Spirit Warrior

Night was falling over the city, her city. She'd explored every aspect of it over the years, watched it grow and mature into the home of shadows, whispers and forgotten dreams. She'd tended to those nightmares, those fleeting fears and hidden desires, helping them to grow and wrap their tendrils over the dark decaying buildings.

Dierdre pulled her goggles down over her eyes, giving her the gift of second sight. With them she could see more than just the slinking shadows and common people of the night. Spirits and creatures that slipped between this world and the next came into vivid view, glowing reds, blues and purples. They shone like beacons and her hand went to her sword hilt in anticipation.

She relished a good fight, for little other purpose than the bloodletting. Creatures of the night, grown too strong, too greedy, too ravenous for her city to support were her favored prey. She only had to find the glow, the pulsing, throbbing beat of an old beast.

Her silvery gray eyes searched over the horizon through the tinted, multifaceted glass of her goggles. Nothing. She turned, scanning the city scape behind, below. Still nothing. Her hand released the hilt of her blade reluctantly and she stood, stretching.

Perhaps she'd been over vigilant of late. Though the landscape glowed heavily with the pulsating glow of those lesser demons and creatures she fed, none had grown to the scale worthy of her blades. She would have to content herself with other things this evening.

And so, she slipped from her rooftop perch, climbing down the side of the decaying brick building with spider-like ease. Touching down, her thick soled boots made a faint splash. The streets were potholed, muddy and dank. She inhaled, taking in the scent of mold, fear and decay.

A streetlight in the distance flickered along one of the few thoroughfares that were still lit. The infrastructure of the city and many around the world had been falling into ruin. Such was the way of the world.

Diedre splashed ahead, towards the light, wondering who or what she mind find on the streets at this late hour. Rats scurried and chittered in her wake, and she kicked a pile of trash for good measure, sending the creatures flooding out into the street. She pushed her goggles up onto her head, watching the all too mortal, all too normal creatures slip back into the shadows.

She made her way down the vacant, lit street, considering that perhaps tonight was meant for little more than a drink and a bit of company. She couldn't help but wonder if the old tavern was still open. She'd not visited her favorite haunt in... well, she couldn't remember.

The constraints of time and mortal needs were none of her concern. She woke when she was needed, when she felt the pull of the moon. It was on those nights that she would wander. Tonight, she'd been called to wake, though her purpose was not evident.

She found the hanging sign with relative ease, though it was worse for wear, hanging crookedly on its rusted chains over the door. Dierdre'd always rather liked the old world charm of the hanging wooden sign amongst those shops and pubs that still sported the plastic and neon of the times before the fall.

She grabbed the handle, pulled open the heavy door, and was all but assaulted by the pungent air, heavy with pipe smoke, the scent of slow cooking meat and baking bread. Her stomach rumbled she patted it with a chuckle.

“Now, now,” she told her treacherous belly. “You know you don't need any of that.”

“But it remembers,” said a man she didn't quite recognize. He was old and bent, his hair graying at the temples, his bright brown eyes crinkled at the corners with a network of crows feet. “The pleasantries of my old pub.”

“Jason, is that you?” she managed, squinting in her effort to recall the features of this man as she'd once known him.

He gave her a slight nod and gestured to the empty table in the back where she could sit with her back to the wall, just as she preferred. “The usual, Lady Dierdre?”

She nodded, taken aback, despite herself. Had it truly been that long?

“How are you, Jason?” she asked, remembering those long forgotten manners of her past life.

He smiled, the crows feet crinkling into deep lines around his eyes.

“Good, good. The pub's still here. I've still got my health, for the most part. What more can one ask in a city such as this?” He put down basket from the tray he carried.

She reached for it, finding it contained still warm bread and thrust her nose into the fabric that helped contain the warmth, inhaling.

Her stomach rumbled again, louder this time, and she pulled out a thick piece, searching for the butter and realized Jason had disappeared back into the kitchen. She bit into the dense, dark bread. Though it would have been all the better with a thick slab of butter, she enjoyed it plain, savoring each bite, her eyes closed as she chewed slowly.

Jason brought her a mug of dark ale, thick stew and butter for the rest of her bread. She ate in silence, too occupied with her near lustful enjoyment of the food before her. Only once she'd finished and sat back, sipping at the frothy amber liquid did he rejoin her.

“You always did have quite the appetite,” he commented, picking up remains of her meal.

“Did I?” she asked, straining to remember.

With a heavy sigh, Jason sat down on the bench across from her. The pub was quiet, most of the patrons had filtered out as the night had drawn on.

“Before the change, yes. You could eat like any of the boys, we'd often be fighting you for the last scraps.”

“We?” she asked lazily, content to listen to the tale rather than actively prod her memories. It was familiar, this story of her youth.

“Yes, you and I were young together. Though it has been many, many years since you found your way back here.” He reached out to touch her hand lightly where it lay on the table. “Why have you come back? Surely there must be a reason.”

Dierdre shrugged. “The moon, she tells me nothing. I waken, I fight, and that is all.” She shook her head, her long silver hair, as pale as the moon itself, shimmered vaguely gold in the firelight. It took on the hues around it, just as she took on the duty she was given with out much of a memory of her own self. She did not matter.

“You were more once.” He said softly, his hand still on hers.

Her eyes flashed, and she pulled her hand from his. “I am more. More than all of you mere mortals.” She stood suddenly, her heart pounding. “Don't speak to me of this vague past. What I was and what I am are two different things.”

He put his hands up, a gesture of surrender. His expression, though, was not one of fear as she'd half expected. No, his features sagged with a pained weariness. Gone was the joy she'd seen when she'd fist entered this tavern.

He'd been pleased to see her, she realized, and now she'd hurt him. She shook her head. Had she forgotten so fully what it was like to be... to be... human? Part of her raged against this thought. Of course she had, the voice screamed within her.

She was not human, had not been for decades, nor should she ever wish to be again. She was a Spirit Warrior, she thrived on the perpetual death and rebirth of those around her. Her blades kept the balance, and she relished the battle, the warmth of the blood as it bathed her and fed her.

Then why are you here? a feeble voice asked hiding in the shadows of her mind. Why return to this human place, to savory the scents and the tastes your body no longer needs? Did not the sight of this mortal, his aged face, his words of memories of you touch a place which you cherish?

She put her hand to her head, closing her eyes as a flicker of memories rushed through her thoughts. Memories of being smaller... no, not just smaller, of being younger, of being a child. Memories of laughing and playing on these very streets. The light was so bright, blinding if she looked up. There was no moon, only bright vibrant, golden light and a sky that was pale blue, wholly absent of stars.

It was too much. She staggered back, her hands clawing at the wall in a desperate attempt to right herself.

“No,” she growled. “No, no, no!” she shook her head, the sound tearing forth from her throat in a ragged bellow. “I am a Spirit Warrior! I fight the demons of the night. I am a child of the moon, and nothing less, and nothing more. The memories of this vessel mean nothing to me!”

She shoved the table out of her way. With a screech and a crack it toppled over, and she strode to the door. Wrenching the it open, she spun one last time to take in this place her mortal self had once known.

“She is gone, old man,” Dierdre told the feeble, mortal man cowering by the upturned table. “What you saw today was a ghost. When you leave this earth, so shall she.”

With that, she was gone into the shadows of the night.