“Sacrebleu… It’s like I’m living my twenties all over again,” Lucien said as he lit his pipe of loki, took a drag, and rested his back against the edge of the bouncing wagon.

  The driver, an older dwarf, scowled and gred at the scruffy man dressed in blue and red. He looked to be wearing an army uniform, yet not one he had ever seen, and he spoke with such a strange accent, like some man from the West. “Oi, I thought I told ya not to smoke back there, eh!”

  Lucien flinched and smiled with a blush. “Ah, sorry, friend, I was stuck reminiscing and forgot.” He hummed and took one final drag before dumping the contents of his pipe overboard. “Must say, Mr. Akron, you and your family were wise to heed my advice.” He stowed his pipe before stuffing his hand into his jacket and rummaged around before pulling out a silver pocket watch.

  A young elven woman across from him, with short white hair and striking blue eyes, arched a brow at him. “What are you even talking about, Mr. Lucien?” she asked in a hushed voice.

  “Well, girl…” Lucien hummed as he rummaged through his jacket again with his other hand while keeping a keen eye on the watch. After a moment, he pulled out a worn leather book. “Hold on…” He pursed his lips and opened the book, the aged yellow pages flittering in the wind as the wagon bounced.

  The man cursed in his strange nguage as the few others who sat in the wagon with them, Akron’s wife and three children, shared awkward gnces with one another. Lucien clumsily flipped through the pages before stopping, his brow raising as he pursed his lips and nodded. He tapped the page a few times and looked up at them all.

  “It seems like it’s begun.” He clicked something on the watch and narrowed his eyes at it. “A few minutes sooner than expected as well.” He curled his lips, then nodded.

  The elven girl looked to the dwarfs with a dumbfounded expression. “Is he always like this?”

  Mrs. Akron rubbed her fiery red hair and nodded before resting a hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “Aye, ever since he walked up to our forge a week ago.”

  “Such a lovely forge that was,” Lucien sighed.

  “Was?” Akron huffed. “It still is, the finest in all of Mareen!”

  Lucien tsked and shook his head as he stuffed the watch away into his jacket. He looked at the elven girl and shrugged with an expression that simply read, “Sure was.”

  He then gave her a perplexed look and leaned forwards. “Say, girl, what did you say your name was again?” he asked. “I’m afraid I missed it, and my journal doesn’t say anything about you.”

  The girl blinked and cocked her head, then shook it and sighed. “I told you; my name is Crystal. I said this like three times already.”

  The man snapped his finger. “Aha, yes, yes, Crystal, Crystal.” He repeated her name many times as he rifled through the pages of his book before taking out a pen and scribbling on a random page. “Apologies, so many names, so many people, I swear. Though I must say, such an unoriginal name.”

  Crystal frowned. “What’s wrong with my name?”

  Lucien waved his pen in the air. “What’s wrong is that it’s so… bnd. Do you know how many Crystals exist in Eifelheim? Let me tell you, too many. I swear, parents see one shiny rock but instead of learning what kind of crystal it is, they decide to generalize your name. Honestly, if I were to choose, I’d call you Quartz. Or perhaps Sapphire because of your eyes.” He spun the end of the pen at her.

  Crystal once again shared a look with the dwarfs. Mrs. Akron was even nodding in agreement. She scowled. “I—Well—Thanks for the input, I guess.”

  “Anytime, dearie. Anyway… what were you asking me? Sorry I tend to get on a lot of tangents.” Lucien looked at her and blinked with a bnk expression.

  “You’re… strange,” Crystal said slowly. “I was asking, uh, Merlin’s beard…” she cursed.

  “Too long,” Lucien said, “I swear that man needs to trim it. The thing is practically a Roomba now with how much dust it collects as he walks—oh, zut, sorry.” He smirked as Crystal shook her head and then snapped her fingers.

  “That’s right. What were you talking about before? With the watch and such, the whole ‘living in your twenties’?” She gestured to where he stuck his pocket watch away.

  Lucien’s smirk faded, and he rested against the wagon again and looked out over Heinmarr’s rolling fields. Far off, he could see the distant Dusknd peaks to the east, beyond which were the Kencha Valley and Veilnd.

  “I was speaking of war,” Lucien said solemnly.

  Crystal’s eyes widened, and Mrs. Akron’s children looked at each other, confused. “What do you mean?” Crystal asked. “It’s impossible that a war has begun.”

  Lucien looked at her. “I’m afraid, child, it is not.”

  “With who?” Mrs. Akron asked. She hesitated to believe the man before her, except… ever since this stranger showed up at her husband’s forge, everything he’d said had come true.

  “Veilnd,” he said. “As we speak, they march on your nd.”

  “You’re kidding me?” Crystal crossed her arms across her chest and leaned back. “The world has had peace for two thousand years. The Global Alliance wouldn’t let this happen.”

  Lucien sighed. “Perhaps, perhaps not? The probabilities of such an outcome are too vast for me to calcute, though… I’ve seen this before. Many, many times.”

  “You’ve seen war?” one of Akron’s children asked, a young dwarfen boy who was already showing signs of his first beard.

  Lucien looked at him. “Not just any war, child,” he said softly, “a world war.” The child blinked, trying to understand. Mrs. Akron grabbed the boy and turned him away as she hugged him. Lucien looked at her scowling gaze and smiled. “But don’t worry. Everything will be alright… Everything will eventually be alright.”

  The end of Book One.

  ImmortanJoJo