Uberous Valley

There weren't always dragons in the Valley.

For generations, the lush, verdant Uberous Valley had been a garden paradise. Rich, fruitful, land grew crops in effortless ease and abundance. More than enough for everyone in Verdant Village to have everything they needed and more. Illness, starvation, greed... These were dark things told of a time long past. War? War was stories told of other places. Other people. Lesser people.

For as long as she could remember, (Indeed, for as long as anyone living actually remembered), the magically enhanced bounty of the Valley's harvest had provided the inhabitants all they required as well as plentiful remaining to allow easy means of trade. And easy trade made quick friends of possibly rowdy neighbors. The mountainous produce of fruits, vegetables and grains, (Some of which simply should not have grown in the climates of the Valley), that they were able to offer for trade, at ridiculously low costs, were all the protection the Valley had ever needed to defend themselves with. Peace and prosperity had ruled the land for so long that none but the most studious of scholars held the knowledge that it had ever been otherwise.

But, as so many stories have told, all things, eventually, have an end. And the prosperity of the valley, it appears, would be no exception. The Stewardship of the valley, the protection and magic that they all had come to rely upon as 'theirs' by right, was over. The harvest was in, but no one would be having any Harvest celebrations. The farmers had gathered the fields in a shorter time than any Harvest season remembered. Not due to impressive speed or Herculean efforts of the villagers, but because the land, dry and dismal as had not been recorded in many long ages, bore such little fruit that the collection was over almost before it had begun.

There would be no trade with neighbors this season. Not with their Stewardship having suddenly, and tragically, ended without warning. Not with the Valley scrambling just to provide enough to feed its own. Not with the village officials suddenly scheming and squabbling to horde everything to themselves. There was nothing left for themselves, let alone their neighbors. Neighbors who had come to depend on the goods the Valley granted them. Neighbors who had come to believe that the food they took each year was owed to them as their due. Neighbors that were, even now, marching to take by force what was not available to give freely.

History, if they were lucky enough to have a history to tell, may explain why the Stewards had turned their backs on the Valley. Why they had ceased feeding the land their magics. Why they had chosen to let the people starve. Why they, without a word or warning, had simply chosen to leave.

"No", she thought to herself as she scooped up her bow and quiver of arrows, shouldered the single bag that now contained everything she had left in the world, and turned her back on her village for the first time in her young life. Turned towards the still undiscovered game trail between the hills. Turned to try to outrun the numerous clouds of dust stirred by the approaching armies drawing ever closer, "There weren't always Dragons in the Valley."

And now, as the last sounds of massive departing wings disappeared over the ridge and were replaced by the horns of impending war that promised to turn their once lush valley into a barren battlefield.

"Now there may never be Dragons in the Valley again!"