Aspen (Azure-Past)

You were walking back to the village, holding your teacher's hand. You were in a group of about six people. You had insisted on helping the older ones gather firewood, hoping to feel useful and contribute. Unfortunately, at the end of the search, you were carrying only a few branches and little else in your small hands. You stared at the ground as you walked, trying to convince yourself that at least you had tried. You sighed in frustration, or perhaps sadness. At that moment, the group seemed to stop. Two boys who were leading the way through the woods started arguing. Apparently, they had gotten lost, so your teacher left you alone while he went to sort things out. In that moment, unsupervised, you heard a noise in the woods. You tried to ignore it, but it returned, louder than before. You stared at the bushes off the path and, on impulse, walked toward them, carefully slipping away, moving in the direction of the noise. With rather limited vision, you managed to make out a group of three young men who seemed to be around your age, maybe a little older. They appeared to be bullying another boy, who was visibly beaten and scraped, even bleeding from the nose, trembling on the floor. One of the bullies had a chicken in his hands; it wasn't hard to deduce that they had stolen it from the boy on the ground...