MidReal Story
Forest Betrayal: Rise and Fall of a Hero
Scenario: A boy is found in the tropical forests that border the town of Taburh, a small province of the kingdom of Adora, the boy was wearing a small metal plate with the name "Gylas Nolley" and was next to some corpses that seemed to be his parents. The people of Taburh adopted him as a son of the people and years later he was the hero who freed the kingdom of Adora from the oppressive Thai Ba empire. He died betrayed by his own foster brother while he was sleeping, out of jealousy of his brother Geoffry Pere, due to envy of the acceptance of his adoptive father, Hamund Sparray, leader of Taburh, who understood that his adopted son Gylas Nolley was braver and would be his best successor
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Geoffry Pere
Gylas's foster brother and eventual betrayer, jealous of Gylas's acceptance and bravery, darkhaired with sharp features, ambitious and envious.
Gylas Nolley
the boy found in the forest, adopted by the people of Taburh, brave and resilient.
Hamund Sparray
leader of Taburh and adoptive father to Gylas and Geoffry, wise and caring.
I was found in the forest, a boy of perhaps three years, next to the bodies of my parents.
The man who found me was Hamund Sparray, the leader of Taburh.
He took me in and raised me as his own.
I was not his only child, but I was his favorite.
I grew up with his son Geoffry Pere, who was a year older than I.
Geoffry did not like me from the beginning.
He did not like that I was accepted into their family so easily, or that I was so brave and resilient for a boy who had lost his parents in such a terrible way.
He did not like that I had become Hamund Sparray’s favorite son, and that everyone in Taburh looked at me as a symbol of hope.
Geoffry Pere hated me for all these things, but he would never admit it to my face.
We were brothers, after all, and he had to at least pretend to care about me.
As we grew older, Geoffry’s hatred for me only grew stronger.
When I was found, the boy of no more than three years, I was next to the bodies of my parents, who were already dead.
The man who found me was Hamund Sparray, the leader of Taburh.
He took me in and raised me as his own, and he adopted me alongside his son, Geoffry Pere, who was only a year older than I.
Geoffry never liked me, not even from the beginning.
He would never admit it of course, but he always seemed to look at me with disdain.
We were brothers, we were told, and we were expected to treat each other as such.
Despite this, Geoffry never treated me as a brother.
He never showed me any affection, and he never hesitated to put me down whenever he had the chance.
I was only three when I was found, so it is difficult to discern how much he truly hated me at that point in time.
I doubt he ever loved me like a brother, though.
I’m not sure he ever will.
Growing up, it became quite apparent that Geoffry hated me because I existed and because I had been adopted into his family.
I’m not sure if there was anything else that really set him off other than that, but I learned early on that it didn’t matter to him how well I did or how brave or smart or strong I might be.
Geoffry will always hate me for being there when he thinks I should not have been.
When we were children, we would be forced to play with each other and forced to do everything together.
Even then, Geoffry would always look at me with those same dark eyes of his.
He thought he could hide the hatred he felt for me, but it was always there underneath the surface, lurking just below the surface of his skin.
It showed in the way he treated me and the way he refused to look at me when we trained together and during the few times we were actually able to have fun together.
Looking back on it now, I can see that his hatred for me was born from jealousy of my existence more than anything else.
From the very beginning, Geoffry has always been a jealous boy.
He resented my very existence because it meant his father would pay less attention to him.
It meant Hamund Sparray would be less likely to give Geoffry what he wanted when our parents were around to give us treats for being good boys.
The people of Taburh began looking at me as a symbol of hope for our kingdom once they discovered what I would be able to do for them in the future.
They began to ignore Geoffry or barely even give him a second look when they would pass us by on the streets of our small village.
For this reason, Geoffry could never bring himself to like me even as we grew older and continued to be raised as brothers despite the fact that we barely even pretended to be such by that point in time.
I didn’t dare send my attention in my father’s direction, but I could still feel his eyes on me, heavy and warm all at once.
Even without looking, I knew that he was proud of me, even as Geoffry scowled at me, his dark hair falling into his face as he did so.
I didn’t let it bother me, though, as I knew it was only natural for me to have won my match against him.
Geoffry was a worthy opponent, but I was just as good as he was and I knew that I would come out on top eventually no matter what.
I had never been one for giving up or backing down from a fight, after all.
“Very good!” Hamund Sparray said in his booming voice, clapping us both on our backs as he did so.
I could see from the corner of my eye that he was looking at me with pride, but I dare not look for too long lest it make Geoffry feel worse than he already did about losing to me once again.
My brother was never one for feeling bad for himself, but he could not stand it when he lost to me under any circumstances.
I was not my fault that he was not as skilled as I was or that he was slower to learn than I was when it came to mastering the art of sword fighting.
I had been training for as long as he had been alive, after all, whereas he had only started training a few months after he found me in the forest all those years ago.
“I think you both did very well,” Hamund Sparray said, “but I believe Gylas would have won that round.”
His eyes were warm as he looked at me, but he also looked at me carefully, as if he were searching for something in my eyes that he had not seen before that day when I had fought so well against his son and managed to come out on top for the very first time in my life.
His gaze made me feel as if we were the only two people in the world in that moment, but I knew that my brother felt differently about this particular moment as he glared at me from his place at my side, his eyes flashing dangerously in his dark face.
You should show us how well you can cut down some leaves on the trees!”
Geoffry suggested suddenly, his voice excited and loud as he spoke up from my side, having moved closer to me than I would have liked while our father was looking at us so closely and watching us with those dark eyes of his that never seemed to look away from our faces and bodies for even a moment for fear we might make a wrong move and hurt ourselves or each other in the process of training with our wooden swords.
I shook my head at him, but he did not seem to be paying attention to me in that moment, even though a part of me wanted to ask him what it was that he was planning on doing to get back at me for having beaten him when we were sparring just now.
“I can do that, Father,” I said with a grin, not realizing what it was that he had planned on doing to me in that moment, trusting him more than I trusted anyone else in the world, even when it came to my brother who never seemed to like me very much at all, no matter what it was that I did or tried to do for him in the meantime.
I walked over to the tree and raised up my sword, getting ready to cut through the leaves when something suddenly felt different in my hands while at the same time something else felt different in the air around me and the way it seemed to move in response to the movements of the blade in my hands.
The weight of the sword was different now, much heavier than it had been before, and the air around me seemed to shift and move in response to the way that the blade was cutting through it in that moment, moving faster than I would have thought possible when it came to using the wooden swords we all trained with all the time instead of using real blades like the ones we used when we were fighting battles against our enemies and trying to protect our people and our way of life from those who wanted nothing more than to destroy everything we had built over the years.
By the time I realized what it was that he did when he swapped out the swords while the entire village watched on with a mixture of shock, horror and amusement on their faces, it was already too late for me to do anything about it at all and more so if I could not even remember who it was that I had taken it from in that moment or where it had come from in that moment.
I, Gylas Nolley, should have known that something like this would have happened since Geoffry Pere never did like me very much at all no matter what I did or how it was that I did it or tried to do it, even though we were supposed to be brothers and Hamund Sparray, the man who found me in the forest and the leader of Taburh and the closest thing that I had ever had to a father figure since I was just a boy, told us that we were supposed to see each other as if we were family and brothers for the rest of our lives now that he had taken me in, even though I was the son of strangers who had died somewhere out there in the forest.
At first, when we were just boys, Geoffry’s disdain for me and the way that he looked down on me as if I were nothing more than trash on the side of the road like a dog or a cat that had been left behind by its owner because they did not want it any more only made me want to prove him wrong even more so than I would have thought possible in that moment while at the same time wanting him to see me as someone who could be just as good as he was at whatever it was that he did better than anyone else in this world.
But when he found out that he could not break me down as easily as he was able to do with the others who tried to do the same thing to me by mocking me and making fun of me and knocking me down on the ground and kicking me while I was down there with a smile on his face all the while as if it was nothing more than a game that he was playing with his friends on a day when it was too hot outside and there was nothing else for him to do but go out there and play games with his friends while I sat inside and tried to read books that I should have never been able to read until I was much older than I was then, it only made him want to push me down even harder than he did before and come up with new ways of doing it while saying that it was all part of something that he called King’s Folly even though I had never heard of anything like that before in my entire life up until then.
All the while, he called me an idiot for not being able to figure out what it was that he was doing when he tried to knock me down on the ground over and over again with a smile on his face while kicking me all the while as if I were nothing more than a dog that had pooped on the floor when it should have gone outside instead.
But I refused to let him get the best of me now or ever since I somehow knew that he wanted me to react in a way that he would have been able to see coming from a mile away since he always thought that I was an idiot when it came to things like this, even though I refused to let him get the better of me now or ever then since I wanted him to find out the hard way exactly what it was that I had been able to do when I fought against those who tried to take me down while I was still just a child and a baby with a smile on my face while doing so all the while without any help from anyone else at all.
And now that we are all grown up, he stares at me with the same look on his face that he did then when he tried and failed to knock me down on the ground without knowing that I would never let him do that since he only wanted me to react in the way that he would have been able to see from a mile away since he always thought that I was an idiot when it came to things like this, even though it only made me want him even more than he did before when he did not know that it would never happen then when we were just boys and much too young at the time for anyone else but us.
But that did not stop him from trying over and over again until he gave up and left me alone, even though it only made him want me even more than he did before when he found out that it would never happen then when we were still just boys and much too young at the time for anyone else but us.
But now that we are all grown up, he stares at me with the same look on his face that he had then while trying and failing to knock me down on the ground without knowing that it would never happen then when we were just boys and much too young at the time for anyone else but us since he only wanted me to do what it was that he thought that I would do in that moment while at the same time thinking that I would do it then since I always did what it was that he thought that I would have done then even though it only made me want him even more than he did before when he did not know that it would never happen then when we were just boys and much too young for anyone else but us since he only wanted me to act like an idiot then when we were just boys and much too young for anyone else but us.
And that is why he stares at me like he does when he thinks that I am an idiot and someone who could not get the better of him no matter how hard I tried over and over again until I gave up and left him alone, even though it only made him want me even more than he did before when he found out that it would never happen then when we were just boys and much too young at the time for anyone else but us.
And now, as we are all grown up, he stares at me with the same look on his face that he had then while trying and failing over and over again when he tries and fails each and every single time, even though it only makes me wonder how far he is willing to go until he finally gives up and leaves me alone, even though it only makes me want him even more than he did before when we were just boys and much too young at the time for anyone else but us.
It is then that Geoffry Pere’s envy of me deepened, especially on days like this when we won a battle against our enemies and had something worth celebrating, even though it only made him want me even more than he did before since he knew that everyone else would be there watching us as we were honored by Hamund Sparray himself, our adoptive father and the leader of Taburh who cared about us more than anything else in this world.
Even though Geoffry tried to win his father’s favor above all else by proving his worth through martial achievements and feats of courage during times such as this one since he knew that it would have made us all proud of him above anyone else in this world even though he was still so young and much too young for anyone else but us at the time.
But no matter how hard I tried or how much I fought against those who tried to take me down while I was still just a child and a baby who had yet to grow into the strong man who I was now and how many times I did just that without any help from anyone else at all, I was always the one who was praised by everyone in Taburh on days like this while Hamund Sparray had his arm around my shoulders and was calling me his son and telling me how proud of me that he was while I stared back at him with a smile on my face since I knew what I had done and what I had been able to accomplish without anyone else helping me in any way on a day when I thought that I could never do anything like this.
