Memories of a different life

For once, Helia wished she was a Light Handler as she pretended to be, instead of a Divine one.

She had heard that the most skilled Light Handlers could create masterful illusions, rendering themselves essentially invisible, or changing their appearance to the eyes of others on a whim. Both these options seemed very enticing to her right that moment.

When Arthem had gone into a city to buy supplies, he had told her that there were posters around with her face and name. A price had been set for any information about her current whereabouts. That alone was bad enough, but it wasn’t the only reason.

In the years since the Church had developed Handling as a defense against Shadows, she had gotten used to having a dry place to sleep in and a warm meal. With a steady income, and the churches offering a free place to rest in most towns, the nights where she had to camp out were now few and far between. Now, being on the run, she had to once again sleep under the bare sky, at the mercy of the weather.

Except now, with Shadows being everywhere, that wasn’t really a viable option for most. Thankfully for her, Ceres had offered to keep guard while they slept, and would wake them up if he sensed a threat.

“Won’t it be easier if we all sleep during the day and journey during the night, instead?”, had offered Helia. “It will be pretty inconvenient if you have to sleep all day while we walk.”

“Don’t worry about it, as a Spirit, I don’t really need to sleep”, had been his answer. Helia stared at him with wide eyes, incredulous.

“WHAT?!”, she had cried out in response, frightening all the critters of the forest in their vicinity. “But you sleep so much! All the time! I can’t ever wake you up in the mornings!”

“I just like it”, Ceres shrugged in response.

Helia was completely dumbfounded, mouth agape, not knowing how to even respond to that amount of audacity. She picked Ceres up from his resting spot on top of her head with both hands, and was about to start shaking him as she yelled some more, but she was interrupted by Arthem, who couldn’t hold his laughter in anymore.

“What’s so funny?”, they both turned to him and asked at once, Helia still holding Ceres like a sandwich, which only made him laugh harder.

“Sorry, I’m sorry, it’s just…”, he said, catching his breath. “I’d heard so much about the powerful Moon Priest, and their might Great Spirit, but you two just…”, he had another laughing fit. “You’re just like my small siblings when they fight over who gets the last cookie.”

Helia and Ceres looked at each other, suddenly realizing the position they were in, and they also started giggling. Their giggles quickly turned into full on laughter as well.

“Yeah, I guess we do”, said Helia after she had calmed down. “I was an only child, but I saw some of my friends with their siblings, and now that you say it, it checks out.”

“In a way, all other Spirits are my siblings, but you’re the only one I want to bully, so I’d say that checks out, too”, said Ceres, gently pecking at Helia’s hand to make her free him. He then proceeded to fly to her head once again, deliberately making as much of a mess as possible of her hair. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to take a nap.”

Helia closed both eyes and inhaled strongly, doing her best not to take his bait. She focused her attention on Arthem instead.

“So, you have siblings?”, she asked him.

He seemed surprised about her question. “Yeah, a girl and a boy, twins. When I last saw them, they were six years old. I wonder if they would recognize me if they met me now.”

Arthem directed his eyes back to the road ahead, his face full of melancholy. Not knowing how to respond without being too awkward, Helia waited for him to continue.

“Just like you used to do, every morning they also wake up at dawn for prayer. Only afterwards, they go to war training, which I doubt you had”, he proceeded. “From the moment we can hold a weapon, we are forced to learn to use it. If you don’t grow into an acceptable warrior, you have to become a Handler, and either fight like that, or assist with the research on Shadows.”

The way he emphasized the word “assist”, Helia guessed it was neither voluntary, nor pleasant. She put her hand on his shoulder to reassure him, and he smiled.

“Back in the sewers, you said that they knew about Shadows before everyone else, but chose not to share the knowledge”, her question was implicit in her statement.

He nodded. “The prophecy talks about darkness invading the world as a sign that the Moon Priest has arrived. Because of that, plus the fact that we were being trained on lumiranite weapons, and tested for affinity with secondary Handling types, the only possible conclusion is that they knew. Maybe not the details, but still, enough to be prepared when everyone else wasn’t.”

“The Matriarch and the Council, they sit on their big chairs and pretend to make sacrifices while they let everyone die and suffer”, Arthem clenched his fist almost imperceptibly. “We are supposed to follow them blindly because of some prophecy that we aren’t even allowed to see by ourselves, while ignoring what we see happen with our own eyes, if it doesn’t align with their interests.”

“But…”, started Helia, before hesitating. Arthem looked at her expectantly, encouraging her to continue. “Why would they keep it all a secret? Wouldn’t it be much easier to find the Moon Priest if everyone knew? Also, why let the Shadows run rampant? It makes no sense.”

“It’s tied to the secret of the Sun and Moon being Gods”, he answered. “Apparently, having too many worshipers for the Sun Goddess would also be dangerous. They want to control exactly how many there are. If no one knows they are Gods, hopefully there will be no one praying for them.”

“As for the Shadows… They serve as proof that the Moon Priest exists, and is active. I guess the Council was wary of a workaround where the world still ends, but the supposed darkness in the prophecy doesn’t arrive as a warning”, he stopped for a second, visibly disturbed. “And now that the Shadows are already here, they just don’t care. Only them, and their precious mission, matter.”

Helia couldn’t help but be disturbed as well. She knew evil and selfish people existed everywhere, but it was still hard to wrap her head around them being humans just like her, only with complete disregard for anyone other than themselves.

“I’m sorry”, she blurted out. Arthem stared at her, slightly confused. “I mean, well, it must have been very hard to grow up like that, and even more to realize that you don’t agree with everyone else around you. Especially if they are family.”

He blinked a few times, surprised, then smiled warmly at her. “It was, but I had to, or I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself”, he paused. When he resumed, his voice was noticeably gentler. “There used to be a village near where I grew up. Of course, I was forbidden from going, but they were close enough that sometimes, when the children played around in the nearby fields, I could see them clearly. Over time, I recognized them, and gave them made up names. I used to pretend I joined them, and we played together. They didn’t know me, but I still considered them my friends.”

“One night, shortly after it all started, Shadows attacked that village. We could see it happen from my house. I was horrified; I wanted to go help. I thought that, surely, this was why we trained so much? But the adults didn’t let me, and they didn’t go themselves, either”, he exhaled with disgust. “We can’t risk attracting attention, they said. Also, that we need to look out for unknown Handlers who can purify corrupted people, to find the Moon Priest. But that never happened, and one by one, the townspeople were consumed.”

Arthem looked at Helia as if he had just realized something. “Not that I blame you for that, of course. They just used you as an excuse to further their own agenda”, she nodded to reassure him, all while blaming her own powerlessness nonetheless.

“That’s the day I began to question everything. However, I’m no one, and they wouldn’t let me see the prophecy by myself. I was punished for doubting orders, and for asking questions. I’m not the only one, by the way. But we usually, mysteriously, get sent to the most dangerous missions, and disappear.”

“So, I feigned rehabilitation. I became the most devout to the cause, and vowed to find the Moon Priest myself. With your help, I can reach the prophecy, and we can end the corruption of the world, and the Council, together”, he finished, staring at his now closed fist.

Helia recoiled slightly. “That’s a lot, you know. I’m just a girl with a Spirit. I didn’t ask for any of this.”

He looked at her, his blue eyes shining with all of his expectations. “I know, and I’m sorry for that. But you are a part of it, whether you like it or not, ever since you were born in a Sun cult. Only now, you have the chance, and the power, to make them pay for what they have done to you.”

It was as if he had taken her heart and squeezed it. She still found it hard to believe that the people who had taken everything from her had a name, that they were real outside of her nightmares. The Solarists.

At first, she had feared city guards and soldiers, but their uniforms were very different from the almost ceremonial red and white of those who killed her family. Not like she trusted them implicitly, anyway. Contrary to what she had wanted to believe as a child, she had been forced to learn that not everyone in a position of power, even minor ones, was there with good intentions.

Now, she knew who the culprits were, supposedly. Also, where to find them. The rage she had suppressed for so many years was fighting to come back to the surface, demanding vengeance. It fought with the voice at the back of her head, the one who always told her how useless and incapable she was, laughing at her audacity. After all, the Solarists were many, all trained warriors and Handlers, and she was just… Herself. In the midst of that turmoil, a third force also tried to get on top, the one reminding her that, no matter what she did, it wouldn’t bring her family back. Senseless violence went against everything she wanted to be and believe in.

Helia’s heart remained tied in an impossible knot of emotions while they walked.

Night fell, and they prepared to camp. Helia was setting their sleeping bags up, still not over the fact that Ceres didn’t need to sleep, even after so many nights. At least, it explained why he had always been able to mysteriously wake up without trouble when Shadows were near, which she had been wondering about for a while. Arthem was lighting a fire up when suddenly, they heard a scream.

“Shadows”, stated Ceres. Immediately, Helia got up, ready to run towards the source.

Arthem stopped her. “It’s too risky.”

She shook off the hand that had grabbed her. “I don’t care. And I thought you didn’t, either.”

Before he could respond, Helia was gone, with a small Ceres standing on her shoulder, looking back at him smugly.

“Damn it!”, he yelled, taking off after her.

The forest ended a dozen meters from where they had camped, and a small village stood amidst farmland. Now that they were closer, they could hear more screams, and growling. The lights of both lumiranite and fire flickered in the darkness of the night, as if fighting it.

Suddenly, a lightning fell from the sky. Arthem looked above him, confused, to a perfectly clear sky, where the Moon shone brightly, mocking him.

They ran past the first houses and arrived in a small plaza illuminated by firelight lamps. In it, a group of people were huddled together, trying to make themselves as small as possible before the massive Shadow attacking them. It stood on its two hind paws and used the forefront ones to swing at them violently, like the nightmare of a giant bear.

Arthem readied his lumiranite polearm while Helia drew an arrow, both of them prepared to jump into the fray.

Before they could intervene, a shining blade cut through the Shadow with several precise slashes. A powerful howl flew into the night, startling them. As the shadowy foe dissolved, the form of its vanquisher became visible to the trio.

An imposing wolf Spirit, covered in golden and navy fur. It stood almost as tall as a human, and in its mouth, it was holding an ornate lumiranite sword. No, it would be more accurate to say that it was wielding it. On the wolf’s body, several leather belts converged on its left side, securing a scabbard, presumably for the sword.

More, smaller, Shadows came out from the darkness to attack the townspeople. With a swift turn, the Spirit dealt with most of them, the few remaining ones suddenly getting hit by lightning. The wolf’s fur crackled with electricity, ready for more. But that was all of them.

It relaxed slightly, then turned towards Helia, Ceres and Arthem, who were still stunned near the entrance of the plaza. With its imposing form, and intense, dark eyes fixated on them, it spoke directly into their minds with a deep, female voice.

“Did you see that? Aruka protected everyone! Aruka is a good girl!”