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The most important person in her life was her brother. Strong, focused and determined. He was a menace on the battlefield, as many told her again and again, and something she herself, have witnessed.
The army paid well, as was expected of a cause asking for one to put their life on the line, and that was the reason most joined. When her father died of an illness, their sole income was gone. Tigreal offered himself into the army. They needed money, of course, but he loved being on the frontline too.
Because of her deep admiration for anything he did, she followed in her brother’s footsteps, much to her mother’s dismay. Many times, when she found Fanny swinging imitation blades (twigs), she would scold her on how a lady shouldn’t be acting so brash. But that time came again and again, and her mother was eventually worn down. It was clear the young Fanny was not going to waver.
When she brightly told Tigreal that she would enlist, he had sided with their mother. Tigreal never cared for her tomboy ways, in fact he brought her along on his childhood adventures to upturn rocks and wet his socks in brooks. She didn’t understand his decision then.
But now, she wished so dearly that she’d listened to him. Even the sight of her once beloved blades would cause her to become breathless. So she locked them away, and shed her identity as the Blade Dancer, a title she had earned during the war. She hated it. She didn’t want anything to do with the war.
Her life now was simple. She didn’t have a particular passion for writing, but she liked stories well enough as a child, so out of sheer boredom, she started writing a book. With the riches the siblings received as gratitude (and compensation) from the empire, she and her mother relocated to a rural cottage away from the capital. A delivery man would bring them food and resources at the start of each month, also courtesy of the empire. The nearest market was twenty minutes on horseback, and as much as Fanny loved riding, her desire to show her face to anyone was much less so.
Her mother was much more approving of her new career, perhaps because it was also due to her love for words, but while Fanny preferred the silence of writing, her mother chatted at every opportunity. As any mother does, she’d regale her of the hardships of her childhood, how she would have to work all day making shoes and helping around the house to support her parents and her seven siblings. The moral of the story was that Fanny’s current life was a breeze that she should be thankful for, oblivious to the lifeless eyes that would back stare at her whenever she closed her own.
Nowadays, it seemed she’d taken a liking to ghost stories. “Aunt Jane died of a heart attack at seventy-six,” she told her once. She remembered the plump mother of her childhood best friend, Mary. They would chat about roses and daffodils whenever they met, topics always bored a young Fanny to death and made her yearn to go play with her brother. “I saw her last night. She said my roses were divine! I told you someone would appreciate my garden. I asked her what she was doing here, she just smiled and turned me towards the kitchen. When I turned around, she was gone. It was her ghost, Fanny!”
According to her mother, Aunt Jane died a good death, which meant that she was happy and had done everything she wanted to do in life. Fanny didn’t agree. How could anyone be happy with dying? But she held my tongue, uncharacteristic of her younger self but now had become something of a habit.
Fanny asked if she was feeling sick. With an offended tone, she added that Aunt Jane must have felt tired because she walked a long way to come see her. Once again, she didn’t ask her why Aunt Jane bothered walking so long just to not say anything. When she inevitably became a wandering ghost, Fanny would surely have more purpose.
“Maybe Tigreal will appear soon too.”
When she said her brother’s name, she did not think of him. He had died three years ago, plenty of time for her to learn how to forget him. Though the first mention of him in years showed her that she had much more to learn, for her bound memories of him came unraveling down.
His visit being even a slight possibility drove her out of the house, to the porch. It was her first time out of the house since she first arrived. The scenery was picturesque, peaceful. And the peace led her mind to fill in the void with scenes of houses destroyed by giant rocks, wood ablaze and wet with black and red liquid. She was entranced to the point that she didn’t notice an approaching boy, until he was close enough to nudge her on the shoulder.
Instinctively, she reached for handles beside her hips, only to grasp air, bringing her back down to earth. They stared at each other for a moment. The boy had a look of recognition, “You’re…”
“Mary,” she finished for him.
“Oh,” he said, but there was an air of doubt in his expression. Fanny decided the best way to quench his doubt was silence. Thankfully, he didn’t say more. He gestured to his horse-drawn carriage and nervously scratched the back of his head, “Your stuff, ma’am.”
She opened the door for him to bring jars of milk, pickle and jam inside. But watching him was an impatient process. He was rather thin and had little muscle on his arms. Though just a civilian now, she never abandoned her daily exercises. When she wordlessly helped him unload, starting with an entire box full of dried meat, he started protesting, only to catch his words with surprise.
“So uh- why haven’t I seen you before, Mary? Usually your mum comes to greet me.”
“I’m usually in the capital,” she lied, “For work.”
“Orh. Whatcha’ workin’ as?”
Unable to come up with another job on the spot, she said, “An author.”
He inspected the supplies they had finished moving into the house, “Wow. I didn’t know being an author paid that much. You must be famous.”
Paranoia told Fanny that he was testing her, hinting that he knew her true identity. Surely, he had seen her face before, either from afar when she was receiving medals for her contribution to the empire, or perhaps even on the battlefield, as she watched her comrades die around her.
“Mary?” He frowned.
“Huh- oh- yeah. Yeah.”
He blinked and opened his mouth like he wanted to say something. He didn’t, instead he bid her goodbye and disappeared back in the direction of where he came from.
When Fanny awoke, the sun had gone down. The house was quiet. With little else to think about, her mind wandered to her brother like it often did, and what her mother had said. She’s met orcs, demons and the undead on the battlefield and danced around them with her twin blades without fear, yet now she found herself pulling up her covers to her nose, hoping it would somehow ward away ghosts.
It didn’t.
The knocking made her jump. She stared at her door and her breathing became rapid. The knock came again, gentle and tentative. She willed him to go away, but when he started rattling the doorknob, she knew she had no choice. The fine hairs of her body stood at attention. She reminded herself that he had given his life for her. The least she could do was open her door.
Even after all these years, Tigreal was a good head taller than her. And she was taller than most girls. But unlike her lean figure, his muscles filled his tall frame to the fullest. He didn’t bring his mace nor shield, or his golden armor, which was all buried with him. He was simply wearing an undershirt and a pair of pants. His curly ginger hair was disheveled and unwashed. Starting from the middle of his forehead to above his ear was a large gash. He smelled like blood.
Fanny averted her eyes once she realised she was staring. “Come in,” she muttered and moved aside so that he could.
Instead, he remained still and said, “Mum always said she wanted a farmhouse.”
“Yes. She does. That’s why I chose it.”
Tigreal nodded, perhaps because he didn’t have anything else to say.
Feeling that the conversation was going stale but not wanting him to disappear, she said, “I’ll go get mum. Wait here.”
When they returned, the door was ajar and he was gone.
“Now you know,” her mother said, “Never turn your back on a ghost.”
That night, her nightmares returned.
It was as if the sun itself cowered in fear of the Demon Queen, and hid behind clouds. Her comrades were too afraid to call her by her first name, and shook whenever Fanny referred to her as “Alice”. She did not meet Alice herself, for she was placed in the vanguard and by that time, Alice and her elite were travelling by the sewers to attack the empire from the inside. Instead, her and Tigreal’s squadron faced Thamuz, the general of the demon army.
The foot soldiers were like animals, incapable of making tactical decisions. Their strength came in numbers. Fanny had foolishly assumed that Thamuz was similar and fired her cable within his grab range. And the next moment, her cables were used like a whip and she slammed into the ground.
With her shoulder dislocated and her gear jammed, Fanny watched the demon general descend upon her, his scythe raised. She closed her eyes and braced herself, but heard the cry that she would never forget.
There were no last words, no “I love you”s, no monologues. When Fanny turned his face over, he was dead.
The following days, Fanny waited nervously for a knock. Two weeks passed, and none came. She was starting to think that after looking at his murderer again, he couldn’t bear to come back and had gone away. Or worse, that it was all a figment of her imagination. She told her mother, who refused to entertain that thought.
“He’ll knock,” She told Fanny.
And eventually, a knock came. It was morning. Fanny thought it peculiar to her that a ghost would appear in broad daylight..
Regardless, she rushed to the door and swung it open, only to be greeted by the delivery boy.
He smiled, “Why so disappointed? Expecting a special someone?”
Fanny only realised her expression at that moment and quickly shook her head, “No, nothing like that!”
He laughed, “Just teasin’ ya! Must be a lucky guy though!” He reached for his pocket and returned her an envelope sealed with red wax. Even from where she was standing, she could smell the strong perfume of paper.
Fanny had no desire to share her personal life with a stranger, but decided she didn’t want the same stranger to have a false impression of her character, “Oh no, I don’t have any. Thank you.”
He bowed, “Of course! Will I be seeing you next week?”
“Maybe,” she said absent-mindedly and closed her front door. She ripped the envelope open. It was an invitation to the commemoration of her brother’s war efforts, immortalising him through a giant granite statue. She’s seen them before. They were called the Knights of Dawn, the strongest soldiers of the self-proclaimed empire of dawn.
Tigreal hated reading but the history of those warriors fascinated him. Fanny tossed the open envelope and the parchment onto their table carelessly. She didn’t have the energy to pass the invitation to her for she suddenly felt tired, and very irritated.
She thought she had gotten quite good at forgetting, and perhaps because for two years she did, but her brother’s sudden appearance had awakened a voice in her head. It came from behind the stairs. There were two loose floorboards that she had specifically asked for as a feature of the house. Her mother wasn’t made aware.
And she had intended to keep it that way: forgotten, along with the dead.
Tigreal came six days later, with another knock. This time, her hope and anticipation had gathered to a point that Fanny dropped her quill onto the ground and jumped out of her seat to open her room’s door.
“Don’t knock, it’s your home too.”
They sat on her bed and faced each other. Their lack of words three years ago caused Fanny to repeatedly ponder what she could have said. And now that Tigreal was in front of her, those words were all stuck.
So instead, she said, “You’re a Knight of Dawn now.”
Tigreal tipped his head, “Really?” He sounded surprised, but not because he hadn’t expected it.
She nodded, “You deserve it.”
There was no need for her to say it. Everyone knew that he was bound to end up at the hall of granite, whether it’d be right after the war, or thirty years later when he had finished living his life to the fullest.
The former happened.
“It’s not your fault,” Tigreal gently said, as if he had read her thoughts.
Fanny hadn’t cried since she was a little girl. Not when he first turned her enlistment down, not when she saw him die, nor during his funeral, or the countless number of times people stopped her to apologise for his death, but she cried now. She wept for the last three years of her life that was wasted away, for her twin blades and rope she kept out of sight, the life Tigreal could be living now if it weren’t for her, and she cried for all the people that died during the war, including her.
Tigreal didn’t come back after that. There was a lingering possibility in her head that it could’ve been like the last time, yet she felt more sure that he wouldn’t. Still, she waited a full two weeks. And he didn’t show up.
“It’s fine,” She muttered as she turned the page of the calendar to a new month. In the nightly serenity, she was pulled to the place below the stairs. With a newfound sense of purpose, she pulled the boards out, revealing a grey sack. The metal inside clinked as she picked it up.
For the first time in three years, she gripped the leather of twin blades and polished carving of slick wings, just like she used to. She put her weapons back in a new sack and put on a cloak. She tied her red hair in a high ponytail through sheer muscle memory. Then unfurled it. She didn’t like how her hair felt on her head. It was too familiar, a ghost of what used to be.
She opted for a low braid.
When the first birds started chirping, the boy came. After helping him unload all the supplies, she mustered up the courage to ask, “Could you bring me to the city?”
His eyes instantly lit up, “Of course! Where ya goin’?”
Fanny didn’t know much the empire had changed. She didn’t even know if it was still going to be there, so she replied, “I’ll guide you.”
They passed the rolling countryside. Quiet and green. It was the first time she had seen it. On their trip there, she had been hiding in the carriage, afraid that she might start a mob hellbent on putting her head on a spike for taking away Moniyan’s symbol of strength.
The farmlands slowly blended in with more buildings and houses, a sign of the city. And it is in the suburban area that she found her old home. It was one of the first places that the demons invaded and where the army would take their last stand, chasing Alice back underground.
The house was in ruins. The wood was splitted, there was cobblestone everywhere. Nature had reclaimed it, wrapping its green vines around exposed areas. Fanny started digging with the shovel she brought.
The boy, whose name she learnt was Robert, quizzedly asked, “What ya doin’?”
“Starting a new life,” and she buried the sack with a layer of dirt.
The empire truly had changed.
She remembered being distrustful of the elves and disagreed fervently with Tigreal’s decision to shelter them when their home was destroyed. A good majority of the soldiers agreed with them. But the impending war and a need for all the men that can fight quickly suppressed the quarrels. Fanny was surprised to see that they’d stayed.
“Ya haven’t been out of the house much, have ya, Mary?” Robert smirked when he saw her reaction to a passing elf-human couple.
“No,” she bashfully admitted.
Just like the city and its people, the castle had also changed. Untouched for centuries, it had to be rebuilt.
The guard on duty stopped them, but when they got closer, his expression morphed. Fanny recognised the guard. He was part of Tigreal’s squadron. She waited for his anger, either for running away after the war without so much as a word, or worse, for his captain’s death.
But neither came. Instead, he quickly bowed, “Welcome back Lieutenant Fanny.”
Robert remained silent even after that revelation, which she was thankful for. The hall of the Knights of Dawn remained relatively untouched. The walls were repainted but the only major addition was at the every end, where the statue of Tigreal stood tall and proud, his mace in one hand and his shield in the other. She ran her hands along the granite, feeling the smoothness of the polished granite.
She had finally decided what her last words to him would have been, “I’ll continue living for the both of us.”