A Lady In A Maze
Back then, she was no infant, but that girl was a child. Was just a kid. Just another stupid kid.
Never brave. Always afraid to face danger. Yet the man had told her she would grow smarter.
She just had to be patient. Keep training. His experience was no different. It was about vision.
“Your eyes may deceive you, Maze,” he told her that day. “As their kind have deceived slaves.”
It was day, but it was dark. Even amid sunlight in the sky, she remembered stars so far away.
Dark, not like the night, but grey. Maybe it was because of the ash. She kept her gaze trained.
She was a girl before she was a woman. She watched him in darkness. A bitter wind. “Maze.”
“Yes, Father?” He pointed forward. His daughter’s gaze followed his finger toward the flames.
“Do not look away.” He commanded. So she looked onward, watching death, listening to pain.
Gold statues crashed and clanged. Entire structures were consumed in fire. “They are...stains...”
Slavery’s symbols were no other. Wanton bondage that slavers raised. “They must be erased.”
“Yes, Father.” Maze concurred. Daddy’s little girl. Always. Yet never. Watching. Listening. “Be brave.”
She was if he instructed her to be. His voice dripped with authority, there in the street they faced.
The girl breathed in. Flames. But cold. Out. Noise. But quiet. “We must break the world’s chains.”
“Yes, Father.” Observed. Heard. Slavers were herded, imprisoned, executed. By Father’s blades.
Cure the plague…Maze…
She breathed in. Breathed out.
…I am a lady…a lady in a maze…
There was no noise. There is no flame.
She looked about. Only darkness around.
A lady’s eyes were lazy. Is…this…a dream..?
Only moments ago, maybe, the lady was awake.
Vision blurry. Headache. When…did I…fall asleep..?
She remembered her father’s moment from years ago.
Yet she could not remember moments ago. That meeting.
Whatever happened was it then or after? She does not know.
Eyelids open to nothing. No light. Yet this is a hood on her head.
She checks her limbs. Her arms are at her back. Hands are useless.
Ankles are bound together like her hands. Legs bent. She is on a chair.
Be brave, daughter. It's cold. So silent. Yes, Father. A lady can't be scared.
Velran Kilran