2009-08-04: Dawn of Hope
She kneeled in front of the wooden chest, gently brushing her fingers atop the aged mahogany. The corner of the house was quiet; her only company the tiny motes of dust spinning in gentle pirouettes down an errant shaft of light.
Pulling the old brass key from her skirt sent a glancing ray around the room to play across the ceiling. She gazed at it for a moment, remembering, and lowered it towards the chest. A sound, suddenly familiar, greeted her efforts with a soft click.
The chest began opening upwards, revealing the treasures she had placed within so long ago. In her mind the familiar refrain of an old song began: a song of strange places, of lost peoples, and of Stones.
The jewels and gold atop the velvet sparkled in the light returned, but her hands slipped beneath them, gently setting them aside. As the tales of her Lord and King awoke within her the humble tune carried on, rising in fervor. She lifted aside the smooth cloth, her fingers grazing against the cherished treasure beneath.
The door crashed inwards.
One hand had already ripped her armor from its resting place within the chest, the lid snapping closed, as the other leveled a sword towards the intruder before she realized this was no foe who had interrupted her impromptu reverie.
“We must go!”
She picked herself up, holding up the iron and oiled leather armor, shining despite the years. The man paused then, her determination, her calmness blunting his message. He realized what she held and turned around, suddenly modest, but spoke on.
“The madman let them loose on Luna,” he moved to make a spitting motion, and frustrated by the indoors, jerked his head to the side instead. “No place is safe, not even here.”
Dawn stepped beside him, cinching a band of leather across her waist, and strapping her sword to her hip.
“Then we ride for Luna.”
<nowiki>…</nowiki>
After the pair had left the old farmhouse a cloaked figure stepped from the shadows to regard the empty room. They never would have felt his presence, let alone seen him, and yet he had been there throughout. White hair with streaks of platinum spilled from beneath the hood as he pushed it back. He regarded the lonely chest, now emptied of its great charge.
“Such things should not be left to perish,” he mused, waving his hand, “When her work is done she will have need of you again.”
The chest vanished, and then so had he.
