The Puppet

The Bounties

Anya giggled as Luke let out a snort.

"So what happened to you?" Anya asked.

"I was tracking someone and got caught up in some sick and twisted enchantress games. I completed all the trials but I failed the final task. I was deemed a dummy, someone who couldn't think for himself and I was stripped of my humanity and my weapon forced to live as a puppet. I didn't do much living though because it feels like this all just happened to me yesterday. Not five years ago."

"An enchantress? Were you in the shadow lands?" Anya wondered.

"Not on purpose. I got sidetracked."

"By what?"

"I was being chased by a Valler. My fire wasn't very effective against it so I was running and I ended up in the forest of shadows. No matter how much light I casted I still couldn't see anything. I got knocked from my horse and then I kept falling until I was in the lair of that wicked wench."

"You said she forced you to complete trials?" Luke asked.

"Yeah, I had to find something, race for my life, show my peak of strength and kill someone."

Anya gasped.

"She had captured the Valler that I was running from. I refused to kill it."

"But those things are monsters. Why wouldn't you?" Luke wondered.

"She confessed right before she told me to slay the Valler that these trials were her way of putting me through an initiation to become the next king of darkness as their king went missing. I didn't know anything about their king but I refused to take his spot. I had my own king to serve and I told her that nothing will stop me from returning to him. That's when she said only a puppet would refuse to be their own master. She told me to kill the Valler and I laid my sword down. I'm glad I did. The Valler was actually a cursed creature. He turned into a man right before my eyes and thanked me for not killing him. She had cursed him and she cursed me. Both of us refused her offer for our own reasons and she punished us."

"So the Valler went through the trials also and refused the final task too?" Luke clarified.

"From what I gathered in that short time. The last thing I remember seeing is the shock on the Valler's face when I turned into a puppet. Then the enchantress whispered something about nap time and I woke up between you two."

They rode on in silence for a few more minutes until Roy spoke again this time with a completely different tone.

"Wow, what a story, right? Ok, who's next? Anya, what's your story?" Roy said, looking at Anya with his face on his hands.

"Oh, um, I am from a family that tried to arrange my marriage and I refused and ran away," she said, keeping it simple.

"Whoa," Roy said with wide eyes as he listened intently. "That sounds crazy. An arranged marriage. How did you end up as a bounty hunter with Mr. Sunshine over there?"

Anya tried to hold back her smile but failed as she answered. "Well, I wasn't the average dame. I always preferred to play fight with the boys instead of joining in on tea parties with the girls. I got pretty good with a sword. So about a week after I left my family, I saw a sign about some boar that was destroying crops in the area and a reward for anyone who could stop him. It was my first job and I had a lot of fun doing it so I thought I'd keep up that line of work. I ran into Luke on a banshee job. We teamed up, split the bounty and decided it was easier to have someone watching your back. And it was rare to find someone you could trust to do that so we stuck together."