Be warn, I am not a native speaker of this language and making grammatical mistakes is unavoidable. If you find the story interesting or if you have some criticism please review and let me know. Well that is all, so enjoy the chapter.
Waking up even in the most pleasant of times was always hard for most people and for a good reason, some wish to continue the dream they would eventually forget but some wanted to wake up as soon as possible, so that they could once again meet the rays of sun that greeted them every morning be it winter or summer. Bell was in the latter category.
As soon as the first rays of sunlight greeted him with their warmth, he would have already been up, doing his part to ease the burden on Isabel's shoulders. She was a kind girl, maybe even too kind. She had taken him in when no one else could nor wanted, she tended his wounds and even after he had woken up she urged him to stay with her until the amnesia that plague him disappeared. He did not want to burden her.
In the dim lit room, where Isabel was writing in her diary, she reminiscent of the events that took place in the past two weeks. She wrote less and less in her diary as time passed on, her duties and responsibilities did not enable her the time for such pleasantries. She helped a man who she did not know, she tended to his wounds, gave him clothes.
He was a strange man.
She wrote in her diary.
Never have I seen such a man, his red eyes seem so foreign, like an exotic animal that one would only see in the elven homes of old, his hair white, whiter than any elder she met, yet his features were refined, although a little childlike when he spend some time laying on the couch, snoring gently as his chees rose and fell at a rhythmical fashion. I was quite shocked when I found out that he had amnesia. He does not remember how he had spent his years as a teenager. He had told her of his time as a child, playing around the village and about his grandfather that would often make time so that he could read to his grandchild, stories about heroes and knight much like what my father use to do.
She stopped writing and her gazed focused on the last line she wrote, indeed she had such a father, a kind one that would have read to her many stories, stories that she still now held dear, she opened the window and saw Bell as he was picking up an axe her father once used.
Maybe I should talk to him later about the stories that they both once enjoyed, maybe they still do enjoy them. He was well build and it came no surprise when he did all of the deeds she pronounced hard or sometimes impossible.
The only thing that worried her was her younger brother that did not like the snow haired man. He did not insult the man nor did he complain but she knew her brother very well, he always talked and would more often than not try to befriend anybody including animals. He was a kind child but maybe the passing of their father had affected him more then she had first thought or maybe he simply found a person that he had not wanted to befriend. She watched the fields of gold that in the next few weeks would disappear.
As summer had brought great fortune and many gifts, so will winter take them away but she remained by the window looking beyond the golden fields of her homeland and gazed at the land beyond them, she often wondered what was beyond the mountain chains that obscured her village.
"Maybe Bell knows" she said out loud.
Clouds started to gather, the once crystal blue skies would be soon be covered by a mass of white and gray landscapes that no one could travel too. She held hope that the village elder, an old but wise man, would not cancel the festival.
The village festival started when the village elder drank the final drop of wine to parch his dry throat after a welcoming speech, he congratulated every single one of them, his smile never leaving his gentle face. His speech was short but meaningful just like most things in life the best and most cherished moments always lasted for a shorter time then one would like. Her gaze then traveled to her left side, seated to her left was her younger brother, his gaze was solely focused on the food in front of him, a small string of saliva was between his lower and upper lip. Turning her gaze to the rest of the children, she was glad that the rest of them had the same expression, she would not be the only one embarrassed by her younger siblings actions.
If she was younger she would have probably reacted the same way that her brother did, filling his mouth until he couldn't anymore. Her gaze then shifted to her right side, Bell stood there, his red eyes held a childlike wonder at the food in front of him. Most of the food was made by passed down recipes and ingredients that they harvest over the year. Isabel herself had made several smaller cakes from a recipe her great-grandmother made.
As she watched him, she was reminded that a few days before the festival they had spent the evening talking about them and sometimes they would talk about the stories they had both once heard. She was surprised when his eyes lit up when she spoke to him about the many tales he knew, his once dull eyes were filled with a fire so gentle that it could not burn even the smallest twig she could find. It was a gentle, kind and nostalgic fire. A fire she was certain belonged to a man of worth.
They spend many hours talking to one another but she enjoyed the quiet moments the most, when he would come back to her house in the evening and look at her with his red eyes, with such tenderness that startled her once before.
Her brother still had not befriended him nor did he spend his time starting a conversation with him, he defrosted over time if begrudgingly.
She thought about the time when she first laid her eyes on Bell, he had several deep gushes on his bodies; many of them were on his torso.
"What could have caused such injuries?" She wondered.
She wanted to know more about the man but what would happen if his past he now forgot was something he regretted.
"Should I try?" She said out loud
Bell turned her gaze towards her, tapping her on her shoulder he asked him if she was alright, she nodded and then the music started.
Couples and children danced around a small group of musicians, one of them was a bald guy with a large gut blowing through his flute, one was an old guy with gray hair who played the guitar, if someone had approached the man they would have realized that he was missing almost all of his teeth. The last one was a young lad, who was playing the drums with such energetic nature the older man glanced at the lad almost nostalgically. Isabel rose from her seat a held her arm towards Bell, a silent request for a dance. He smiled fondly and accepted her invitation.
They made their way toward the dancing couples and began to dance with them. They moved with one another, their feet never meeting, their hand and bodies swayed to the changing motions of the song that played that evening. Theirs souls were as close as their bodies were, but in an instance when they looked at one another their souls have merged into one, such was the dance that evening. The small blush that formed on the fair face on Isabel did not go unnoticed to Bell, he simple smiled as the dance came to an end.
They cheered as the rest of the villagers have as well, Isabel gaze turned towards Bell, the smile he had was not undone by her own as the blush continued to be present on her face.
North, far away from the village that Bell resided, a lone figure was searching for a cave. Not any cave, he was searching for a specific one, one which was locked away from mortals eyes, only he and his brethren could see through its black darkness that could overshadow the sun if it ever grew outside it drenched prison. When he founded it he lit up his torch a feeble attempt to frighten the darkness that resided there but the darkness pushed back almost angrily.
His steps were slow and hard, he did not want to slip into the dark pits, and forever lost in them would have been a fate worse than death. The lone figure stopped and called out to the darkness bearing him, a name which he knew all too well.
"Amedea." But there was no answer. Only darkness greeted him until he felt a chill run down his spine. He looked at the shifting form in the darkness, darkness so dark that the eyes of both mortal and divine could not have adjusted. The darkness surrounded him, embraced him as if he was a lost child but there was no warmth in this embrace nor did it have any kind intentions.
"What do you want Hermes?" Sounded a voice so dark and deep it shook the cave. Hermes did not falter a smile plastered on his features, as he approached the shifting figure.
"Is that how you greet and old friend"
"No god is my friend."
He knew of the shifting figure, so did most of the gods. He was once a man who by some miracle stole a divine weapon, reformer it so that the gods could not recognize them but gods have long ago figured out who stole the divine weapon. He was banished to this dark prison, forever damned to be covered in shadows, shadows that were not his. The shifting figure had forgotten most of his memories but he still held to some, the smell of smoke, the chirping of birds and most of all the metallic sound made when hammer met steel that was all too familiar to him. The shadow now almost engulfed the god.
"I need your help"
"Help you, why would I do that when your kind had forsaken me and damned me to this never ending shadow?"
The shadow held rage within them, a blinding rage that could not be silenced by mere words of affection nor compliments. They sought justice and freedom, something Hermes would offer
"Because, I can grand you your freedom"
The cave began silent, only now did the god realize how the cave was empty, it had no life. A black hand reached out to Hermes, stopping centimeters away from his neck. The hand was deformed to the point that one would consider that it belonged to a monster, his fingernails were now claws and his hand was covered in thick bores and rugged skin.
"Hermes, you will not trick me again." It was a statement.
"I am giving you a divine promise here, Amadea."
The hand that threaten to kill the god now returned to the darkness it belonged, as if it never was there.
"What is it that you need?"
Hermes reached into his backpack and pulled out a piece of cloth, in the cloth was a broken black knife, seeing it the shadow smiled, a smile nobody would ever see for the darkness covered it.
Amadea touched the blade; he felt divine energy, something he had not felt for over two thousand years.
"This blade was forged by the goddess of forge herself, a weapon made so that it could reach the strength and might of the blades that belonged to us, up there, in Tenkai."
"Hermes, why did you bring me this, what has happened, you would have never done this if you had a choice."
Hermes took a deep, his eyes remained focused as he looked at the shifting figure in the darkness, and there was neither joy, grief nor happiness in his eyes, just acceptance. His voice was rough when he said something he wished not to be true.
"Because Orario was destroyed"