be able to sneak into the Polykenas' camp unnoticed.
Nero lay down on a large, soft bed, and it didn't take long for him to fall asleep. And immediately the dreams, or rather, the memories began. In retrospect, Nero didn't know exactly what had brought back these long-buried memories; perhaps it was the talk about religion, or perhaps it was simply time to face his past. But Nero dreamed of the worst time of his life. Of a time when he was still an ignorant boy, of a time when he still believed that there was joy. It was a time of naivety, a time of weakness, and a time of superstition. Like for almost everyone, it all began in his childhood.
On that fateful day, Nero was only 8 years old.
He was still young and innocent, far from the conqueror of worlds he was destined to become eighty or so years later. He lived with his family in a small town.
His home was far away from the next big city, and only a few people strayed into the village.
Nero's family consisted of him, his mother, and, of course, his sister Eliza.
He had never met his father, but his sister had. She always told him that his father had been a great warrior who tragically died in a battle shortly before his birth. Only later would he learn that his father had been a pacifist and a strong believer in peace, whose life had ended at the rope for the crime of desertion.
Eliza was 4 years older than him, meaning she was already 12. She had long black hair and the same dark black eyes as Nero. Since they both had inherited their looks from their mother, one could tell from a distance that they were siblings.
Not even in his dreams could he remember the name of his mother. Not that his mother was bad or violent, she was probably one of the best mothers you could have, but the memory was too old and lost its importance over time. She was a kind and accommodating mother, and Nero couldn't remember a moment when she lost her patience, but he wouldn't be where he was if everything had been rosy.
The first problem was that his father had left them almost nothing to live on. They were very poor, and since there was no man in the family, they could hardly earn anything. His mother had to take very indecent jobs to keep them afloat. But that was barely enough to keep them afloat, so Nero often had to go hunting with his sister to put food on the table.
However, they were still young and clumsy, and their trips were mostly unsuccessful.
Nevertheless, they were quite happy, despite the circumstances.
Until this very day, when they went hunting in the forest:
---------------------------------------------------
They were walking through a thicket, which was dried out by the cold of winter. Nero was shivering and freezing all over his flax, but he didn't let it show, because Eliza didn't let it show either. It had already snowed, and he sank up to the knees into the snow.
"It's freezing cold," Nero muttered, his teeth chattering. He tried angrily to stop himself, but of course Eliza noticed how cold he was. "Look on the bright side," she said in her usual optimistic and cheerful voice. "All this snow makes it easier to spot wild animals. Besides, they're hungry and weak, so maybe we'll get lucky and a careless animal will run right into our hands while searching for food!"
Eliza carried a homemade spear made of a stick and a sharpened stone, together with a homemade bow that had a quiver full of arrows. Nero carried a backpack containing a few items that could be used to set up a makeshift trap. He also had an old rusty knife in his jacket pocket, which he had found in a barn a year ago.
It had just become noon, and the sky was cloudless, but the sun gave very little warmth.
"If we catch a big boar, we can eat meat for months, and mom would be super proud of us!"
Eliza grinned happily at him, but then her expression turned serious as she spotted something in the snow, "Shhh! Look at that!"
Nero walked next to her and looked at the snow. You could clearly see the tracks of an animal.
Nero desperately tried to attribute the tracks to an animal, but Eliza was, as always, quicker than him,
"Probably a fox that passed by here. And since the tracks haven't been snowed over yet, he's still around." As she explained, she pointed to some spots in the snow.
"Fortunately, we caught this mouse. So we can do it like this..."
Half an hour later, they had somehow managed to construct a makeshift snare trap. As expected, it consisted of a looped rope in the middle of which lay the dead mouse.
It had been dead for several days, so it already stank terribly, but they simply sprinkled a powder made from a relbia flower, which could imitate the scent of fresh prey, over the carcass. Normally, the powder was quite expensive, but Nero had stolen it from a local wholesaler's stall.
Now they huddled in the snow, and thanks to the white clothes they had cleverly kept for themselves compared to their other clothes, one could just barely see them.
One had to say, their mother was actually a very forward-thinking person. Some families in the same situation immediately sold all their clothes and only kept a few, when their food ran out, but in all her wisdom, Nero's mother kept the clothes that had the most potential for use.
Her mother also did not sell the house, which was a fairly large and expensive property. The reason for this was that it was quite well insulated, so that the heat stayed inside the house in winter. As a result, they froze much less, which meant they were less prone to illness.
Mortality from illness was high. Even the slightest cold could easily mean death without the right treatments.
Eliza lay in wait on one side with a bow in her hand and an arrow at the ready, and Nero on the other with the rope.
He had the task of pulling the rope closed as soon as the animal ran in to eat the mouse.
Nero was shivering all over from cold and nervousness. The wait seemed like an eternity, and he wondered if there really was a fox here. But finally, he heard it.
"Concentrate!" Eliza hissed at Nero when she saw that his mind was elsewhere. The twelve-year-old girl held the hunting bow in her hand, a blunt arrow nocked, while Nero held the string that would snap the trap shut.
"Sorry," he muttered quietly and focused on the trap in front of him.
Nothing happened for the next half hour. Nero was already afraid that the fox wasn't there after all, or that it had even spotted them, when he suddenly heard the beautiful sound of soft paws padding through the snow.
It was a very, very quiet sound, and the only reason Nero could hear it at all was because he was blessed with fairly good hearing. That was also one of the main reasons why he had been going hunting at such a young age.
In the next second, Nero could see a fox slowly approaching the trap. It was just as emaciated as the two siblings, its eyes sparkling with excitement and hunger as it recognized the dead body of the mouse.
Nero tensed as the fox slowly approached the mouse,
'Not yet. Not yet. Not yet...',
Finally, almost mad with hunger, the fox forgot his caution and his surroundings and jumped towards the mouse.
With a cry, Nero pulled on the string to tighten the noose. Actually, the entire fox was caught in the trap, but Nero had been too excited. He had alerted the fox, which reacted incredibly quickly. So he managed to get only one of his legs caught in the noose, which he was already close to freeing.
Eliza jumped up as she fired a well-aimed shot from her bow, which hit the animal in the side. The fox froze briefly, whimpering in pain, but then its survival instinct kicked in. It began to kick wildly to free its last leg. Nero jumped toward the fox, which bit at him, but the young man was careful not to get too close to the fox's teeth. He jumped on the animal's back, grabbed its skull, and pulled it to the side. With a disgusting crack, the animal's neck broke.
It was dead. But this time Nero did not cheer. He did not like to kill, so he sat down in front of the animal in the snow and began to say a prayer for it. Eliza said nothing, but sat down next to her little brother. Together they prayed.
This had long been a tradition of the two. Every animal they killed with their own hands deserved a prayer from them.
After they finished, Eliza clapped her hands, grinning at Nero,
"Well done, Nero. You're getting better and faster."
She took him in her arms and kissed him on the forehead. Nero could not help but laugh as he hugged his sister tightly. Forgetting the cold for a short moment, he was only aware of himself and his sister. They were not rich or noble, but they were happy. He had his mother and his sister, wich he loved very deeply
They broke away from each other again. Eliza looked at their catch,
"Not quite a wild boar, but still good. Lucky he didn't eat the mouse. Let's take the fox back and then go again."
Nero nodded. It was always exciting to go hunting with his sister.
They wrapped the fox in a blanket so that it wouldn't attract any predators or even hungry humans that might be jealous of their prey.
They disguised their happy faces into sad grimaces and headed toward the village.
They walked through the long and brooding main street, which was covered with a big blanket of snow. They did not meet a single other person, but Nero could almost feel the glances of the greedy people of the town, looking hungrily out of their windows.
Nero's mother had told her two children about the dangers of the world early on in their childhood, but she had always emphasized one in particular: "Wolves, tigers, bears, snakes—all of these may be dangerous animals, but they only kill when they are hungry or feel threatened. Not like humans, the most dangerous of all hunters, because they also kill out of jealousy, greed, lust, and sometimes even just for the sake of killing. Always keep your heads down when you are surrounded by people; never give them the slightest reason to look at you or be jealous of you. Never trust strangers, because they can do much worse to you than wild animals ever could!"