The Missing Stone

Handed A Mystery

Mildred wakes up.

The action isn't uncommon, everyone wakes up after they sleep. Mildred feels as if she's slept for far too long.

She's lying on her side, her arm bent at an awkward angle with her head resting upright on it. She moves her arm out from underneath her, wincing at the soreness and sitting up on her knees.

She's outside. Now that's uncommon. She tries to remember why sleeping outside is uncommon and how she figured waking up is normal.

She can't remember a thing.

Her mind is like a dark, empty space, the walls unseen behind fog. She can't even recall her parents, where she lived, or mundane things like what her favorite food or color was. She feels that she should mourn for things she has no recollection of, but she finds no point in mourning something she never had.

The confusing part is how she knows that waking up is normal. A spike of pain interrupts her thoughts, clenching her eyes shut. She holds a hand to her head and decides to keep things simple for now.

Firstly, she's outside. Mildred attempts to stand and nearly falls over from disorientation, but she catches herself against a tree. Oh, trees. She's in a forest.

Something feels off though. She feels as if she wasn't supposed to fall, like something was supposed to prevent it. Mildred straightens when she feels...something lift up the back of her cloak. She sighs. She's getting quite tired of using that word. She looks over her shoulder and sees that the something is white and fluffy. Like a tail.

I have a tail? She consciously moves it, and it moves. Curious. She knows that animals have tails mostly for balance.

Mildred doesn't know why she knows that. Her head hurts.

The ground is lightly crusted with frost, snow threatening to topple from every branch Mildred sees. She looks forward ahead and catches sight of water. Moving water. Her mind helpfully supplies that it's a river, and that she can follow it to somewhere she wouldn't be outside.

She does exactly that, taking note of her clothing. The cloak she's wearing has a hood and nearly covers her entire body, if not for the rips and tears. It must've resembled a large coat in its better days. Her hands are wrapped in bandages. She doesn't bother with them. She unbuttons the cloak to see a dark tunic and a belt holstering multiple knives. A breeze blows by and she rebuttons the cloak, pulling the tattered hood over her head.

Around her neck is a small violet amulet. It's pretty, she thinks, so Mildred leaves it alone.

She looks up. She just realizes it's night, the moon bright and full. She knows that nights are supposed to be dark, so why does everything look like it's daytime? She looks down at her amulet. It glows slightly in the supposed dark, gleaming like it knows something Mildred does not. It's highly likely that it does, as Mildred doesn't know a lot of things.

She follows the current for an undetermined amount of time until she hears yelling ahead of her. She can't distinguish their words or catch sight of them. Mildred follows her instincts, crouching down and crawling along the underbrush. Their words are getting louder as she gets closer.

"Take whatever you can carry." The voice is rough, likely from shouting. "This war may be damning for a lot of people, but I say we need them more."

Another voice, high-pitched and shaky with fear, "People need those supplies to survive!"

"Yeah, like us."

She can see them now. One of them, supposedly the first voice, leans against a tree as others dressed like him carry miscellaneous items from a wooden cart. Some of them stand around keeping watch, brandishing weapons. Mildred identifies at least two sword wielders, a lancer, and an archer, who sits on a low branch on another tree, a little to the left of the cart.

Two others, assumedly the merchants, sit slumped against the tree, one of them unconscious. Both are bound. Her eyes narrow. With hostages, this situation could end drastically.

"Now," the man pushes off the tree and approaches the bound merchants, "since we're done here, it would be... problematic to stick around for some knights to find bandits looting one of their supply carts." He points a sword at the merchant's throat, the tip pressing against his throat hard enough to draw blood. "Unfortunately for you, all they will find here is quite the mess."

He swings his sword up, and Mildred moves before she could think. She easily parries the man's sword with her daggers, disarms him and slices his throat. He goes down with a thump and a gurgle, clawing at his throat. Utter chaos ensues.

The other men all charge her at once, the archer struggling to aim as Mildred darts between them, disarming the nearest swordsman and knocking him out. The point of another bandit's lance nearly grazes her side when she turns around. She grabs the shaft and twists mercilessly, ripping the weapon from their hand.

She ignores them in favor of pivoting and swinging the butt of the lance at the other swordsman, blocking their blow. She ducks under another swing and sweeps their feet out from under them with the lance. They fall with another thud, and she discards the weapon and runs towards the archer's perch, leaping from up the branches until she reaches their spot.

The archer stares at her with wide eyes, and Mildred simply pushes him out of the tree. She hops down and turns to the disarmed lancer with narrowed eyes. They look upon Mildred with awe and unbridled fear and bolts into the forest. She turns to where the archer is, now flat on their back, unconscious. Mildred blinks and walks over to the now unconscious archer and takes their bow and quiver.

These will be quite useful. She blinks, confused by her train of thought.

"W-who are you!?" Her ears twitch from beneath her hood. Oh yeah, she forgot about them during the heat of battle. She drops the bow and walks back over to the merchants to cut them free.

"Mildred." She answers his question, so why is he gazing upon her with such confusion? She dismisses the thought as she is currently confused herself. Where did she learn to fight? How did she know having a ranged weapon is important? The merchant waves a hand in front of her face.

"Hey, you alright there?" She shakes her head to clear her thoughts, then nods. "Well anyway, thanks for saving me and Joseph," he gestures to the other merchant. "We wouldn't be here if it hadn't been for you, so allow me to express my gratitude." He practically runs over to his cart and grabs something. He walks back to his mysterious savior, holding out a bag of gold. She takes it with a tilt of her head, then hands it back to him.

"W-well, if you don't want that, then I insist that you take this." The merchant presses a simple silver ring into Mildred's hand. "It's said that this ring can grant miracles, and you saving Joseph and I was a miracle in itself, so I want you to take it." Mildred stares at the ring awkwardly, nodding in thanks. She bids her farewells to the merchant and disappears into the trees with the "miracle ring".

The merchant sighs when his mysterious savior is out of sight, bringing a hand to his head. "Oh man, Anna's never gonna believe me when she hears about this."