-Present Day-
Ruthrrien, now known to her competitors Ruthrrien the Ruthless, lounged happily in the corner of a pub, her great ax casually leaning in the corner next to her, blade still glistening with the dried blood of her recently defeated foe. She hardly cared that her tall, muscular frame was still covered in dirt and blood as she propped her feet up in the chair next to her, wiping a few loose strands of her braided white hair out of her face as she took another swig of ale. With a sigh of satisfaction, she fingered the gold pouch at her waste, recounting the final blow in her mind that had earned her the winnings. Having paid back the elf long ago, she now simply enjoyed her life in the city, living off the wages from her fights in the arena. Sometimes when she wasn’t training, she would wander the vast city, never quite able to drown out that restless longing to know who she used to be before she had lost her memory.
The dreams still haunted her, even though it had been two years now. She would wake in the middle of the night, soaked in sweat and throat raw from screaming, yet never remembering what the dream was about. On those nights when she couldn’t get back to sleep, she’d travel back to the edge of the desert where Arlen had found her and sit for long hours in the moonlight, staring out at the endless horizon.
Her mind slowly drifted to the last time she had gone there, just two days before her fight. She had fallen out of bed that night after waking so abruptly and knew she would never get back to sleep. Every nerve in her body wanted to run, to get away from the feeling of terror that gripped her. But she steadied herself, drinking some water before wrapping up in a cloak and heading out into the night under a full moon.
The elf had found her there after a while, as he often did, his approach unnoticed.
“You were howling again.” He said when he sat down quietly beside her.
“Was I?” she said in a hollow, far off voice, still gazing out at the sand.
“If I didn’t know it was you, Ruthrrien, I would have thought it was a wolf outside my home.”
The corner of her mouth twitched with a slight grin. She liked being associated with a wolf. Not the sinister werewolves she heard tales of in the pub. Monsters full of blood lust that killed for fun and passed on their terrible curse if you managed to survive an attack. But for some reason she found a normal feral wolf a proud and noble creature. She even had her great ax engraved with a wolf’s head in the handle.
“Well, maybe I am one. Maybe some powerful warlock came along and turned me into a human, and that’s why I can’t remember anything.” She tried to sound like she was joking, but he had known her long enough not to miss the air of wishful thinking in her tone.
“We’ve been over this, Ruthrrien. Why would a warlock go to the trouble? Why not just kill you? I’ve never heard of such a thing. It’s not possible. You are human, despite your peculiar behavior.”
“Maybe its a mild strain of lycanthropy…..”
He cut her off. “I grow weary of these conversations,” getting to his feet. “There’s no such thing as mild lycanthropy, and thank the mayor for that. If you had shown any signs of that dreadful curse, I would have killed you myself when I found you. Be glad you are alive, because clearly someone wanted you dead.” Frustrated by the wild theories she had about her past, each more unlikely than the next. As he started to walk back towards his cottage, he paused, glancing back over his shoulder.
“Coming?
She sighed, “Yes,” getting to her feet and following a few steps behind him.
Shaking off the memory, she blinked and took another long drink, finishing off the last drops. Of course she knew she was being foolish. It had been two years now and still she remembered nothing. It was unlikely that she ever would. No sense in wasting a good victory on the sorrows of her lost past. Huffing, she forced her thoughts back to the battles of that day, and slowly her mood lifted again as she gathered her things and began to make her way home.
The Whitney Scott 