It began, like all good origins, with a storm. Thunder crackled and boomed through a dark sky. Lightning piercing through the gloom, only to be quickly swallowed up in darkness once again. Wind rushed violently through the valley like a herd of raging bulls, crashing and smashing into anything foolish enough to be outside.

  The valley was normally a quiet, hidden place. No sentient being had set foot there for a thousand years. A gentle stream wound through, circling the roots of an enormous tree. A tree wider than any other, with branches reaching high into the sky. A tree with moss hanging off the trunk, and birds and critters nesting in its branches.

  A tree so ancient, it made the rocks look young.

  On this tree was a priceless treasure, a single fruit that glowed a soft blue. It had been absorbing the magical energies in the valley, untouched for centuries. Untouched, until now. The wind picked up, greater and greater, ripping the moss off the trunk. Branches and nests came tumbling down. The strain was too much.

  With a loud crack, the fruit broke off from the tree and tumbled into the night sky, pushed around by unseen forces. Thunder boomed, and a spear of lightning struck down. The light curled around the fruit, unable to get too close. It was almost as if the lightning was afraid of the fruit. Sticks, leaves, even small rocks pelted it mid-air. It fell and fell, but multiple times a great gust of wind would lift it higher, only to fall again. After a long, long time, it slammed roughly into the ground. It bounced once, rolled three times, and finally came to a stop at the feet of another tree. A lemon tree. For a long time after that, the wind howled and thunder still boomed, but the fruit was stuck firm. Eventually, the storm faded away.

  ***

  Roux gained consciousness the next day. He didn't know his name was Roux. He didn't even know he was a lemon. He only knew two things. First, there was a magical fruit lying on the ground next to him, that he must protect at all cost. Second, that there was a bird hopping closer and closer to his precious treasure.

  Something had to change.

  Roux had no way to defend the fruit. He couldn't move, he couldn't make noise. He was a lemon. As the bird hopped closer, Roux started to panic. The bird was large and black, with a wicked-looking beak that curved in the shape of murder. There was a gleam in its eye that suggested it knew how valuable the magical fruit was. Roux mentally thrashed around, trying to find anything, absolutely anything he could do to chase away the bird. He strained and strained, but could not move. He had only just begun to live, but he was about to lose everything he ever owned. He knew, deep down, that if he lost the fruit now, he would lose himself. He screamed.

  Go away.

  The bird screeched in surprise, and took off to the sky in a flutter of feathers. Roux watched it go, slowly calming down as the bird got smaller and smaller. A single feather fell from the air, swaying side to side as it made its way down. Roux thought he could feel his heart beating slower as the feather softly landed on the grass next to him. Then he mentally frowned, realizing he didn't even have a heart to beat.

  Odd.

  Roux felt tired, very tired, from mentally shouting at the bird. He started to drift off to sleep, thinking about the shout, and how he felt he could do it again now, with much less effort. I can talk now. he thought, that's nice. His mental eyelids closed, as he relaxed into a deep rest, side by side with the magical fruit. The fruit still glowed a soft blue, but if anyone was around to watch, they would see that soft glow slowly spreading from the magical fruit to the very ordinary-looking lemon lying on the ground next to it.

  ***

  Far away, in another kingdom, an old man sat hunched over a table. He was playing a game, of sorts. Only instead of pieces on a board, he would advise the king, who would send real men off to fight and die. His right hand was curled into a fist, and he rhythmically thumped the table. The skin on his fist was red and bruised. He had been thumping for hours.

  Scattered across the table was sand, unnaturally white, and it jumped and moved around each time his fist fell against the table. The old man thumped again, reading the signs as the sands of fate shifted. He was not the only one who could read the heartbeat of the world, the rise and fall of kingdoms. If he were, then his empire would stretch from sea to sea. His hand ached, but he kept thumping the table, knowing that even now his enemies were reading similar devices.

  He thumped the table, the sands shifting again. Patterns formed, some intricate, some plain. He read the situation, and knew what move he should make. Another thump, and the sands shifted—likely because his enemies now saw his plan, and changed theirs accordingly. So he had to make further adjustments. Thump. Another change, subtle this time, but just as important. Thump. He was nearing a decision, an order (ahem, advice) for the king that would not easily be outmaneuvered by the enemies.

  Thump.

  The table broke.

  The old man stared in alarm, watching the sand drift off and onto the carpet. The table was an ancient relic. Nothing had so much as scratched it from generations of wisemen learning from it. Now it was split in two, much of the sand falling down. But not all of it. A clump of sand clung to the table surface, defying gravity. It had the most peculiar pattern.

  "Go.." the old man's voice faltered, calling out to the palace servants, "go fetch the king. Something has changed. Something is wrong. Something is terribly, terribly wrong."