She heard it before she saw it.
The deer was quite loud and non discreet for an animal of its size and caliber, its species well known for their otherwise vigilant and highly alert nature. Duna observed it for a few moments, deciding that the specimen currently grazing the forest floor a few feet in front of her hiding place was most likely a doe, judging by the lack of antlers and the slightly rounded top of its head between its ears.
Slowly pulling an arrow out of her quiver, Duna placed it across the middle of the bow with the bowstring in the arrow’s nock. Holding the bow at its center with her left hand, she drew the arrow and bowstring with the other while simultaneously aiming for the unsuspecting deer.
Just as she was about to loose the draw, a sudden snapping of a nearby branch echoed through the silent woods, frightening the nimble doe which then bolted away into the early morning light.
Duna cursed, angry with herself for not seizing the moment when she had the chance. She would have to be quick in capturing a replacement for her lost game if she wanted to get back to the village in time before she set off to work at the local inn.
Her grandmother would already be waiting for her for sure by now, as she always does, silently reprimanding her for, once again, going off into the woods all by herself at the break of dawn.
There have been rumors of bandits in the area for a few weeks back now. Duna, however, was not worried about encountering one, for her village was small and bland, consisting mainly of lowly farmers whose daily wages amounted to almost nothing in comparison to the wealthier villages stationed closer to the capital, Scythia, in her home Kingdom of Tyros.
No, bandits were the furthest thing from her mind as Duna Damaris contemplated on settling on a rabbit or returning to her small cottage and her elderly grandmother without their weekly meat rations.
God, damn it. I’ll have to be quick. Maybe she won’t notice me gone.
She snorted. Highly unlikely.
Sighing, Duna picked up her packed quiver and aging bow, slinging them both back over her tired shoulders. Lost in deep thought she failed to hear the breaking of branches behind her and the increasingly louder shouting coming from the direction of her home.
A moment too late, she registered the commotion just as she was about to emerge from the thick foliage of the forest.
Blazing white and bright orange intermingled with angry red flames, dancing on the rooftops and dried up land surrounding the huts and run down cottages of the villagers. People were screaming, running absentmindedly and erratically in and out of burning buildings, as the fires engulfed not only their humble homes but the fragile lives of their loved ones.
Duna flew as fast as her legs would take her.
Stumbling as she went, barely holding her pounding heart in her seizing chest, she begged the gods of old and new and whoever else might be listening that day to spare the life of her grandmother.
She was Duna’s only remaining family, her only safe haven and tether to this miserable world. Her parents had died when she was only three years old, succumbing to a disease of the intestines which even to this day had no known cure. Seeing as she had no siblings and no other living relatives, her already struggling grandmother had taken her in and cared for her since that somber day twenty years ago.
It had been Duna’s mission ever since she was able to take care of herself to pay back her grandmother for all the unconditional love and care that she had shown her in those dark and trying times in the only way she knew how - by likewise taking care of the elderly woman, working any and all jobs that would hire her, no matter the wage – hunting in the woods for their meals when even the long tedious hours at work wore her down.
Duna had never complained, never shown a miniscule sign of dissatisfaction or regret for all of the sacrifices that she gladly put forth every day for the last decade.
Her grandmother was a kind woman, a hard working human being. She painstakingly laboured the small patch of land around their weathered cottage, growing a trifling amount of vegetables and fruits for their basic needs, selling the nuts and wildflowers she gathered once a fortnight at the market of a nearby town. To say that she gave her strength and hope was an understatement.
So, Duna prayed. With all of her young, naive heart and unstained soul, she prayed.
Little did she know that the gods were absent that day.
*
Her home was in ashes. The half rotting roof collapsed in, the heavy wooden beams blackened and toppled over each other in a haphazard way. The windows paneless, the glass in a million little shards on the scorched ground below. Dense smoke drifted to the sky above and across the decaying grass, engulfing and suffocating Duna in its toxic fumes.
Coughing violently while hopelessly attempting to inhale oxygen into her burning lungs, she frantically searched the remains for the one person whose face would obliterate all fears running rampant through her panic-stricken mind.
Seconds turned into agonizing minutes, minutes into torturous hours, and yet there was not a single trace of the elderly woman. Could she have escaped the punishing inferno? Perhaps her worrisome grandmother had grown tired of waiting and had finally gone in search of her while she was still out hunting.
A fragile bud of hope bloomed in Duna’s chest.
Gods, please, let her be alive.
It is said that hope dies last. That all else in one’s life can be irrevocably lost but that hope will always, even then, ultimately prevail.
Duna might have believed that, had she not stumbled upon the scorched remains of a body in their once flourishing vegetable garden. She might have even held on to that feeble belief while she visually examined what little remained of that said body for any clear signs of the person’s identity that would console her breaking heart.
She would have continued to naively hope that, against all odds, her grandmother was still alive, surely searching for Duna as Duna was searching for her. Had it not been for the small coin shaped silver pendant hanging from the disfigured neck, she would have spent the rest of her days in perpetual pursuit for the woman.
But, alas, Fate does not follow the rules of the heart. It does not listen to reason or want. It forges its own path, interweaving an infinite amount of variables, each thread accompanied by its own immeasurable number of finalities.
Wheezing like a terminally ill pulmonary patient, her airways restricted by the sudden shock of her discovery, Duna collapsed as if struck onto the hard ground. Closing her eyes, she let the realization of her grim reality set in.
What madness was this? How could a life that was breathing and thriving just mere hours ago suddenly cease to exist?
It should not be possible. Yet, there, just a few feet away from her, her grandmother’s lifeless body lay motionless, the evidence of the damning fire clear as day.
Duna opened her eyes, staring up into the clear blue sky, the sun blazing warm and bright as if mocking her in her misery.
A single salty tear fell from her right eye, followed shortly by another one from the left. Soon the increasing pressure of the rapid onslaught of emotions was too much, overwhelming Duna with grief and agony and rage. The flood gates that held her sanity broke, her entire body violently convulsing.
She wanted to die; wanted to close her eyes and remain unmoving until her body turned to stone, until weeds sprouted beneath and around her petrified body and animals started grazing the lands once more.
It was not meant to be, for that treacherous organ in Duna’s chest cavity was beating relentlessly, refusing to succumb to such emotional abuse.
Inhaling a lungful of much needed air, she sat up and looked around at her darkening surroundings, becoming acutely aware that nighttime would soon be upon her, and that she not only had no shelter against the cold autumn evening but her grandmother’s dead body still lay where she had accidentally stumbled upon it that life altering morning. She could not leave it like that, no matter the barely recognizable state of it.
Duna owed her grandmother that much, at least.
She would have to be quick if she wanted to bury what remained of the body, for the light from the sky was diminishing rapidly and she had no ulterior light source to illuminate the ground while she worked.
Bolting up, Duna ran to the shed that was by some small mercy still intact and found the shovel that she would need to accomplish her task. She worked without pause, digging until the blisters on her hands bled, not registering the pain that laced her straining arms.
Each strike of the shovel was like a strike to her aching heart. Duna would remember those sounds until she drew her last breath in this unforgiving world.
As the last rays of the dying day finally faded and stars replaced the red and orange evening sky, Duna swore an oath to the Waning Moon. Never again would she be helpless, never again would she allow someone she cared about to be hurt.
As the fates would have it, Duna blamed herself for this ultimate tragedy. For if she had not been out hunting that unusually warm autumn morning, she would have been able to detect the fire in time to get her grandmother away from the furious flames to safety.
If she had been at home like she was supposed to have been, her grandmother would have still been alive.
No, Duna could not forgive herself.
She would faithfully carry the memory of that terrible day like a brand across her blackening heart.
