Let your worries wash away with a song

The Sun had almost set by the time Helia had woken everyone up. The townspeople were initially very grateful, until they noticed the state their homes and inn were in. While not everything was in ruins, it would take some time, and resources, to build back up. After Ceres scolded them for being ungrateful, and one of the Church’s Handlers assured them they would send official help, they calmed down.

It also turned out, some of the Shadows she had purified had very probably been these Handler’s partners, who were presently nowhere to be seen. After the initial confusion, they had tried to form a Pact once again, but were unable to do so.

She was sitting at the shade of a tree near the village entrance, holding her knees with both hands, trying to regain her composure. With the exhaustion, guilt, and unknown people yelling at her, it had taken all of her remaining strength to not burst into tears.

“A dragon, huh?”, said an unfamiliar male voice, sitting near her. “We were taken off guard when it attacked us in sunlight, but I guess that was no match for the famous Helia Aer.”

She looked at him, startled. A young man with gentle eyes and a soft smile, his skin slightly tan  and his hair blond, clearly having spent many a day in the sunlight.

“Oh, but how rude of me”, he added. “I know of you, but I haven’t yet given you, my name. You can call me Arthem. I am one of the warriors sent by the Church to investigate Alfor, and, well, you saw how that went.”

He laughed it off, but she was still speechless. Instead of speaking, she nodded and hid her face in her arms slightly, as she felt it redden. She was definitely getting more known than she felt comfortable with. They sat in silence for a bit, enjoying the evening breeze.

After a while, someone called for Arthem, and he stood up to join them in setting up camp for the night.

“This might be selfish of me, since you have already saved us, but I hope you will grace us with a song tonight at diner”, he said as he left, winking.

Helia burrowed her head in her arms once again, red as a ripe tomato. Ceres joined her shortly after, now in his small form, landing on top of her head.

“Who was that?”, he asked. “What did he want?”

“One of the warriors we saved. He wanted me to sing”, she mumbled unintelligibly.

“He wanted what?”, said Ceres. “Speak up!”

“HE WANTED ME TO SING AT DINER!”, she yelled, frustrated. Two villagers carrying wood stopped in their tracks, surprised, and laughed as they kept going. Once again, Helia buried herself in her own embarrassment.

They called for her once the meal was ready, letting her rest out of gratitude, respect, and a tinge of fear for Ceres. She joined them inside one of the houses that was mostly intact.

Several tables, probably originating from different houses, had been set up on the living room, surrounded by various mismatched chairs. Everyone was sitting down and chattering about when she arrived, but they stopped to stare at her when she entered.

She sat on a free chair at the edge of the table, hoping they could not tell how embarrassed she felt. A middle-aged lady walked up to her and put a bowl of roast in front of her without a word.

“Thank you”, she whispered.

“No, thank you, dear”, she answered. “For saving us all. Eat, sleep, refuel your Soul, and do not worry about anything else for now.”

Helia was eating with a faint smile when the sound of an approaching chair startled her. On top of it sat Arthem, the guy from before.

“Well, if it isn’t the woman of the hour!”, he exclaimed, happily. “Helia Aer, Master Handler and songstress extraordinaire, living up to her reputation.”

Ceres cawed menacingly at him as Helia blushed, but since he was in his small form, it was cuter than it was intimidating.

“Leave her alone, Arthem”, yelled tired-looking Handler with long, dark hair cascading down his shoulders. “Actually, leave us all alone, how do you even have that much energy right now?”

“Hey, hey, I just wanted to try raising the mood”, answered Arthem, raising both hands in defeat. “We could probably use some of that”, he added in a softer voice.

Everyone’s eyes turned to their food in silence, the ambience suddenly even more sombre than before, accentuating Helia’s guilt. Rationally, she knew she wasn’t responsible, and that she had done as much as she could, that the damage was unavoidable. Nonetheless, her emotions had decided otherwise. To atone for her perceived wrongdoing, she finished her food in a flash, and got up before she could change her mind.

“Well then, what do you say to some music?”, she said, taking her lyre out of her bag. “Tonight, let’s celebrate that we are all here, and well. Let’s leave our worries for tomorrow.”

She walked to the back of the room and faced her makeshift audience with an elaborate bow. “Allow me to”, she glared at Arthem, “formally present myself. My name is Helia Aer, traveling bard and Handler.”

With a timid strut, she started playing her lyre. A soothing melody gradually filled the room, soon accompanied by Helia’s voice. Slowly, almost every frown turned into a smile, none brighter than Arthem’s as he looked at her with boundless admiration. She couldn’t help but blush, only this time, it was for a different reason than usual.

The end of her song was met with a warm round of applause, followed by someone yelling “Another one!”, to which she, of course, obliged. Soon thereafter, there was dancing and laughter, and they partied into the night.

As the Sun rose, waking Helia up, as usual, she somewhat regretted it. She was sleeping on the floor, inside her trusty sleeping bag, surrounded by displaced villagers, merchants, and Handlers. She tossed and turned, trying to force her body to go back to sleep, but she knew it was a lost battle. With a resigned sigh, she got up, doing her best not to wake anyone else up.

She walked outside, where Arthem was talking with one of the villagers. They had formally forbidden her from joining the rotating guard duty that had been on the lookout for any more Shadows.

Arthem waved at her while sporting a gentle smile, so she joined them. She recognized the other man as the one who had owned the inn, Karl, an elder gentleman with only a few grey hairs reminding the world that he used to not be bald. They pushed the plate full of bread and cheese they had been sharing towards her, and she gladly accepted their offer.

“You should have slept longer”, the inn-owner scolded her.

“Sorry”, answered Helia while nibbling on some bread. “I always seem to wake up with the Sun. A learned habit from my childhood”, she shrugged.

Arthem looked at this with enigmatic, curious eyes. “A childhood story about the famous Helia Aer? I’m sure I can make some profit from this!”, he said, laughing.

“Oh, it’s nothing that interesting. Surely, no one would care”, said Helia, feeling her cheeks become slightly red.

“Well, I am interested”, retorted Arthem, looking at her with his intensely blue eyes.

“Ah, well, uh…”, she stuttered. “It’s nothing fancy, just another orphan who tried to make a living singing on the streets, but I got lucky and met a Great Spirit who, for some reason, wanted me to form a Pact with him.”

Both men waited for a few seconds in silence, staringat her expectantly.

“And the waking up at sunrise?”, asked Karl, reminding her what they had actually been curious to know.

“Oh, right, yes, that, well, Mother used to wake me up to help with the farm”, she lied, looking at her bread with guilt. “As I said, nothing interesting.”

Of course, this was not the real reason. Ever since she had memories, she could remember Mother bringing her to the east-most cliff near the village to watch the Sun rise from the ocean. There, the whole village joined together in prayer, thanking Her for gracing them with Her light another day. For a long time, she didn’t really care about the praying aspect, but she loved the singing, so she didn’t complain.

All things considered; Helia felt like she had a relatively normal childhood. Other than the forbidden Sun worshiping, of course. After morning prayer was done, she had breakfast with her parents, went to school, and helped around with chores at home. Their village was hidden deep in the mountains and self-sufficient, so to her, it was the entire world.

She was also aware that the worshiping of the Sun was forbidden outside of her village from a young age. That the outside people were afraid of Her power, but still, someone had to keep doing the work, and they had been chosen to do so.

“We are protecting the whole world, even if they despise us for it”, Mother had told Helia when she had come to her with her worries. “After all, wouldn’t they also suffer if She stopped rising in the mornings, punishing us for our ungratefulness? It is our duty. Remember, dear daughter. Helping others is always the right choice, even if you have to put yourself at risk. The world would be a much better place if everyone did that.”

A very young Helia had felt immense pride hearing this explanation.

When the village was attacked, it wasn’t entirely unexpected. They didn’t know if they had been betrayed, or if someone had come across them by chance, and they never would. The Sun Priests, all of them Handlers, tried to fight back, but they were outnumbered and outmatched. Merciless warriors clad in red and white poured into the tiny settlement, without ever even directing a single word to them. Men, women, and children, everyone who knew of the Sun cult, of its rituals, its values, were promptly disposed of.

In one single night, everyone and everything she knew went up in smoke. She fled into the woods, so bloody and wounded that her attackers didn’t even deem it worth it to follow her, knowing she would soon lose her life anyway. And she would have, were it not for the whims of the Moon.

When she was a little child, she used to say that when she grew up, she wanted to become a priestess, because they were the people who got to sing the most often. Which, in a twisted way, she had achieved. Fate has a tendency to be funny like this, sometimes.

Still, she would give anything and everything away to get them all back.

Both men she was sharing breakfast with knew better than to keep prodding about parents to someone who had just told them she was an orphan. Especially one with such a sad expression on her face. They ate in silence, watching the Sun rise slowly above them, and with it, everyone else in the village.

Handlers, warriors and merchants prepared themselves to leave for their respective destinations, most of them going back to the capital in one single convoy. Meanwhile, the people of Alfor had already started to work on cleaning up the debris and building their homes back up.

“Will you travel with us?”, Arthem had invited her. “A carriage is always better than walking, and having you come along will ease everyone’s anxiety.”

“I apologize, but I can’t accept”, Helia had been forced to refuse. “I have another stop on the way before the capital. However, I can charge your lumiranite, if you want?”

They had gladly accepted her offer, and after making sure all their weapons and supplies were fully ready to battle any Shadows they might encounter, the group left.

To be honest, she would have loved nothing more than to sit down on a carriage and let herself be carried back to Raurein. But sadly, the Full Moon was coming up, and she had to tend to that.

And so, she stayed for a few more hours in Alfor, helping clean up as much as she could with her Handling. When she was sure the convoy would be far ahead enough, she set off in the same direction, charged with all the provisions the townspeople had forced her to accept, and a new song in her mind.