Epilogue: The Return

[Caira Ayryn]

A Fistful of Fire

She neared the town, once again weary from the heat of the desert. It all hung over her shoulders. The brazen sun’s infinite rays, the peril of battle, the strife and still shock she actually had made it.

The traveler went into a small saloon as she searched for a place to stay the night. When she had last been here, it looked so different and now, it was all so distant. As the knight stepped through the wooden doors she recognized a familiar figure. Merik’s gold hair shimmered at the light while his red eyes bobbed on the bartender, but in the saloon he was minding his own business, for the most part. Caira couldn’t help herself. She charged him, felt her body lunge in, powering her fist as he turned his head at the noise but it was too late, he hadn’t expected her still bruised and blood-smeared fists to reach his nose so quickly.


Just before his figure collapsed to the nearby wall, their unnaturally colored eyes both met. I should kill you. But to a Prime, death would mean nothing. Her overwhelming fury poured from every tensed muscle in her body, from her crunched fist to the scalding, aggressive posture that she had taken on. Crimson lines streamed from his nose, and an imprint of her fist had added a nice decoration of color to his face. A person murmured, or perhaps it was Merik’s muffled voice whom questioned her survival, “Why-” are you alive? is what it sounded like he would ask her, or perhaps he questioned how broken his nose was, as he with his back leaned against the wall and his knees propped him up from the dusty floorboards. Caira was both senseless, and somehow aware of every movement - or lack of - in the entire room, as her seething eyes glowed with the dark element of wrath.

“I didn’t take a stroll through the desert, TWICE, get buried alive, and fight off an army of scorpions from invading this town NOT to punch you in the face.” she said almost shouting and then turned her back to him dusting off her fragile fist. “Don’t forget my name Merik. And won’t make the same mistake twice.” she began to stroll out of the bar, but forgot that her purpose on entering. She needed a room.

Her shameless eyes fell on the bartender, “Got a room for the night available?” whom had a rifle aimed between her eyes. Her eyelashes flashed open, and quivered at the snout of the steel machine.

“Don’t try it missy,” he said as his mustache crumpled his words.

“A room..?” she began again, perhaps he hadn’t heard her, but she hadn’t meant to demean him, nor cause trouble. Her eyes swept the room, all eyes were on the out-of-place, female Prime.

“Not for you.” he ushered her from his saloon and told her not to start trouble there again.

The classic half doors slapped behind her.

“Georgie, comeon’ why didn’t you give her a room, plenty other’ customers have killed men in here and you always say they was fine as lon’ as their tabs ‘ere paid.” A man asked who was not too unfamiliar with spending his days, and his loot, at the bar.

Georgie didn’t look amused, “That there, was an angry woman. Probably had a bad day... Hell, it looks like she ha’ a bad week maybe she even went to Hell and back again! She coulda’ done much more with him had she wanted to,” he pointed to the now knocked out Merik, whose nose was being tended to by a pair of women in revealing corsets. His anonymity among bandits, had served him well. “I don’ like to tempt fate Tom, that woman had scorn in her eyes and I’ll be damned if my shop blows up because of it. Don’ ye remember that one lady? Blonde hair, blue eyes, had that old man with ‘im? Blew up an entire street and tha’ put em’ back for weeks. Some of these Primes these days are more a’ threat than their business is worth.”

“But Georgie,” Tom, the same onlooker that had spoken before, but added another drink of liquid courage down his gizzard, “She’s a hero if she saved the town from an army Scorpions! Who knew how big they were gettin’ to be in the desert out there.”

Georgie gave him a hard look, the deep set man flexed his mustache with a look of distinct anger, “There ain’t no heros in this town...”

No one in the bar associated the girl that had come storming in with a scraggly face and only scraps of attire left hanging off of her, with the infamous Legend of Ayryn. Though the knowledge of the Ayryn’s mostly rumoured triumphs had spread some, the remaining bandits of the mountains had learned to fear her and had every reason to be wary of where she trod. She hadn’t been defeated yet, and the gangs of bandits had sought to send her to the Underverse to keep her from stirring trouble and death in their domain, only making the name grow. This time, it was associated with the intrusion of their turf. A threat that must be stopped. Rumors became warnings to those who had something worth taking, and a name out here had more power than the myth surrounding it.

Meanwhile the indurated Caira sighed and was once again subjected to the heat, people spit in front of her -not out of disrespect, but whatever gunk had been blackening their teeth for years- while some moved aside judging her by her tense expression, the smudges of dirt she hadn’t bothered to wipe from her face, and simply by the power of her her stance. The depth in her eyes had lead them to weigh her value by every scratch that remained unclean and visible through her heavily torn clothing. As if her pain had become a badge of honor.

Wooden doors swung closed with the wind that roamed the dusty street, and meanwhile one stayed open, she entered with a splotch of gunpowder on her cheek, but she could have cared less at that moment to fix her appearance after her many adventures across the waves of endless sand.