Quiet…
Nothing but the limestone mountains beyond them, the lakes beside them and the sun above him, and the sun was being downright unreasonable for burning his skin without warning. He could feel its sting on the back of his neck and the tips of his ears, not needing a mirror to know that they were in the color of a scarlet red.
His journey had brought him far from home, far from the comforts that he once knew. As he went further and further from the one place that had been the center of his world, the fact that the real world was so much bigger, so much wider hit him as the switch hit the water buffalo that refused to move when it needed to.
He had forgotten how many miles he had traveled, or how many people he had met along the way. There were those that wished him well and sent him along the path in good spirits, while there were others who hindered him, bringing him two steps backwards when he was supposed to trudge a step forwards. Such was the pull of life, it ebbed and flowed, like the waves of the sea, and it was up to him whether to go with the flow, or to go against the currents… At that point, he had given up fighting, knowing that it was pointless to resist, but had retreated to merely taking a deep sigh and continue to where his destiny would bring him.
"He looks very suspicious," said a man to another as he passed by one of the many villages along his way.
"I've seen symbols like that before on other men," yet another remarked in a hushed voice, noting the engravings on the jade amulet that he wore dangling on his side from his belt-sash. "They say men of his ilk will bring death quickly wherever he passes…"
"Come inside you foolish boy!" a middle-aged woman scolded her son who was in his way, doing nothing but stare at him. "Come here before he kills you!"
Strangely, the child did not pay heed to his mother's words, but continued to follow him for a few steps, inquisitively. "He doesn't look like a bad man at all," the child protested despite his mother's warnings. Courage was definitely a trait in the boy, and thus, he turned around and smiled at the boy, knowing well enough that the child could see him even with his beaked hood up.
The mother wasted no time in snatching the child into her arms and running back to her home nearby, bolting the door.
There was nothing he could do during times like this. As he had done countless times before, he could only hold his head up high and continue walking forwards despite the hushed voices and dirty looks that he had garnered.
"You look like you need more than just tea in this hot weather," the serving-woman said to him when he sat down at a rundown tea-shop at the end of the village, situated at the main road that led through the wilderness. From her voice, he could tell that she was not a woman to be trifled with at all. "With all those weapons that you carry and the armor you're wearing, it's a wonder that you aren't dehydrated yet!"
He chuckled and replied, "I have a water-skin close with me at all times, my good woman," he replied and looked up at the woman talking to him, unaware of the beauty that awaited him. He was immediately winded upon looking at her (or was it the heat of summer that caused it?), but he knew that the very instant he met her eyes with his, something stirred from within his mind, like a long forgotten memory…
"Who are you, messere?" a woman dressed in a green gown with red hair asked him as he was about to enter the secret door in the wall that she never knew existed, eyeing the weathered warrior before her curiously.
"Perhaps the most interesting man you've ever met…" he replied surely, with a smirk that would have made the ladies swoon by the row in his prime.
She rolled her eyes, and told him that he was presumptuous man, a statement that he did not refute.
Why did that memory seem so familiar to him when he had never been through any secret passageways? He had never even seen the serving-woman before in his life, so how was it that she was able to draw such a strange memory from him?
The woman sighed and poured him another cup of tea, seeing how quickly he finished his first cup. "Where are you headed, sir?" she enquired further. "Not many people travel by this road at this time of year…"
"I'm heading to the capital city," he answered her bluntly. "I have business there that must be attended to with utmost speed."
The woman pondered his answer and did not probe further. She had heard enough tell that all business in the capital city did not arise from good intentions, or create good outcomes at all. The grain that the farmers give to the government as a form of tax were never enough, while the tributes from the more exotic, southern provinces were never rich enough… She heard enough from the merchants and officials that passed through that road to know that the government was no longer efficient, that its interests were no longer the welfare of the people, but the deepening of the pockets of those that ruled it.
"Well, I hope that you do come back when you're done," she said after a pregnant silence following his payment for the tea.
"Why would you expect that of me?" he asked her, taken aback by her boldness. Most of his countrywomen were raised to be meek and silent, particularly in the presence of men.
She pursed her lips into a secretive smile and answered, "I'll tell you when you come back."
"Can you help me this map?" the man asked the woman days a while after his short adventure from the hole that he had found hiding behind a book-case of hers, gesturing at an old map that he had retrieved from said adventure. At the margins of the map were titles of books that were once written by great masters and men of lore, and they would be the key that would further the success of his mission, although loath as he was to give her more details. "Help me find these books?"
She crossed her arms with a knowing glint in her eye. "But on one condition," she told him firmly. "May I borrow the books when you are done?"
It was such a simple request that he almost gave in. But he had to make sure that she had a continued interest in this… deal that they were arranging between them. "I daresay that we can work something out," he suggested with an amused smirk. Giving her a curt bow, he took his leave from her shop.
So… a similar deal had been made in the distant past. He would honor it of course, just to humor her, just to see what she was up to.
"I'll try to manage it, then," he told her and went on his way.
His mission would take him a whole year, and his findings were not satisfactory at all. Every single nook and cranny in the capital city was mired with corruption, and the city which should have been the crown jewel of their nation was nothing but a façade. Within the red, menacing city walls, the poor lived in muddy slums with rats the size of small dogs, while those that starved to death litter the streets, bringing disease faster than the carrion-fowl could finish consuming their dead flesh. On the other hand, those in power twist and turn the facts of the people's suffering, poisoning the monarch's mind against a neighboring nation guilty of no crime to deviate the ruler's mind from the reality of their situation, painting themselves in a noble light in the name of expanding their nation's borders.
With his sword alone, he knew that he could not possibly complete his mission. Just killing those responsible was not enough, but would be akin to scaring the hunted snake away by beating on the grass that surrounded it. Thus, he rallied people from the ground up, with the help of his allies, those he knew, and also those that he came to trust, they managed to create enough chaos that he who wore the Dragon-robe was forced to enquire about the disturbances caused by the populace, and the strange deaths of his once-loved and trusted officials.
It was then when he knew that the monarch was nothing more than a boy, but a boy who had been misled by those who only in name governed the nation in his stead. Once he made the monarch realize the truth about his nation, that the decay in the capital city was but only a taste of the cancer that infect his lands, the monarch acted with an enlightened rage and purged his court of the tumors that caused all the suffering.
Only when the last of his foes had been beheaded by the monarch's hand himself, did he deem his duties in the capital city end, and made his way back into the southern mountains. Weeks after he set foot outside the city walls, he once again chanced upon the tea-shop by the road that led into a village near the great lakes.
"Here I am," he told the woman, who served him the same tea that he ordered the year previous. She had not changed one bit, still youthful, still bold although the tea-shop seemed to have grown in size, having more tables and chairs, and an additional cook. "Now, what is it that you want to tell me?"
Strangely, as he uttered those words, memories that he had not dwelled upon surfaced once again.
Another secret door that opened and led to another passageway… It was one that she knew that she could not follow him to, as much as she wanted to know what was waiting for him at the end.
"You had better come out of there alive," she warned him sternly, finally understanding the nature of his adventures. The castle they were in was empty, but there was no way to be really sure… She would have said more to him, but his hand caught hers and he gave it a tender squeeze.
"I plan to," he replied, having already made his choice a long time ago and when he stepped through the door, it closed immediately, separating the two of them.
For a brief moment, her expression had been vacant, much like his own the first time he had met her. Was she seeing what he did?
He would not know the reality of it at all, because she broke the rules of propriety once again, and reached to brush the skin on his face with her fingertips. For some reason, he did not reel away from her touch, no, far from that, he welcomed it.
"It may sound crazy," she warned him first before continuing, retracting her outstretched hand when the moment ended. Gulping, she looked into his eyes for confirmation, for signs that he was feeling the same things as she was… "But it feels like I've seen you before."
At those words, he smiled and nodded. "And I you," he replied, and sat down at the table nearest to him, holding her hand in his. "Come, I think that there is much that we must talk about. I have a feeling that we will not remain strangers for long."
She agreed, and went with him, giggling so softly that only his trained hearing could pick it up. They exchanged many tales that afternoon, of themselves, both of the past, the present and the far future, once again sealing the destiny that they had shared since time immemorial.