Fire Emblem Fan Fiction ❯ A Trip to Market ❯ La Conte ( Chapter 1 )

A young girl was near a corner of a dark hall, crushed in a surging mass of bodies, unable to move in any direction. She was not even fully supporting her body weight, propped up as she against other, larger adults.

“MOM, DAD, WHERE ARE YOU?!”

No answer, no one could hear her as the shrieking cries of the panic-stricken mob double and treble in intensity. Suddenly, she was forced downward, her face smashed into the floorboards. She sprawled on to the ground, pushed despite herself in a massive wave of bodies falling forward, only to be trampled upon by the next wave.

“MOM! MOM! HELP ME PLEASE!”

There is a new roar, nearly drowning out the screams. It is the sound of fire, but unlike anything she has ever heard: loud, like a great wind moving through the air, almost alive. Hot ashes rushed through her nostrils and she is stopped mid-scream, gasping painfully for breath.

“NO!”

“No!”

It is dark again in another hall, far away, and a small gasp echoed through it. Except now there is no rushing mob, only the dim outline of a small, shuddering figure, its silhouette upright and unmoving except for some tiny tremors. There are no wailing cries, only a shuddering breath. After a long moment, the figure moves off to the side, grouping blind through the dark until it encounters the wall. Blindly following its linear path through the pitch black, it made its way along down a corridor.

Finally, it seemed to reach its destination: a rough wooden door. Through its widening cracks seeps a wavering light, revealing the figure for what it was, the form of a young child, a girl, standing with head bowed and one hand upon the door’s handle. A low voice, seemingly in prayer, whispered from behind the doorway.

She stood there listening for a long time and then, seemingly coming to a decision, turned and retraced her steps back until she was once again laying down. Burning heat no longer scorched her skin and the cries were silenced by the memory of prayers spoken in a young man’s kindly voice.

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“Hmm, that was a good rest…”

It is with this voiced thought that Lucius, Bishop of St. Elimine, caretaker of the 1st diocese in Araphen awoke. He had awakened, he knew, on the 6th hour watch of the morning-precisely the same moment when the sun’s first golden beams pierced the old wooden shutters that served to guard the few true windows of the convent, where they were staying for two days and nights. “And apparently the ceiling as well,” he said, continuing to think aloud.

The sun’s rays had found several cracks in the armor of the old convent’s roof, and they were beginning to fall on his face. The holy man gave a rueful smile as the vision of his still closed eyes shifted from the familiar black to a dull red. A languorous yawn, so massive that it seemed to threaten the dislocation of his jaw, spread silently of over his face.

Lucius smiled inwardly. Even as a newly ordained bishop with a horribly unpredictable schedule, he was still very much a slave to the routines he followed as a humble monk. To rise and to yawn, this was one of his habits, and he savored the way the sinews of his skull stretched and pulled in an effort to accommodate his gaping mouth, the way his eyes would tear up slightly, and how for a brief moment, the drawing of new breath caused him to become temporarily drowsier than he had been in the first place.

Feeling a laugh bubble up from within his throat, he threw off the thin sheets of his mat and then rolled out onto the cold stone floor. He stood up on the balls of his feet, all arches, and glanced upwards towards the rays of light that first awakened him. He reached-reached and clenched his hands, as if to capture a few beams from the ether and make them his own.

This elicited a few pops from his hands, stiff from long nights spent writing letters with a quill far too small. It sometimes seemed as if all he did lately was beg favors of his old friends and this required many hours spent in writing. His legs creak in protest from long inactivity, but he ignored them as he quietly uttered the old prayer, Memorae.

His head, having been bowed briefly in formal petition, straightened once again. And help me beat the morning traffic. He quickly amended, knowing only too well just how busy the streets would be in a few hours.

As if going down an internal list known only to him, the bishop continued with his morning rituals. Fresh water being currently too scarce to spare for anything except consumption, he took a small tin of fine, white talcum powder and proceeded to give his lithe body a good rub-down, quickly erasing traces of the previous day’s exertions that he had missed in his haste to catch what meager hours could be spared for sleep. A few stray locks of golden hair were then brushed behind the ears and next a worn sash, well-knotted, added to his blue-bird robes. He was ready at last.

A peculiar warmth tickled the back of his neck and he turned to a sun that had risen only a few degrees. Not one quarter of an hour needed. He thought with some pride, Even Nana, Elimine rest her soul, could find no fault here. His blue eyes crinkled in a smile, thinking of the old bat brought up memories of another, very unique lady.

“Punctuality is a virtue…for those who do not mind being lonely.” That bit of wisdom from a long running argument with a rather…spunky...(he could think of no better word) young cleric was what came to his lips as he pushed open the rickety wooden door and walked into the main sanctuary.

The bishop stopped near the podium, an antiquated affair of obsidian wood that had half collapsed from the weight of years and the hungry tunneling of termites. From his elevated position, he scanned the pews, searching for a particular shade of red. He could not find his red, but Lucius did see a familiar lump of patchwork linen.

With a few long strides over the tiled stone floor, he made his way silently over to the bundle, aided by his bare feet and the old mold that none had yet managed to conquer. He slowly reached down and ever, oh ever so lightly, grasped the frayed edges of linen.

A quick tug is all that was needed to reveal his still sleeping ward. A low moan escaped the young girl and the brief glance of a dark, bloody red is ended when she rolled over to her other side and pulled the blankets back over her head.
“S’too ‘arly Lucius.”
“Come Master Sluggard, I know it’s early, but it is Market Day…and if we do not hurry, you will miss the chance to get those new boots that I’ve heard no end of...and you do not want to miss that,” a gentle shake, “…do you?” This works. “Oh, ho, ho, ho, not so tired now are we?” The young girl finally finished throwing off the last of blankets in which she had so deeply burrowed last night.

“I am not tired, I am cold!” She declared grumpily, chafing her sides. This elicited another laugh from Lucius.

“Amy my dear, truly, you are the only one in all of Lycia who is cold on this fine spring day.” Yet, as she stood and began to hastily gather the linens up into her arms, he wrapped his arms around her from behind, pulling her in close. This caused her to flinch reflexively and then tense, poised as a bird for flight, before she finally relaxed after several seconds. He sighed as he stared at her worryingly, “Amy, you’re far too thin for your own good. One of these days you will catch a cold and send me to an early grave with worry.”

Indeed, the young girl was quite waif-like. When Lucius had first found her almost six months ago, an escaped captive of marauding bandits, she had been a walking skeleton from starvation and infection; her eyes liquid hollows, ribs and spine painfully visible. The greatest danger had been the infections. She had had several small cuts scattered over her body and although the wounds themselves had been easily treatable in nature, neglect allowed the corruption to spread.

Many had suspected she would not live to see two nights’ end. However, under the care of his unsleeping eyes and the careful ministrations of the previously mentioned cleric, Amy had recovered. Looking back he realized that he and the “spunky” cleric Sister Serra had very little to do with her recovery. Once she started taking in proper food, her body had healed itself with remarkable efficacy. She was, however, a naturally slender, bordering on emaciated girl and she was always cold. Although sickness had never resulted from her chills, it was a source of unease for him.

“I’ll take out the laundry,” he said, now trying to rub some warmth into her bony shoulders, “I want you to hurry up and get changed. We want to beat the big rush that always comes with Market Day and we have quite a distance to walk.”

“Ok!” Amy apparently concurred.

She quickly pivoted and faced Lucius, a few degrees off of dead center, and dropped the clothes. Lucius lunged for the falling cloths and managed to keep them from hitting the floor. While Lucius tried to gather up the linens leaking from his arms, Amy ran off towards nuns’ rooms to change, her left hand trailing along the wall as if drawing a line.

Lucius, meanwhile, smiled as he walked down to the cellar to deposit the blankets in their original storage place. He was used to people protesting politely or offering profuse thanks before giving into his aid. Although he always offered his help to those in need with little thought of recompense, he sometimes found that he came to expect such lavish thanks unconsciously.

Amy, however, was absolutely shameless and he laughed at the thought of him, the “saintly” bishop said to be too good to exist in a place as mundane as the mortal plane, being put into his place by an exuberant eleven year old. She keeps me honest, he thought. After returning to the main sanctuary, he waited for Amy by the double-door entrance.
.
“I’m ready!”

Lucius turned from his idle examination of the door’s carvings to see Amy making her way down to him, hand first grasping, then releasing each pew as she passed.

“Shhh,” he intoned and, putting a finger to his lips, gave a low whisper, “it behooves us not to wake the remaining clergy. As I child I was often provoking their wrath and it was most unpleasant.”

He received a smile in return and she motioned as if to stitch her lips together. “Very, good…let us be off.” He took her hand and they were out the doors and down the steps in no time at all. She silently began to count her steps, adding to her mental tally every time her left foot hits the ground.

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One, two, three…almost too excited to sleep the previous night, Amy had taken to badgering the nuns for more information regarding their trip. It hadn’t been easy, but eventually the sisters had caved under her constant questioning and told her what she wished to know, if only to make her cease her pestering.

Apparently they had to travel almost an entire league to get to the market. She knew that this would require many hundreds of steps, many thousands of steps. The idea dampened her spirits a little…but only a little.

By virtue of knowing that it took her counting one-hundred and fifty left steps ten times to get to a third of a league, she knew exactly how long a league was and how hard it was on her feet. But not for much longer, she thought, imagining herself walking without tire in a brand new pair of boots. She imagined simply walking around the world without pause, something she didn’t even the seemingly indefatigable Lucius could do. Well, maybe not the world…but at least 10 leagues. She nodded, yes, that must be about right.

Now, it was not that she really knew the exact distance of a league; she simply had a good way to keep track of it. Amy reached down into her robe’s pockets and felt around their coarse interior until her fingers discovered a long and thin leather strip of many beads. Her fingers played over its surface, touching first many beads as small as her smallest finger and then three beads twice as large, randomly shuffling them up and down their tracks. As she walked and counted, she recalled receiving the “gift”.

A voice, as high and cold as the sea on which their ship sailed, floated down towards her, “Are you telling me that you have been blind your whole life and yet you’ve never learned some method of keeping track of distance?”

This had made her temper flare. “Why should I know? No one’s ever told me!”

“Hmpf, foolish girl. If you had ever traveled further than your own backyard without hanging onto someone’s cloak like a little flea then you would have known the importance of knowing exactly how far you have traveled. You especially, being sightless, must rely on such knowledge.”

Amy merely cocked her head and gave what she knew was a very nasty scowl. “I’m doing…”

“…miserably. I do not have the time to teach you properly, therefore I will simply give you this and let the monk work with you..”
Before Amy could fashion another angry retort, she was again cut off before she could properly begin when a strange object was thrust into her hands. She declined her head out of habit and explored the object with her fingers, feeling a long strip of knotted leather and many beads.

The lecture was continued dispassionately, “You will use this to keep track of the distance traveled. You will mark every thirtieth of a league you travel with one of smaller beads. When you have moved all of the smaller beads you will move a larger one and begin anew with the smaller beads. When you have moved all of the large beads, you…is this beyond you?”

Amy’s face must have betrayed her. Instead of answering the man’s taunting, she threw the beads back at him and shoved her way past to male her way as quickly as she could back below deck. Angry tears made their way silently down her face as she loudly called back a litany of foul names and obscenities. Thanks to her time spent with the bandits, her vocabulary in this regard was very comprehensive. She paused briefly at the hatch to see if an apology would come. None did. She flung open the heavy wooden portal with thunderous *bang* and disappeared below.

“Old bastard, may St. Elimine strike him with a blazing pox in his nether regions!” She continued grumbling in this vein for several minutes, enjoying the creative process of making new curses. She didn’t know what half of them meant, but they had sounded bad when the bandits had said them and it felt good to vent her anger.

Lucius had eventually learned of the altercation and had retrieved the object (a pace counter as it turned out) and then found another to teach her how to know exactly how far she had traveled. She had to admit that the skill was very useful when she bothered to apply it.

Today, however, was not to be one of those days. After many, many steps (she had stopped counting at two thousand, finding that it made the trip seem even longer), Amy finally heard the first whisperings that signal proximity to other people.
“Come on Lucius, hurry up!” She said, feeling the excitement of finally coming close to the massive open air market start to take over.

She felt his hand move forward and hears the tempo of his stride increase. Amy was now nearly skipping down the dusty road, though Lucius wasn’t going quite fast enough for her to properly skip. Lucius surprised her when he actually sped up instead of simply giving his usual reply of, “Patience is a virtue,” in that maddeningly calm voice.
“What are we going to do first? I want to try the pastries. And chocolate, definitely chocolate.”“You and your sweet tooth!” Amy loved that voice. “By Elimine Amy, I swear that if were possible, you could live on nothing, but chocolate for the rest of your days.” It was the richest alto and the loveliest tenor all in one. It was the softest caress of velvet, the warmth of a summer’s day, and the touch of an angel all put into the air through sound. The concept of “light” was foreign one to Amy, but if she was told to describe its properties, she would describe Lucius. Once, when he had first told her his name, she had smiled and said it sounded funny. His only response was to laugh and reply, “Indeed, it is rather odd. ‘Lucius’ means ‘light’, but odd though it is, I’m afraid I’ve grown rather attached to it over the years.” “What does my name mean?” Amy had asked, her curiosity piqued.

“Beloved.” He had replied. This had made her go quiet with the bitter irony, but the thought of her name no longer evoked that response.

I am…“beloved”? She thought, giving a smile up towards where she hoped Lucius’ face was. A quiet laugh, barely audible fluttered down to her. It occurred to her to that he does that often. The laugh came when he was happy or sad and when he was other things as well.

“Old people are confusing.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yea, you’re not sad are you?”

Silence answered her.

“Are you?”

“No Amy, I am not.”

“But before you laughed when you said you were sad.”

“When was this?”

“When the sword lady with the crazy brother left. You told Mark, ‘I’m sad to see her go,’ and then you laughed. Now you’re not sad. See, old people are confusing.”

There is a long pause. “Well Amy…I think I was confused myself. She seemed so…empty, so purposeless that it made me sad. I tried to comfort her, but…but nothing seemed to work. I often tried to engage her in friendly conversation about the…the small, umm… “goings” ‘s of our little army, ask about her…her, umm…home…”

Oh, I smell the bakery! Amy’s thoughts turned from the oblivious bishop to the scent in her nose; her mouth watering at the thought of freshly baked sugar cookies. But as great as sugar cookies might be, there is something else occupying her thoughts.

A new pair of boots, with real leather and wooded soles. No more blisters, no more flopping when I walk! They’ll have fur on the inside so they don’t scratch my feet and little picture stitched on the outsides and they’ll actually fit and… Amy’s thoughts continued on in this vein for sometime until she suddenly noticed the ground had somehow changed. It was harder, but much smoother and flatter.

“but nothing ever seemed to work. She would…just stare at me. I didn’t know what to do.”

So this is a paved road? Amy, who had only ever heard of the idea of roads paved with cut stone, was busy imagining how much nicer it would be if all the paths and roads in the world were paved. Then I could run as much as I wanted and never trip.

Each stone had been carefully quarried into the shape of large rectangle, cut flat on the top with just enough roughness to allow young girls to run without fear of slipping and just smooth enough so that they need not fear tripping. She listened closely to the sound of her boots’ wooden soles clipping against the hard surface. She sounded very much like the horses that had occasionally thundered by, only smaller. With this idea in her head, she did her best to skip in place, trying to mimic the canter of a horse without actually getting ahead.

There is a sigh, “and perhaps I felt a little guilty as well…and we appear to have arrived.”

They had indeed arrived and very soon they found themselves walking as if through a sea of humanity. Amy could hardly believe the sheer numbers of people. Where only a few minutes before there had been only empty air, there is now a swiftly growing throng. A constant and ever growing buzz of conversation tickled her ears. The slight pressure and passing breezes of men rushing by grew closer to her as they continued to walk into the heart of the swirling mass.

While in mid-stride, she felt his hand slither down to hers and grip it firmly. The full sensations of the market have enveloped her and before she knows it, she is surrounded by a thick haze of roasting meats, bellowing merchants and their contesting hagglers, and the pungent smell of the blacksmith’s forge. The physical input nearly overwhelmed her and Amy suddenly noticed her breath comes in close intervals, shallow and from high in the lungs. The teeming throng of humanity presses in and she is sharply jostled, elbows of strangers much taller than her connecting with her arms and back as they hastily go about their business.


Amy is screaming desperately, any pretense of calm now lost as her wild cries attempt to outdo those surrounding her. Smoke and searing ash rush into her lungs, filling the vacuum created by her cries.

A sudden tug to her hand pulled her back to reality obliterates the remembered pain, though the rushing adrenaline and pounding heart remains. Amy tried to hide her distress from Lucius by taking a calming breath and brightly saying,

“What was that Lucius?” He had been speaking about Araphen’s market. He continued to pull her through the crowds, face forward and blessedly ignorant of her distress. His reply was nearly drowned out in the roar of the market place, but clearly decipherable nevertheless.

“I was saying Amy, that Grauecendre is the largest trading center for all of eastern Lycia as well as being the primary gateway through travel and trade from the country of Bern pass through. It was esta…”

Her attempts at calm were not working. The people still crowded around her, an ever moving wall that constantly contracts and expands, contracting a little bit more, like the walls of a heart that was slowly dying. Feeling no better, but now beginning to fear that Lucius would notice and decide to call off the trip, she sought to keep him distracted.

“Grew..Ga-ro-sinder…I can’t say it Lucius.” Fortunately, it was easy to keep him distracted if you knew what questions to ask.

“Gra-ow-saw-ohn-dra Amy is the name of this place and its name loosely translates to ‘gray ashes’ Nearly two centuries ago, there was a brief, but violent war between Bern and Lycia. It ended in a stalemate, however the soldiers of Bern were not content to retreat in ignominy. They set fire to the forests of evergreen trees and then salted the earth to ensure that the land would remain infertile. I have read that this entire,” he gestured with his arm, encompassing the north, “area was nothing, but one vast field of ashes and salt. It was many years before life returned. The loss hurt Araphen horribly, but in a way, their misfortune was turned to good. Because of the destruction of its natural resources, the area was considered worthless. However, several enterprising traders took advantage of lack of competition and…”

Come, keep talking. Amy thinks, as if to encourage the bishop to continue his history lesson through mental suggestion.

“…and by and by, Graouesendre had become the center of not only Araphen’s trade, but the primary conduit of trade with Bern. What was once considered only a tragedy is now considered a boon to the entire nation. It just goes to show you that St. Elimine really does cause every evil act to work towards a greater good, why even…come along now, keep up.”

Lucius spoke to her, easily falling from his role as teacher back into his self-appointed role as her warden, “Now Amy, listen carefully to me. While we are here, I want you to do your best to stay right next to me. It is very easy to get separated and…”

Amy was vaguely aware of what Lucius was talking about and she let him know this by slightly tightening her grip. Her seeming panic attack has ceased to become worse, the effects from the excess adrenaline that it had brought became no better. Her hearing, normally so sharp, was dulled by a pounding pulse that matched the beat of her heart.

Concentrating on taking deep breathes and following the lecturing bishop, she slowly began to recover. The panic had left her. However it was not to last. Lucius, ignorant f the drama behind him, took a detour behind a group of pig farmers by pacing through a blacksmith’s shop.

Her nose involuntarily took in the thick smoke of the forge, pungent with wood, steam and the stench of steel. Even from the distance, her hands caught the heat radiating from the smith’s iron. Her heart began to beat faster again, old memories resurfacing despite her.

Unearthly wailings fill the air, black smoke rushes into her lungs; searing, choking.

Amy gulped in the air like a fish, unconsciously lifting her sleeve to cover mouth and nose as she was forced to remember what it been like to be nearly burned alive. Think of something else, think of something else!

She retreated into the memories of home. Nothing came to her. At that moment, she could recall neither the refreshing shock of an icy morning bath nor the sweet smell of wild lavender. The feel of her rag doll escaped her and the sound of the family’s old sheep dog did not answer her mental calls.

“AMY? AMY, ARE YOU ALRIGHT?” Lucius was talking to her. He now had to shout to be heard over the roar of the hagglers.

“WHAT?”

“ARE YOU ALRIGHT?”

“YES, I’M FINE! CAN WE PLEASE GO TO THE COBBLER NOW?”

Lucius ignored her. Amy felt a delicate hand press itself onto her forehead, then it moved to her neck, lingering. She could feel her pulse pound still and she is sure that he can as well. His hand was slick with her sweat and Amy was able to feel the contrast between her now chilled skin and his warmth. Worried that the trip would be canceled prematurely she fished the water of her memories, desperately casting about for some argument Amy settled on a half-truth and a decoy.

“I’VE BEEN FEELING A LITTLE QUESY, BUT I’M FINE. SOMETHING I ATE THIS MORNING. I’LL BE FINE, REALLY. LET’S JUST FINISH SHOPPING AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.”

There was a long silence, well silence from Lucius anyway.

“AMY, YOU FEEL HORRIBLE. ARE YOU SURE THAT YOU WILL BE ALRIGHT?”

“STOP WORRYING! GODS, YOU’RE WORSE THAN MY MOTHER!” Amy’s agitation began to creep into her voice despite her. There was another long pause as Lucius considered what she has said.

“VERY WELL. WE WILL KEEP GOING. BUT IF YOU BEGIN TO FEEL TOO ILL, PLEASE LET ME KNOW. WE CAN ALWAYS GO TO ONE OF THE LOCAL SHOPS CLOSER TO THE CONVENT.”

Amy did not want to consider this. She has been dreaming of nothing, but their trip for what seemed like forever. Lucius had often commented that the only thing he had heard for the past two weeks was her asking how much longer it would take before they arrived at Graouesendre. He was beginning to sound too close to calling off their trip for Amy’s comfort and so she threw out her decoy.

“THERE ARE TOO MANY PEOPLE LUCIUS. I THOUGHT YOU SAID WE WERE GOING TO BEAT THE RUSH!”

“WE DID BEAT THE RUSH! JUST WAIT A FEW MORE HOURS AND THINGS WILL BE TWICE AS BAD.”

Amy can only gape blindly at this fact. As much as she wanted to stay here, the thought of Graouesendre twice as busy and twice as loud is enough to deter even her from staying over long. Thankfully however, her question had reminded Lucius that they were on a time table of sorts. He continued to pull her along, his worries over her momentarily set aside if not forgotten.

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Lucius was worried. As he did his best to guide the blind Amy through the mob, he wondered what was wrong with the girl. I’ve always fretted about her getting sick. Could she finally have caught an illness during our travels or our stay at the convent?
He was no doctor, but he need to be to know that Amy was in physical distress.

“What could be wrong with her…she was fine only las…, AH!”

A quick side-step and a jerk of the hand saved Amy and himself from being run over by an impatient nobleman and his horsed entourage making their way through the crowd. Lucius fought down the urge to cry out and rebuke them for their thoughtlessness. He knew it most likely would not be heeded and if it was, he risked a confrontation which he could not win.

A sigh escaped him as he continued to work his way through the mob. He had always been somewhat timid, but lately he had found himself becoming more confrontational. It had come to a head almost a week ago in their travels. Tired and worn after a long day’s walk in the hot sun, they had been extremely lucky to find an inn before nightfall. The owner, well aware of the location’s advantages, had taken full advantage of their desperation and had demanded a ridiculous sum for a single room, not including a badly needed meal.

Ordinarily Lucius would have simply slept outside, but his concern for Amy, who was only just getting over a spider bite that had left her unable to walk for almost a day, trumped his economic sensibilities. In the end, he grew desperate and forced the man’s hand by frightening his other customers, local peasants, with the hint that he might curse the establishment.

Lucius frowned unhappily, recalling the incident, and pushed the memory out of his and the himself through the crowd.

“LUCIUS!” She still had to shout to be heard over the crowd, which if anything was louder.

He did not reply, pausing, turning to a new angle, walking, being blocked again, repeating the motions in an erratic zigzag as he began making his way back towards the convent.

“LUCIUS…LUUUUCIUS!”

He kept on walking, “YES AMY?”

“WHERE ARE WE GOING?”

“BACK TO THE CONVENT.”

“NO, WE NEVER GOT TO DO ANYTHING!”

“AMY, PLEASE DON’T ARGUE. WE CAN ALWAYS GO SOMEWHERE ELSE. AFTER ALL, THE ONLY THING WE REALLY NEEDED WAS SOME MORE FOOD.”

Suddenly she planted her heels and jerked to a stop, intending to argue with him so that she might yet get her boots. Lucius, unaware of this, kept walking. Although he did not loose his grip on her, their arms were stretched out and thus blocked another man, also in a hurry. Unwilling to wait, he simply shoved each away in an opposing direction and continued on his business.

Lucius, upon feeling the break, swiftly turned around, but his eyes did not immediately fall upon the red of her hair. His heart skipped a few beats before he managed to begin to frantically push backwards through the way he came, looking for his lost charge.

“Oh no..no, no, NO!” He had lost her. He had lost an eleven year old girl in the middle of one of the most crowded markets in the known world right before rush hour.

“AMY!!!”

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St raining against Lucius as she was, Amy hit the ground hard when the stranger shoved her out of the way. Sprawled out amidst the feet of the mob, she screamed back an angry retort at the man who had shoved her, “HEY, WATCH WHERE IT THERE YOU SON OF A WORTHLESS WHOR.., AAAH, I DIDN’T MEAN IT LUCIUS!”

Ow! Amy thought as someone trod on her hand. Crawling a few feet to the side, she hastily picked herself off her feet and dusted her robes off. She nervously waited for Lucius’ inevitable rebuke to come from the roar of the crowd.

“LUCIUS, I’M SORRY! REALLY!”
Nothing.

“LUCIUS, WHERE ARE YOU?”

Still nothing.

It became Amy’s turn to panic. With mounting desperation she dashed to the closest moving body, grabbing cloth and almost crying Lucius’ name. Each time she her hands sought the cool, silken confirmation of his robes, but each time her hands found something different. Amy’s brain felt like it had been wiped clean by a giant, invisible hand. Rational thought was impossible, only blind fear and anxiety.

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It could have been hours, seconds, or decades. Amy didn’t know.

She had madly rushed through the unending masses, searching for Lucius, but it had been futile. There were simply too many people, too much noise. Then the final crush, completely forgotten in her panic, arrived. Amy became utterly lost, her sightless eyes rendering her a greater cripple than any rudderless ship in an ever moving sea of noise.

Eventually, she had simply collapsed. Her throat raw from yelling, her muscles weak from exertion and panic, she could no longer go on. She sat there on a lonely corner next to a fruit vendor with her knees curled to her chest and her mind curiously numb.

The people still swirled around her, but they were no longer noticed. She was a prisoner within her own mind, trapped in the town hall with her parents and the other villagers on the night the bandits had attacked. The night she had lost everything.

The fire grew in her mind and the flames began to sweep through the people, igniting one than the other, creating torches to wail in ghastly chorus. The flames grew stronger, reaching even to the center of the teaming mass. People screamed, deafening her. She dreamt her father crying her name, Amy! AMY!

“AMY!”

As her consciousness dimmed against the onrushing heat and dancing flame, she dreamt that she could see an angel coming towards her, its face concealed in a brilliant light that did not blind. So this is what it’s like to die..

Amy felt soft hands grasp her side and she seemed to float upwards. Looking down with the last of her brief sight, she watched as the vision the vision of the burning hall seemed to grow further away. With a final hiss, the last of the wailing torches became no more than a dim ember, growing fainter and finally dying.

Bye mom…dad..

And with that last thought, Amy knew no more.
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When Lucius saw Amy’s eyes finally flutter open, he almost felt moved enough to jump up and dance, so great was his relief to see his young charge finally awaken. Instead, he settled on offering up a very grateful prayer up to Saint Elimine for the several miracles it had taken him to find Amy amidst the massive crowd.

“..Uhnnn..mom…dad…NO!”

Whe re only a few seconds before Amy had been laying near-comatose, she was now thrashing about on the ground. Even though Lucius moved instantly to restrain the distressed girl, when Amy sat up so quickly that he was nearly knocked over himself. As it was, he managed to intercept her half-way up.

“Amy, it’s ok! Wake up!”

For a few brief moments he continued to clutch the struggling Amy in his arms, but she soon subsided into trembling sobs.

“Shhh, there, there dear one, nothing is going to hurt you. Nothing is going to happen to you…I am here now and I am not going anywhere.”

For a long moment he simply sat there with her, her tear-stained face buried against his robes. With his left hand he softly caressed that unique head of hair that he admired so much while his right was securely wrapped around her back. Rocking her from side to side, he calmly whispered assurances that, yes, everything would be alright and that he was sorry for having lost her.

Eventually she calmed down. Amy’s mind was a confused blur as she tried to make sense of what had happened to her, but she remained silent and contented herself to simply sit in Lucius’ arms as he continued to rock her slightly.

Eventually, she felt comfortable enough to break the silence, “Where are we Lucius? I can’t hear anyone.”

His response surprised her, “We are just outside of Graouesendre, inside one of the tents that the traveling merchants use when they come here. The reason you do not hear anyone is because it has been nigh on six hours since we were separated. The market has been deserted for some time now and most of the merchants are already asleep.”

“Six hours?” Amy, incredulous, asked shrilly.

Lucius’ reply came back to her calm as ever, “Yes Amy, after we were separated, I ran all over Graouesendre trying to find you. Eventually a kind woman noticed my distress. Apparently a young girl had nearly given her a heart attack by grabbing onto her dress from behind and screaming something. After soundly berating me for losing a young girl in the middle such a place, she told me where to find you.”

When she remained silent, he continued on with his narrative. “You were sitting there, curled up and face down. The only reason I spotted you was because I could see your hair. When I finally got to you, you were half-asleep with exhaustion. I picked you up and carried you to this tent, which was kindly provided by the merchant you decided to sit down by.”

He looked down at her, noting that she still did not respond. She no longer sobbed or shuddered. She no longer moved at all and he wondered if she had not fallen back asleep.

“Amy…Amy, are you feeling alright?”

Her soft breath and the slow flutter heart told him all he needed to know.

He brought his left hand down to support her neck and with his right remaining on her back, slowly laid his precious charge back onto her bed. For a long time the young bishop stared at her sleeping face, once so drawn by distress and sorrow, now simply peaceful. With a final smile, he lovingly brushed some her scarlet locks behind her ears, before covering her once again with the blankets.

“Sleep well beloved.”

Fini