Memories are Dangerous Things

The far-off noise of passing cars drifts by my ears, I pay the distant traffic no mind. The grave I stand before has been filled for less than an hour. They said it was an accident, but I know better. How many times have I heard those same words said at a different grave site, a different time, a different friend. The oath breaker and his people will continue to fill graves with ghosts to haunt me as long as I hold to my teachings. Headstones extend from the place where I stand in all directions.

What a waste. I hate this standing before the graves of my friends. I cannot bear the thought of Lillian becoming just one more person I grieve, but she will be, she is. When did my care become a curse? When did my compassion and affection become a death sentence?

This has to stop!

Fire burns in my chest, a hand pressing down where my life tries to escape through the tear in my skin. Battlefields are loud but this one has fallen silent.

“If you leave me here alone, I will never forgive you.” I want to laugh at his snarled words, but that would hurt too much. There is a commotion off to my right and more hands grasp at me, brushing his away.

“You hear me, you brave idiot? You die on me here and I’ll kill you.” I reach out my hand to grab hold of his shaking digits. Like I would ever leave him alone.

This is senseless. How could he just… I breathe deeply to calm my rushing thoughts. I force my anger out through my feet. I will do better. Soft steps approach me from behind, and I curl my hand into a fist. My emotions I thought controlled rush back full force.

Go away. Leave me alone! I cannot stand the thought of him here, near her. Some twisted part of me wants to protect her, even when I have already failed.

“I hear it was a lovely service.” His voice is too cheerful for a cemetery, he believes I will do nothing. It grates on my nerves, his arrogance, his voice, the fact that he is right in that assumption.

I still want revenge for what they did to her, I want justice, I want this petty game they play with me to be over. He only allows the silence to stretch for a moment.

“What, do you think yourself too good to answer me now?” I turn to look at my annoyance. He looks like a man out of time, long coat bellowing in the light breeze and his hat tipped just so. He looks nothing like me and my tattered work boots and jeans. My broken heart, his smile.

“Did you forget to update your wardrobe in the past few decades?” I say turning fully toward him, away from Lillian’s resting place. He shrugs indifferently. It makes the rage in my blood boil, but I force it down.

“It still works in Europe, mostly. Besides, you’re allowed to do whatever you want to nowadays.” I want him to know what this existence he is forcing me into is like. This deadly game his people play with my life. I take a step toward him with a snarl. He raises his hand, to defend or to attack, I don’t know.

This has to stop.

I worry probably more then I should, but this is the first time he has ever been out of The School. His long coltish legs eat up the ground as he runs off to my right where I catch flashes of him every few moments. The bandit I pursue has no idea that he has two people on his tail.

We slide to a stop. My prey’s eyes dart to and fro, realizing I have run him into a trap. The brute spins on me with a snarl, ripping a wicked dagger out of a sheath on his waist. Before he can make a move, he is tackled to the ground.

There is no real fight, The School has prepared all of its graduates too well for that. Once the bandit is subdued, my shadow looks over his shoulder at me, uncertainty dancing in his eyes. I smile at him and nod in approval.

I cannot do it. My feet will take me no closer to him. I do not want to hurt him; he knows I could not bear it. I will not fight him. I take a deep breath in and release it dipping my head, my disheveled hair falling into my eyes. He drops his hand, and his eyes soften.

“This is the way it always will be. There is nothing you can do about it.” He is right. We have been spiraling around each other for centuries. I have watched kingdoms fall with him at my side and looked into his eyes on opposite sides of the battlefield. We have been on opposite sides ever since he walked away from his oaths and from here into forever. How could he have lost his way so thoroughly?

“You can’t run forever. He will claim you as one of his own.” I turn away from his words. They are true, but I don’t want to stop running, not now, not ever. Maybe the man across from me cares about the choice I make. I glance up at that stupid smirk. Maybe he doesn’t care. It shouldn’t matter.

This has to stop.

I let out a woosh of air as an over enthusiastic bolt runs into me. He pulls back and grins crookedly at me.

“How did your first assignment go?” he questions in excitement. He has dirt on his face and his hair needs cut, again. The idle thoughts dance through my tired mind.

“It went well, all of the renegades where apprehended.” He jumps around me as I walk my horse toward the stables.

“I can’t wait until I graduate, take my oaths, and can join you! We’re going to save the whole world, aren’t we?”

"Of course,” I tell him ruffling his too long hair. Let him believe in perfect as long as he can. Our oaths are to fight evil wherever it appears; and evil breeds like rabbits.

I close my eyes, refusing to look at him while I make up my mind. He cannot be part of my decision. There really is no decision; I made my oaths long ago. I am a Sentinel; a defender of humanity and I will not be tempted away from my purpose. I open my eyes.

“Tell your master that if he intends for a Sentinel to stand by his side, he should have spared one with a softer head! He will never have me.” I stand my ground for the first time in centuries, I am done running, and that will only be achieved one way.

I call upon the piece of me that I have tried to deny for most of my life, tugging at the very soul of the earth. I swore to myself that I would never do this, but to keep my oaths I will have to break a promise.

Fear dances in his eyes as I advance on him. He is a pawn, a shield to distract me from going after the evil that he has bound himself to.

“What are you doing?” his voice is small, childish in that moment, and I must steel my resolve. I have to go after that twisted abomination that has survived too long whispering lies into the ears of artists and cloaking the good that dares to live on. I reach out, because what else can I do?

This has to stop.

The tension of the bow string strains my muscles. I breathe out half a breath and let the arrow fly. It hits the cloth dummy with a satisfying thwack.

“I know how to do it; I just can’t get it to fly right,” the figure next to me whines. I pull another arrow out of the quiver and hand it to him.

“Then try again.” He glares back and forth between me and the arrow, before taking it sullenly. He notches it and I can see his intent to miss before he has even drawn the bow.

“Hit the mark and I’ll bribe Tess into making bread pudding.” He freezes in his ritual of drawing the bow, I watch as determination grows in his eyes. The arrow leaps from his bow and crashes into the block behind the target; leaving the dummy unscathed. His shoulders droop and the fight drains away.

“Try again,” I tell him handing over a second arrow. He glances at me in question.

“You can try as many times as you need to you just can’t walk away.”  The determination returns to his shoulders. I tell him to widen his stance and I know we will be having bread pudding tonight.

When I reach for him, his own power tries to stop me, that it is not possible now. A Hunter may be able to hide from Death or a Messenger run from her, but only the Sentinels have the power to deny Death’s claim to a life. I grasp his hand as he brings it up in one final attempt to stop me.

“I can’t,” he pleads dread lacing his words. I know this already, there is no going back.

I reach through the soul of the puppet to reach the puppeteer. I take the pen from hand that has been writing this dreadful story for long enough, ending it mid-sentence.

This has to stop.

Hay rustles as the cats romp in the loft above our heads. I slowly part my hands to show him the glowing engraved rune stone in my hand. We both giggle, mischief dancing in our eyes. He parts his hands and shows me the glowing rune he had manage to get.

We sure showed that stuffy nobleman. At assembly he looked down his nose at all of us and said he wouldn’t find anyone who could make his runes glow here; that none of us nobodies had a soul to light a rune on fire.

Sure, the matron is going to be upset, but it will be worth it to see the look on the nobleman’s face. We are too young and dumb to realize that this simple action will change the rest of our very long lives.

I slowly let go of the hand I cling to still. The empty body I have left goes up in flames as tears drip down my chin. I am not permitted to follow him today, no matter how much I want to. I will have to live on. I offer the only thing I can to empty air.

“This has to stop.”

I hold tightly to the small hand in mine. I stare down the building in front of me, determined not to show any fear. Even when I feel it climbing up my throat to poison my tongue.

“Are we going to be all right?” a small squeak asks me. I tell him yes, because he is mine and I am his and I refuse to let the world take away the only good thing the heavens ever gave me.