When my body had decided to provide sight once more, I would come to find a greeting of dirt and dried blood as I emerged from a pile of rubble. A brief surveillance of my surroundings would contribute nothing to any future plans, and the red hue had not yet faded. Memories floated through my conscious, the last moment in my mind's eye being that of his grace arriving to save us from certain death. I could not recognize any structures I once viewed on the battlefield, I could not hear the cries of men given in victory or defeat. I struggled to remove the rocks that now kept me chained to the dirt and blood mixture beneath me.
Where had I gone wrong? Had I not been saved? I couldn't possibly end up alone without any hope of returning to my encampment if I had been saved. There must have been some other factor, there must have been some other enemy that approached us after our miraculous victory. I wracked through my head for any memory of this, and yet all I found were the moments of watching him slam the wizard to the ground. That was the last sight I could recall before this destroyed landscape before me appeared uninvited.
My struggles to escape from the rubble yielded nothing, and I was forced to wait for some second savior, for the same miracle to reappear. I prayed, prayed for any God that may exist, for any being that may take pity on a soul as poor as I, and I hoped that they would understand the dire circumstances I have found myself cast into.
My prayers were quickly answered with the sound of another emerging from the same rubble. My eyes located the result of this sound before I could point to where it originated, the soldier who was with me. As I saw her face, covered with bruises and dried blood a few moments came back to me. The impact of his grace on the ground had sent us both flying, but we were standing on opposite sides of the encampment. How would we end up in the same area? There must have been something else, there must be more to this story.
I watched as she struggled to remove the rocks atop her, and I attempted to do the same. Bit by bit, I would watch the larger ones roll off the top, but every time I looked back at the pile it would appear unchanged, and I began to lose hope. However, when the sun stood directly above me as so to obscure my vision, I looked up to find a figure obscuring the harsh red sunlight.
She had escaped from her collection of rocks and began to help me with the escape from my own. When I could see my legs again I had wished for my sight to be taken away. They were twisted and battered in ways that I would rather not describe. I could not make out a section that even resembled the color of my own skin. Shades of red and purple covered both of them entirely, a canvas of torturous pain.
She lifted me up onto her shoulders, tying my arms around her chest as if I were a cape, however, when she attempted to support my legs so they would not be dragging along the ground I released a sound loud enough to attract any nearby drotviles. She immediately released my lower half and readjusted my arms so I would not pain myself any further.
When I was laid to rest once more, we had made our way well into the surrounding forest. A couple of encounters with the beasts of this forest had allowed us to fill our stomachs for the night, and she assumed the role of guard given my inability to fulfill it. Sleep provided no repose, and I was left dreamless.
The next day had sneaked toward us, and we continued our venture through unmarked lands aimless. Turning back would provide no benefit, for in every direction there was no end, there was no sunlight left its purest color, unchanged by the various leaves taking the space between us. A day of slaughtering whatever animal with bad fortune enough to encounter us and walking in the same direction allowed us another night of rest. I offered to take the duty of guard since she had reported no disturbances the night before. We had not found any difficulty in our travels, a lack of sleep would prove more beneficial than disadvantageous at this rate.
What was barely visible in the day turned to pitch black in the absence of sunlight. Any efforts of the moon were completely overruled by the monotonous collection of trees and other shrubbery. I could not tell whether my eyes were closed or open, every sense other than my hearing elected to fail me. I would be unable to respond to any beast normally, and yet I felt even more helpless as I silently prayed after even the slightest of noises. My fear was no more rational than it would be with the ability of sight, yet despite the understanding that I was acting illogically, I could not stop myself from praying.
I had clearly fallen asleep in the midst of the eight-hundredth prayer, and when my eyes opened she was in front of me looking at a figure I would never expect to find in this endless repetition of green and brown.
His stature: shorter than the both of us and yet he made up for whatever difference in height with a shocking disparity in musculature. Any head-on confrontation would be sure to result in a loss, and even the most skilled fighters in the land could not survive more than a few moments against him. His reputation preceded him, a boy of pure force, an entity that could not be stopped. If he had left the battlefield, we would have either suffered irredeemable defeat or an astounding victory.
Dorian Maeldt stood in front of her, with the rising sun obscuring his face, and yet I could view his smile in my sorry state.