The Shepherd

Kaelen, former leader of the Guild of Resonant Dissonance, woke to the gentle bleating of sheep. The scent of hay and wildflowers filled his nostrils. He was dressed in simple, homespun clothes, and a shepherd’s crook leaned against the wall of his small cottage. He looked out the window at a scene of bucolic perfection, a world painted in the soft hues of a pastoral cliche. There were no grand narratives here, no epic struggles, no clashing ideologies. There was only the endless, unchanging cycle of the seasons, a story so simple and predictable that it was barely a story at all. It was a prison of perfect, mind-numbing peace, and it was a masterpiece of narrative cruelty.