~SEASON ONE: NEW BEGINNINGS~

Silver.

Slashing pain.

Small hands reaching.

A woman reaching for a man in the last moments before death.

Small arms were left outstretched, and the aching pain as everything dissolved.

Darkness, nothing but endless darkness.

A tear fell down a small, round cheek. Little lashes fluttered open, a breath hitched, and for a moment a mind had to settle once more. Tree bark eyes searched the dark room, and a body shook. Small hands grasped at the covers beneath her.

“Little flower?” A familiar voice with a warm undertone eased tense muscles, and the little girl let out a sigh of relief.

She was on Terra.

A ceiling with supporting wooden beams and Terran plaster greeted her view while her gaze focused above.

“Vienna?” A large hand with strong fingers brushed wavy curls that had stuck to her forehead. She shuddered before wincing as the large fingers hesitated on her brow. “Nightmare again?”

Her eyes followed the hand’s frame to the broad shoulders but otherwise lean figure of her father.

He stood from her bed and crossed over to the washstand.

Vienna’s small arms trembled when she tried to lift herself up, her hands sunk into the bedding instead.

“Don’t you move, little one.”

A long breath of air escaped her lungs when she fell back against her soft linen pillow. She raised her small hands to view them.

She had yet to get used to her small body, even though she’d been Vienna since infancy. She missed the freedom she used to have in her other life.

“Pop, I’m ok. We can go to breakfast now.”

Her brown eyes watched her father’s dark eyebrows furrow as he came back to her side. His fathomless eyes studied her. He wiped her brow with the dampened washcloth, his lips pursed.

Sometimes it felt like he could see into her very being.

Once the morning sun had risen, the two Thornes turned their faces up to its warmth when they came out into the yard.

Underneath their favorite tree overlooking their pond, they placed their breakfast upon a worn woven blanket.

Pop sat Vienna upon his lap. His chest rumbled with laughter when he saw her lower lip stick out in a pout.

“Pop, I can sit by the tree on my own!”

“You are too small, little flower. It’s best if you sit with me and I feed you.”

Vienna huffed. She felt like she was always sighing around this father of hers.

She gazed up at his gruff chin and rested her head against his chest. She was the only fragment left of his wife and his only family. Her eyes drifted across the pond, stretching out before them. It could be understandable why he had always been a bit clingy.

Her gaze changed direction, and she looked down at her tiny hands. She furrowed her brow in consternation. She was growing rather slowly. She still looked like a toddler, even at the age of four.

“Why am I so small, Pop?”

A spoonful of porridge froze on its journey to her mouth. Vienna tilted her head back. Her father had dazed off, gazing out into the distance.

It was the same expression when he was looking out a window during work. Or when she’d find him with his head resting upon a tree, his thoughts miles away. Sometimes he would freeze mid-stroke as he was painting as if lost in another time and place.

She’d learned not to try to wake him from the state. Once she tried and he jumped, almost trampling her. Causing him to go into a deep, brooding depressive episode for almost hurting his baby.

So Vienna waited this time, looking up at the tree above her. A peaceful silence descended, she watched the light filter through the leaves. Pretty patterns of light and shadow fell across the trunk above them.

She had been in this world for four years. Time seemed to have passed by quick, too quickly. Her lips pulled down, and she swallowed, tightening her hands upon the lapels of her father’s tunic robe.

“My deepest apologies, little one.”

Her father gave the top of her head a light kiss, and she felt the tension in her body melt away. Her gaze refocused on the new spoonful her Pop got her.

Vienna listened to willowcants’ songs. She relaxed in her father’s arms. Her mind completely forgot that Pop didn’t answer her question.

“Pop, why do the King and Queen wish to meet me?”

As they left their little hamlet, their tenants waved when they passed the farmland. Vienna waved back. She felt her stomach flutter as she watched the only home she’d known in this world fade into the distance.

Her father pulled her tighter to him on the horse.

“Your mother and I fought beside them during the Great War. When it was over, the people decided they wanted for certain...” He paused, his hands tightened on the reins. Vienna could feel when his chest filled with air behind her as he summoned a breath.

“Has your tutor taught you why our region is called Wofford?”

Vienna thought back to her lessons. The tutor didn’t cover the Great War much, as they were worried about how someone so young would be influenced.

Her mind wandered then to the only other source of information she had. The ‘game’ hadn’t actually ever mentioned the country’s name. It had always been called the setting ‘the Continent’ and the city where the main story took place ‘The Capital’.

She shook her head. Her father let out a minor, disgruntled sound behind her.

“Wofford was the last known giant to live upon Terra.”

Vienna let out a little gasp before turning her wide umber eyes towards her father.

“There were giants?”

He nodded.

“Wofford gave his life to the people of this region during one of the last stands of the war. The escaped people in the area had all made their way to this very valley...”

Vienna’s eyes examined the valley, imagining the scene.

The rocky hillsides that stood on either side of them were very tall but not quite high enough to be mountains. There were no caverns or caves that she could see. The people would have been in the open.

She knew only a small bit of the history of the Great War. The closest parallel she had was the Civil War that happened in the once-Americas of her old world. The Great War lasted over a hundred years.

In the small span of her years on the planet of Terra, she had learned that the world was very diverse. The Continent was the same, which was the main area where its population thrived.

From her studies in the Before, she knew if someone gets too much of a good thing, they can become greedy. Beings in power across the Continent had turned on their own races, leading to the Dark Age before the war.

Vienna’s eyes blurred with tears, and she shook her head.

“What happened, Pop?”

He placed a kiss on top of her fluffy hair, smoothing it down when it tried to stick to his light scruff.

“An ambush took place.” Wofford covered them all with his body for protection against the catapult projectiles. He took all the damage he had held until we came to the rescue. Wofford held true the whole time until he knew they’d all be safe.”

Vienna’s tears fell down her cheeks as she imagined the giant protecting a mass of people in the valley. Then, when all were safe, he breathed a sigh of relief... his last breath. A little sob came from her.

“They didn’t want to forget him, so they named our region after him?”

Her father hummed in return.

It was odd when they finished riding through the valley. Vienna could almost feel it. A moment lost in time, full of anticipation, the fear, and yet through it all there was an overwhelming sense of hope.