Muted Palette

[Hope]

May be she’ll learn something about what death really is, which is where the pain stops and the good memories begin. Not the end of life but the end of pain.”

Should every bone in her body shatter and the mind sever thrice she would sleep a beautiful night away- compared to the intoxicating horror of the flames. Memories were coy things that resembled serpents with their coiling nature, interstitial and unable to be pinned as a static thing. There had been darkness. She could fathom for how long she'd been at those depths freezing and crushed under the weight of the non-existent tidal waves that kept her there but not.

Between the rage of a dying star, the scornful heat and the blinding light there was something to be relished. Removed from her misanthropic throne she was able to open her eyes. The sound of lapping foam against her charred skin was the first thing she had heard since the wind against her face and the countless horns in late-night Tokyo traffic. Sand beneath her charcoal leather-textured skin was finite, tangible and irritating. Her body lurched as she gasped for breath- something so full of respite, so sweet, she could breathe the air like a freshly squeezed ambrosia after a ten-year trek in the Sahara.

From a bird's eye view it was a stain upon a velvet beige tapestry, one that spanned across the seaboard up and down. She lay within a crater ten feet in diameter in all directions with her point of impact being the epicenter. Snow white sand had been heated and turned to glass when she had struck, leaving an interesting mesh of ruin for whatever might find it in the near future. The sky above was vast, unthinkably so that brought salty warm tears pooling in her silver eyes. It hurt. A somber cry shook through the branches and sent the birds native into their aboriginal dance high in the air. They circled above as though she were a wounded deer, something to feed upon or whatever morsels were left. Perhaps at one point that's exactly what she would have been. She rose with a loud shriek before stumbling over. For the first time she could see it, her cracked skin. What had once been smoldering was now a rigid carapace- a shell that had been chipped and battered.

Scraggly white hair fell into her vision and she soon understood nothing of what was to be. Crawling out of the crater she saw a horizon of blue that was forever in its reach. She slowly panned to the left where an expanse of white beach coursed and churned until she could see it no longer. A further pan revealed a thick lush forest that was overgrown and more than welcoming. It hurt to move, each step fractured the tectonics that were her skin; glass bones felt as though they might snap under her weight, and every four steps warranted a stumble into the dirt.

What is broken can be reforged.

[Hope]

Canopies reigned overhead while sun filtered through the mesh weave of wildlife and overgrowth. Distilled with the contours of the living and the natural offerings of a habitat untouched by the ash hands of man, the light did well to light the path but cast many shadows to conceal what was laying in wait, prowling.

Frantic silver circlets scouted from left to right on a search for anything that might prove useful. Each step sent jolts of pain through a used and corroded body and threatened to send the fragile psyche under. As the light became more scarce the mind began playing further tricks upon those eyes. Dancing shadows were ominous instead of playful things; watchers of old, large lumber monoliths were impeding the trek instead of shaping the path.

After what felt like a hell and a thousand steps a clearing was in sight. It was far too meticulous in its design, thought out and paved were the stones that lined the pool's edges. Torches were stuck in the perimeter and a large array of massive boulders were in some seemingly random pattern of the crystal clear reservoir. Nothing, nothing was more appealing at the moment.

Blinded by the succulent platter before her she would have no way of realizing that what had been calculating and prowling the whole time behind her was soaring through the air. Talons that could cleave a man in half found a loose grip on her shoulders as they lacerated in passing. A scream, a cry or something between was let out as she hit the earth in a state of panic and hysteria. A black panther bared its fangs while encircling her.

As quick as she could muster the strength she felt her tendons lit ablaze while scrambling to her feet. Her arms felt like bent copper wires when they plied at the dead branch to her right, a heavy thing that was of no use to the rotting trunk that it had been a part of. It gave way none too soon as the feline made another pass, finding the decaying bark none too stoic to survive many more.

Joints had never been weaker less they be victim to decades of arthritis or malnutrition. Her body creaked as it circled and her with it. There was no grace in her stance, no immediate power in her form but when their gaze met and the bold yellow iris clashed with her silver, it was recognized to both that one of them would not leave with their lives.

A momentary pause may have been felt to be an eternity before the hind legs bent and the slender lean muscle leaped through the air.

CRACK

Under the weight of the beast the post-cancer removed limb shattered in the middle leaving each hand a smaller half to brace the saliva-laden fangs with in a last ditch desperation. Paws came down lashing at the arms and face, leaving a nasty gash just on the left cracked skin, under the eye on the cheek.

Feral instincts were of no use anymore. She had been pinned and it was a matter of moments before she returned from whence she came. The cold was endless and in these fleeting moments, had she not been pumping full of adrenaline, she'd been throwing up everywhere at the thought of returning to that bleak obelisk of eternity.

SHINK

Petrified in the gaze of the beast she hadn't realized at first what exactly happened. A spear driven right through its open mouth stared at her between the layers of pearls that were so close yet so far from ripping her throat clear out of her. With a strong wave of the spear the cat was tossed from her body and what was standing there above her, a young woman with olive skin and tribal markings, bright turqoise and azure with a look that could kill, was the sweetest sight she could have imagined.

"#*/@+^%?" The tongue was foreign and although she had found her way into this bizarre world, this lost existence, she could only stare with her jaw slacked and her panicked silver circles darting to the dead feline and back to her savior.

The girl didn't aim to assess the damage nor did she really hesitate when she bent down and grabbed the cracked leather arm. Instead of fighting it, which felt natural, she lacked the will or the energy. Her wounds were oozing red, her bones felt as though they would snap at any effort exerted and her vision was lacking. The young woman slipped her arm around the waist and slung the cracking skin around her neck. Towards the pool they made their way and nothing was so close to rage and rapture as the burning water in the wounds. It filtered and found root in the crevasses of the broken skin. It seeped deep like a drought-ending rain in the Sahara, finding each and every natural route, burrowing deep like a parasite in skin. The girl set her back against the edge and whistled loudly. A party, no more than 8 no less than 5 began scrambling out of the woodwork.

They began chatting among themselves, pointing at the wounded girl in the pool. They made gestures at her hair, at her eyes. Silver. They looked exhilarated and concerned at the same time. The younger girl helped an older woman, who looked like she could be in her senior years over to the now soaking stranger. The old woman removed from her pouch a clay pot which she took a brush to the contents of, a mashed beige cream, and began applying it along the ragged skin of the one who danced too well in her waltz with death.

"Thank you." How she managed to slip the words out was beyond her. The old woman smiled and shushed her appropriately, applying more of the cream along the visible skin.

[Hope]

It was the fifth time in the week that she had woken up before dawn and made her ritual lap around the village. At first after she had been brought back from the Elysium pools, the reaction was as one might imagine. Children hid behind their mothers, most of the villagers were kind and benevolent, yet kept their distance as well. The village was mastered within the dense forests and were glorified tree houses in essence. They were built upon networks of suspension bridges high up in the trees, often times there were hollowed out parts that would lead through one tree, around another and ultimately made for a unique system that resembled a labyrinth to a stranger, but was perfectly efficient for the aboriginals.

They were nothing short of marvelous when it came to their engineering. A draw bridge mechanic was used to hoist and lower the final leg of the descent to the floor, which meant unless you were bringing a lot of rope and water and were prepared to climb the entire way up- there was no way into this village. She had become friends with the shift that operated the mechanism during the twilight hours as she often desired to leave and visit the pools before any were awake. Upon returning she would offer those keeping watch (what she considered a terrible but mandatory role) a plethora of picked goods from her trip. It was the least she could do since the village seemingly had no sense of currency, nor did they demand anything of her in return. She had to get creative with how she'd make up for their hospitality.

Each morning in the lulling silence that followed she would slip into the clearing with the Elysium pools. A memorable site, where she had nearly slipped from the world as quickly and mysteriously as she had re-entered it, but had met her saviors. Torches were forever burning within the ring of cleared lush grass and they kept her at ease while she removed the body-wide bandages and eased into the well of elixirs. There was no explanation offered to her for how it worked but each day she soaked in the pools for hours and would apply the compounds afterwards. She would wrap them up and proceed to ease into stretching and light exercise. At first the movements were too painful and would often leave her in a aching state however a week into the rituals had already paid dividends. Leathery burnt and cracked skin had begun returning to a porcelain hue which was without cracks and silky to the touch. Scraggly hair had resembled that of a burn victim's, dead and frayed while managing to cover little of the scalp, had become lush and thick platinum that glistened in the sun's light.

Her questioning of the seemingly innocuous fountain of youth had garnished her little to no elucidation of the mystery and intrigue to the bizarre pool. She simply did as the wise sage had requested of her and began feeling the results. Each day after she soaked in the cleansing waters she would begin a trip down the path that had been cleared. It always brought her to a shrine deep in the lush green forest where she would spend at least an hour collecting the medicinal herbs that she had been taught to spot as well as assorted lush fruits. Though each and every day she visited the shrine she would enter through its large doors and tread upon the wood floors with care as to not leave anything out of place. Within the center of the building was a massive boulder that had been devoid of the flooring in a precise measured diameter. It was safe to say the shrine had been built around this obelisk.

It was a fascinating memorial as it were- sleek obsidian that was polished and perfected yet clearly not man-made. Her favorite part of this mystery was the battered hilt that jutted from the front of the face. It was large enough that both of her hands could be wrapped around it, yet what was visible of the face of the blade had some type of rune engraved within it. There was no story to this, no resolution to be gained from asking. Each time she brought it up the old sage which had been nurturing her simply began brushing her hair and smiling. Often she considered the possibility the sage was senile and continued pursuing might just end up with frustration. Yet there was a gleam in the old woman's eyes when the question was brought up; too meaningful to be dismissed as mere day dreaming.

Each day she paid tribute to the shrine and its upkeep yet never before had she felt such a magnetic force drawing her to the hilt. Her arm slowly proceeded to stretch out while her fingers uncoiled, her index leaning closer and closer until it touched the tip.



DINGGGGG

Rogue waves of something she'd never experienced before washed over her from head to toe. In that moment she was no longer in the shrine in the mountains or the lush green canopy that engulfed them. She was over a vast sea floating in the clouds while blanketed in the sun's light. It hurt her eyes at first, but even after blocking it with her hands she couldn't escape it.

What is broken can be reforged.

Before she had a moment to ask, to question or to really digest the scene she was standing within the shrine once more except she'd taken a step back from the hilt. The sun was rising and she would have to make it back with the things she had collected.

[Hope]

CRACK!

The sound of bamboo striking the bark was unmistakable. She had decided to accompany the training seminar that was being held behind the shrine that she so commonly frequented. Most of those attending were the females of the village with ages between what looked to be adolescence to mid twenties. It was taught by the old sage who had been so meticulous in her care of the newcomer. Under her tender touch and motherly care the ailments that had persisted through death and life were cleaned away like a soul that had been filtered with the grime removed. She could run again and often had been enjoying the freedom of her joints and most of all, the feeling of the long thick platinum strands in her face.

CRACK!

In unison all in attendance lashed with the flexible weapons and in unison they struck the thatch target dummies in front of them. The air was thick and full of humidity and she'd been unable to wipe the sweat from her face due to the nature of the training. She was sore all over from the workout- but it was a cathartic pain. Her skin was covered in circlets of sweat that took their drawn out time slowly pooling together and lining her form. Each time she struck the dummy she could feel beads leaping from her skin only to have two more replace them.


CRACK!

"Forms are important." Noted the elderly sage who was inspecting them all as she passed by, prodding them in the legs and sides where their form was slipping.

"Forms keep us honest! They do not allow us to cheat! They do not allow us to break our bonds or rules!" She was drawing closer to the newcomer, a clear foreigner who had been bathing well within the sunlight, however was still plainly from another place or time.

CRACK!

"Yet a form is not meant to govern all logic. A form is a philosophy, not a law!" She watched the foreigner close and had yet to move while watching the adaptation on the lesson. Close but not exact, similar in principles yet changed.

"Water cannot be struck. Water has no form. You pour it into a cup and it is the cup. You pour it into a teapot and it becomes the teapot. Water can flow- but it can also crash."

CRACK!

"Obey the principles but do not be defined by them." The words left through the broad smile of the sage before she began wandering towards the path back to the village.

"That is all for today, you may all leave- except you." She of course had beckoned over the newcomer. Without awaiting a response or allowing any time for a breath of fresh air or a drink she began making her way towards and past the lift to the village. The sound of white water could be heard as they approached something both filled with intrigue and beauty. A roaring waterfall spilled down through the tropics and layers of vines and greens, penetrating the veil that allowed no sun and formed something of a beautiful secluded spot; removed from the surrounding world it was a temple of nature.

"Perhaps you have yet to realize it but it was no coincidence that you washed up on these shores." She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. It was clear that she was stricken with age and fatigue, that much had been a burden well kept from the tribe. Yet the aging lines in her face and the way that her own silver eyes looked weary and tired held no lies to the truth.

"I too was like you, stranger. Washed ashore upon a strange and bizarre land. An island lush and full of life yet removed from the world I once knew. We are here, we are tangible and we are living. Yet are we alive? Are we a part of the world you once knew? The answer lies within here." She held her right hand across her chest where her heart was beating fragile things.

"Your story does not end here. We are just a temporary stop for you, as it was for me on my first arrival. I have brought you here so that you might remind yourself what it truly is to remember. To claim your name once more." She led her along to the slick moss-covered stones that were eternally drenched in the clear water that plummeted from high above. She removed the outerlaying clothes so that all that remained was the tight gauze around her upper body and lower.

"Water can flow or crash. You have experienced its flow yet to reclaim yourself and your past you must allow it to crash once more. You will remain under these walls until you may arise, as who you once were- not simply the shell that you have become."

Nothing was left to be said or heard as far as the sage was concerned. She abruptly turned and left with the clothes and bamboo weapon in hand. Away she went, slowly and precisely, becoming nothing more than the green in the trail. At first she felt as though she might have been crushed under the weight. Each moment replicated being crushed by boulders and bones that had been so brittle until recently felt like they were going to snap. But they didn't. Skin which had been hardened and cracking in the sun's heat was now smooth and strong, versatile and resilient. Her muscles which had been weak and suffering from malnutrition were abused by the falls, beaten in every single spot, yet remained upon her. Deep breaths were had as she closed her eyes. What came to her next was both surprising and consuming- a bright light and her view of it from the bottom of a mat.


Well tried Clarice, but Lilly defends IceDancer!

[Hope]

A thousand needles fell from the ridge overhead and shattered against her skin. She used to bear the weight of her worlds upon her shoulders and often enough she figured it might one day break her at the knees. Never before had she understood such a colossal weight; a smoldering fire within her being that left every inch of her immobile in the days to come. In the misty dew she relished the touch of the cool damp grass against her feet. Before venturing to the familiar falls she adopted a guilty pleasure that soon evolved into something integral. With a bamboo lance and the logs which she fixed to the clearing she danced until the sun rose and spread its warmth across the land. At first she had fallen. She fell quite a lot honestly, a resentment had been taking seed in her heart towards her inability. Each time she fell she could recall the blinding lights above her where she lay; a dream of the past which gripped her still.

The sun had not risen on this day. The rain fell and slicked her step along the miniature totems which she danced. Above went the lance with a spiral in the hands as her feet mimicked the motion below. Her left leg rose out while her form bent down and back at the waist. Like water she flowed with the staff as an extension of herself, tapping along each of the other totems before she abandoned her sole footing for the palm to suspend her vertical. The trick had been the steadfast nature which she was indoctrinated- no allowance to bend. You could only break from enough pressure. What appeared on the surface to have been a tailored perfection was little more than the wind churning the shards of water into her face and how she chose to avoid it. Simple principles: stay on the totems and never stop moving. It hadn't taken long before the practice became habit, the habit ritual and the ritual indoctrination.

Vacated logs watched her as she tread along the path towards the shrine which she had come to love for its serenity. Two unnamed sparring partners had awaited her on each day. At first it had been a simple act of besting them in a first-to-strike bout. Progressively it had become more daunting of a task which might include disarming each. As she approached now, the old sage could be seen behind the two with a curved smile on her wrinkly face.

"Today foreigner, you must defeat them both." She said with a flick of her fingers in the direction of the silent silver-haired girl, who sported a bronze flare to her.

As she took her stance with the staff carefully spinning between her hands she extended her right foot outward and slowly began eating space between the closer of the two.

"Oh I forgot to mention... today you will be fighting them at once." By the time the last syllable was spoken aloud the farther of the two sprinted within two yards of her before taking to the air while drawing a spear from the closer.

She was caught off guard by the unique twist that faced her in the dreary downcast; that was something that should have stuck out like a sore thumb in her mind, how since she had awoken there had been no rain, until now. To deflect the initial airborne attack wasn't of much difficulty- rather with a spin and a two handed pronated grip she swung the bamboo violently to deflect the jagged arrowhead spear. Through the air she could hear the whistling of the shorter blade coming at her from the left and on the lighter touch of her feet she spun swinging the bamboo to abruptly strike the sword.

CRACK!

"You've got to be kidding me..." She uttered the words as the larger staff broke in two, leaving her with shorter halves in her hands. Without the grace of a moment to catch her breath the blades came forth once more and she was on the retreat but outpaced.

"It would take countless years for water to break a boulder. Yet it would take no time at all to flow around and over. To simply surpass the dam would suffice; one must not destroy it." The sage nearly cackled as she saw the weapon break in two.

Striking her place in the path she was able to twirl her grip into a reverse on one of the halves, now wielding it backhand. A vicious strike of her own had left her without the means to wield another. As the twin pair began their assault once more she had to steady her breaths and in the proceeding moments, she could hear the rain falling around her. Discipline wasn't a matter of being beaten a thousand times until you could finally execute an act perfectly- no it was nothing like how she was taught and raised. It was finding the will to do what needed to be done and matching it with the patience to wait for the right opportunity and the skill to execute it.

Half an hour had dragged on by with the same notion of two hawks trying to carve up a resilient koi fish. Unfortunately for them inspiration had come in the most dire time for this koi as she spent her time widdling down their stamina in an elaborate evolution of cat and mouse. Once the two moved with a slug to their steps and their shoulders began to rise and fall, she knew her window when she saw it. Precise and quick she slipped behind them and delivered a strike to their calves which brought them down. As was customary, she assumed the sage would point out her faults afterwards and express how 'slow' and 'boring' she was to watch. However the sage was not there.

She began to head up the path towards the shrine as she always did.

[Hope]

Ominous were the chills that crawled down her spine with the groaning wind that bent and sent brittle limbs in agony. Above there was only visible spiraling clouds of grey and black and a few brushed strokes of white that were mingling within one another. It hadn't taken long at all before her throat began to resemble a Chinese finger-trap, being tugged on either end and constricting so tightly at the base and throughout. Within her stomach lied a contortionist with no equal; her insides felt as though they were twisting and clawing to find their own escape. A walk she had done maybe fifty times recently had suddenly changed with the simple sound of raindrops falling overhead and the muted, deaf surroundings. There were no birds whistling, no rumbles in the bushes and no fearless felines to leap out at her now.

It was silent.

As she rose beyond the final steps and began nearing the house of a thousand whispers she was confronted with an automatic response that she couldn't quite understand. It looked as though the clever designs of an architect had been corrupted into a putrid thing. Smooth contours that made it breathe and come to life were daunting and imposing- harsh to the eyes in the monochrome sky. The way the rain fell and broke atop the jagged tiles was filling her with a feeling of unease and gripped her heels as she walked as though she were wading through waist high sludge. The air was thick and palpable on her tongue- the taste was of steel in the rain and a sterile rust that clung to the bottom of it had her scrunching her face in discontent.

It was all wrong.

Massive barricades that denied entry were left ajar on the perfect angle to allow her to slip within. As she entered the sudden vacuum that was felt behind her accompanied the deafening noise of the gatekeepers slamming shut. She turned once to stare up in awe at how such a colossal instrument was effortlessly shut and when she turned back...

[Hope]

It was the first time the interior had been lit well enough for each microscopic feature to be digested by her silver spheres. Flames raged within the recesses of the expansive temple. The sage stood within the center just beside the monolith that incarcerated the hilt.

"Took you long enough." Cackled the shorter woman as she lifted her cane towards the farther end of the shrine where a set of silver, green and white armor was suspended.

"You're going to be needing that so I suggest you get to it." The woman kept her patient and complacent smile on her wrinkled face while setting the cane back down and resting her hands atop it.

"I don't under-" She began to speak through her lips as she began making her way over to the armor.

"You will understand soon enough. Tell me stranger- what is your name?" In the delivery of the question the meaning had been strangely lost in translation. Whether it had been rhetorical or not she felt an immense pain split into her skull.

"Surely you have a name, everyone has a name. If you didn't, that'd just be silly!" Her laugh was accompanied by some spit that flew and it was quite disgusting. However she couldn't focus on her disgust over the growing pain in her skull.

"Doesn't that strike you odd? You don't know where you're from, how you speak our tongue, why you are able to best our fighters with ease- but you don't even know your name." As the woman spoke her words became filtered and distorted. The walls began to move like a puzzle that was comprised of cubes. She paused as she stared at the spectacle with keen eyes; the cubes began rearranging themselves while the flickering flames ebbed within the building.

"You better hurry up because I don't think they're going to wait." She pointed her cane, as she was now standing beside her towards three arches that had been forged from the labyrinth shifting of the stones. From said arches three massive stone figures began marching towards them. Two paused as they drew close to the monolith while the third began charging towards them.

"Your past is eluding you yet it must be buried. It is attempting to keep you from pushing on. You hear that voice don't you?" The woman spoke with ease and confidence as if she knew it were the truth already.

She had little time to respond and even if she had known what to articulate- it would have simply been impossible as she dove out of the way of the massive stone foot that smashed where she had just been. Frantically she checked back to see if the sage was present.

THWACK!

"I hope you don't plan on fighting that barehanded!" Cue obnoxious cackling as she began walking towards the monolith. She was quick to follow in the sage's steps as she ran up and extended her right hand towards the hilt. A warmth began reverberating from the gauntlet and swallowed her limb in a green aura.

What is broken can be reforged.

She could feel the floor shaking beneath her as the gauntlets closed around the hilt. Her breaths were more finite and less elongated. "Focus, focus."

"What did you say your name was again?" The old woman cackled once more as she struck the foreigner in the leg with the cane.

"Is now really the time for this?!" She could only muster as she began straining under the weight of the hilt and the massive boulder that kept it still from her grasp.

"What is your name child?!" Once more, a desperate plea from the older woman as the stone giant drew closer, now soaring in the air aiming to crush them under its weight.

[Hope]

She could feel the impending doom above her as it was infinitely suspended in the air above. Fractures began drilling into her skull like a railroad spike being hit with a sledge into undisturbed earth. Flashes of a neon lit building poured in front of her eyes. The cold night was bitter against her pale flesh as she started at a glowing LED screen in her hands which was hard to make out because it was smudged with warm tears. She blinked and she was opposed a massive orc coming at her in some type of ring. Another blink transformed it into a man and with another a woman. She could feel her breaths getting tighter and stricter. Before long the lids opened and the hilt slipped out from the massive boulder.

The warm green aura surged through the hilt and the fragment of blade that remained from the shattered blade. It acted as a conduit for the energy that formed a blade and shot up vertical, slicing the giant stone form in half. Before the weight of the halves would come crashing down and crush herself and the older woman they fell victim to evaporation in mid air.

"What is your name?" Once more the question was offered to her but this time she could look towards the second stone figure as it began its sprint towards them.

She held the blade within her right hand as she eyed the beast running rampant towards them. It began shrinking in size as it drew closer and mirrored her in appearance. She stood still as it leaped through the air and drew a mimicry blade similar to the one she held within her hand.

"My name is Clari--" She paused and cut herself off as she lunged with the blade and made a single vertical slice severing it in half as she had the first. "My name is Queen."

[Hope]

The third and final stone statue began a slow approach. With each passing step it shaved off a layer of stone on its surface and began taking form of something familiar- her. It was practically a carbon copy of her by the time it drew near and as it was within ten feet it drew a perfect clone of her weapon and began taking her stance opposite of her. Without a word they encircled one another, every ounce and inch of their statures were mirrored perfectly and their blades traded glancing blows without hesitation or remorse. In their waltz they spun and clashed and pit one will against another. Yet no ground would be gained or lost in the poetic exchange as it raged on for moments turned to minutes in the stagnant shrine. Actions got heavier for her and the blade became like steel in her hands when it lacerated the air and violently jettisoned from the stone form across from her. She could feel her breaths taking their toll and the sweat was making it hard to wield the blade with the armor she now wore.

"You conquered your smitten memories." The sage spoke softly while the oncoming blow slowed down before her very eyes and she could fit an extra breath between her defense.

"You know where you are presently and you may not fully understand why but you know this is necessary." The sound of her staff hitting the floor was shattering to the deafening silence as the stone clone froze in its swing and she could finally ease her shoulders.

"Now you must shed your cicada skin and forge a new path. For what is broken can be reforged."

That line had her face jerking over to the source which was nowhere to be seen. The green radiance engulfed her whole and had her staring at her extended arms with the shard on a hilt that was clutched in her right gauntlet. It was familiar and it was making her complacent. A warmth she had known before, months ago. The aura eventually faded and the stone form slowly began reclaiming its strength; but not before she realized the third and final task presented to her.

Taking the shattered remnants of the blade which she freed in hand she grasped a gauntlet full of the silver hair and slashed at it with the weapon. With a release dozens of silver strands fell to the stone floor and with them went the third and final statue.

"What's broken can be reforged." She gave a kick to the massive wooden door which obstructed her path and it creaked open with a jerk. The blinding sun pierced the veil of clouds and elucidated the dewy path which she'd frequented. Yet there was a fork she reached that she had never noticed before, a path that separated from the usual and led down a greener pasture. Did she return to the village where the sage and the village were most likely waiting for her? Or did she take this newer path and see where it led?

The village didn't see her ever again but they knew that the relics had found a new home.