Chapter 354: Chapter 353: Heartbreak

The campground could be warmer, she thought. She watches the women and men who she had gathered. There were some of them who would rather stay close to her. The little kids she had saved were particularly close to her. Alice could understand that she was the mother hen for the children at the moment.

“I am slow,” she said. Although she was faster than the eye could see. She had to worry about the gust of wind that she carries.  Her flash step composed of using her ethereal ability to teleport herself within short distances. She could still manipulate enough power to do long distance teleportation, but that backlash was the same as lighting her soul up for all the ancients to see.

“Time passes,” she said to herself. “I am still weak in the heart. I thought that one day I would stamp out all of these underlying emotions, but who am I kidding? I like seeing people smile when hope comes for them. It is my opium that I cannot let go. I was fooling myself about duty and family – in the end I love bringing a smile to those who needs it the most.”

Images passes on the campfire. Despite the loving smiles of those she had brought hope. There was one man who had been tormented by her very existence. A man so loyal that not even time and space could change that. It was only because of how she plays with his life that he’d turn into a brave knight or a nightmarish monster out of legends.

In every timeline she had turned. She had found him a perpetual assistant. A man that would bring him warmth at her darkest and coldest days. Of course, she was a fool who couldn’t trust those who’d say they’d love her. She had tried everything to keep him away, at first, out of annoyance, which then became about keeping him safe. She had turned him into a monster for her own greater good. She had made sure that his memories would stay erased, without knowing that he had relived his life. So she recalled a memory of the past as she stares at the fire.

 

*****

This was a memory of the past, she thought. This was the first time she had awakened from sleep. She had become the war maiden’s incarnate. Multiple souls reside with a single-minded wish of saving the world. She was on a hill covered with blood and gore. The strays of battle walked limping to their fallen comrades. She saw him standing with his comrades lying on the ground. His back was stabbed with arrows that almost pieced his plate and mail. His battered shield riddled with bolts and arrows. He should have died with his injuries, but he had a knack for surviving. His will to survive had made him become known as Steeled Heart before he became a Bleak Walker that fought until the end.

“Milady,” he was on his knees, “are you perhaps alright?”

“I am fine, Salvatore,” she said to him.  She could see that Burnt Woman’s fire-scarred face was like a stone. “You should be looking after yourself, Soldier.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

Their relationship was purely out of subordinate and superior. Not even the heartfelt confession or you could say a slip of tongue would change that. She had seen this young man wake up. Her old memories of the past body, no, the past fragment was filled with regret and despair. When she looked at this man she felt pain and fear.

I assumed that he was someone who I wanted to keep away. A person that had made the previous incarnation of me that was lost to abyss fell into such despair. I had to keep him away or else I would lose to this emotion.

She did not like the seething pain. The heart rending ache that seems unable to cease as she looked at him. She had one goal at this memory. She wanted to save the world and watched people grow from their despair and blossom into flowers of hope that shines brighter than the sun itself. The first few years in the second incarnation as Ciara Alician was a mess. She was unable to do anything with how clueless she was. She had been unable to discern the cause of her late incarnation. The incarnation to Ciara Alician was late. She was unable to deduce the reason why she was weaker. It took her many efforts to support the elemental heroes and even her powers as a war maiden wasn’t enough for the army of light to win against the darkness.

She was in a tent that day. Twenty-years since she possessed the knowledge and memories of Ciara Alician she had learned that there was a time where she had placed the man into a podium to be shamed for his behavior. She foolishly thought, “If I do this then he will stop.”

He didn’t stop. No, he made the shaming a lesson to steel himself further. Or that the loss of friends had steeled him into silence. He trained differently from the rest of the army. He would sat all day cross-legged from time to time in silence when he’s not guarding. When he’s not working he was a statue that does not move until said. He followed orders with a single-minded behavior.

He only said ‘yes’ and ‘no’ when talking. Alice didn’t understand what had happened to him. All she had heard was that he walked out of a cave without the friends he was usually with. But he was unbroken despite the loss of his friends. He stood guard alongside a maiden of throes who had the same demeanor as him. The two acted as they told, but what she noticed was that her gaze would travel on him. The years had not been fortunate to Nolan Salvatore. His face was that of a man that had seen things. He had embraced his height and stood with confidence and command. There was weight and age on that glare of his. He had become a fine man that even the maiden that guards with him could not take her eyes away. She had admitted that his lineage or where he came from was unknown to her.  She had always wondered where he came from.

When you are strong travel goes smoothly. The camp was growing larger and the men she had recused became an army of militia that followed her very command. They did not bother her in her tent. She stayed where she was and did not say anything other than a few words. She was lost trying to remember the memories of the past.

She had been fond of thinking back to her past. She recalled the day where their battles took them far from the Oasis City and deep into the harsh lands where the army prowled on enemy territories. She trudged the seas of corpses and saw him struggle against a humanoid enemy. A monster with thick fur. Alice stared as he locks the humanoid’s arms and choke him to death. When the humanoid fainted he drove a silver dagger coated with bane salve.

Alice recalled trying to ask if he was fine. Then she recalled that their relationship wasn’t that fine. She recalled seeing him crawl to a body torn open by great claws. Alice recalled the face of that body. It was the same maiden who had guarded her tent and helped her wore her armor.

Nolan clasped his hands into prayer and chanted a prayer for the maiden. Alice didn’t know what prayer was that. All she knew that he didn’t speak it in the talon’s language. It was a language she had no recollection of hearing or learning.

When the pyres were lit during that night she saw him standing in front of his tent with that same stony look on his face. Alice hadn’t talked to him deeply, and her approach was awkward.

“You rest, Soldier.”

“No, Milady,” he said to him, “I rather guard your doors.”

“Join then in mourning.”

“I am done, mourning,” he said firmly, not even daring to hide his eyes. “I will guard you as she did. That is my duty.”

She did not understand why he would do that. Then it was only when she saw his later that day that he was using his duties to throw himself forward. Alice had realized that he had been using his sadness as fuel. It then clicked to him how the last incarnation had fallen.

“I refused,” she thought. She hardened her heart and let the man be. He stayed guarding the door and fought on many occasions against human and devils.

 

Even as years passed she had treated as nothing more than a guardsman. She had traveled upon lands and fought enemies. When years passed and when years in this timeline had passed she saw his graying hair. He didn’t lose the stony look. His eyes held the same age and weight. She was about to look away when she saw him surrounded by little kids offering him tiny purple flowers. She could tell that the by the clothes the kids were wearing they were definitely orphans.

She froze. A smile blossomed on that stony face. There was a warmth that showed on the man’s face. She could not help but stare at it. This man had served her for years yet he would show such smile at others, but not him? She didn’t understand why he kept that look.

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The war with devils during that timeline was harsh. Her powers were limited and she had no power other than the elemental light and her knowledge of the runes and witchery of the incarnations of the war maiden was all she have.

When the devils came at that day she fought a hard and chaotic battle. That battle was caused by the collapse of the front lines. She fought for a day and yet found him nowhere to be found that she had thought he had run away from the greatest battle that humanity had against the devils. When she returned bathe in blood among her soldiers.

She passed by an orphanage burned to the ground. Among the courtyard she saw a lone figure dragging devils out of the orphanage. After he was done dragging the corpses he sat on his knees staring at the corpses of little kids whose burned lids and clawed bodies were stomach turning even to the war maiden.

Alice recognized the man. That scarred armor and graying hair was undoubtedly him. She walked towards him with silence accompanying her. He eyed her quietly and stood. He unwrapped the bracelet on his left wrist and handed it to her.

“I want to resign from the position, Milady.”

“Truly?” she stared. “You’ve served me well, Soldier. Where are you going?”

“To follow my wrath, Ma’am.”

He didn’t said much after that.  Five years passed and she heard no news other than a man covered in red slaughtering devils. When the army of light reached the place where the demons were she found him among the ranks of the Bleak Walker. The Bleak Walker were infamous for their unbending will. In the end he had walked the same path, she thought. Upon meeting again he held a momentarily gaze of longing and desire, but that was replaced quickly by the gaze of cold fury.

She didn’t meet him again until she saw his body displayed by the devils on the front of the overlord’s castle in hopes to make them feel fear. His lifeless body hanged stabbed through the heart and his head on the edge of the pike.

Alice didn’t know why she lost her head that day. She suspected that it was that caged emotion burning inside her, but she thought to ignore it. It must have been her rage of being unable to protect a loyal servant of humanity. At the end of that timeline when the world was swallowed by the shade. She recalled the sun-like smile he showed to the orphans.

 

The journey for the refugees weren’t easy as well. Their main enemy were the patrolling soldiers and bandits. If not for her ability to detect they would have seen groups targeting the camp. They were getting bigger as herds come to flock to their location. Alice had not stopped in her quest to liberate those who needed liberating. She had killed for them and pried cages open. She could only dare do this because of the innate power that she had. Alice had to worry about the dragon and the heroes of this world, but she believed that as long as she stays in the proper path then there would be no trouble between them.

Rolling landscapes and snake-like streams were on their paths. As they traveled she had learned that she could not detect any hints of separated paths in this world unlike the world before this. The world was solely locked into one single narrow path that could twist into different branches. There was a force that prevents the looping of time here. She could not redo the time she had spent unlike the loop she had done. She had suspected that this was the work of a powerful being that had control over the time of this world. This world was a reality with a guarded time. Even the Burnt Woman could not change the timeline or manipulate the time here.

I liked this feeling. Lead good people that deserves a chance to live. Huh, is this because I have a new body and a clearer mind that I could see from the ‘view from above’ like he always does?

I have enough of fooling myself that I did it for the good of the people. I did it because I liked it. I liked seeing people smile when they find hope. I like basking under the sun knowing that I did well for them. And that’s why I cannot allow myself to act as if I had not done him wrong. A billions years of torment…of rejection, and selfishness. How could I even dare to face him?

“You are a monster. That seems to be the role that you want to act, Ciara,” he said to her. “That’s why I bow to my soul that as long as Ciara Alician, no the Burnt Woman exists, then my soul haunts as the Deadman!”

She thought that did not deserve any happiness. Savior? Healer? Messiah? She was the one to decide that by her lonesome self.  She know what she was and that wouldn’t change.

Her thoughts went wild. The self-loathing. The pain. Everything came smashing at her heart. No, she did not falter at the moment. She carried the refugees to the place where they can be safe. When they arrive to their destination they were greeted by border guards. Her thoughts went wild, but then she saw the difference in treatment. War had killed a lot of people and they are willing to take people in. When she learned that they are going to be treated fairly she left like the passing wind. A little girl looked for her, but she was long gone.

She traveled on roads and sat on trams. She watched lives of those around her and yet her heart was stilled. The pain that she received as the burnt woman. The loss of her children, the twins she wanted to save.

I wonder, she asked, pleading. Why can I save those who I wanted to save the most?

She had saved millions. Led people into victory and yet those who she loved the most wither and die before her. How many times have she seen them die and die again? How many of those she had taken in grow into older people surrounded by the people they love turn to dust? How many times have she put them to rest. Every home that she had would turn into dilapidated home. How many lands filled with the graves of those she loved have she owned?

But what bothered her was the mountain of bodies that she had stepped on. The bodies of the different versions of the man she loved. The man who had been constant with her life forming a bloody mountain underfoot.

Monster.

That was the right word for her. That blow from the Pale Shine Lady hurt more than she thought it would. Her body was alone in that empty space, a prison that she made for herself.

“Who am I even fooling anymore?”

She kneeled with her hands covering her eyes.

There was no way that it can be forgiven. She was trying to play the role of the hero no matter what. She was a fool. A fool who couldn’t let go of a promise made from a gentle knight. She couldn’t let go of that dream. That dream of a shiny and peaceful world. A dream that she could live if she let go. Here was a world that reached a happy ending. It was not perfect for everyone, but it was better than the world she had saved. Worlds where people cheered her name on nations with nothing, but rubble. She was a savior who had crossed time and space to save one world again and again.

No matter what she thought of herself, there was only one answer to her pondering. She was a monster who pretended to be a savior. A savior who was addicted to the smile of those who had found hope in their darkest day. She wanted to be their sword and shield. She had done it. She had saved so many worlds yet her heart was empty. Her soul calloused. How many eternities has she spent? How many more does she have to suffer? She thought that deserved it. That a fool like her shouldn’t be happy. She did not deserve it, thought.

Happiness are for those who worked hard for it. A monster is a monster no matter what dress they wear. Ciara Alician, no, the Burnt Woman named Alice Dame broke.

Her beliefs crushed. Her soul cracking as second passes.

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