Wishes and Lost Hope

Chapter Thirteen
Athena's Story

Many years ago, Athena's tribe wandered the desert in. . . Never mind. You won't have heard of it anyway. It's across the sea, and it's been a long time.

Anyway, so ou-... uh, her people traveled around a lot. Nomads, you know? Mostly wandered the oases. Greenest little watering holes you'll. . . you'd have ever seen in that region. But. . . uh. . . well. . .

Okay, okay; it's hard to explain unless you've been there! Sheesh.

All right, where was I? Oh, yeah, yeah... – the Nomads. The Nomads were ... I wonder if they're still there. Eh, no matter. Sorry.

The Nomads were a secretive people. They cultivated Mana, and the society was broken down into a caste system. You do know what a caste sys-. . . right. Like the Jumi. The resemblance is more than a coincidence... the- . . . look, I'm getting to that! The hierarchy of the Nomads is unimportant. Just understand that the High Priestess was . . . Well, in addition to being the matriarch, she was the Tribe's link to the Sanctuary and all its power. . . And. . . Mmm, how to say it. . . she. . . ah, to heck with it.

She was the embodiment of the Mana Tree.

Stop staring, it's not polite.

But. . . yeah, the High Priestess of the Mana Tribe was directly linked to the Mana Tree. When she was healthy, it meant that the tree was healthy. When she died, the Tree died. . . and another stepped up to take her place. . . A seed, trained to become the Tree.

Not the clearest way to say it, really. It's a bit more complicated, and a bit less literal. . .

So along came Kraols. Actually, as I understand it, he was already there. Grew up there, quite a master knight. Or. . . magician. Or something. I never. . . really asked him, tell you the truth. The few times we met, it wasn't the best time to ask questions.

Regardless, there was only so far he could go in the Tribe. He could have gone farther in the outer world, but it was all the same to him. He could become the best, but never the most powerful – he could never have the power to rival the High Priestess. . . the power of the Goddess.

He didn't like it, being the best he could and only winding up second. What he couldn't have directly, he decided to manipulate to his own means. And this is where Athena comes in. And probably your little friend there, too. . .

Mmm. Anyway. Kraols needed a link, someone he could control serving as the High Priestess. As I understand it, he preened Athena for it from the beginning. But the current High Priestess was nowhere near death, so he decided to 'fix' things to his advantage. I could never tell, really, if Athena was just too young and too stupid to understand what was going on, or if she actually understood and went along because she wanted to. The way she tells it, you'd think she was doing it for the common good. But regardless of what was going on then, Kraols got her to poison the High Priestess and . . . heh, I always said that the scion selection was a flaw of nature. Instead of it being directly linked to anyone, it's usually a case of the closest convenient daughter of the Mana Tribe. So instead of the power going to the Seed of Mana, it went to Athena.

As you might imagine, this whole ordeal caused quite a bit of a ruckus. Athena became the second person in the Tribe's memory to kill a kinsman. And it wasn't like the death of the Priestess and usurpation of power was to be forgiven with mere banishment. But by then, Kraols didn't need the Tribe anymore. He had his link, he had his power. . . his only problem was that Athena wouldn't leave without a friend of hers. . . I forget his name. Some boy she grew up with. So while they still lived within the prospect of losing everything, Kraols planted thoughts of betrayal and the like in Athena's mind.

To be honest, this kid sounded clueless anyway. But whatever – when he got around to trying to talk some sense into her, and trying to get her to come home, she panicked and killed the kid. And without any reason to stay, and more than enough to leave, she went with Kraols.

The next several years, he spent gathering and centralizing his power. Athena, he built a fortress for, teaching her to truly fight, giving her gifts, helping her shape her abilities to what he wanted them to be. He taught her, and she gave him everything he wanted.

I can't claim she lived in total ignorance. Hells, maybe the pretends, but. . . I don't really know, it's one of those things I consider best not to think about.

All I know for sure is that they had a falling out. Not sure what caused it, but I can only suspect that she couldn't remain blind to what was going on around her. I doubt anyone with a pure heart could for too long. And. . . well, it always worried me that she held out for as long as she did. Maybe she was afraid, I couldn't say.

But she left him. She just ran away. And, as can be imagined, he wasn't too pleased.

I met her soon after. She wandered into Tans- Um, never mind. Time, place gone, you know. But, we met in a run down old tavern, like you do.

I knew what she was from the moment I saw her. I would suspect she knew who I was... but then it didn't really seem to matter to her. That was refreshing. I don't know how things came to be the way they did, but, I wound up helping her make her latest escape from Kraols' henchmen and from then on we were stuck together.

So we traveled, keeping one step ahead of him. Athena is, unfortunately, hard to keep down, so we almost always left a trail. . .

Eventually, we got into a position where we were faced with a gamble, and one we could afford. We secured a deal with a dream witch. In return for an artifact – an old sword we'd picked up along the way – and a little trinket of Athena's, she put us under an enchanted sleep. The spell was supposed to last a bit longer than it did. . . But we woke up anyway, eight hundred years after we'd gone to sleep, and we woke to something very different to what we were expecting.

Suffice to say, Athena was dreaming – and creating – the whole time. With the power of the Sanctuary, she dreamed up a whole new world.

Much to my chagrin, she never dreamed up anything – any heroes or anything – to bring down Kraols while we were under. Without Athena, he could only be so strong, which meant we were still on the run.

But now there was space between him and us. Eventually, we managed to make it here, and. . . well, like I said, Athena is hard to keep down. She played hero while I was off here and there, and in the end . . . Heh, look whose attention she attracted.

oOo

The story ended with a sigh. Poseidon sat dejected, a man detached near a thousand years from everything he knew and loved – or most everything, as he could not truthfully claim that he did not care for his comrade and ally. At length, he lifted his head, and the ghost of a smile crossed his face.

"So now you know."

There was a growl, and Sierra shook her head. "That doesn't even begin to cover it. . ."

"I can't cover centuries of history in a single night. I probably couldn't do it, even if the thing I fear most wasn't, as he likely is, lurking just as close as he can get. Anyway, those were the important parts."

"Coward," what was supposed to be a scathing remark met with cool disdain. Poé stared at the former knight.

"Is that supposed to hurt?"

"So will you run away again?" Pearl asked quietly. To this, the man did not look, answering instead,

"There is no running this time. Athena is determined to put an end to it."

"At least she has real friends to stand by her," Elazul growled.

"If you were her real friend, as you so put it, you would be up there trying to convince her out of this stupid fantasy," Poseidon pushed his chair back, and stood to stretch. "Although I suppose if you know her well enough to be her friends, then you know how unerringly stubborn she can be."

"If fortune favors, I shall speak to you all tomorrow. . . . And I wouldn't stray too far, if I were you."