Johnathan was a man of little means. Ever since he was a child his destiny had been laid before him in the form of the flocks of woolly rams that his father had kept and herded across the vast Sea of Grass; nestled within the Tartorus valley. He was raised on the move. Never settling in one place longer than the week or two it took to sell their goods in the markets in the Dwarven city of Deep Iron in the high foothills of the Boreal mountains that enclosed the Sea along her eastern to northern borders.

His days were filled with never-ending plains. With grass that never lost its luster, even in the midst of the deepest parts of winter when the winding paths of the Boreal’s foothills would be blanketed entirely in white, and snow would dust the tops of the spear-tipped blades. During the leaner months of winter packs of wolves would emerge from the Anchored Forest in the west to harry his flock. He and his father would chase them away with crook and spell. Even more rarely, the black feathered Night Hawks or the translucent God Owls would swoop down and carry off some of the yearlings. In all of Johnathan’s years as a shepherd, he had only managed to take down one of these.

Night had fallen over the Sea, and the moon hung fat and heavy in the sky. Its light penetrated the veil usually cast by night, and so the black silhouettes cast by the flock of approaching night hawks was all the more apparent on the violet canvas. They came as quick as the wind; swooping down to pick up a few of the newly born ewes. Five of them, that night. It so happened that one of the night hawks picked up one near Johnathan.

The then twelve-year-old Johnathan summoned a ball of wind at the head of his crook and aimed it at the hawk’s wing on its downbeat as it lifted off the ground with the bleating lamb in its long, black talons. The burst of wind blew back the wing, and caused the night hawk to spiral and crash to the ground in a heap of feathers, flesh and blood. Even now, seven years later, he was still able to recall how its cawing screeches mixed with the pained screams of the lamb still pierced and clamped by the night hawks, long dark talons. He dispatched it as quickly as he could; pushing past the panicking woolly rams to land a solid blow against the creature’s head. And another, and another until at last it was still.

Despite the best efforts of both he and his father, the lamb soon breathed its last, quivering breath. Much too early for something so young, as his father had said.

As was customary, they broke down the bodies of both the lamb and the bird into usable parts, only burying the heads of each beneath the stony soil of the Sea. The things they couldn’t find a use for, they sold in their next visit to Deep Iron. Johnathan still carried a small dagger formed from one of the dark talons and strips of cured leather from the lamb wrapped around as a handle.

Every so often he’d see teams of adventurers from some of the towns that dotted the Sea, or that sat along the path of the foothills up to Deep Iron completing requests to map the unexplored regions of the Anchored Forests, or heading towards Liar’s Folly; a cursed, labyrinthine mine dug into the mountains near the northern edge of the Sea. One or two would stop and ask for directions, and he would point them on their way. Very, very rarely they would attempt to steal a ram to eat, only to find that though domesticated, these rams still held a fraction of the ability to call lightning that their wild cousins on the peaks have.

Sometimes he’d have thoughts — passing fancies, really, of joining them and exploring some far off ruined city built by the Ones Before and finding riches beyond his wildest imagination, but he’d quickly put those fancies to rest. He was born a shepherd of the Galvin family, and he’d die a shepherd of the Galvin family.

During the autumn of his fourteenth year, his father took ill after a wound that he had received when he was just a boy reopened and became infected. The illness lasted for a few weeks, and in those weeks they talked as they had never talked before. It was painful seeing his father’s once imposing frame slowly shrink and shrivel from fever and malnourishment.

In the last week or so, the two of them led the flock to the Galvin’s Rest. The rest was a place known only to shepherds. It was a place separated from the world, and only open in the weeks leading up to the Days — the fall and spring equinoxes, and the winter and summer solstices; when the creatures and the wild things of the world would run rampant and attack all but their own for; or in the weeks leading to the death of a Shepherd.

It had been a gift from Aurial; the goddess of the wind, travelers, nomads, thieves and shepherds, given when one Shepherd begged the heavens for a single night of rest. After he fell into a deep sleep, and awoke at the break of dawn somewhere completely different. The cold of winter was kept at bay, and the grass was thick and plentiful enough for all of his ram to have their fill. Sweet spring waters flowed out from the rocks, and the baying and howling of the distant creatures could not be heard. A single linden limb fell from heaven in front of the shepherd, which he knew to be one of Aurial’s symbols. He formed a crook from it, and ever since the Shepherd’s began their worship of the Goddess. At least according to his father as they neared the rest for that last time together.

There they spent their last few days together. His father led him to the one Linden tree among the many that grew there, where his wife and Johnathan’s mother who had died shortly after giving birth to him, was buried, and where he would like to be buried as well. As was the tradition of the Shepherds. Those buried beneath a Linden would spend their time in heaven wandering the stars at Aurial’s side until it was their time to enter the cycle again. His father died with a peaceful smile on his face. Much too early for someone so young; his father’s words played in his mind.

Since that day, late in autumn, Johnathan buried his father’s crook above his grave, and inherited the flock, and he was left alone in the world. As his father had done, and his father had done, stretching all the way back to when the first Galvin got it into his head to tame two breeding pairs of Woolly Rams and lead them to graze within the Sea. It was a long tradition. And one that he was proud to continue. In a year he and the daughter of a different shepherding family from beyond the Sea would marry, and they would happily wade through the knee-high grass until it was time for them to be buried beneath a newly planted linden.

And so it was. For these past five years he wandered through the familiar paths through the Sea. Leading the herd from pasture to pasture; to streams hidden in the grass to all but him. He spent no longer than the week and a half it took for him to sell off his excess goods in the markets of Deep Iron, where the only Gate in the region stood, and buy the things he needed to live — salt and preserves and sharpened shears and whetstones, and had no way to get naturally. It was the life that had been laid out for him since the day he was born. It was the life he believed he would live until the end of his days, only to be buried beneath a linden tree to rejoin his mother and father in exploring the cosmos. It was his life, and he was content with it.