FE-Fates: 001

Shin Lee... technically did not have a surname.

In a feudal landscape, that was something reserved for the nobility. Those who belonged to an important family, rather than being just one more farmer. Nobles got surnames, though they seldom had to use them. There were few enough of them, typically in polished armor, that when someone spoke of a 'Lord Rolf', for example, everyone would know exactly who they were talking about. There were no issues where someone was talking about one Rolf and had it misunderstood as a discussion about another, in that case.

For the commoners and peasantry, rather than a family name they would be described by their station or by where they lived. So people could understand who a conversation was referring to because it was Rolf the tailor, or Rolf the farmer, or Rolf of Bent Creek.

Shin Lee was, quite frankly, not even the name that the parents of this life had given him.

But that didn't matter.

Bent Creek was a small village built inside of a semi-circle of a slow-moving waterway. At some point, someone had dug a trench along it, fed by a water-wheel, that could irrigate the crops before any remaining water trickled off back into the flowing stream.

It was a relatively peaceful village, where they milled grain into flour to bake bread and brewed a local beer, where Shin grew up under a different name. There were other children there, rambunctious scrappers and, as they grew up, drunks of varied description and jovial, good-hearted sorts.

He never quite felt that he fit. Perhaps that was why he ended up in so many brawls as he grew up, a tension building in his head, feeling as though he was waiting for something even though he couldn't say precisely what.

Then, at thirteen, the memories started to filter in to his mind. Through dreams, waking and slumbering. Passing visions through the day, memories whispering in his ears of a forgotten life.

He began to be known as distractible, perhaps a little absent-minded and easily lost in thought as his gaze drifted towards the horizon. But his ability to fight with his hands never ceased improving, bit by bit, and so however strange in the head he might be considered, few people were willing to give him grief over it beyond the odd prod now and then to keep his mind on the business at hand rather than woolgathering and daydreams.

And then came the day that the village of Bent Creek was destroyed.

Not by bandits, or by ravenous monsters, or by an act of war. No. It was an entirely natural disaster that saw the end of the village.

Somewhere upstream there was a dam. Not manmade, perhaps the creation of beavers, or a creature like them. Or perhaps it was something that had just formed on its own, fallen branches catching on stones and clogging the waterway they drifted upon further and further. Either way, over time it had built up further and further, holding back more and more water in a massive pool of it, the weight and pressure steadily increasing as more wood got thrown on to hold it back. In the course of years it became unsustainable.

There was little warning. Over the course of a few days, the level of the creek rose, enough that the little water wheel wasn't even needed to deposit buckets into the slightly higher irrigation ditch. An interesting turn of events, but nothing that seemed dangerous.

And then, in the middle of the night, as the village slept... a rushing tidal flood swept the whole village away, along with everyone in it.

He woke up to the feeling of being battered by water and chunks of simple, relatively flimsy wooden housing as the whole village was swept away and deposited in a greater, fiercer river on its way out to sea. Bleeding, dazed, and barely able to struggle to keep a grip on a floating mass of wood that had once been someone's door as he kicked and fought his way to the shore.

He gasped for breath as the bodies floated by, and the mournful understanding settled upon him.

This was the nature of the Tao. Benevolence and malevolence, delivered hand in hand. A hero could not be created without a tragedy. Whether the village had been marked for death because he had been born into it, or whether he had been born into this village because a tragedy would occur... That, he did not know. But it changed nothing overall.

He still searched through the floating masses, looking for signs of life. Of struggle. Of any other villager that was still desperate to survive, and not already dead. And then, when that search proved fruitless, he still stacked a few stones and blocks of wood by the side of the river, in memory of those who had passed and as a reminder that he should go set up a shrine and warning where the town once stood at some point. Then he stepped aside and made camp at the base of a tree, trusting in the open flame to keep any wandering predators away.

The last survivor of the tragedy that befell his village slept.

And then, Shin Lee woke, fully integrated into the world and with a smart phone held between his palm and chest.

The pain was still real. But it felt duller. More distant, as though he were recalling something that had happened in a different lifetime or that he had seen in a vivid gut-wrenching movie. Impactful, but impersonal.

What was he doing sitting around here?

With a glance at the apps and notifications on his phone, Shin opened a portal to his Sweet Home.

Astolfo was waiting there, seated and napping on a reclining chair. As Shin entered, he shifted in place, blinking slightly before coming awake and hopping up to his feet before striking a pose with one hand on his cocked hip, hem of his skirt still shifting and settling, and the other making a peace sign up over his forehead as he winked.

"Servant Saber, Astolfo here!" he declared peppily, the ribbon-ears twitching for a moment as he leaned in. "You're my Master, yep! I can tell. So... That a knife in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?"

"Ecstatic." Shin replied with a smile, before pulling him in.

Astolfo's lips were soft and tasted like strawberries as he moaned receptively into the kiss, allowing himself to be pushed against a wall as their tongues tangled... and while Shin might not be an impressively muscular individual himself, like the show lifters and Mister Universes of another world, the people of this one were built just a little different. Meaning he was still more than strong enough from a life of fieldwork and casual drunken brawling to lift Astolfo up by the thighs.

A few moments of rough fumbling with cloth to move it out of the way and Shin's cock sank into the tightly clutching grip of Astolfo's flesh, sphincter gripping and squeezing at him like a clenching fist as he thrust with wild abandon and sought release like a crazed orc or a feral beast that had smelled an opportunity.

Shin Lee was essentially here to play a role in saving the world, or at least the kingdoms in this part of it. But the world could wait for a day or two.

No rush.