“Betsy! Betsy! Where are you this time?” Shouted a young, sandy-haired man as he fought his way through the steep terrain of a mountain range with the help of his shepherd’s crook, “Where are you? Stupid beast! Why do you always run away?”

  A little bit ahead of him, a barking German Shepherd jumped around and drove the shepherd further and further up the mountain.

  Reaching the top, he let his gaze wander over the idyllic landscape, where only a few pines could offer cover to the escaped sheep.

  Exhausted, the pursuer bent down, picked a few not quite ripe blueberries, and absentmindedly put them in his mouth.

  “Too sour!” He grimaced and listened to the silence of the mountain.

  "BAA!" Came the soft bleating of a sheep behind him.

  “There you are! You won't escape me any longer!" He murmured confidently and continued the chase together with his dog towards the next higher peak.

  “I found you at last!” He groaned exhaustedly after he had climbed around a large bush and grabbed Betsy roughly by her collar, “Now we can go home, and if you run away again, you’ll end up in the stew pot, no matter how much Edana pleads for you! Without her, you would have been a roast a long time ago!”

  As he continued to fight his way around the bush, with the sheep firmly in his grip, a completely disfigured figure, almost two meters tall, suddenly stood before him.

  “AH!” Cried the shepherd in shock and released his just caught prey, whereupon the sheep immediately seized the opportunity and happily hopped away.

  “Stay here!” He subconsciously called after the escapee, but noticed in the next moment how his faithful companion was already blocking her path.

  “Good Fergus, good boy!” He murmured, turning his gaze from the dog back to the motionless body.

  Before him stood a massive, lifeless mountain of a man, dressed in torn rags and chains.

  His wild beard was caked with blood, his skin was covered in bruises and injuries, and his wide-open eyes displayed an unbridled strength that only a person fighting for more important things than his own life could achieve.

  The body, despite the bright midday sun, looked frozen stiff, and in the dead man's arms lay, wrapped in torn rags, a small child sleeping soundly with a red, slightly blurred text on its forehead.

  “Kilian?” The young man read quietly and felt tears dripping down his face, “Have you come back to us?”

  He raised his hand, gently stroked the boy's few dark brown hairs, and a powerful yawn responded to the gentle touch.

  Sleepy green eyes with a pinch of silver blinked at the shepherd through the bright light, and several small fingers searched for his hand with joyful giggles.

  “Ouch!” Cried the shepherd in surprise when his thumb was almost crushed by the little rascal, and he quickly pulled his arm back, “For such a small baby, you are quite strong, Kilian! I don't know where you come from or why you're lying in the arms of a dead man, but I can't just leave you here like this...too many children have died already."

  The shepherd carefully took the newborn from the embrace of his eternal guardian, said a short prayer to the gods known to him, and gently rocked Kilian back and forth.

  The little one slowly drifted back to sleep, and his new guardian set off back to his hut with a foundling in his arms, followed by a dog and a reluctant sheep.

  "Mother, MOTHER! Father is back, and he has found Betsy!” A young, red-haired girl with a few freckles on her face shouted again and again, rushing out of a small, wooden barn and hugged the sheep that had just returned home, whereupon the animal rubbed its head against the little girl, bleating happily.

  A gentle breeze blew over a small mountain lake, from which various fish occasionally emerged through the weak waves of the surface, trying to catch the insects flying above, and the returning shepherd enjoyed the beautiful view of his home.

  A simple but pretty young woman, with shoulder-length blond hair, had stepped through the door of a house built from shapeless stones next to the barn and, smiling sweetly, was walking quickly towards her husband.

  “It's good to have you back, my dear Kegan. I'm baking fresh bread." Said the baker, placing her small hand gently on his shoulder and then asked in surprise, "Well? Who’s with you? Where did you pick up a newborn child?”

  “My beloved Una…” Kegan began, wiping some flour from her lovely face with his free hand and looking seriously into her sky blue eyes, “I found this little one in the mountains. He was completely alone, and Kilian was written on his forehead.”

  “Kilian…” She whispered, her mouth open and her eyes wet as her arm slipped from her husband’s shoulder, “Like our lost son…”

  “I believe the heavens sent him to us!” The young father said powerfully, “Not to take the place of our deceased son, but to give us some comfort. Let us raise him! I never want to lose a child again!”

  Una sank to the floor, but found no words.

  With tears streaming down her face, she nodded her head, looked at her husband, and lovingly embraced her little daughter, who had meanwhile sneaked over to her parents out of curiosity.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Father, who is that?” Asked the child after freeing her head from her mother’s grasp.

  “Come here, Edana,” Said Kegan, kneeling so the girl could see the baby better, “May I introduce you to Kilian! From now on, he will live here with us as your little brother. Even though he is not your biological brother, the heavens sent him to us to form a family. Please be nice to him.”

  “Kilian! Kilian!” Cried a fourteen-year-old Edana, running around the small mountain lake to the barn, looking for her little brother.

  She found him, sleeping soundly, with a soft, not-yet-sheared sheep, cuddling on a bed of straw.

  “Brother, get up!” She said loudly and tried to wake him up, “Father needs your help with the wood!”

  But instead of opening his emerald green eyes with a silver wisp in them, he just responded with a loud snore and turned away from his noisy sister.

  “Please help me!” She whispered to Betsy and sat cross-legged on the straw, stroking the soft sheep, whereupon it slowly stood up.

  Half asleep, the animal staggered around the boy and began to nibble on his dark brown hair as if it were succulent grass on the greenest meadow.

  “You are so smart! It’s no surprise that Father needs to try so hard to catch you every time you escape!” The red-haired girl giggled mischievously and, after finally noticing a movement in Kilian’s eyelid, quickly added, “If you don’t get up soon, you’ll go bald! Betsy is very hungry after a nap! Come on, work’s not done yet. We must finish the package for the Kong Clan. Mum is currently salting the last fish, and the remaining wood still needs to be chopped!”

  Grumbling quietly, the boy stood up and, without paying any further attention to Edana or the sheep, walked, scratching his bottom to fish out a pricking straw from his trousers, in the direction of a small forest from which periodic blows of an axe sounded.

  “There you are! Finally! Where did you hide this time?” Kegan asked his foster son with a smile, leaning exhaustedly on a long axe, sweat dripping from his forehead.

  “Nap…” Kilian mumbled sleepily, not yet able to formulate a complete sentence, “Betsy… cuddle… cozy!”

  Grumbling incoherently, he approached his father, stretched out his little arms unmotivated, and, after a deep yawn, finally asked, “What should I chop?”

  “Thank you for helping me!” The shepherd replied with a gentle smile, gave the axe to the little boy, and pointed over his shoulder with his thumb, “Three ironpines are still missing. If I chop them, I'll need a day for each one, and you'll be done in a few hours. I'd really like to know where you get your strength from. Just ten years old and you're already a better lumberjack than your old man! Hahaha!”

  Shrugging his shoulders while slowly waking up a little, the boy straightened his wet, licked hair and aimed at the first tree, "Mother and you always say I came from the heavens, but I don't know what you mean by that. I’m simply the way I am.”

  “And that’s a good thing!” Kegan finished his son’s sentence, “We are very happy to have you around! You are a great help to us, and I am very proud of you! It’s not important to explain everything; the main thing is to be there for each other and to be happy.”

  Satisfied with the feeling of being loved, Kilian began the sweaty work and set his sights on a thick tree trunk.

  Piece by piece, he fought his way through the hard trunk of the first ironpine, while his father used a saw to cut the softer wood and placed it in a small wheelbarrow.

  “Finally, the next delivery is ready!” Said Kegan exhaustedly, turning to his son just as the boy shouted, “Tree falling!”

  With a deafening crash, the massive pine tree crashed onto the forest floor, crumbling several small rocks into fine dust.

  “Good work!” Praised the shepherd and lifted the handles of the wheelbarrow and started to walk towards the barn, “Take a quick break! Otherwise, the forest will be gone while I fetch Una and Edana. I'll persuade your mother and sister to have a little snack together.”

  “Food!” Laughing, the sweating young lumberjack happily sat down on a dried-out tree stump.

  He curiously watched various birds feeding their young ones in their nests or fluttering around in search of worms; he even spotted two squirrels jumping from tree to tree together.

  Just as a mountain pipit was about to sit on the little boy's outstretched arm, a girl came shooting through the forest, singing loudly,

  “The strongest one is my little bro!

  No tree stands where he goes!

  Meanwhile, Betsy slips through the fence,

  Father running after her while shaking his hands!

  Damn stupid sheep, why won’t you stop?

  If I ever catch you, you’ll end up in the pot!”

  The little animal flew away, startled by the ruckus, and the almost bird whisperer turned to the source of the commotion with a smile.

  Edana ran in front of her seemingly angry father, swallowing almost every other word of her song because of a fit of laughter.

  Kilian could only understand her because his big sister always sang this verse when she wanted to annoy Kegan, and he tuned in with a soft whistle.

  Grinning, Una walked leisurely along the forest path behind the two of them, laden with a huge basket full of food.

  “They'll both calm down once the food is ready.” Said the pretty woman, pinching her son's cheek, “Will you please help me set the table?”

  With full stomachs, the family of four sat on a thick blanket in the middle of a small forest glade.

  Kilian patted his stomach contentedly, considered whether he should eat another piece of bread or not, and was close to dozing off when he heard his father's serious voice, “In the next two or three days, the caravan of the Kong clan should arrive. Edana, since you've turned fourteen this year, their visit will be a little bit different this time. Everyone living in the clan's mountains is tested for their talent at this age. It was the same with me, with your mother, and it will be the same with you and later with your brother, but you needn't be afraid. The caravan's goods are always protected by a powerful member of the Kong Clan's Inner Academy, who will also conduct the test. A drop of your blood will be placed on a beautifully glittering jewel, and if it shines brightly, you can become a Qi-Master. If you are suitable, you will work directly for the Kong Clan and be trained there, but the chance is slim. Until now, no one in our family has ever managed that!”

  “I once saw a Qi-Master perform magic!” The young girl blurted out, “The Kong Clan passed by our farm in winter! I saw someone who threw a fireball out of nowhere onto a pile of firewood and set it ablaze! He was also riding on a wolf! After that, I wanted to ride Betsy, and I tried for a while, but she wouldn't let me. So mean! Can I ride a magical animal if I become a Qi-Master?”

  Excited and full of anticipation, she looked at her parents with wide eyes.

  “Don’t get too excited!” Replied Una with a serious expression, “Only one in a million people can become a Qi-Master, so please don't be disappointed if you don't have the talent! Life on our farm may be simple, but it's beautiful and safe!”

  “But if the stone glows, can I learn magic?” Edana stubbornly persisted.

  “If you have the skills, the Kong clan will explain everything to you in detail.” Kegan tried to end the topic, but his daughter, full of anticipation, asked more and more questions that the couple, with their knowledge, mainly about farm life, could not answer.

  “Be patient, and now we'll get back to work!” Said a slightly annoyed mother, finally, and Kilian walked, lost in thought, with the long axe on his shoulder, towards the next thick tree.

  “Learn magic?” He murmured, as periodic blows slowly worked their way through the trunk, “I’d rather continue to take care of Mother, Father, Edana, and Betsy! Our home is so beautiful, I don’t want to lose it!”