Nearing the One Year Mark-Part 3

The next story that I'm going to serialize here is a story that, as I mentioned last week, focuses itself on the experiences of a twice-orphaned boy as he travels the land reporting the news of his foster-father's death to those that knew him in life. Those same people tell the stories of their time with this now-deceased man, and the boy starts on his own path towards manhood using these stories to guide him because he gets caught up in the events that arise as the lawful consequence of his mentor's death.

This is an episodic serial, with unreliable narrators (because many of these people will omit details that make them look less than they would like), and temporal jumps all over the place (one story starts in the youth of the mentor, another when he's in his prime, still another when his hair's turning gray, etc.). Even the remaining enemies will have their say (and, as is expected, they aren't as impressed) in time, as they make moves long held in abeyance now that the one thing they knew to be able to stop them is gone.

It's easy to make this work as a structure to build short stories around, and the first few goes at this will work as such, but I won't want to do nothing but that for long. Tracking the boy's progress across the land will act as the pacing mechanism; the further from his former home he's gone, the greater the consequences will become due to the combination of speed of bad news and the alacrity of those receiving it. (At first, the boy can keep pace; soon, however, he falls behind the speed of the bad news and starts arriving at places where the circumstances he expected do not exist anymore, forcing him to act accordingly.) The more he sees the consequences, the more he must do to see his mission through and the closer he gets to his own catalyzing moment that pushes him fully on the path towards becoming a hero in his own right.

I lack a title--even a provisional one--so if you have a useful suggestion, leave it in the comments.