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Chapter Four, The First Hero is Called Story by Brenda Giguere
2004 BMAA Domestic Division Competition 1st place : Fantasy Greah knew there were pivotal times ahead. Michael’s urgent plea to the warrior princess from the Abyss had come, according to the ancient ways, in a deep and powerful dream. While she slept deeply, in the essential and powerful sleep that renews the strength of her kind, it came as a puzzling vision. Michael’s plea entered her mind, his voice carried to her with an urgency she would not soon forget. His message seemed to paint itself in broad, shimmering swaths of color, soft whiffs of a lonely, long-ago perfume, and barely audible, melancholy, ethereal whispers.
Her race had been severely diminished in ancient battles, but the few that remained were the strongest, long-limbed and beautiful, and the finest of all that had lived. Long ago, legend held that her race had its most ancient ties with a great cat-being from whence many feline races and creatures had sprung. Many had long since disappeared, but all remaining knew well that the essence of their being, from the beginning of Time, was and remained that of the great Charr’ahvve. Where other creatures would rely more on powers drawn from the world of magic, or manifestations of mysterious, arcane knowledge, Greah was a warrior and a protector with simpler, but no less important, skills… skills handed down from antiquity and honed with hours of ritual practice.
Greah needed to feel a kind of clarity for her strength to be its greatest. She knew she was tied always with Michael; she was a protector of the Curse of Mortraine. Greah had always felt both pride and humility at her place in maintaining a status quo that was always in dynamic flux. But the emotional plea from Michael made her uneasy. Something tugged at her mind, something just below conscious thought. For the first time, she felt there were forces of destiny at work for which she had no intuitive grasp; she sensed there was perhaps too much unknown to her for the strong decisiveness she needed. Would she be able to find strength without certainty? Was this wise? Was it even possible? Within that troubled multisensory dream had she even understood what Michael needed?
Her hope must surely lie in the wisdom of patience. In cool, jasmine-scented mornings she would descend from the palatial tree house to soft grasses below, draw out her sword, and rehearse in privacy the ancient strengthening movements again and again. Serious and mute, the few remaining servants would help in her preparations. After nightfall, alone again, she would retreat to the cavern and light a golden candle. In the night’s velvet silence, there would be only the soft music of the servants’ small harps, being played outside under a dark sky. With renewed commitment but growing unease, Greah would stare at the flame and do the ancient meditations, while her sword waited—even then—at her side. |
