They sent the children away. The house of an old warrior whose old enemies often found him, no matter how well hidden he tried to stay, was no place for babes. And their mother, though she loved the children of her body as deeply as she could, lived too much in the world of her pencils and paints and canvases, and what was yet to come, to properly care for two infants.

So they gave a child each away to families of the mother’s choosing and went back to living their lives: the old warrior training those who came to him, the seer increasingly reaching for her dark greys and staining reds.

“Something is coming,” her husband said, moving to stand with his hand on her shoulder and gaze at her canvas, showing a shadow in the sky and a battlefield that was currently a prosperous temple.

“Yes.”

“We should prepare our sons.”

They did not know where their sons were, for the seer’s powers were not so specific that she could ask for detailed visions of her children, much as she might wish to. But they had a friend, in the shape of a ginger cat with wonderful intelligence and mysterious powers. Willing to aid its friends, and knowing of what import their success might be, it split itself into two cats each as ginger as their original.

The first deigned to allow the warrior to wrap a strip of leather around its neck as a collar and pin it with a clasp bearing the sigil of his ancestors: a fine silver harp.

“But what shall we use for the second collar? We have not two such pins,” his wife murmured, spinning a brush anxiously in her hand.

“Let me worry about that,” her husband answered, and kissed her on her cheek as he rose and went for his sword.

He had, in point of fact, several swords. But none of them would do for his second son. For the child of a seer, a blade of prophecy was required. And the warrior knew where to find one.

In the town a day’s journey from their quiet cottage, the central square was haunted by a revenant: a skeleton with magnificent swordsmanship. Any warrior who wished to test their mettle might challenge it. But it did not tire and it fought almost as if it could predict the next move of its opponent. Its armor was decayed and rusted almost to nonexistence: its device and design long forgotten. But the sword in its bony hands shone as bright and sharp as the day it was forged. It was to this town, and to this square, that the old warrior went.

Many of his students had, at one time or another, tested themselves against the revenant. None had destroyed it, but many had put on wonderful displays and earned the beginnings of their fortune and reputation (locals and passersby would bet on how long would-be heroes could stay in the square at one time). The old warrior accepted no wagers.

He stepped into the square and battled as fiercely as any younger man. He was a wily and experienced swordsperson and he and the revenant were well-matched. But unlike his students and the others who challenged the skeleton, he did not seek to conquer it and shatter its bones so far that they could not re-coalesce. Such was not possible, for it did indeed have powers of foresight that would not permit it to be destroyed until the End. The old warrior sought only to disarm it. And such was his prowess that this aim he was able to effect, though not without losing his own blade in the process. As the skeleton took up the warrior’s own sword against him, the warrior snatched up the shining blade of prophecy and fled gratefully from the square. He was no longer a young man and the fight had taxed him.

As a prophetic blade, the sword had marvelous powers, one of which he soon put to good effect: he shrank it down to no longer than his wife’s little finger and pinned it to the collar of the other cat.

Then, bearing their respective pins, the ginger cats departed to seek out the sons of the warrior and the seer. And many adventures they had with them. But that, my friends, is another story, for another time.