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The Romanian Mountains, 1252
He felt the ground, and tasted the earth, just like his father had taught him. A master tradesman and a highly skilled hunter, Kain’s father was indeed a “jack of all trades” in a sense; as he was a proficient and dutiful farmer as well. Kain would have said personally that his mother grew better crops than his father—just not to the old man’s face. (Mother Eve was also a better hunter than his old man, as to say, that she personally took care of those duties back then as well.) But that was unimportant. Back then, you had to be resourceful, when the world was young and teeming with raw imagination, otherwise, you’d die—end up starving and killing the earth you’d slaved over.
“You must respect the dirt,” Kain remembered his father saying. “Respect the dirt, and it will inturn, respect you. This goes for everything that comes and goes, back into dirt...”
This was true in more ways than one. For instance, there were more things to kill you or have you as a monetary chew toy back then, when the world first began. But at the same rate, the more humans that arrive, the less anyone has to worry about things like that. (From which in that sense, his father’s skills of knowing everything, but not mastering things, came in handy.) Of course, things did happen from time to time, but what growth that came from new life and newer people gave them, Kain himself didn’t care much for, in reality. That being, a community—a family. Faustus Kain, or just Kain at the time, was for the most part a loner. And in reality, he liked it that way. The older Kain, the one called Jeremiah would say that he had self-respect, and that is all that he ever needed. They younger Kain believed this same logic, he never really liked to rely on anyone but himself, despite his mother’s insistent call to bring siblings along when he ventured off into the widely broad wilderness of the new world, but in the same token, he wasn't opposed to having a helping hand when needed.
It was times like these, him tracking relentlessly in full Templar armor, with nothing more than his silver broadsword he called, Charity, and a longbow with a small quiver of arrows, that his blood began pumping and allowed him to feel right at home. Familiar company, a village—a community—a family does many things, like giving you a sense of security to have when needing someone to watch your back. For Kain, he felt like all this—all that which came with those described, had only weighed him down and made his continuous hunt, that much of a slower task to complete. Allies and friends were actually a good thing, he’d just prefer to have them at a distance; you would figure a man of a few centuries old would understand that, instead of leaving when things got too familiar.
Kain had spat the dirt from his lips and gagged. There was blood on his tongue. He did see it before, thought it could have been something else, but now he could rightfully taste it lingering in his mouth. The Templar drank from his flask a few sips of honey-wine to kill the flavor that was held upon his lips. He then placed the flask back into his pouch, and pulled from the same location a stone emblazoned with a ritual craving—a sigil—used or broken.
“Let hope Old Merlyn was right,” Kain said, pulling his dagger that was equipped to the side of his belt.
Old Merlyn (later to be known as the rare book dealer, Merlyn Merflower during his adventures in our modern age), was Faustus Kain’s first mentor upon waking from his deathless sleep. Merlyn was an “unofficial” fallen angel, in the sense that he came down to earth by choice and before the great war with Lucifer. Nonetheless, to his peers, he was merely seen as one of the other kind that was destined to live upon the mess of humans till the end of days. To himself, he believes that he falls somewhere in the middle of all that; seeing how he cannot return to Heaven or enter Hell upon either account—but that’s another story for another time.
Kain aligned the dagger against the engravings upon the stone, and began to whittle the point of the blade alongside its shape. The stone’s sigil glowed momentarily, before cracking in half. Kain returned the blade to his side, took the stone within both hands, and crushed its contents until it turned into fine grains of sand. He then used its remains to be scattered upon the dirt below. Instantly, a pair of wide, clawed footprints appeared underneath him in the same color as the stone; a bright, milky green.
“There’s the bastard.” Kain said, and followed the steps forward, sprinkling a little more at a time of the stone upon the path to reveal the creature’s footsteps.