The green grass seemed to carry such a bright color this day, long enough to carry in the soft winds like waves of ripples in a large pond. The trunks of trees were thick and old, life itself glorified in the beautiful songs of birds looking to partner and mate to spawn their offspring in the new dawn of this beautiful late spring. Life was all around him, and the quiet serenity of nature gave young Redrick a silence he could find no where else. In this place he found an old tree and sprawled out on the grass under it, listening to the wind, listening to the birds, listening to the quiet and beautiful nature of God.

His eyelids began to fall and he took a deep breath, upon the release of his breath he thought he heard something foreign to this place. A crackling, a fire, a voice? He was not sure, but he was certain that it didn't matter. He was convinced that he could ignore it and let the sound fade into nothingness if he only focused on this quiet and beautiful place. Yet he knew that complacency was in duality to valor, and that is one thing God does not forgive--or so he thought.

It was then that he opened his eyes and everything suddenly turned to darkness, Redrick wondered where the grass went, "Why did the wind stop?", he was unsure. Was he just laying down in the grass fields under an old tree? He could not remember but he was not there anymore. When did he stand, when did he begin to walk, and why was he running now? Where is he going? Soon even these thoughts faded into nothing, and the entire vision was struck from his mind.

A door swung open as his nanny had stormed into his bedroom chambers and forced him out of bed. "What are you ... ", and suddenly he remembered that he was dreaming, the previously foreign sound of objects breaking, the clattering of metal against metal, and the crackling of fire all around him.

"You must be silent, my lord", his nan spoke to him in a whisper, "There is no time".

She took his hand and held it tight, and as they ran through the halls of his father's estate young Redrick thought it felt like she was going to pull his arm out. She was frantic, he thought, but had said nothing of it, his eyes and mind full of horror as the sound of defiance and battle was all around him. He saw many sorts of broken things and began to cry, which in turn caused his nan to cry with him, but she knew that now was not the time.

They made their way for a short while to a hall nearby, the old woman pulled something near a painting of his grandfather on the wall, and pulled the large portrait out and up. It was a secret passage. She hugged him once, with her chest tight to his, squeezing the air from his lungs as she held him so very tight for what she knew would be the very last time.

"Go, Redrick. This will take you to the forests beyond your father's estate. Stay in the passage until dawn and then follow the rising sun to the next town, and stay off the roads. Find the silent sisters there, they will care for you.", she took his face in her hands, "You must survive. Go now, run!"

She pushed him into the passage and closed the portrait shut, and the stone moved back into place behind it.

"Nan!", he cried, tears streaming down his young face, "Nan! Nan! NAN!", there was no response. He clung close to the stone, trying to listen between the river of tears. He heard a muffled voice, and suddenly a short scream, then silence. The pain in his eyes had faded to nothingness, exchanged with a silent look of absolute horror as the vision of death filled his mind. He took a few steps back to the stone wall, the visions of death exchanged with memories of life with his father, mother and elder sister. His life was too short and too young to understand it, and memories of the quiet field in his dreams as he suddenly remembered were torn with blood and death. He held his eyes shut tight and ran, down the hallway, horrified at the loss of life behind him while his father's estate burned. He ran, and ran, and ran for a while until he fell to his knees to a crawl, then stopped with his forehead to the floor under his feet. His teeth clenched and in his mind was a repeating thought that all he knew previously was dead. Like the shattering of glass, his small young fists punched the floor again and again, and he screamed as loud as he could.

He screamed and cried until he passed out from the pain in his heart. When he woke he found his heart silent. What could he say? Then the words of his nan filled his mind, "Run!", so he walked down to the end of the passage for a time and soon found himself in the forest. The daylight pierced through the trees before him and so he followed it. He stayed off the road a bit and followed the light until he came to a small city.

He walked some ways until the forest turned to sprawl north. He stepped through the trees and seemed to approach an old small church seemingly forgotten by the village around it, and later he would learn that they preferred to be away from things here at the forest edge, close enough to civilization to trade with and give charity to the cities and villages nearby. He saw the tents of crusaders nearby, the banners of the Orders of Christ gloriously held in the bastion of light that had brought him here. His young tummy began to rumble and make noises, and he felt something on his cheek as he approached them as his nan told him to. When his hand rose to wipe it away, he felt the wetness of tears on his fingertips ... and realized that, although silent without expression, he was still silently crying.

Some of the men were around a fire eating a bounty they had hunted the previous day and saw him. They saw that the boy wore clothes of noble birth, and called out, "Sister!". Two women came from the small chapel at the edge of this large forest and ran to him, seeing the tears streaming down his face between the dirt that seemed to cover him.

It was that day he was taken by God. It was that day that Christ had saved him. The silent sisters fed and cleaned him, the knights took him to their camp and heard his story. The priest had listened to the boy's confession. They shared stories of the bible and of God, and the mercy and grace of the Holy Mother.

That day he chose to travel east with the Orders. There he would be trained, and in a few years he would reach adulthood. After a few years of service and a pilgrimage to the holy city of Jerusalem, he took his vows to the Order of Hospitallers.

At 15 he was given a fief, took his vows and was granted a new life. Through service to Lord Christ he would soon learn to stand fierce against this evil and protect all other christians from it. Such was his honor, and such was his vow which he was proud to uphold until his dying breath. Someday he would return to his father and mother in heaven, someday, but not yet ... not yet.

Such is the history of the young knight of the Order of Hospitallers, Redrick Fieraas.