Lonely peasant, might you at night, under the cover of a new moon, dream and yearn for something more? Something more than worrying about the crops, the weather, something more than your next meal. Something the other side of your daily routine. More. Perhaps something exciting, perhaps something dangerous even?
Dreams don’t capture the hum and the thrum of a quickened heartbeat when a storm approaches just on the far side of the horizon, and the flash and dance of lightning plays across the fields and the lake where electric dragons dare to light up the sky, steel-hardened blue with centuries of energy, betraying hidden treasures and adventures long since passed by.
Alas, there is little more to life, simple farmer, than this. The failed promises of legend might at least quicken the night and ease the burden of another day of toil and loss, of misery—if nothing more.
But hope, perhaps, lurking in the eternal waxing and waning of the harvest moon. For even the darkest nights foreshadow the dawning of new days. And so mesmerized, we choose forgetfulness, persuading ourselves against all odds, that unlike all of the others before us, we are bold and brave, heroes, alone against dark skies, punctuated only momentarily by the thunderous roar and lightning of our demons who would threaten to destroy us all.
And in the dead of night, we venture forth.