The Old Hero

Tap. Thumb, pinkie.Thumb, ring. Thumb, middle. Thumb, index.

Again.

Tap. Pinkie, ring, middle, index.

It wasn't working this time.

“Okay. Breathe,” she muttered to herself. “Just try another.”

She let her hands slide to the hem of her shirt. Slowly she rolled it up, only about an inch then rolled it back down.

Again.

Again.

Again, until she was okay.

But the world surged around her once again.

“No,” she says louder. “Not now. I have to get out of here.” Her voice is shallow and fearful as she rushes from the busy street.

The world rushes around her as she tries to rush away from the rest of the world. Too many people. Too much going on. Too much like the past.

Her steps get faster and faster until she is running full out away from the crowds of people in the busy market. Keeping her head down to avoid their gazes she just ran. She ran until she looked up and realized that she had found the edge of the town.

She gasped for breath trying to calm herself.

“Breathe, you are okay,” she told herself. “You are okay.”

After a few minutes she had claimed herself down enough to move again, but this time to find a well and get water. Water would clear her a bit more, she thought. Clear enough to keep going.

Where she had run to the edge of the town made it easy to get to the well and she made the short walk quickly as she wanted to get going. I wanted to leave the past behind her.

As she got closer to the well she could hear the faint strumming of a lire. Some minstrel must be playing, she thought as she got closer and closer. But as she was almost to the well and her clarity she heard the lyrics he was singing.

“As darkness became the night,

Our heroes were unprepared for the fight.

Their bravado and swagger made them stager,

As their blades shattered.

We know this story is not a lie,

As almost none survived.”

The final words had her frozen in place. Her vision flashed as she saw the shattering of a sword, hammer, knives, and arrows and the splatters of blood that came after.

The story of the great heroes.

The story of a group of friends.

The story of a family who was torn apart.

Her breathing became ragged as she turned once again away from the people. Turned away from a story she never needed to be told. She started walking away again. Not running but walking while trying to keep herself from falling apart completely.

As the first tear fell she knew she wouldn’t keep it together. She couldn’t keep it together. Not after all this time and she could still see it as if it was yesterday..

Her steps swayed as she cried and her breathing became faster and faster. Her vision swam, not only from the tears but she was beginning to feel lightheaded. She wasn’t getting enough oxygen, she realized.

She looked and walked to the next building close to her and leaned on the outside. Still crying heavily and breathing quick shallow breaths, she slid to the ground resting her forehead on her knees trying to get herself under control. A few moments later a voice spoke.

“Breathe, Love. Breathe,” the voice says next to her. Someone had come up to her but she was too caught in her own head to hear anyone approach. “Inhale. 1, 2, 3. Exhale. 1, 2, 3. Inhale. Exhale. There you go, Love.” Female she deduced, older female.

The older woman sat down in front of her, but the girl was so light headed she couldn’t pick her head up much. The older woman placed her hands on the girl's knees and rubbed soothing circles as she continued to talk to her though slowing her breathing. The world began to slow.

Her breathing slowed and almost stopped as she took her in. Her hands were worn and wrinkled as she continued to rub soothing circles on her knees. Her skin freckled and darker with silver hair. A woman that spent so much time outside that her skin showed the effect of it.

But it was not skin or hair that caught the interest of the girl but the bright blue of the old woman's eyes. A nagging feeling poked her in the back of the head. The girl could have sworn that she knew those eyes but couldn’t place where she knew them from.

“Now, Love, are you okay to talk?” The elderly woman asks.

“I-,” her voice comes out a bit raspy, and she clears her throat. “I think so, mam.”

“Good, because it is time for tea and you could use a cup as well,” she says expectantly as they both stand slowly brushing themselves off.

The elderly woman then takes her arm and leads them to her home, not giving her a choice with her firm manner. The two went into the home and the old woman put a kettle on the fire that was still going and had the young girl sit at the table.

Before the elderly woman had sat down herself she had gotten everything ready for the tea, as well as plate some cookies that the girl could tell were fresh. For a moment the two of them just looked at each other.

“Now talk,” the older woman commanded.

“About what?” The girl asked.

“Your favorite color,” the older woman said. The girl looked at her question before starting to answer.

“My-”

“Not about your favorite color,” the woman cut her off. “About what the hell made you have a panic attack.”

So the old lady was not as nice as she seemed, the girl thought. No, not mean but curt.

The girl just stared at her blankly for a moment.

“I know people don’t just have panic attacks for no reason and the only way you are going to get through them is by taking it though. You are not always going to find someone as nice as me who will talk you down from whatever mental high you are on so you need to talk it through now or you never will.”

The girl takes a deep breath.

“The song,” she said quietly. “The one the minstrel was singing.”

“What about it set you off?” The older woman asks, not prying but urging the girl to keep talking it out.

“It hurts to hear it, and it reminded me of losing them again,” she whispered.

“Who were they to you?”

“My everything, the family I had made for myself.”

“And where are they now?”

“Gone.”

“Was it your fault they died?”

She hesitated, “Yes.”

“Was it really your fault or do you just blame yourself?”

“Yes.”

The tea kettle started to whistle and the woman got up to take the kettle off the fire. As the old woman’s back was turned a tear slipped from onto the young girl's cheek.

“I warned them but they didn’t listen, if I had tried harder they could still be here. If I had gotten up faster they would still be here,” the girl reasoned with the woman.

“But you didn’t,” the woman said bluntly, her back still turned. “You didn’t and now you are here. Why do you think that is?”

“I don’t know.” The girl’s voice breaks as she says the words.

The older woman turned back around, “Because the world is not done with you yet. I am not saying that the world was done with your family, but you still have more you can do for the world. They may be gone but you are not.”

The girl looks up to the woman as she comes back with the mug of tea.

“As much as it does not feel like it, you are not done with this world and it is not done with you,” the old lady says.

“And what can I do with it? I am so broken I can’t walk though a market without being dragged into my memories,” the girl counters.

“I know. I saw you in the market and then saw you run from it, and I followed to make sure you were alright. And as it turns out I was right and here we are,” the older woman states.

The girl stared at the woman and really looked at her and asked, “Have we met before?”

“Who are you?” The old woman counters.

“My name isn’t important,” she shoots back.

“I didn't ask for your name, I asked who you are? Do you give up when one event does not go your way? Do you sink or swim? Do you get back up after you fall?” The old woman persisted. “Because if you are the woman I remember, you pick yourself up and keep moving, keep fighting.”

“When?” She asks in a breath.

“I guess you do save quite a few people, and it was fifty years ago.” The girl's eyes go wide as she looks into those blue eyes.

“The kidnapping,” she mutters.

“You haven’t aged a day,” the old woman says with a sad smile.

“The reason I haven't aged is the same reason the others are dead and I am not.. ”

“And why is that?”

“I am half fae. Don’t have the pointed ears or the magic but do have the lifespan and healing. Guess I am from a not so powerful family line,” she scoffed but became more serious as she continued. “At the beginning of the fight I was thrown into the wall and knocked unconscious. As I was coming to the others were fighting the monster but I still couldn’t move. I couldn’t move as their weapons did nothing against it.” The girl's voice cracked. “By the time I could move the monster was on the other side of the room with its back to me about to finish off Luca and Damian. I took my dagger and jumped on its back and stabbed it between its helmet and pauldron and then it fell.”

The old woman took her hand.

“Once we were sure it was dead, we tried to save the others that had been injured but their deaths were inevitable with their injuries. But I didn't have a scratch on me. Damian and Luca blamed me, saying that I could have done more. I was okay after the fight but I didn’t heal fast enough to do anything. I was okay after the fight but only because I had had enough time to heal. I couldn’t have saved them.”

The older woman slowly stood up and moved around the table and opened her arms to the girl. She leaned into the older woman's arms, and the girl continued as they embraced.

“I couldn't have changed a thing but they didn’t believe me and were so angry that they made me leave. So I left and went to the town of my origin and tried to find the truth about my family. I talked to my mother and half siblings but was rejected and scorned by them because I was only half. Half sibling and half human. My father, I have never met but my mother couldn't even tell anything about him besides he was fae, so I could never find him even if I wanted to. So I began to wander ever since to try and get over everything. I stopped counting the passing years after I stopped aging and after a while I just lost track. There was no one around to keep track of.”

“Oh, Love. You don’t need to get over anything. That means that you are leaving it behind. You do not need to forget the past but you don’t let it define you. You can grow from the past and let it be your guide. It doesn't define you,” the woman says gently but firmly.

After another moment they released each other.

“Thank you so much, for this I really needed it. How can I thank you?” the girl asks.

“Just help people like you did for me all those years ago.” The two women smiled at that.

“I want to remember you in the future, and I don’t remember ever getting your name.” The girl says.

“My name is Louana but you can call me Lou. But I would like to call you by your name Geneiveve the Slayer.” The old woman says with a smirk.

“You can call me that but I think I would like to start having everyone call me Gen again. I am old enough that I don’t want to be known by reputation alone. And that is what my favorite people used to call me,” she says with a chuckle.

“You and I both,” Lou says with a smile.