Memories (Of Dreams and Demons)

Training

Despite it all, I still steal precious moments to myself.

As the twilight hours arrive and the family heads inside after a hard day's work, I grant myself the gift of dreams and memories. When it's not in the process of being torn down, the forest is full of mystery and adventure, just like in the books I still read. So what do I do? I think. I plan. I practice. I imagine. I dream. If I'm really lucky, and not too exhausted, I still manage to catch pieces of the Realm between the trees. Under a canvas of stars where anything is possible I remember my childhood fantasy: the ultimate escape, the ultimate adventure.

In my little clearing, away from roads and tractors and lights and people, I begin my journey. Stashed in an old tree trunk hides my adventurer's backpack. Leaning carefully against it sits an old iron machete with a wooden handle and a makeshift wooden shield. They are both extremely poor quality, but are the best I've managed to claim as mine within these woods. The backpack is full of odds and ends, including rope, nails, shoelaces, pen, paper, and muesli bars. To scare the monsters that lurk, I've hammered old nails through the shield. A number of them bend in odd directions, ruined by a tree or fall. I make do.

I take off, running through the forest, carrying sword and shield, pulling childish impersonations of acrobatic and martial moves. As night falls, the trees become tall, dark skinny figures. Their dead branches twisted arms reaching out to grab me and steal me away into the night. But I will not fall to this endless army of darkness; their limbs are blocked and felled by a righteous hero. After years of doing this, I can go on for hours. The entire horde of darkness will fall by my hand.

If I really concentrate, really believe she is there, Naoko appears beside me. Her eyes widen in delightful surprise, but she doesn't say anything. Not a word passes her lips, as it never does any other night, but it is definitely Naoko. I can feel it deep in my heart, in my soul; but a spectre, a moonlit memory, a whisper on the wind waiting for me to take sail and find its source. I listen for it every night, waiting and hoping for the day I have the strength and power to leave this place and find her once again.

So we run together. Naoko twists and spins in a graceful dance, her long hair flowing behind her. With two sharp knives in her hands, she slices out at the imaginary foes beside me. Sometimes she throws me a wink and points up ahead. A second later and she's flung a knife at a distant tree. More often than not she hits her mark, sometimes even embedding it deep in the trunk. When she manages a perfect strike her smile spreads across her face as wide as it can, and she looks at me proudly. The twinkle in her eyes sparkle a dangerous hint: she's practicing for a purpose. The times she fails; when her knife flops away off wood and lands on the ground; those times are different. She scrunches her nose and pulls a cranky face at the tree, as if it were the trees fault. It's an adorable face, and I try not to laugh. Her eyes narrow and she looks at me as if reading my thoughts; the blue in her eyes spawning piranhas. The wrath behind that expression makes me envy the tree. I'm sorry, that's not funny, I'm not laughing, I swear. I hope the trees don't mind our training upon their superficial flesh. We will protect them if and when the time comes. I promise.

Living in the countryside does have its benefits too, I have to admit. One of the best ways to get close to a high fantasy setting in the modern day is to live in the country; horses, sheep, cows, forests, fields, creeks, rivers and lakes, I have access to them all. Europe would be ideal though, I dream of one day adding castles to that list. No orcs, goblins or elves though, they're still stuck between old pages. But you know what else: a proper bow, fit for a ranger learning his craft. When I grow tired of running through thick woodlands with sword and shield, I lead Naoko to open fields only sparsely populated by clumps of trees.

It now sits in my hand instead, sword and shield placed to the side. A fine, laminated, hard maple recurve bow, with a draw weight of forty pounds and spare sets of dacron strings. For the last few years I have been practicing, improving my aim and drawing speed. Every arrow I let loose is at an imaginary target threatening Naoko or the Realm. I remember the day Moloch's eyes flashed a burning red in my direction. Had that happened today, with my bow in hand, he would have swiftly been blinded a second time. The thought helps me bitterly picture my next target. I turn in a swift, practiced move and hit a small clump of straw thirty yards away. That one was for Alia's lock; shot and shattered open. Naoko watches silently, practicing knife tricks, pulling her signature cranky face when it slips and she cuts herself. I don't give away a hint of the chuckling happening inside my head.