Helena flew down the dirt road, her feet briefly touching the ground between leaps of joy and jubilation. She reached to touch the sky, for now even that impossibility seemed within her grasp. It had to have been a dream: with the dragon and the light, and everything. Yet she held a hero’s scroll. With her name on it. She tripped and sprawled into the grass. She giggled at the silliness of it all. Her, a monster, a hero? She pinched her cheek just to be sure. Nope, definitely awake.
She returned to the road, giddy with the sheer happiness bursting from her chest. She danced, and swirled, and spun in the elation of it all. She had done it. She was a hero.
What next? Where would she go? What lands would she see? What deeds would she do? Would she have to leave the caravan? The last thought brought her down to a more measured pace.
Helena passed a thicket of woods and into a clearing. Or what had been a clearing but was now occupied by rows of poles and lines from which laundry fluttered like so many banners. Women turned and waved. Children paused their games to peek out from between the linins. Helena returned the greeting, heading toward the circle of colorful tarped wagon meant to keep outsides from looking in.
Two armed guards lounged by the entrance but straightened up as Helena approached. She immediately recognized the two and called them by name. They waved back.
At first glance, the men might have been mistaken for bandits, with their mismatched armor and weapons. Like everything else in the caravan, their equipment had been acquired through trade or scavenged on the road. The only vaguely uniform bit between them was their clothes in the traditional male style of the caravan, and even than the shades never quite matched up: great baggy brown trousers, white linen shirts, and enormous heavy leather belts, nearly a foot wide, all studded with brass nails in various swirl designs.
Helena slipped her scroll into her belt and folded her hands in the traditional greeting: left hand in a fist with the right covering it. “Greetings to you, Jason, Paris,” she said to the brothers.
“And greetings to you, Helena,” said Paris, always faster on the uptake than his younger brother.
With a bit of concentration and a thought, Helena changed her left hand. The dark skin was replaced with purple skin and green scales. It was a display in excess, with Jason grinning at the level of detail and control it required, but it served as her pass into the caravan all the same. Paris simply motioned for her to enter. She did, returning her hand to its normal state.
Helena made her way to her family’s wagon, similar in design to all the others: a great six-wheeled behemoth, with curved wooden roof, glass windows and wooden doors. It would have been impossible for the two horses who pulled it to do so, were it not for the lifting enchantments which glowed faintly wherever shadows crossed the wagon. Helena paused before the door, collecting herself.
She opened the door to a timeless scene: gentle spring sunlight streaming through the open window, her father sitting at his desk and diligently moving stacks of gold and silver coins from one side to the other while making marks in a book with a quill pen. Her father, Ajax, was an unassuming man of average height, a round face, and with a mustache and beard with more salt than pepper. He paused in his work to look up when Helena entered. He finished his current sums before dropping the coins in the appropriate pile, then closing the book and giving his daughter his full attention.
The two looked at each other across the distance, Ajax in thought while Helena bit her lip, waiting for her dad to say the first word. “Helena,” Ajax said at last, “It’s never easy to take rejection. I too prayed to the Eben-ezer stone, most young people do. Metamorphites such as ourselves are not meant to be heroes to the humans.”
“But father,” started Helena.
Her father waved her off. “It is time you took up a trade in the caravan. You could learn weaving under your mother. Or if you took over the store from Helios, he could devote himself full time to the cattle; he really does have a knack with the animals.”
“But father,” Helena tried again, raising her voice in stride with her frustration.
“I will not hear of it. I have let you, my youngest, indulge in your rumspringa for too long. It is time you took your place as a full working member of this caravan.”
Helena didn’t say anything, she couldn’t say anything. She had been sailing to the moon a few minutes ago and now this. Without a word She dropped the hero’s scroll upon the desk, before turning on her heals and storming out. A glare silenced any observers as she left the caravan.
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Her feet led the way while she muttered under her breath. When she looked up again, she found herself amongst the lines of drying linens. Up ahead, the children had hosted a large rug onto a branch and were taking turns beating the dust out of it.
The current attacker, a young girl almost into her tenth year, found herself relieved of her stick. “Allow me,” said Helena, already squaring up on the unfortunate rug. The girl dived for cover as an impressive “whack” slip the air. Helena swung again, driving from the hips and with all the speed she could muster.
“Stupid,” she hissed between clenched teeth.
Whack!
“Blind.”
Whack!
“Pig headed.”
Whack!
“Old Mule.”
Whack!
“Arrogant.”
Whack!
“Son-of-a...”
Whack!
Whack!
Whack!
The rug was pulled down and another woven victim took its place.
Whack!
Whack!
Whack!
“Helena,” called a soft, yet firm voice behind her. Helena whirled about; stick raised.
Her mother, Eros, stood there: black and silver hair tied back with a cloth, arms crossed, a knowing look and half smile etched on her face. For several moments the two faced each other. Then Helena let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. She dropped the stick and brushed the worst of the dust from her clothes. As cordially as possible, she asked, “yes mother?”
The older woman held her look a moment longer before opening her arms. “Come here my child,” she said, and Helena obeyed. The two embraced for several moments amongst the curios and prying eyes of the children. Then her mother whispered in her ear, “your father wishes to apologize, but does not know how to do so in so many words. Already he is arranging a Bankett in leu of your christening, my little hero.”
Upon hearing these words, Helena let herself sag into her mother, her anger and fears melting away like butter in the summer sun. She felt heavy, yet joyful. “Thank you, mother,” she whispered back.
“Do not thank me, thank you father. All I did was help him see sense. Now go, bathe, for Helios is already drawing you a bath behind our wagon. Put on your finest dress, for tonight is your night, my little hero.”
The scene was a jubilant one: tables and chairs set out in a rough semicircle, with the new hero placed at its head. Behind them, the campfire burned high, smoke rising with ruckus laughter into the night sky. Helena sat between her parents, flushed with wine. Her face burned and she tried to hide from yet another embarrassing childhood story. The speaker stepped down and Thales, her father’s brother, took to center. He regaled the camp, and the fifty attendees, about the time Helena came streaking through camp, covered in mud, “and not a scrap of cloth to cover her little bum,” he concluded.
The camp roared with laughter. Helena made a spirited attempt to hide under the table, only her mother’s arm around her waist kept her upright. Thales raised his cup to Helena and said, “Long have we watched over you, seen you grow from a babe into a woman. I will have to find someone else to sneak books too,” he said with a wink. This elicited a grunt from her father and a tighter hug from her mother. “You will be missed,” Thales concluded and drank, and everyone followed suit. So did Helena, after a fashion.
Thales took his seat next to his wife, and was replaced by none other than Helena’s father, Ajax. He slowly walked to the center, hands behind his back and head seemingly bowed in thought. Calls and jeers greeted him. Yet he only raised his hand for silence, waiting until only the roar of the fire remained.
“As you well know, my own daughter has been chosen by Adoni to be a hero unto this land. None was more shocked than I. My Helena? I did not believe it until I saw the hero’s scroll.” Here he paused and signaled to someone beyond the light of the fire. “Tonight, dear friends and family, I address you, not as a caravan master, but as a father. As she takes her first steps tomorrow on her great journey, I have seen to it from my own purse that she is protected against the evils that walk this land.”
Two people stepped into the light, each holding a bundle. Ajax took from the first and held it up for all to see. “I present you, my daughter, with a padded jacket. May it soften all blows sent your way.” He held up the next item, the oiled metal gleaming in the light. “I present to you, my daughter, a shirt of chain. May it protect you from any blades sent your way.”
Thales came to stand next to his brother. He was holding a sword and shield. “As many of you may know, I served as a mercenary for many years before joining my brother. I started with this sword many years ago. Long has it protected myself and my loved ones. I present it to you, my niece, along with this shield. May they see you thought your adventures and deter those who wish to do you harm.”
Ajex stepped forwards again, once again raising his hand for silence. “Helena,” he said, “I now address you as your Caravan Master. Come, kneel before me.” Helena rose and did as she was bidden, if a bit unsteady. Ajax placed his hand upon his daughter’s head. “Helena, tomorrow you leave us and hopefully someday you return. Many deeds you will commit in your travels, but there are three deeds you must never do. These taboos will brand you in the eyes of our people.”
“Do not consume flesh of man nor sentient creature, least you see others as food.”
“Do not recklessly mate, least your true nature be revealed.”
“Do not reveal another metamorphites to anyone, least they reveal you in turn.”
Ajax stared down at his daughter, eyes boring into her. “Do you hear by carve these words upon your heart, if you ever wish to return to your people?”
Helena nodded, “I do”.