On the Path

"Aren't you hot in that big bear coat?" she asked, not taking her eyes off the thin ledge the three of them were traversing. A pebble, carelessly kicked, tumbled away and fell the hundreds of feet down the side of the living mountain they were working their way across.

The squire clutched at the fur of his great coat absent-mindedly. "A little. But it reminds me of a time I was colder than cold, and that keeps me content." He replied, stepping with surety across the cracking path they were taking. He reached back, to help his compatriots across.

The first was a tiny young thief-girl. She deftly hopped the crevice, without even acknowledging the offer of assistance.

The other was a ranger, clearly out of place on the burning mountainside. With every roaring eruption she cast her glance upwards to the fiery explosions at the top. Her footing was sure and silent, as it always was, but her eyes moved constantly, betraying her discomfort with the stone and the fire that threatened to end them at any moment. The squire knew she must be truly worried when she took his hand without question or complaint. The Ranger was fiercely independent, and uniquely capable. She had refused every offer of assistance he had ever offered her.

But here, on the edge of the smoking mountain, she placed her hand in his without thinking. He helped her across, and when her surprisingly soft hand left his, the thought of it remained in his head.

He shook himself, and adjusted the sword and shield he bore under his coat, hustling to catch up to the Thief.

"Do you think it's really a Demon?" the Thief called back as she nimbly picked her way over the rocks. The path was becoming increasingly treacherous as the mountain shifted and cracked. A thunderous roar erupted from the top, and a new collection of magma was thrust into the air, carried to the other side of the mountain by the winds. The Squire quietly praised Bahamut for his protection and grace.

"Hopefully it's nothing, Fa'ar." the Squire replied. But he gripped the handle of his sword, remembering the testimony of the townsfolk. They had spoken of a demon that had wandered into the town, crackling with arcane energy. It wailed and wandered, destroying everything it touched, until the faithful of the town were able to drive it out towards the mountain. They had thought themselves finished, until the mountain woke.

Could be a coincidence.

Could be a demon.

The Squire set his jaw, and carried on.

"But what if it IS a Demon?" Fa'ar continued inquisitively.

"Then we do our duty." the Ranger answered, with a finality that Fa'ar understood.

Silence fell, and the three of them worked their way up the increasingly unstable pass, to the mouth of the mountain.

The Moment's Truth

Doe was padding silently through the forest, just as The Ranger had taught her. Her ears stretched out between the trees around her, seeking and searching for the dinner she was supposed to bring back. Her eyes travelled slowly over the foliage around her but she paid little attention to them. They were too easily fooled in the forest.

Too easily wooed, The Ranger had told her.

He was immune, of course. For he had burned his heart and it was black. The forest held no beauty for him, only treachery and death. And it was his job to make sure that the forest claimed no more victims than it had. Keep the trods clear. Shepherd the vicious things from the paths of Men. Rescue the fools that wandered from the path, and became lost.

It was this that Doe was learning from The Ranger. But she refused to learn his hate. She paused in her search for a moment, so that she could open her eyes. Really open, and see. See the forest for what it was.

The colours, the patterns. The life that was, that is, and that is budding to be. The ancient and the new, intertwined at her feet and for miles around. The ever continuing motion, the immemorial stillness. It was beautiful to her. The Ranger could no longer see like this, and she pitied him for it. He had cut himself off from the majesty of the forest so that he would not be consumed by it. But Doe would not be consumed. Doe would walk The Ranger's path, but she would not be bound by it. Doe would not become the hate that The Ranger wanted her to be. Doe would learn all that she could from The Ranger, and she would learn all she could from the forest. And then she would be ready. So she revelled, for a moment, in the beauty around her. The majesty was intoxicating.

But distracting, she admitted. She closed herself to the beauty, and forced her eyes to see only the truth. Her truth, this moment's truth.

The tracks.

Dinner had passed through here not long ago. Doe smirked to herself.

It would pass back this way before long, on her shoulders. Less than an hour out hunting, and she was almost ready to return with enough food for days.

Let him find a problem with that, she thought to herself as she slung her bow off her back and slid silently into the trees in pursuit of her prey.