The Rite of Spring: The Tale of Hanna

I began life as a small child in a small family that lived in a small village. I had been born a girl, with long untamed brown hair and piercing crystal-blue eyes. I was a thin and wiry thing, and my parents named me HANNA. I had lived my entire childhood in a town called Toto, and up until the time I turned seven years old, my life was a very happy one.

It was summer winds that stirred the joys of my own youth--summer winds, whispering the name of children I played with, and the dog we had. My parents both worked in that town, my father selling wares and my mother at the inn, so they were almost always there for me. It was a small place, warm, with a small population, and I loved it there. My summers were always long and beautiful, like my hair, and I cannot remember a time where I was unhappy.

Summer turned into autumn.

One late summer day, my life was ruined by the fire of greed. Demonic men with green eyes ambushed us while we were talking a walk along the forest path, and demanded we hand over our money or our lives. My mother, a sensible woman, wanted to comply, but my father was bullheaded and protective. He shooed us away and stood guard over us like a shield, and he was killed.

We screamed. I had seen them kill my own father right before my eyes, and for nothing more than a few pouches of money. We tried to run, but were caught by thieves who had been waiting for us in our rear. My mother screamed again, and begged to live. They killed her. I saw her die right before my eyes, the blood dancing madly as it flew across the air and landed in my face. I screamed.

The thieves cackled wickedly, stripping my parents of all their possessions, and gave me a fierce kick that landed me in the bushes. I had been bruised, and covered in red, but other than the emotional trauma that I would suffer for the rest of my life, I was simply fine. They had spared me, seven year-old Hanna, and killed my parents for nothing more than greed and money.

I cried all that day.

In fact, I cried all the way to town. My tears flowed ceaselessly as I ran back, and through whines and sobs, I managed to tell everyone that happened. The people of Toto banded together, some of them going out to the forest to retrieve my dead parents, while the majority went out so they could lynch the bandits that had ruined my life. Their zest did little to ease me; when everybody left town, nobody remained to comfort me, and the children were kept locked indoors. I cried and hugged myself on the streets.

Autumn can be so beautiful sometimes.

In sadness I spent the rest of my childhood years. I was later adopted by two kind people who had no children of their own, and they tried to raise me as best they could. They also tried to make forget about my parents, which they failed to succeed in. But their efforts were appreciated, and I tried to be a good little girl to them. Their greatest joy was hearing me address them as family, and so I called them Mother and Father.

I grew older.

I was slowly crawling towards puberty, and had just began to notice the physical change in my body. I was growing up from a girl into a woman, and Mother and Father helped me through those awkward times. I was eleven.

I grew older.

Beginning to bud in ways other than physical appearance, I decided one day that I would do something about my parent's unjust death. I had been weighing those events in my mind for six years now--for six years, nearly all of my life spent with my biological parents, I had to live with people who did not birth me, and I had to do it while keeping the memory of my orphanage painfully fresh. I was very young when I made this decision, but I was smart enough to know what I wanted.

I wanted to protect people, so my pain would not be repeated. And so, I began to work.

I grew older.

And stronger.

When I turned fifteen, I went on a journey of training, swearing that one day I would come back to Toto and live there as its guardian. I carried only a small bag of clothes, some food I had stored away, and a sword owned by my father. If I could not survive in the wilderness for a few years, and if I could not endure the training regiment of the fighting master I sought out, then I would have a better time staying home, where it was "safe".

And so I took my first steps into the world, away from Toto, and the leaves of the trees began to fall in preparation for winter.

The fighter I sought lived in the Grasslands, far away from the quiet walls of Toto. I first crossed the great wilderness of Muse, encountering many people and sharpening my skills by fighting a few local monsters. I was terrible with the sword, but I vowed to change all that quickly. When one is fighting for their life, one becomes quickly adapted to the ways of the sword.

I crossed all of Muse either on foot or on carriage, and arrived in Greenhill next. I had no need of mental learning; my pursuits were of strength and strength alone. I did take a few days to rest and recuperate from my journey across Muse, and to stock myself with food and equipment, and then I left.

When I crossed the barren lands that separated Greenhill from Tinto, I had already aged another year, and had grown incredibly strong from fighting so many powerful enemies. I was a force to be reckoned with, but unless I received proper training from the fighter I had been looking for, I would never be able to accomplish what I set out to do. And so, after resting and packing supplies in Tinto, I began to cross the mountains.

The peaks were incredibly high, and extremely jagged and rough. I could not believe how harsh the environment was, and how little footholds I had. Sometimes I had to scale sheer cliffs with my sword strapped to my back, other times I had to leap chasms and fight off the occasional beast. The winds were harsh and cruel, and the air was thin, and it was so bitterly cold that I had to kill and skin my first animal to provide myself with suitable clothes…

Autumn winds grew chilly, and winter fell like the gentle flakes of snow…

My body was liquid, my movements very slow and deliberate. I was carrying exceptionally heavy weighted clothes, and was utilizing all of my skills just to stay balanced. No matter what, said my master, you must stay balanced. For the entire day, you shall perform your normal exercise, but on one foot. Tomorrow you will be on the other.

The combined weight I was carrying was exactly 100 Libras, excluding my sword. I had been told to move exceptionally slow, like water in a calm brook, and to weave and wave like trees in an almost-still wind--all the while standing on only one foot. This was my master's training: strengthen my muscles with resistance, increase my speed by getting me accustomed to slow movement, improve balance by using only one foot…

I was in basic training for a whole year.

Naked, save for the cloth that supplied as my undergarments, I stood still in the water, my eyes shut tight in extreme concentration. The waters of the calm river were extremely cold, and I had to endure it for a whole hour. Other students of my master were performing similar duties, each one clothed in only the necessary. Aside from physical labor, I also had to endure extreme temperatures, as well as extreme situations, and everything in between.

The training schedule of my master, the man who lived in the Grasslands (and the same one I had sought while on my journey), was brutally tough. Only the most dedicated trainees could have endured them all; this was not for the weak. I had stumbled and fumbled several times in my early months, but now I was getting used to everything.

An hour passed, and I slowly stood out of the frigid waters. My lips were blue, I had goosebumps all over, and I was shivering involuntarily. My next task would take place five minutes later, after I had a chance to rest. It was an easy one this time: all I had to do was climb to the top of a mountain and retrieve an object that another student had placed there. Simple.

The freezing kiss of winter became deep. It seemed I was in love.

Finally, after two straight years of basic training, I was ready to fight with the sword. I had just turned nineteen years old--I had been away from my home for four years--so I think I was ready. After looking over my performance, my fighting master approved and began to teach me the basics of sword fighting. I had changed drastically in these four years: I was still sinewy, but in a muscular sense. My hair was very long and unkempt; I had not laid a comb on it in years. My piercing blue eyes stared back emptily at the world, glossed over by the sight of so much hardship. I had grown tall, and strong, and intimidating, but my winter was not over yet.

Blizzard.

Looking down at my reflection, I tried to smile and failed. I had become exceptionally grave in the past few years, and had a very hard time smiling. I suppose I was attractive, but with my muscular frame, my harsh, husky voice, my stony face, and my intimidating height, what sort of man would want to be around me? No, none, but that was okay. Mine was a quest of strength, not love.

I was now twenty-two years old. The sword I had brought with me was now destroyed from so much use. It was rusted, and bent, and even cracked in some places. Since I had just attained the highest level of technique from my master, he instead gave me a new sword. It was not a powerful blade at all, it was weak--solely fore the intention of strengthening me yet again. Fights were over too soon with a sharp tool.

I had only recently graduated from my master's school, and with my skills perfect, I could finally return home. Spring was drawing near, but I still had another rite of passage to perform before I could be rewarded.

Gentle blankets of empty white greeted me. It was in the dead of winter when I left.

I passed over the mountains of Tinto easily. My training was paying off already; I could easily scale a whole mountain without breaking a sweat. My arrival in Tinto was brief; I was mostly stared at, and questioned, and my replies were few and short. I rested a day, and ate my fill. They had steak there, my favorite, and I treated myself a little before leaving.

The passage from Tinto to Greenhill was too easy. Monsters fell from a simple swish of my weak sword, chasms were hopped over easily, and even the most daunting cliff was easily descended. All my years of hard work was paying off handsomely, and soon I was back in Greenhill. I only took one day to rest before heading back on the road. After all, Toto was still far away.

In the open wilderness between Greenhill and Muse, it began to rain. I didn't mind getting wet--after all, I had trained under much harsher conditions--and pressed onward. I wanted to arrive home soon. I had missed the place too much. But on my way to Toto, I encountered my first real challenge in that soggy plain. From out of a thicket of trees emerged an extremely rare creature to that region: a behemoth, large and powerful and red as the blood it was about to spill.

It roared out in a grand fury as it saw me, and advanced with the speed of an arrow. It was brutally fast, and just as strong, and was soon gnashing its teeth right in my face. By the strength of my sword and shield alone was I able to block its powerful attack, and I leaped back to finally give myself some room. I glared at it, but it charged again with horns and teeth and paws.

It took a single slap at me, sending me down to the ground in a beaten heap. Again and again it struck, with teeth or claws, and sometimes even struck me. I would back away on occasion, watching it through the veil of falling rain, and struck when I saw an opening. Lightning flashed in a dramatic explosion as I made a gigantic gash on the creature.

I backed away again, and for awhile, the two of us circled each other, watching the for the other one to make a false move. I held my sword tight as I dared to stare into the beast's eyes, and must have walked 180 degrees in that field. It suddenly advanced, shaking its mane as its teeth chomped at me, and I beat it with the blade of my sword. It snarled, charged again, and I struck it a second time. The beast grew dizzy from the surprising power of my attack, and charged one more time in an attempt to finish me off.

I suddenly raised my sword, and with a mighty thrust, dug the blade deep into its body as I swerved away. It let out a groan, and fell to the ground in defeat, and I snarled in the rain and thunder. Slowly, I walked over to its vulnerable side, and with the barbarism of a berserker, I dug my blade in its ribs and roared again. I struck a third time, plowing my blade in as deep as it would go.

And with one final swoop, I cleaved its head off, and stood on top of the monster as the rain fell and purified the land. I had won. I was victorious. I was ready.

The weather grew warm, but I was still in winter.

I had to cross a desert first.

Across burning miles of sand and whitewashed bones I trudged on, my sword at my side and my hair at my back. I had long ago stripped down to a conservative Amazon's uniform, covering only my chest and waist, and boots for my feet. The desert was unbelievably hot, and it stretched open for miles at a time, but never once did I trip or stumble on my way. I did not suffer from the heat--my fighting master saw to that.

I thirsted little while in the pure wasteland, and almost never grew tired. I slept little, even though the barren wasteland went on for two days, and aside from the rare spider, scorpion, and lizard, I encountered no danger. This desert was not a challenge; I could trudge onward, past the sandstorm and the tar pit and the dunes and the endless field of sand, onward until the sun rose to the apex of the sky, and burned down upon me mercilessly.

Before me stretched the vast seas, and if I wanted to reach beloved Toto, I would have to hire a ship.

One calm night, as I stood on the deck of the boat I was renting, the waters grew nervous and the ship began to rock. The wind picked up fiercely, and from out of nowhere, a thunderbolt fell from the sky and illuminated the world. I heard the sailors scream of a storm, but I stood still on the deck, watching the seas before me and the sky above me. Let the rain come. Let the wind blow. I am prepared.

I regretted my words quickly. The storm became intense, sending waves smashing against the boat. Their strength was comparable to the behemoth's I had fought, and the winds buffeted them towards the boat with even more power. The sky exploded with thunder, and my long, mangled brown hair whipped in the fierce wind. Keeping my cold stare ahead, I bent down and shielded my face in an attempt to weather the storm a little.

The ship actually careened slightly, and was being tossed so badly that I thought the whole thing would tip over. Men left and right of me were scrambling to keep her safe, but I was in the thick of the storm, watching and waiting and seeing which of us were mightier. This was all just another rite of passage for me.

A hungry storm devoured the ship, and I don't know how many people had succumbed to nature's fury as well, but I know that I was not one of them.

I found myself walking across a small field of grass, my body still dripping wet from the sea I had been swimming in. I had found dry land, and except for a few cuts and bruises, I was perfectly all right. Without a care in the world, I walked through the small grass until I came to a sign. It read, "Toto: 3 mi.". I smiled with relief as I read the sign, and placed my sword in its sheath as I prepared to arrive home. At my feet, violets were beginning to bloom.

The End