[center][h2]Longsight[/h2]
[img]https://i.imgur.com/Kskn8GF.png[/img][/center]

There were forty-three of them now. The old had died in the initial chaos and many of the young. They had escaped in every which way, but Firmplough had been able to organise them and set them on the path to Fort Skybreak. Only, there was no Fort Skybreak where they went. There was nothing of anything much at all. Behind them the verdant fields of their homeland disappeared into dust; before them, wastes rolled into wastes and dunes gave way to dunes. The days of their long walk became weeks, the weeks months, and the bodies they left behind them for the beasts that stalked this foreign land only piled up.

It was about that time that Firmplough became Reaper. He had come to heft his large harvesting scythe differently, using it to keep the beasts of the wastes at bay whenever their band happened upon an oasis or managed to dig for water with whatever tools they had brought along. But on that day he did not merely stand guard; he went forth upon a dune, stomach growling, and studied the far horizons. Longsight had run alongside him, closely followed by his friend Badboy. Badboy in turn was followed by Rockpetter, an orphan girl who had grown quite attached to him. Then again, they were all orphans now.

Longsight stood alongside Firmplough, studying the horizons as earnestly as the man, who paid him little heed. The two of them stood like that for long minutes, behind them Badboy squabbling with Rockpetter; she wanted to jump on his back, he wanted to stare seriously beside Longsight. Suddenly, Firmplough leapt forth, scythe raised high, descending the dune with massive strides. He hit the rocky earth beyond at a quick run. Raising his own sharpened stick, Longsight scrambled after him, Badboy and Rockpetter hot on his heels. There was little any of them could do to catch up with Firmplough, however, and they watched in awe as in the distance he brought his scythe down on a lumbering beast not much different from one of those that had attacked their village - only perhaps this one seemed smaller and perhaps not as terrible. When they reached Firmplough, the beast was giving off its final death cries. Longsight skewered it with his makeshift spear for good measure, and before long Firmplough had tied a rope about one of its forelegs and got to dragging it back to camp. No one called him Firmplough after that.

The corpse was brought to Lifedancer, who had been the herbalist in their long-gone home village of Renev. After much prodding, sniffing, and a brave taste of the creature's blood (before very quickly spitting it out), she decreed that it must be bled entirely and all its other offal brought to her that she may ascertain its safety. The rest of it she declared good for consumption if cooked well. 
That was the day they ceased to be farmers. The spade no longer merely turned the earth, it dug for water and battered the brains of their prey. The fork was no longer for hay, it was the bane of the beasts of the waste. The hoe, the rake, the mattock, none remained innocent soil kissers - they were blood harvesters now. 

But all that was years ago now - three? Four? Longsight did not know. He sat on a dune, Badboy and Rockpetter by him, and he tried to remember what those days before the wastes were like, those days in Renev. It was on his mind like a mirage - all that remained of it was the name they all now carried. Longsight the Renevit, and that was all. In all other ways, he was a son of the wastes.

[hider=Summary]In the future, Renev is a peaceful farming village. Then the outer beasts attack, blasting from the past. Some Renevits escape, led by a guy called Firmplough. Their escape goes unexpectedly when they end up in the wastes rather than the fortified city they were heading for (time shenanigans means they inadvertently travelled from their future into the waste-wracked past). Anyhow, they started adapting to nomadic life in the wastes, their farming tools becoming weapons for defence and hunting.

Characters featured:
-- Firmplough (now Reaper): the leader of the Renevit clan, a thirty-something year old man.
-- Lifedancer: The clan's herbalist.
-- Longsight: our lil hero. Orphaned due to the attack on Renev.
-- Badboy: Longsight's friend, bit of a troublemaker. Orphaned due to the attack on Renev.
-- Rockpetter: an orphaned clansgirl very attached to Badboy. Orphaned since before the attack on Renev.[/hider]