Faded Glory

Two

A week later, Aitana is rested. The only lasting injury she has to speak of is a small scar on her right side from a light burn. She is glad for this.

But her mind is not whole again. She doesn't think that it can ever be again, not after this. Knowing this, she knows she has to do something. She hasn't sold the ring yet. She is still living with the nurse at the town infirmary.

This is no way to exsist, she knows. But she can't bring herself to move on. There is nothing, no one for her now. She must learn to make herself a purpose to keep living, although she can't find one.

She sleeps with the sword by her shanty little hospital cot. This comforts her, and she doesn't know why. She thinks that maybe it has something to do with the reminder of home.

By the third day, she has cleaned the magnificent weapon. It has regained it's splendor. It's the only thing left now in her once esteemed house.

The only thing that she has left to do is think of a way out, and sell that ring. Aitana doesn't know what she's going to do.

She says that she'll sell the ring tomorrow, and find a place to stay in town. Then she'll figure it out.

She's in a forest. The leaves are green and dew-filled around her. She touches one, and cries out in surprise as it turns to dust in her fingers. Suddenly, she's very alert. Something doesn't feel right.

There is a light in a clearing ahead. She looks at it for a moment, focusing on only the light. "Aitana..." It whispers. "Aitana... Come." She is drawn to it before she has told her feet to move.

It is the sword, unsheathed. Floating in the air before her. The sunlight hits it and sends a ray of odd light into her eyes. She thinks that maybe this is bad. She reaches out to touch it, possessed by something other than her own mind.

The steel suddenly explodes with a more blinding light. She covers her face with her arm, warding off the light. It burns her eyes, sets her on fire.

There is a dark shape through the light. It's moving. It's moving toward her. She can only just see the form... It is vague. Then there's a voice, soft and powerful, menacing and kind all at the same time. She is held speechless.

"Aitana, child. The time is now. New ones are coming soon. Ones that will destroy your country. You must leave. You must find them and destroy their seat of power. You alone can do this."

"Why?" Aitana asks, although she intends to keep quiet.

"You are one of many that can. But you are ready now, and they are not."

Aitana doesn't understand any of this. But still, she agrees. "What must I do?"

"Travel Northwest. You are familiar with the forests of Bingen? They are there, at the keep of Archea. You must destroy it."

The figure is shrinking back into the light. Aitana shouts, "Wait! How?"

There is silence in the forest. No bird or cricket peeps.

Aitana wakes in a cold sweat. She is shaking and shouting something she can't distinguish. The nurse is rushing to her side, pushing water down her throat. She is gasping for air.

The there is silence. The nurse asks what is wrong, and Aitana replies lamely with the implication that it's just a bad dream. The nurse goes away, back to her bed or to tend other patients. But Aitana doesn't sleep the rest of the night.

She takes her sword and her ring, her only possessions now, and goes into town. The first vendor that opens is a jeweler. He looks at it with a critical eye.

"I can give you two gold for it."

Two gold. That was it? It would provide lodging, for sure, but she doesn't know what else. She was going to have to take it.

"Thank you, sir." She says quietly, accepting the coins gingerly. The first thing she decides she needs to do is find lodging, and then food, and then clothes. She could go from there.

But, at the back of her mind, a voice was whispering in dream-voice about the quest to the Forest of Bingen. What could it hurt? She needed somewhere...

She knew it was foolish, but she decided that she'd just leave. If she got lodging for tonight, she wouldn't have enough to travel on. So, she buys travel gear and new attire. And she stuffs her pack full of food and waterskins. She knows little about the geography of anything, so she goes to a map vendor and commits every line to memory. Slowly, she sets out.

By nightfall, she makes camp three miles out of town.

This is stupid, this is foolish, she keeps telling herself as she makes her fire from dead twigs laying around. What am I going to do? I don't know. Maybe I'll stop at another city and realize my foolishness. Maybe then I'll be sastified and settle down.

She doesn't know. But she sleeps little that night, even with the sounds of the crickets to sing her to sleep.