Prelude to the Fight

And so she quietly slipped into her armour, fingers searching for the straps in the dark even as her memory served to guide her. She could have asked one of her younger squire friends to help her, or even one of her comrades-at-arms, but this was her battle alone.

Armor readied, she removed her sword from the chest at her bed; her bow was already packed with her horse. Smiling softly at the faces of her still sleeping friends, she slipped outside into the night.

The guards almost stopped her on her way out of the gate, but perhaps they saw the haunted look in her eyes, for they let her pass. And so she rode out, past the outer castle walls, to the edge of the forest, where she reversed her horse, stopped, and looked back.

Her home, the place she had lived and loved for so many years. It was tempting to stay there, forever, but she knew that it was not the place for her any longer. She had been called on to fight, and she would fight. The war was imminent, they both knew that, and that was why she had been called. But he also knew that she was not of agressive mind, and that to ask her to strike the first blow would not settle well with her mind, and so he asked a different favor of her.

And she had accepted, for she knew that even if he had not asked, she would do so anyways.

She was his Protector.