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Out of the deep forests of Napponia stepped a shadowy figure, tall and thin, firm and imposing to the locals whom he comes across, should he choose to be seen.
Most in the area knew him and what his purpose was. Protect the people. Protect the land. Protect the life around him.
To see him, one would easily guess his purposes to be much more devious.
It was an intentional trait he'd acquired over many years to weed out the good from the bad. His short blonde hair, well-maintained full beard that was peppered with the perfect amount of roguish grey, and intense, deep blue eyes set in a world-weathered face gave him an instant look of well-kept, unwavering authority. His perfectly-cleaned, blood-red battle armor and large circular silver shield with its series of razor-sharp spikes surrounding it said that authority was in more than his appearance. He was what he seemed to be: a serious man with a serious job to do. The voices just made the job harder.
They were collections of lost souls who were once powerful people. They were now neither of this world or the next. Cast-offs from the age when God decided he'd had enough.
He trudged into the deep woods, slicing his way through with the blades lining his precious shield. If you could even call it a shield. It was so many things, really.
This particular shield-like object had once brought down God.
The history of the weapon was why this man had made it his life’s work to serve and protect these lands. It was the least he could do.
He broke through a tree line, coming into the open field and the stream that ran through it. This empty space was his destination.
His armor clanked and sparkled in the sun as he crossed the grassy field. He had no illusions of hiding here. The field and all that dwelled within it were closed off from the rest of the natural world. A pocket of time and space hidden behind the Power. None but those who could see it and know its secrets could enter, and those were people very few and far between these days. Once there had been many places like this. They were havens for the powerful. Now there was only a handful of what was once a vast network of spectral refuse.
He approached the stream and the person sitting next to it that he’d come to speak with. Her petite frame and waif-like constitution made her almost disappear in the light. Her long white hair nearly blended in with the shimmer from the stream she sat by.
She stood as he approached, alerted to his presence as soon as he entered this place. Nothing happened here she didn't know about. It was her creation. She turned to him, her nearly translucent skin as white as her hair, her body small in a silvery dress hanging over her gentle curves, her face young and mischievous, and her eyes a deep crimson, a trait she had once adopted but now embraced as her natural appearance. She stood solidly and took the man’s large hand as he neared.
“It's been a while since you've come here. I’ve missed you.” Her childish voice carried on the wind like the babble of the creek beside them. Her voice was soft yet authoritative, as if she possessed a worldliness beyond her young appearance.
“I've been busy. There's a lot of world to protect, and I rarely have a day’s rest.” His deep voice dwarfed the girl’s. While he looked to be a man in the middle-to-evening of years, if she was a day beyond her teens, it would have been shocking. “Besides, you know I hate coming here if I don't have to. There's too much for me to do out there to be hiding in the back alleys of reality.”
A soft smile on the thin face of the girl. “Guilt you don't need to carry with you. It was never your fault.”
“A fact I try to avoid hearing by never coming here, I'd like to add.”
“And a fact I'll keep repeating until you believe it. My constant chiding of your history is not why you're here, though, is it?”
She could still read him better than he cared to admit, even after such long periods of being away.
“Sadly no, as much as I enjoy your incorrect reminders…”
“It's my right, you know.”
“So you say. Still, you are right. Something has happened. Something you need to be aware of. Better to hear it from me than to be surprised.” He paused. The last time this event had happened was right after the world, and this girl, had changed forever. “The voices bring a message. They say we have a visitor from the west.”
“The west? There aren't many from the west that would dare. They're all too scared of their own shadows to come this far.”
“This visitor is from a bit farther west than that, I'd say. The phoenix has returned. He has set up camp on the edge of our borders and I believe he plans to enter.”
If she was shaken from this information, she did not show it. “Are we certain it's him? Or is it a 'her' this time?”
He nodded. “Yes. A presence like his can't be ignored by the voices. They felt his arrival the moment he came. It's a him.”
Eventually, she grinned. “He's likely coming to find out why he can't zip from his home to other places in the world in an instant. What an interesting story that will be.”
“Also, it seems he's brought company.”
A look of doubt came to her face, a cute expression that would have seemed immature had it been anyone else. “A friend? Not likely. I don't need to tell you that he doesn't take well to stragglers and hangers-on.”
“Regardless, it's true. He travels with one other,
