Protector
Fer Coadee



The wind howled wolf-like against the wooden frames of the tavern. Lantern lights fluttered with every breath the Goddess blew at them. Even plaster walls weren’t enough to keep out Her icy breath. Guests and shelter seekers huddled frigidly under their cloaks, hoping manmade contraptions for warmth would keep out the unnatural wind that bit at their bones.

In a dimly lit corner, a pensive figure sat, his cloak about his shoulders; but he was neither huddled in it nor frightened by what struck the sides of the tavern as the others were. In fact, he’d been contemplating whether of not to take his cloak from his shoulders; in the end, he decided it would draw far more attention than wanted. And he only wanted that attention from one person.

As it was, he already drew attention and weird looks. His unusual height and light complexion had marked him as a foreigner in this land where darker shades of hair and eye colour were normal. But he wouldn’t be the only “foreigner” for long.

The one person he wanted attention from entered, cloak drench so that its usual deep red looked black; hair drenched so that blond was no longer blond but brown. Eyes gave her away. Eyes and height. One could always tell a Curptean by height, just as one could always tell a Mardicean by his dark eyes and hair.

She sought him out, not quickly, but leisurely, ignoring the looks and whistles given by other men in the tavern. Too much troubled her mind to worry about them, or to even notice them.

“My lord, Alastair.” She slid comfortably next to him, closer than usual for the warmth he radiated.

“Tatyana.” His acknowledgment was short; formalities were not his fine point. “Has it happened?”

“As it always would. He is dead, naturally of course.”

“Unnaturally, Yana. None of our kind dies a natural death. You know this. We were not made to die.” He shrugged his cloak from his shoulders, the folds of it cascading to the floor below. “We were meant to live. To rule. The Goddess did not birth us to be at the beck and call of man. Yet, that is how they treat us. We are strange, we immortals. It’s not because we guide them. It’s because without us, mankind could not guide themselves. There would be no faith in the Mother of Stars, the Father of Earth. No faith in life; no faith in one another. And a world without faith…” His breath was starting to weaken. It was nearer, the time he had anticipated. The time Tatyana had told him of.

“Is only a world of chaos.” She finished for him, unhooking the quiver strap that ran across his chest.

“It was Casey who died, was it not?”

She only nodded. Her brother’s name came not easy to her lips recently. “A martyr.”

“There is no martyr for our kind; at least, not in the eyes of man. One more of us dead is another win. A pity they know not what we die for.” His eyes swept sympathetically over the crowded tavern, knowing the fate that awaited them that night - the same fate that awaited him. “They fear us, even those who know why we are here.”

“They shouldn’t have feared Ca – Cas.” A swallow of the empty feelings in her stomach and she changed her wordage. “Him. They shouldn’t have feared him.”

Slowly, exhaling great breaths (breathing was becoming difficult now), he took her hand. “You mustn’t fret over Casey. He shall be birthed again.”

“Only through you.”

“It is so with everyone.”

“But it will kill you, just as it did your father after he had preformed the rite too many times.” She took the quiver from behind his back as he stiffly moved. Death would come soon to him. It was his duty as Protector to die with those of his kind and rebirth them. “Not a fair task, to leave those you care for, never knowing if you are to return or sit and watch with the Protectors of Past.”

“It’s not a position I can easily decline.” He grasped her other hand, treasuring the warmth it gave off. “Definitely an honour unworthy of me, but not one I would dare decline. Some one must do it. It keeps us alive; keeps man from extinction.”

“Man is too busy helping us become extinct to care about his own fate. Too possessed with the material wealth’s of life, too saturated with lust and feign passion are the minds of men. Don’t worry about Casey’s rebirth. The pattern can break, and perhaps then when the Three Miseries roam free, man will focus upon the internal affairs of spirit and enlightenment again.”

“The only way to ensure such things is to continue. Yana, as Protector I must die. I know you will be at Her Alter for the rebirth, if not to welcome me back, then at least for Casey.”

“I will welcome you back.” Her head bowed, “You are Alastair, Protector of man.” Tatyana brought his hand to her mouth in silent tribute, brushed her lips against the back of the rough, cold hand. “Protector of my heart, I proffer it to you,” she mumbled, too low for him to hear. “You must return.”

Alastair’s face turned pale soon after. Blood soaked his shirt, left of his heart, the wound Casey had died from; the wound Alastair would heal during his death.

Eyes around the tavern filled with fear and confusion, turning their heads toward the corner where Tatyana sat. Ignoring the, she picked up Alastair’s cloak, Protector Green just as hers was Warrior Red, and draped it over her right arm. The quiver she’d unbuckled she slung over her left shoulder, and his bow she grasped in her hand.

His energy surged through it, and she knew then that at the rebirth he would be there. The fear that had trapped her when she found of her brother’s death now released the prison door. Alastair would return, and strong enough to teach his unborn son the meaning of Protector.

Almost afloat, she exited the tavern, a spark leaving her mind and finding rest in the table Alastair had sat at. “Slàn, mè grà,” it whispered on the night air before setting to its task. The tavern would burn to ashes that night; the wind would take care of the rest. That was her first duty as Protector’s Warrior. She had fulfilled it, along with a task she freely chose – the task of giving Alastair his heir.

A pity, Tatyana thought, about all the men who are to die. But wasn’t it an even greater pity that loves had to die for them?

And so she walked away, smiling. Her trek was the direction of Her Alter, twenty-five days away, where she would face Casey and Alastair. Then they could begin again to instill faith and order into the lives of men, to tare them away from the miserly holes they were digging. To return those virtues that really matter; those virtues that lie forgotten in the materialistic age.

Unfair, she thought, that we die only for them and only by their doing. A pity that they die for nothing and by their own hand.

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