In the Bog Land

It was too painful for the wanderer to watch his homeland wither away, so he chose to escape the madness of the king and move to the land of swamps.

For several years, the wanderer lived in this strange new country. Though the locals were not particularly welcoming, he managed to build a life for himself, little by little, until the swamps began to feel like home.

But five years later, the mad king of his homeland had cut down every last forest. The once-green kingdom had become a barren wasteland. Some fled into the open steppes, some went to hide beneath the ground, and others scattered to faraway lands. Still, the king’s greed knew no bounds. His eyes turned toward the neighboring country of fertile fields, a land overflowing with harvests and joy, and he grew furious with envy, and he set his armies upon it.

The people of the swamp kingdom grew anxious. They feared for their own borders and sought someone to blame. So they turned against all those who had once come from the forest kingdom.

The wanderer was no longer welcome. His heart sank, for the place he had begun to call his new home had once again become a land of strangers.

But suddenly he heard about far away Kingdom to a far away land across the world, a place he had heard almost nothing about — except that it lay beside the roaring ocean, where the sun burned hot and relentless, and the horizon shimmered with mystery.

And so the question stood before him:

He decided to stay in the Bog Land?

He decided to go to Far, Far Away Kingdom across the continent — an unknown place of roaring ocean?