Joan’s eyes opened and she instantly regretted it. The light was so blinding it felt like it was piercing through her eyes and jamming directly into her brain. Oh, the headache was back, that was nice. It felt like it brought friends, lots of friends that were jamming red hot pokers into her head from the inside.

“That’s a good sign,” Emeline said.

“How is that a good sign?” Bauteut asked.

“The fact she feels anything at all,” Emeline said.

“Kill meeeeeee…” Joan said before rolling over and burying her face in the pillow. The merciful darkness helped to ease it somewhat, but her head was still throbbing.

“I think you have that fairly well handled on your own,” Emeline said. “The pain will die down, but this should be a little easier for you to manage.”

“How is this easier to manage?” Joan asked into the pillow, her words muffled.

“Because, apparently, when you can’t feel any of the pain it just causes you to drive yourself further onto the blade,” Emeline said. “I’ve done what I can, but I’m not able to break that spell over your mind.”

Joan gave a soft whimper and felt something warm and soothing placed on the back of her neck. It helped a little. “Why are you helping me? You hate me,” Joan said softly.

She could hear Emeline sigh. “Joan, I don’t hate you. I… Bauteut, could I have a moment alone with her?”

“I’m not sure that’s wise,” Bauteut said.

“If I wanted her dead, I could have done it a dozen times during that procedure,” Emeline said.

“You almost did,” Bauteut said, her voice accusatory.

There was silence then, the queen not refuting the accusation. Finally, she spoke up once more. “I almost did. Joan is safe now, however. I vow. Nothing will happen to her.”

“Fine, I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Joan cringed when she heard the other girl walk away and the door open and close. She wanted to beg Bauteut to stay, but she honestly felt too tired to argue. Like it or not, Emeline could have left her to die, so chances were she wouldn’t kill her now.

“It seems the chosen aren’t the only ones who heed the call of the Hero. You’d think Bauteut was one herself the way she talks to me when it comes to you,” Emeline said softly. “By the gods, Joan. Could you not go one day without nearly killing yourself without me being there?”

Joan just gave a light grunt in response.

“Yes. I probably deserve that. Whatever you’re trying to say,” Emeline said. “I have long prepared for this day, you know. Ever since I discovered Hardwin was one of the chosen. For so many years I waited for the appearance of the Hero. Dreaded it. Wondering what kind of person would they be. Would all of my fears be unfounded, would they turn out to be the monster I imagined? Or would they be something else entirely? I must say. Of all the expectations, all the preparations, all of the fears and worries I had? The one thing I never expected was this. The Hero was supposed to be an unstoppable force of destruction, the one who could challenge gods and the world itself. Unstoppable, unkillable, untouchable, unbreakable. I expected a god amongst men. Instead, I come face to face with a child who has shattered her body against an unforgiving world in some desperate attempt to save it.”

“What a hero does…” Joan said softly. “Not much of one if the world dies.”

“You’re hardly a hero now, Joan,” Emeline said, though rather than anger her voice was filled with sadness once more. “I knew you were special, child. But I never imagined you could be this. Truly the gods are cruel.”

“I’d talk to them about it but I don’t know if we’re on good speaking terms,” Joan said. “Sometimes I think we are, other times I think they’re watching me and laughing. Other times I wonder if they are helping as much as I hope they are.” At least the pain was dimming and it was quickly becoming easier to talk.

Emeline gave a soft chuckle. “It truly does set things in perspective knowing what I now know. So many things. I would never have imagined the Hero was as frightened of me as I am of them.”

Joan gave a shrug. “You nearly killed me a lot.”

“And yet now I am forced to try and save your life,” Emeline said, her voice once more filled with sadness. “Can this not be another lie, Joan? Can you not just be a seer, Hardwin’s child? Must you be that?”

“I wish,” Joan said softly. “If I had this knowledge and there was another Hero to guide? Or give this responsibility to, I would. There will be no third Hero. The first failed, I’m the second and last chance.”

Emeline gave another soft, saddened sigh. “This shouldn’t be your burden to bear.”

“Are you going to kill me?” Joan asked before, very slowly, lifting her head. The dim light of the room hit her once more but, fortunately, it was nowhere near as painful this time. Causing more of a gentle throbbing than a powerful stabbing feeling.

“No,” Emeline said. “I should, but I can’t.”

“You should?” Joan asked before glancing up at her. Oh, that was a mistake. Moving her head too quickly made her feel light headed and like she might throw up. “Ugh. Why? Why do you hate me so much? What did I ever do? The Hero made some mistakes and was rude to you, but you shouldn’t remember any of that. Only me. So why? Why hate me?”

“I don’t hate you,” Emeline said. “I certainly don’t hate the Hero. I fear him. I know you studied the Hero for a time while under my care, did you not?”

“Mmm hm,” Joan said.

“Then you should know how dangerous the Hero is, not just to our world’s threats, but to all of the world,” Emeline said.

“What?” Joan asked, trying to process that. Despite herself, she couldn’t. She buried her head into the pillow and grunted. “The Hero protects everyone. Brings the world back from the brink. Even this kingdom was founded by a past hero.”

“You are correct,” Emeline said. “It was. As was the one that the Hero of that time tore apart. Which had been founded by another hero of their time after tearing apart the former. As it has been for many, many rises and falls. Throughout history the Hero has been a sign of one important thing. A coming apocalypse. The chosen and he ride forth, protecting the world. Sometimes aided by others, but usually those eight will save the world. Sometimes the Hero and the chosen laying down their lives for this deed.”

Joan gave another grunt. If that wasn’t the truth, she didn’t know what was. All of the chosen had died for this world.

“It’s what comes after,” Emeline said. “The Hero is an impossible figure. The chosen often follow him into battle and beyond. But once the threat is gone and the world saved, what comes after? What does the Hero do then?”

“There’s an after?” Joan asked. “It certainly didn’t feel like it to me.”

“If we’re unfortunate, yes,” Emeline said. “Perhaps for a time there is peace. Tranquility. But then the Hero has no more challenges and he sets his eye on the future. Decides that only he has the right to rule the world. More kingdoms have fallen and been destroyed by the Hero than any other force in our world.”

“What?” Joan asked. “That’s what this is about?” All of that hate, all of that ire that the queen had given her over the years and the entire issue was that Emeline was afraid the Hero would think she was unfit to rule? That the king was?

“Stability? Yes,” Emeline said. “With each of the heroes our world gets a little more destroyed. A little more damaged. Once there were dozens of kingdoms. Human, dwarf, elven. Once the demons were pushed far back to the east, far beyond the mountain ranges. But each time the kingdoms were shattered. It didn’t matter when. It didn’t matter if all of the races had formed one unified empire or if they were each separate. The Hero and the chosen are an impossible force to compare with or face. If the Hero decides he shall rule, there is little that us normal mortals can do to stop him. Being a normal mortal yourself now, I imagine you should know that better than anyone.”

Joan gave a soft shrug. As cold as it likely would have sounded, she didn’t really mind if prior heroes had rebuilt the world. When she was the Hero, all she had ever wanted was to do the best she could for everyone. That was better than most. She’d never had time to worry about the politics, though. She’d always been too busy.

“I’m sure if you were the Hero, you don’t understand the issue with that,” Emeline said.

“Not really,” Joan said softly.

“The problem is often longevity,” Emeline said. “The Hero is unstoppable. In a single lifetime he can tear apart the strongest nation and rebuild it. But once he passes, once he is gone? What remains? Nothing. Everything that came before him is gone. The structures, the resources. Roads are destroyed, families shattered, armies gone. A power vacuum is left that can’t possibly be filled. The chosen often try to maintain it for as long as they can, but they often fall away just as well. Even chosen that should be far longer lived than their brethren often pass once the others fall. It can take lifetimes before the world returns to what it once had.”

Joan felt a small tightening of guilt in her stomach. She’d never even considered that.

“So I knew if the Hero should ever appear, I would be trapped,” Emeline said. “Here would be the Hero, the person needed to save the world from whatever catastrophe would befall our world. Just to know that, once he finished, should he not perish in the attempt, he would likely destroy the very world he protected. That he would destroy the meager structure we had all worked so hard to create. No, I never hated the Hero, Joan. I am terrified of the Hero. Because the only possible good ending for our world is for him to die saving it. Otherwise he will end it in his own way. I just didn’t expect this to be the result of that failure.”

Joan reached up and pulled the pillow even tighter to her head. “Is that really how you see me? How you saw me? How you saw the Hero?”

“I do. Did,” Emeline said. “Now I am not so sure. I…”

“I wish you had told me,” Joan said softly.

“I didn’t know you were--”

“When I was the Hero,” Joan said, raising her voice and cutting her off, though it sent throbbing pain through her head again. “I wish you had, just once, explained any of this to me.”

“Joan,” Emeline said softly. “I don’t know that—”

“I listened to you, listen to me,” Joan said before rolling back over, keeping her eyes closed to dull the pain. “I don’t know anything about politics. I just know there was fighting, people dying, infighting in the kingdom. People trying to take over the throne.” She took a long, slow breath and tried to find her words. “And he wasn’t a part of it. Even when people came to me, to the Hero, he didn’t care. Because he was too busy trying to keep the world from dying. Struggling to deal with each and every threat that came up. He didn’t have time. I wish I could say I understand, which I kind of do. I wish I could say I’m not mad at you, which I am. I wish I could say the Hero wouldn’t have done those things you fear, he might have. I don’t know. I, he, was pretty arrogant. But, you know what?” Joan asked before slowly opening her eyes.

Emeline stared back, her eyes wide and slightly confused. “Yes?”

“I’m tired of having to be the adult,” Joan said. “In all of those lives, I was so much younger than you when I met you. Sure, I wasn’t always the best, most polite person in the world. Maybe I was way too over confident. Maybe I was rude. But you know what? I wasn’t that much older or younger than I am now. You were still the adult. You could have helped me. You could have told me. You could have worked with me. In any of those lives you could have given me a chance and helped me. You never did.”

“I don’t know about those times,” Emeline said. “I wasn’t a part of them.”

“You were,” Joan said. “Even now. Even NOW I have to be the adult,” Joan said, trying to ignore the driving pain in her head. “I’ve died more times than I can remember. I’ve fought things you can’t even imagine. You saved my life for now, for that I am grateful. But I am so tired of this. Why do I have to be the one to tell you everything? Explain myself? Why did I have to be the one to take the risk? I put my life on the line to tell you who I am, what I am. Did I want to? No. But I had to. Because the world is at stake. I have every reason to fear you and yet I’m still the one who has to come to you and explain who I am and what I am doing. Yet even now you think ‘I should kill you because you might, one day, do this thing’. Do you think I want this? To be this? To have all of this thrown on my head? Do you think the Hero did?”

Emeline just stared at her, her mouth agape.

“No. He didn’t. He was tired. He was exhausted. He was scared. Because he couldn’t handle it all. He tried as hard as he could, but there was never a moment to rest. There was always that knowledge that something was coming, something big, that he had to stop. And when he finally found out what it was, he failed. So I’m sorry I wasn’t the best kind of hero I could be and you could never find any reason to trust me no matter how much blood, sweat and tears I shed. I’m sorry that, maybe, I would have done that in the future. But there were a lot of things I would have liked to do in the future I never got to do. Maybe get married. Have a family. Celebrate. Watch my friends grow old. Explore more of the world. Maybe cast out to sea or help find more lost history of the world. I don’t know. I don’t know what I would have done. I don’t know what he would have done.”

“Joan, I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

“I don’t forgive you!” Joan all but screamed, wincing when it sent another stab of pain through her head. “I don’t forgive you. I don’t care if it’s not fair. I don’t care if you deserve forgiveness. I don’t care if you’re right and I’m wrong. I don’t care if it’s childish. I don’t care. I just don’t care. I’m so tired of having to… I’m just tired,” Joan said before going limp on the bed again. “I’m just tired. I just want to find the chosen, stop the world from ending. After that? I don’t know. Keep your little kingdom. I’ll either die or go somewhere else. Anywhere else. You’ll never seem me again. So just, please, stay out of my way and let me save this world without having to fight you while I’m at it. I have enough to worry about without worrying that you’ll take anything I do to mean I intend to tear your kingdom apart when it’s all done. I don’t want to rule. I don’t want that responsibility, that stress. I don’t even want to be a hero anymore. I just want there to be a world for everyone to keep fighting over. That’s all. What you do with it after that, I don’t care.”

Emeline stared at her for a long while before, slowly, she rose to her feet. “I understand. Joan, I won’t stand in your way any longer. I won’t ask you to forgive me for what was done in your past, but… I’ll give you what you ask. Before you leave, allow me to say one last thing.”

Joan gave another grunt, but didn’t try and stop her. Her head hurt so much.

“The pain in your head will fade within a few days. Bauteut will continue to attend to you after this time. If you push yourself too much, the dull pain will return,” Emeline said. “Try to avoid focusing on those things. If it becomes a sharp pain, have Bauteut look into it immediately. I wish you a speedy recovery.” With those parting words, the queen turned and left, walking out from the room.

Joan just laid there and stared at the roof. She wondered if she was being too harsh on her. After all, if she really was destined to destroy Emeline’s kingdom, was it any wonder the queen hated her? Was it really fair to hate her over that?

Maybe it was the pain in her head, but she didn’t care if it was fair or not. Or maybe she just wanted to be childish this time.

MelodyAvant

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