On reluctance

Fantasy - The Reluctant Hero: In a realm of magic and mythical creatures, a humble farmer discovers they are the last descendant of an ancient line of powerful wizards. Thrust into an unexpected journey to save their world from an emerging dark force, they must come to terms with their heritage and powers. Detail their transformation from a reluctant participant into a confident leader.

—

I jumped out of bed in complete terror. It’s nothing new, just another nightmare. My bunkmate was scared by my sudden movement and woke up to find me in shock. It’s been years since this happens to me. I don’t know how they put up with me.

I was born into immense wealth and noble ancestry. My father was the ruler of all the world. He had a nasty drinking habit but was a just ruler otherwise. During his reign, our family grew rich and powerful and the entire world prospered.

One day, seemingly out of nowhere, everything went away. The elves, our long-time ally, marched into our castle and took over. they were bewitched by their leader, a nasty wizard of immense cruelty. Having killed his entire family, their magical powers all consolidated in him making him even more powerful and more vicious. He cast a spell on all the magical creatures. Even the boogyman was under his control. With this army behind him, we humans stood no chance. They killed my father and made light work of us. Those who survived were enslaved. Humanity was a thing of the past.

The elves made a point of not killing or imprisoning us. They wanted to humiliate us by relegating us to the most dangerous and demeaning tasks like shit shoveling, and middle management.

All the women of my family were stationed at the stables to clean up after the unicorns. Delightful as those creatures are, they emit a foul smell. My sister told me that they are nasty and temperamental creatures. If they’re not brushed every morning, they lose their shit and start stabbing everyone with their pointy horns. I lost many family members to such stabbings over the years

The men had it worse. They were stationed at the dungeon to clean up after the dragons. When we were in power, the dragons were only used in wars. But under the mighty spells of the elves, these beasts toiled hard in the forgeries making all kinds of industry. By the time they returned to the dungeons, they didn’t have any patience left. They were clean creatures and could only sleep in tidy quarters. At the sight of the slightest filth, they went berserk and set everything ablaze. Many of us perished under their fiery wrath.

I was the heir to my father, so the elves wanted to be extra cruel to me. I became the tooth fairy’s butler. I had to carry the teeth in a big sac and dump them in Lock Ness for some reason. It was hard work because the tooth fairy was quite industrious and that bag got heavy pretty quickly. We worked at a back-breaking pace and I wasn’t used to it. Many times I tried to kill myself but I couldn’t.

The elves didn’t find this enough torture and humiliation. They thought it was too good for me so they switched me on to Big Foot duty. They thought that working for the magical creatures was above me, so they assigned me to do the dumbest job anybody could have: a fake mythical creature. I wore a costume and walked around in bushes scaring hikers and mountain bikers. It was as dumb as it sounds. I was depressed and lonely. I got isolated which made my persona even more compelling. I became so good at being big foot that I once heard a couple of Cyclopses talking about it. Many other creatures were convinced big foot was a thing. The story was getting out of hand so the elves needed to kill it.

Eventually, I was relegated to be a pig farmer. I was placed on this farm 10 years ago raising these poor animals to be fed to the dragons and the unicorns. I was shocked as much as you that unicorns eat meat. They do.

I was rotting away in this place outside of the city for years. There was a talk of revolution amongst the farmers, but I could never partake because deep down, I was carrying a secret.

The reason is that my father was the ruler of all the world was that he, himself was a wizard. Nobody knew about it because he never told everyone. In fact, we come from a long line of wizards going back until the dawn of time. When my father died, his immense powers were scattered across all his family members. There were dozens of us so we didn’t really notice.

But over the years, as we kept losing family members to the stabbings of the unicorns and the fires of the dragons, the powers were slowly consolidating in the rest of us. Now we can all feel it.

I didn’t want any of this but having been placed on this farm gave me unique access to my entire family. I would write secret messages on leather patches and feed them to the pigs. Soon enough, I was corresponding with the entire family. The Ayadis were in cahoots.

As our powers kept growing, we managed to tame the dragons and the unicorns and we were waiting for the right moment to pounce.

We weren’t assured victory until we got the centaurs on our side. Everyone knows that you no matter how strong your magic is, you can’t win a war without centaurs Until then, I had to lay low and keep appearances. The farm was teaming with spies and nobody could know that the a revolution was afoot