The Firekeeper had awoken long ago, too afraid to open her eyes.
What if he is not there? What if it was all a dream? She caught herself, it had been a while since she hoped for anything.
Touching her lips and remembering cold feeling of the canteen, she slowly opened her shutters. Her heart thumping a slow, rhythmic beating.
Thump thump thump.
Her reverie was broken when her usual scene laid before her: a pleasant stretch of grass, dirt, and soil, a few stone columns, and the infinitely expanding sky and sea beyond that, united by a horizon. The usual scene in front of her seemed that much more empty today, and the horizon just that much further.
What was I thinking? With a sigh, she pouted her lips and scrunched her eyebrows.
It is to be expected. The woman had long given up hope, but the stranger's unexpected act of kindness yesterday ignited a hope, a longing she didn't know she still had. What she felt was not hope though. To hope is to expect, and she has long since cast her expectations aside. What the Firekeeper did, was wish. She wished that he would have, at the very least, stayed until she had awoken. He disappeared, like many others the Firekeeper would only see once, no doubt hollowing.
With a start, the Firekeeper gasped as a figure leaped from above and landed before her. Tears almost spilled as she recognized the stranger. Whether it was out of freight or relief she did not know. But the slightest of smiles crept upon her face.
The Firekeeper was not naïve enough to call this romance, neither was the strange man. What they both desired was companionship to satiate their loneliness.
He was a man of few words, but his actions and eyes spoke volumes. When he did speak, however, the man's soft and gentle voice carried a melodic quality to it, and soothed the Firekeeper.
"I have brought some rations and a basin. Pray, do wash yourself." The man offered a basin with a rag, a clean brown robe, a canteen, and three clumsily molded rice balls that were humorously lopsided.
The Firekeeper could not help but tear up at the sentiment and giggle adorably at the obviously amateur-made rice balls. She bowed her head in gratitude as he turned to give her privacy.
The woman pulled at the sash on her waist, the decade year old robe had held together quite nicely. It was of strong fabric but rough and uncomfortable. The years of wear had left the cloth in tatters and bore holes in certain areas.
As she looked down to her naked body, all the years of imprisonment dawned on her at once. Her body was unhealthily starved and blanched. Bones protruded and skin was stretched over it. Her limbs, almost black with grime and soot. In the early days of her imprisonment, she was smart enough to dig a hole in the corner of her prison to relieve herself. After years without food and water, that hole had been long filled. But the shame never left her frail body and tender psyche. She was caged like an animal.
She desperately scrubbed at her own skin with the rag. It was as if cleaning herself would return those years of humiliation and sadness.