No Such Thing as Good and Evil

Shade knelt down by the front door and tied his boots. As he did, he could hear footsteps run up from behind him. He turned to see Elmyra barrel through the cabin toward him. “Are you sure you have to leave, there’s still 6 months until the academy begins!” she said coming to a screeching halt right Infront of him.

He smiled, got up and pat her on the head. “Don’t lie. You don’t care about me leaving, you’re just mad Faylen is coming with me.”

“Elmyra dear, don’t bother Shade when he’s making one of his few smart decisions.” Aerith said as she walked down the stairs to meet him.

“Unnecessarily rude.” he replied frowning at her.

“Getting her real-world experience before trying to sneak her into the knight academy is a great idea. Honestly Elmyra, getting some real experience would be good for you as well.” She looked over at Shade and frowned. “Just not with him.”

“Unnecessarily rude!” he said louder.

Elmyra crossed her arms. “You never let me go out before, now all the sudden it’s a good idea.”

Aerith flicked her nose. “Well, it’s only been 6 months, but you’ve become a much stronger and wiser woman since this asshole began training with you.”

“You’re welcome for that.” He mumbled, patting his pockets, making sure he had everything.

Then more footsteps came down the stairs. It was Faylen, with a wide smile on her face. She got to the bottom and did a little spin. “How do I look, ready for a trip?” She said making a cute pose. She wore brown leather pants, black boots, a bright green cotton sweater and now no longer wore the slave collar.

Shade got a shit eating grin on his face. “I liked the outfit you wore last time you said that better.” he joked.

Faylen frowned, walked over to him and punched him in the arm. “Jerk.”

“Ow.” He said rubbing his arm. “It was just a joke. But really, you look like a lesbian bard who’s about to play some mediocre music in a back-alley tavern I’ve been thrown out of.”

“Talk about unnecessarily rude.” Aerith said crossing her arms. “What does that even mean?”

“He’s a pervert and an asshole!” Elmyra cried tearfully as she ran up to Faylen and hugged her. “You should stay here with us!”

Faylen smiled and returned the hug. “Unfortunately, he’s the best teacher I have, and he personally knows a knight commander in Alessandria who can hopefully get me into the academy.” She pulled out of the hug, smiled, and looked at Elmyra in the eyes. “It will only be six months; it’ll go by in a flash.”

“It better!” Elmyra replied, drawing her back into the hug.

Shade leaned in to Aerith. “You see, lesbians.” He whispered.

Aerith sighed and shook her head. “You truly are something else.”

He shrugged. “Would you have me any other way.” Then turned to the front door and opened it. “Come on miss lady of the light, time to go.” He said as he walked out.

Faylens pulled out of the hug again, pat Elmyra on the shoulder then turned to Aerith and did a small bow. “Thank you for everything Aerith. I don’t think I will ever be able to pay you back for curing my curse and giving me a chance at life, but I will try my best.”

Aerith smiled and pulled her into a hug as well. “Don’t worry about that dear. I run an Herbery, helping people is what I do.”

“That’s not a word!” Shade yelled from outside.

Aerith shook her head and pulled out of the hug. “Good luck with that prick.” She smiled.

Faylen smiled back, nodded, then turned and walked out the front door, then closed it behind her.

“It’s going to be quiet around here now.” Elmyra sniffled, as she walked up the stairs.

Aerith turned and slowly started to walk back toward the counter, then pulled out a chair from one of the many tables in the room and sat down in it. “Yes, quite quiet.” She whispered, placing her hands together in front of her face. “It’s been quite quiet. 6 months have passed since the night he burnt that tavern down, yet he hasn’t done anything since. Does he truly intend to let dragons die and be enslaved? No, maybe if I give him another small push, but how?”

Shade and Faylen walked next to each other down a dirt path and toward the town of Kharis. “I know you want me to register as an adventurer, but I’ve been thinking, there’s something else I want to do first.” She says nervously, looking over at him.

“And what is that.” He replied skeptically, peering at her.

She stopped which caused him to stop and the two stared at each other for a second. “I want to kill the slavers that sold me.”

He sighed and facepalmed. “I had a feeling you were going to say that.”

“While I’m working as an adventurer, more girls will be sold and killed. I can stop them; we can stop them!” She said with clenched fists. “You told me yourself the other day how strong I was, and how I was stronger than most other people. I want to use this strength to save people, not pick herbs and hunt mice!”

“I also told you the other day that strength isn’t everything, and how arrogance leads to death.” He replied sternly.

“But this isn’t arrogance, you’re the fucking black devil.” She defiantly responded. “And I’m the daughter of somebody powerful, probably. You told me you don’t remember much about the night you bought me, but that none of the people there seemed that strong. C'mon, please, I dream of this every night.”

“I also told you about how fucking drunk I was.” He replied rather annoyed. “We’ve talked about this plan for months, and now we finally leave and you instantly want to change it. Do you even know how many people you would have to kill there? Dozens. You’ve never killed anybody! Only animals and monsters. People are different, they may seem similar, but killing a person of any kind is a whole new beast.”

“Those fuckers are nothing more than animals.” She sneered spitting on the ground.

He breathed in a deep frustrated breath, then let it out. “Ok, lets says we do switch plans and try to take down that slave auction. I don’t even remember what town I was in when I bought you, and it’s not like they offered receipts there. Not only that, but the dates of the auctions are secrets, it was pure coincidence I was there at the same time as that auction, I have no clue when the next one will be.”

“Already covered. I saw the welcome sign from the window of the carriage while you slept and threw up everywhere. It was the town of Tyrael.” She says taking a map out of her bag and pointing to it. “See, it’s only a little bit south west of your cabin. Also, I had Aerith look into it, and she found out the auctions are on days with a full moon, which is coincidentally 2 days from now.”

He looked at the map, then narrowed his eyes at her. “You’ve been planning this for a while, huh.”

She gave him a sheepish smile “Sorry.”

He sighed and turned around looking at the sky before he turned back to her. “Ok fine, but a few conditions. One, if you think you’re that strong, mentally and physically, and can kill all those people, then prove it. I’ll follow along obviously, but I’m not going to help unless you desperately need it. It’s your revenge, not mine. Two, this is the only one we’re taking down for now. Slave auctions are typically run by nobles. This might sound ridiculous, but taking down a lot of slave auctions will actually lead to you being marked a criminal. Trust me, I know. After you take this one down, you become an adventurer like we discussed until it’s time to join the academy. Understood?”

“Yes!” She yelled smiling.

"You look like a psychopath being that happy abut committing mass murder." He looked around and frowned. “If you knew you were going to do this, you could’ve done it sooner, we’ve been walking in the complete opposite direction of where we need to go for like an hour now.”

“Sorry.” She said sheepishly again. “I was worried you would say no.”

“Would it have changed anything if I said no an hour in or 5 minutes in?” He paused and closed his eyes. “There doesn’t seem to be anyone around.” He says transforming into a dragon. “We’re flying back to my cabin first, if we’re heading in that direction, might as well stop home.”

Her smile went away as she thought about all the memories from that cabin, but she nodded, then her rainbow wings she had hid appeared behind her and the two of them jumped into the air and few west, toward his cabin.

They landed right outside the front door of the cabin. He opened the door and walked in, over the pile of Faylens outfits he had thrown through the door when they first left. She looked at them and frowned, then went to follow inside, but paused at the pile of clothes. Men are all pieces of shit, so I bet I could use some of these to my advantage. She thought, peeked up to see if Shade was looking, then grabbed 2 of the outfits, a sexy bunny outfit and a red leather cat suit, and threw them in her bag.

She then walked through the door and looked around for him. “What did you need from here anyway?”

“I was going to bring you back here at some point, but i guess If you’re going to take on hordes of people, there might be something here you can use now.” He replied from the living room. She walked over to the living room to find he had pushed the coffee table away from the couch, then rolled up the rug that was underneath it, revealing a hidden door in the floor.

“Didn’t you make fun of Aerith for this exact same thing?” she giggled.

“Bookshelves that hide doors are cliché, carpets hiding doors are all the rage.” He sarcastically replied, then flipped the door open and jumped in. She walked over and peered through the door only to find darkness. “Miss, I’m about to commit mass murder can’t be scared of a little fall and darkness, can she!”.

“If your advice is to jump head first into pitch black holes without knowing what’s at the bottom, I think I might need a new teacher.” She replied.

“No, my advice would be to jump feet first, it’s much safer. You have fucking wings, just float down for god’s sake.”

She groaned and jumped. “You could’ve built a ladder you know.” She mumbled as she slowly descended to the bottom. When she reached it, she found it was pitch black, and she couldn't see a thing. Until Shade blew a ball of fire at the nearest wall which caused the wall to burst into flame. The flame then spread throughout all the walls and lit the room up in a crisp orange and red hue.

He looked over to her with a smug face. “I may not have the technology Aerith does, but you have to admit that’s pretty cool.”

“The only thing I have to admit is how hot it is down here now.” She replied, but then her mouth fell open and her eyes went wide as she took in the large room. The room was as big as the cabin, but there were no walls creating separate rooms. It was all one, gigantic open space. It was similar to Aeriths basement, as it looked like a stone dungeon, but unlike Aeriths, it was not empty, quite the opposite in fact. It was filled with thousands of swords, spears, maces, helmets, gauntlets and any other weapon or armor piece you could find. “What is all of this?”

“This is what years of doing what you say you want to do looks like. All these items are the skeletons in my closet. Weapons and armor from various people I’ve killed over the years.” He said looking somberly over the items himself.

She stood there in shock. “How many people have you killed?”

He shook his head and shrugged. “I stopped counting a long time ago. I don’t even remember who most of these people were, or why I even killed them.”

She then looked at him and furrowed her eyebrows. “Wait, you just got a magic bag since I’ve been with you. Just so we’re on the same page. After you would kill someone. You would strip them naked, then carry everything back here?”

“You make it sound worse than it already is.” He awkwardly refused to look at her.

She snorted and looked around at all the items again, then looked back to him with a serious face. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”

“What?” he asked as he picked up a sword and held it to the light of the fire, inspecting it.

She paused and looked out at the sea of loot once more. “All of these are people you’ve killed. There’s an army worth of things down here. Aerith told me people would refer to you as a walking calamity.” he grunted. “From our training, I know how strong you are. And I don’t even think you’ve shown me or Elmyra anywhere close to your full power.” She paused again and turned to look at him. “Why aren’t you doing anything about what’s happening to the dragons?”

He stopped inspecting the sword and instead stared at his own reflection in its blade. His red eyes pierced into the steel. He frowned at his reflection and threw it back to the floor. “Why do you care?” He said glumly, then walked to a different pile of trophies.

“Because I know how mad you were when you found out about what’s happening. We all know it was you who burnt down that tavern. If it makes you that mad, why don’t you do anything about it?”

He dropped a steel shield he had picked up back to the ground which caused a loud boom to echo through the room and Faylen to jump in shock. “Look at this place.” He replied sullenly. “Look at how many people I’ve killed. And these are just the ones I kept trophies from. I tried for decades to change the world. I killed and killed and killed some more. I thought I could cure the blights from the world, I could cure it of evil. But evil kept popping up. And I for my troubles was branded a criminal.” He laughed somberly. “When we get to Alessandria you’re going to see a statue of me in the middle of the city. It’s a statue in honor of my death. I’m not even dead, but just the mere idea of me being dead is worth a fucking holiday. So how many more scores of people would you like me to kill for some righteous cause? A hundred, a thousand? All to save some dragons who refuse to save themselves. They’re not doing anything, just running and hiding. I would have to do all the killing. Why does the killing fall to me. It always falls to me. Always. The monster. The Black Devil. What did you say I was called? A walking calamity. Everybody hates me, fears me. I have to pretend to be a human just so people won’t run at the mere sight of me. But the second they need power, the second they need a killer, they look my way. That’s all I am to people, a killer. A murderous monster.” He frowned as he looked down at his reflection in the shield which frowned right back at him.

“That’s not true!” She yelled in response. “Aerith told me about how some towns think of you as a hero. How some villages have holidays in honor of you. You could be a hero for dragons. None of them might be working together now, but you could change that. She told me about how you were supposed to be…”

“A king?” He said as he cut her off and looked over to her. “Yes, I was supposed to become king of Endross. Except I ran. I ran and I never looked back.” He walked over to her, grabbed her by the shoulders and looked down into her golden eyes which surprised her. “Listen closely Faylen. Be careful around Aerith. You may think she’s a good person, and she can be, but she’s also a lying, conniving, selfish vampire.”

She pulled out of his grip, eyes wide with confusion. “What do you mean? She cured me. She runs an Herbery. You and her went around taking down slave auctions and fighting against corruption. I thought you were her friend?”

“I do consider her a friend, but I would never trust her.” He replied as he continued to glare into her eyes. “Aerith only cares about one thing, Aerith. The reason we got along so well is because we have similar views on the world. She has the same, eye for an eye, attitude I have. How do you think she got so good at curse breaking and creating potions? Think about that hidden dungeon with a perfectly person sized stone table in the middle of it. Do you think it was used to throw surprise birthday parties? That place has seen countless tests and experiments with subjects who weren’t exactly volunteers. She always has some goal in mind, and is always working towards it. Keep that in mind when you’re at the academy with Elmyra. She may be your friend, but she’s Aeriths daughter first, and your friend second. Everything you do, and say, Aerith will hear about. And anything Aerith says to you, just remember, there’s almost certainly an ulterior motive behind her words.”

“I don’t understand. You think she’s trying to use me? But for what?” She paused for a moment to think. “She wants me to get you to save the dragons? What’s in it for her though?”

“Her daughters’ life.” He said softly.

“What!” She replied eyes wide now with fear. “Elmyra's life is in danger?”

“Very much so if what Aerith told me is true. Though as I’ve already said, she may have lied to me, but I don’t think so. Though, now it’s not just Elmyra's life, it could be yours as well.”

“What do you mean?” She asked nervously.

He reached down and grabbed a sword with a golden cross as the hilt, then pointed it at her. “According to Aerith, Merellien is about to go to war with the other kingdoms. One of them being Alessandria. Elmyra wants to become a knight in Alessandria, meaning if Alessandria goes to war with Merellien, Elmyra will go to war. Merellien is much stronger than Alessandria which means Alessandria will lose and Elmyra will most likely die. But, if a dragon comes out of nowhere and rebuilds Endross, then brings all the dragons together to take on Merellien, the dragons would almost certainly win, and Elmyra would live.”

She looked at him confused. “I still don’t understand. Wouldn’t saving Elmyra just be another reason for you to help?”

He stopped pointing the sword at her, and held it in front of himself in both hands as he looked at the golden cross for a hilt. The hilt of swords used by ‘holy’ knights. “Because it’s not that simple.” He replied in a sigh. “For her plan to work, I would have to become king of Endross and rebuild the whole kingdom from the ground up. I don’t want to be a king; I’ve already ran from it once. And who knows if my fellow dragons would even follow me, or accept me as king. But let’s say I did become king and I brought all the dragons together and rebuilt Endross, then what? War with Merellien sounds simple, but the last time Endross existed, the other kingdoms all came together to fight us in an all-out war. Who’s to say that won’t happen again? What happens then? If you’re a knight in Alessandria, and they go to war with Endross, what would you do? Would you try to kill me? Would I try to kill you? What of Elmyra, and Aerith, and my old friend Gaelin. They would all become my enemies overnight. And trust me, like I said, Aerith is my friend, but if it came down to me or Elmyra, she would be digging my grave right now.”

Faylen paused. “But, if she knows how strong you are, she can’t want to fight you. She must think that the other kingdoms would remain neutral if Endross went to war with Merellien.”

“She has no idea. All she knows is her daughters is in mortal danger and is trying to find solutions. What any kingdom would do if Endross came back is a complete unknown.”

Faylen stood there silent, not knowing what to say as she tried to think through what the right thing to do would be if she was in his shoes.

He smiled and threw the sword at her; it stuck into the ground right by her feet. “Welcome to the real-world Faylen. Life’s a bitch, get used to it. But that’s why I brought you here.” He said as he threw his arms out wide. “This place is full of strong weapons and gear that can help make life less of a bitch. Take your time, look around, pick some things out, experiment. Throw as much as you want in your bag, I’m sure as hell not using any of these.”

She looked out at the sea of items then back to him. “If you don’t remember who any of these people were, then do you not remember what any of these items are? There's thousands of them down here. How am I supposed to know which are the strongest?”

“The same way you tell who the strongest people are of course. What makes items strong is the enchantments on them. Without being able to take them to a blacksmith, you can’t know what the specific enchantments are, but you should be able to sense how strong they are the same way you sense how strong people are.”

"Enchantments?" She asked.

"Yes, weapons can be enchanted with many things. Some are more basic like increasing how strong you are, while some are much more powerful, like having specific abilities burned into them."

She nodded but sighed as she stared at the sea of item. She put her hands on her hips and closed her eyes. “You could have at least sorted these in some manor at least.” When she opened her eyes, all the items in the room appeared to be giving off various colored hues. She looked at the rainbow of items and turned back to him. “In your opinion, should I focus on items that enhance my natural light abilities, or should I focus on items on that enhance my weakest abilities, like dark or fire?”

“That’s a great question!” He replied clapping his hands together. “I would say there’s two different answers to this. One for weapons and one for armor. For weapons, since you’re of the light, I wouldn’t even bother with dark attacks. From our practice, it seems you may be able to use it a little, but its not something you should ever really bother with in my opinion. Generally speaking, I would say to focus on your strongest ability, light. With your natural power, you can already blow most people away. If you find items that can enhance that, even better. Take some items that enhance the other abilities in case you’re ever in a situation where you desperately need them, but generally speaking, focusing on your strengths works better than trying to enhance your weaknesses, at least on attack that is. If you have any weaknesses defensively speaking, you should get armor that protects from that. I would focus on finding items that defend against dark, and magic attacks.”

“What about physical attacks?”

“You could.” He shrugged. “But it’s all a give and take. Armor that defends against physical attacks tend to be heavier. Your small and nimble, slowing yourself down and allowing people to hit you easier just so you take less damage when people hit you seems counter intuitive to me. But it’s up to you.”

She nodded and began wading through the items, selecting the strongest ones, first focusing on items that gave off a golden hue. She picked up a blue and white mithril dagger, a wooden staff with a bright red orb on the end of it and rather skimpy black leather armor with red leather sheathes arounds the waist. She then went around and picked out the strongest items she could find that gave off non-golden hues and threw them in her bag as well. As she was about to tell him she was done, a bright golden ball of light started to shine in the middle of the room, like a miniature sun. “What the hell is that light!” She yelled while blocking her eyes from it.

“What light?” he replied confused.

“You don’t see the light in the middle of the room?” She said as she blocked her eyes with one hand and pointed to the light with the other.

“No…?” He replied as he looked toward the middle of the room, which to him looked completely normal.

She slowly pulled her hands from her face and stared directly into the light. “You don’t see it?” She said softly, then began to walking toward it, now curious to what it was.

“You know, I was always told not to walk towards the light.” he joked, as he watched her mindlessly walk over all sorts of items, clanking and tripping her way toward the middle of the room.

When she got there, she reached her hand out to touch the ball of light, but as she did, the light shoots down into the pile of items she’s standing on. She got on her hands and knees and started tossing items every which way, digging to try to find the light. He walked over to her curious as to what she was doing, when a giant explosion of light only she could see engulfed the room. She jumped up to her feet and screamed. “Are you sure you’re okay?” He said as he crossed his arms. “Is this some sort of comedy skit routine? Are you planning on joining a traveling circus?”

She gasped a few times then looked at him. “You really didn’t see that?” she said as she breathed heavily.

“What was it I was supposed to see exactly?” he replied.

She looked at him for a moment, then down into the hole. At the bottom of the hole she had dug, was a bow which radiated a bright golden hue. She went back down to her hands and knees and reached her arm down into the hole and dragged the bow out. She then held the bow in her hands, examining it, when a soft female voice radiated in her mind. “What is your name child?”

She screamed again, threw the bow a few feet away from herself while she jumped back to her feet. “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked as he looked at her with now genuine concern.

“I’m….ok.” She replied breathing heavily as she looked over at the bow with fear. After a few moments, she gathered herself and caught her breath, then looked at him. “I know you said you don’t remember most of these items or the people you killed, but do you remember anything about that bow?”

He looked over at the bow, then walked to it, and picked it up. He began to inspect it closely and gasped. The limbs of the bow were made out a stone like material that looked similar to grey marble, but depending on what angle you looked at it, it looked like a pearlescent gold. The string of the bow was made out of a similarly colored golden silk like material. “Godstone.” He paused for a moment. “What is this though?” He said feeling the string. “Is this…it can’t be? Angels’ hair?”

“Angel’s hair? Godstone? What are those?” She asked as she watched him inspect the bow.

“Godstone is the rarest of materials. Like its name implies, it’s the stone of the gods. Or more specifically its stone supposedly blessed by the gods. Why gods would bless rocks is beyond me, but that’s the story churches and people of faith throw around, silly at it sounds. Its stronger than any material. Stronger than mithril and obsidian combined. Yet its just as flexible as wood or any other material you would make a bow out of.” He said as he bent the bow. Then he went back to inspecting the bow string. “This though, I’m not sure. I think it’s angel’s hair? But I’ve never seen it before. I didn’t think it was actually real. I’ve only ever heard of it in stories. Again, the church and faith would tell you it’s the hair of a goddess, which when you think about it, is rather gross. I don’t actually know what it is though. It’s supposedly extremely powerful, but I have no idea what it really does, or if this is really angels’ hair.”

She walked over to him and looked at the bow in his hands. “Do you remember at all where you got it from?”

“I don….” He began to say, but as he did, a memory forms in his head out of nowhere. He saw in his mind a female fairy, with bright long green hair, wearing golden armor, riding a unicorn and holding the bow. Stood in front of the girl was Shade and another person. An orange and black furred wolfman that looks more like a tall, ripped fox then a wolf, with large red draconic wings, bright orange eyes and black horns coming from his head. “Alexis.” He whispered, as the scene of what happened returned to him. “I do remember. This is from a long time ago, when I still traveled with Alexis. We were mercenaries, bounty hunters, killers for hire. One day, we were walking between towns in the south when a fairy came out of nowhere and told us she was going to arrest us for being the criminals we were. We told her to fuck off, and that she wasn’t a target of ours, but she didn’t, and charged at us. Weird for someone with a long distance weapon like a bow, but that’s what she did. As you can see, me and that bow are here, so you can you imagine who won the fight.” He said as he looked down at the bow with narrowed eyes.

“Do you remember anything about the fairy, who she was, where she was from?”

“Not really.” He replied looking over at her. “I remember her yelling about Lilah. Lilah this and Lilah that, but being attacked out of nowhere wasn’t all that strange for me, unfortunately, and if I remember, we killed her almost instantly. She wasn’t all that strong, or memorable.” He said confused, as the memory all the sudden is as clear as day in his mind, playing over and over in his head.

“Who is Lilah?” She asked.

“Did you not read any history books while at Aeriths? When we get to Alessandria you better hit the library, I’m sure there’s going to be history classes and you’re going to bomb them.” He paused and sighed. “Lilah was the queen of Merellien when the great war between Endross and all the other kingdoms took place. She and my grandfather were supposedly pretty close actually. They were apparently good friends, and when the war broke out, my grandfather was rather upset he had to fight her. One day he came back to Endross and was completely broken up, besides himself. He had killed her, he had killed Lilah, the queen on Merellien. That’s one of the major reason people thought Endross would win the war. Lilah was supposedly one of the few people on my grandfather’s level of power. People in Merellien now worship her like she’s some sort of God, so I figured that fairy was just some crazed Merellien looking for revenge from the war.” He said as he rotated the bow around his hands and looked back down at it with narrowed eyes, confused at the memory playing through his mind. “But I don’t remember the bow looking like this though. Well, I do, but I don’t. I can’t explain it. In my memory, the bow looks just like this, yet at the same time, I remember thinking the bow looked completely normal, nothing special about it. I almost didn’t take it, but for some reason I did.”

Faylen looked towards the bow nervously, but now defiantly as well. She reached her hands out, gestured for him to give her the bow back and he did. Then she turned around. “I think I’m going to keep this one as well.” She said as she pointed and started to walk away toward the back of the room. “There's some other items over there I want to look at before we go.”

“Ok…” He replied skeptically and watched her walk away for a moment. Sensing there was something else going on though, he turned and walked in the other direction, allowing her some space.

When she got to the other side of the room, she turned to see if Shade was watching. When she saw he wasn't, she picked up the bow and held it right in front her face. She whispered sternly. “What are you? Who are you?”

The voice softly said in her head again. “I am who that dragon was just droning on about.”

“Lilah?” She whispered shocked.

“Yes child, and who may you be? I sense immense power in you.”

She paused, then whispered. “Faylen.”

“Faylen. What a gorgeous name.”