The Druid's Prayer

A tale of transcendence.

Locked away forever from the light of the sun, a slave girl with forgotten memories scrubbed the ever-dirty floor of her dungeon prison day in and day out. She did not understand why she did this, because the dust and filth that hung in the air and fell from the ceiling just covered the cold cement once again, inevitably. It wasn't like she had anyone to please. She hadn't laid eyes on another living being in her existance, that she could remember.

She scrubbed the floor fiercely, her knees permanently red and the skin peeling from kneeling on the cold granite floor of the dungeon from dawn till dusk every day for years. Of course, she had no idea when either dawn or dusk arrived, for there were no windows, nor a kind face who gave her food or an encouraging word. She simply did this task out of habit, hoping that this would earn her some blessing someday.
And even as she slowly starved as food began arriving at the heavy chamber door less and less, and as her water supply grew murky and diseased, she never failed to pray to her gods, asking them to find a way to free her from her prison.
She did not know the names of her captors, only their species: human. And she knew that the reason they hated her so was due to her being unlike them, but all she had ever wanted to do was coincide peacefully with them in their native land.
And now she slaved beneath them as they gradually forgot of her existence.

At night, the spirits whispered to her the tales of their demises, the prisoners who had lived and died here in the dungeon. She wondered if there had been any others like her. She wondered if there were other sections to the dungeon, other people condemned to the same fate as hers.

One day, she could take no more. She turned her face to the sky and cried out to her gods, Wind and Rain, Fire and Snow, Storm and Hail, demanding answers.
But she had no voice.
She could not speak. She could not hear.
And this was the reason she had been taken captive. Her captors knew nothing of her species, or her wings, or her extraordinary power.
They knew only that she was different from them and did not deserve to live as they did.

Suddenly, and quite at that moment, the door was flung open from the outside and crashed into the spotless stone wall. The girl did not hear it, but she felt a whoosh of welcome fresh air and the sting of clean summmer rain.
A pair of tired eyes met hers and blinked in suprise at finding another living being.
The young man who had chopped down the door with an ax stepped forward, his work-calloused hand outstretched.
One of the spirits whispered to her, and inside her head, she could hear the words perfectly.
He is the reason you were sent to Earth. Go. This is your redemption.

Instantly, it mattered not that she was starving, tired, and miserable. A radiant blue-tinted light from the heavens, starting from her feet like a ring of fire, and slowly climbing to cover the top of her head like a halo, made her feet rise three feet from the floor. She tilted back her head as she felt her old, nearly forgotten power surge beneath her skin. She felt the wings she had so long concealed beneath her ratty brown dress break through the weak fabric. They shot above her head, midnight blue and spiked with feathers. The boy shielded his eyes from the brilliant, holy light.
The voice resounded through the girl's head once more.
But hurry, for there isn't much time.

With her power finally returned to her, she charged past the boy into the dark passageway. She was met with a suprising sight.
A crowd of thin, weary people stood in the hall, some holding hands, others holding torches. They watched her with a sort of reverence, knowing, and they did not know why, but knowing that she could save them.
Without thinking, she held out her hands. The chains that bound her fellow prisoners broke with resounding 'snaps,' falling away and leaving ankles and wrists bloody and aching, but nonetheless free.

An old man in the front bowed, followed by a young woman, then her three children, and then the entire crowd. The angel raised her hand, knowing this wasn't the answer. She did, however, feel her power strengthening just beneath the surface, and something happened to her that had never happened before.
She smiled.
She turned to look at a staircase leading upward. She turned back to the crowd, and was about to motion them to the stairs, but just then a small gasp went up from among them. The people at the center of the group parted so that a little girl, about three years old, could step forward. What she held in her hands made the angel's smile brighten, making a few humans shield their eyes.
It was Eufaden, her long-lost holy sword.

The little girl, her chocolate curls pushed back slightly due to the wind swirling languidly around the angel's aura, did not seem afraid. She held out the sword with two small, pudgy hands. The angel wondered how such a perfect child could possibly be banished from the land. Was it because she was a darker shade than the others? The angel could feel rage mixing in with her power, doubling the power but tinting her mind with darkness. She kept her face neutral as she bowed to the young girl's level, taking the sword with a loving pat to the child's head. The crowd beyond them, previously holding their breath, let it out as a simultaneous laugh as the little girl giggled and scuttled back to her mother's side.
The angel stood, the sword sending power surges up her arm.

She gestured to the stairs, and the crowd moved as one towards it, running up the steps, nearly giddy at the mere thought of freedom. The angel went last, her steps making the stone steps beneath her feet shudder.
They were met by dozens of guards, weilding flails and swords and arrows. They let out a cry when the angel touched one on the forehead. The man's head was immediately set ablaze. All of the other guards dropped their weapons and ran away screaming.
The prisoners moved on, the angel now ahead of them for safety, the young man she had met before at the back with the dead guard's sword, to make sure no one could attack the stragglers.

"Halt! Who goes th-"
The guard was stabbed instantly in the heart because the angel could smell the rotten pungence of his soul. He made no noise as he hit the floor, only the dull thud of a deserted body.
The angel motioned the others forward, and they continued up a spiraling staircase, where a slew of guards were hurrying down towards the group of prisoners.

"Get them!" one guard yelled.
"They musn't escape!"
The first guard who spoke suddenly burst into flames. The second screamed as his heart was ripped from his body by an unseen force. The other guards ran in the same direction the fleeing prisoners were heading. Suddenly a large group of elite-looking guards was surging towards them. The angel stepped up, her face cold and determined.

The guards dropped like flies, and the prisoners once more continued on in a race for freedom up the spiral stairs. Quite suddenly, the stairs led to the outdoors. There was no rail keeping them from the edge, but no one fell. Few even noticed the ground, because all the pairs of eyes were focused on the sky.
Until a large, heavy-set man with a red face wearing a dark green robe and a golden bejeweled crown came jogging down the steps towards them.
The angel had questions for this man, the king of the surrounding demesne, so many questions she desperately had wanted answers to for years. This was the man who had kept her captured for much of her earthen existence.
But she could not voice any of her questions, so she simply decided that he could either make his case known, or he could die.

But he said nothing. His own sword was raised above his head, preparing to strike the angel down. The angel silently sighed for the king as she, in the blink of an eye, stabbed him in the heart.
He made not a sound as he listlessly fell to the crocodile-infested mote far below.
Suddenly, the angel felt herself being lifted off her feet and realized that her power had been fully restored. She was back to herself.
She laughed aloud, and the sound of tinkling bells was heard by all. She almost made a speech to her companions, but stopped, knowing they did not speak her language. But she laughed, and they laughed along, and then they continued.
She could now see the gates of heaven.

They were so close . . . nearly there . . . she was but a step away.
A fiery pain exploded in her right shoulder. She went down with a wordless groan.
Behind her stood the smirking Devil himself.
She struck him in the leg with Eufaden, but it had no affect on him whatsoever. He dug his fingernails into her skin, and she screamed in pain. He lifted her sword from her hands and raised it over his head.
A shocked expression came over his face before he burst into flames, disappearing from sight.
The boy who had broken the angel from her prison stood beyond where the Devil had stood, the angel Gabriel's sword in his hand.
He lifted the angel and set her gently to her feet. She smiled weakly and turned to the former prisoners.
Free.
She opened the gates of heaven wide for them, and they entered, laughing once again.

The boy laughed too. He turned to follow his friends and kinsmen through the gates, but stopped. He turned to face the angel, who had fallen to her knees.
She waved him on.
He shook his head and crouched beside her. He knew she couldn't talk to him, and he couldn't talk to her, but he wouldn't leave her here alone.
He knew what was going to happen, but he never stopped to question his fate. He rose to meet it, unafraid.
Slowly her power drained from her. She grimaced when she tried to give the boy a reassuring smile, squeezing his hand that she held in her own.
Much to both of their suprises, as she took her dying breath, she used it to speak her first words.
"I love you. . . ."
The light in her eyes faded, and she was gone.

The boy backed away. Behind him, the gates were closed.
He was completely alone here.
He felt a hand on his shoulder.
"You have done well. Go back to Earth in peace, and live your life as it should have been lived before. You will forget everything about this life, and you will forget Grace. You will forget everything. Go, now, in peace, my son."
The boy didn't have time to speak to the God. He was sent to Earth and born there, at a much later century, with no memory of his guardian angel who had died to save him, and the fact that he had not accepted her gift.
But one day, many years later, he met a girl in a library. The way she stared at the sky out the window instead of the book before her, sparked a memory he had no reason to possess.
He walked over and said hello. When she turned to smile at him, the memory ached at his soul, but of course, he couldn't place how he knew this girl.

"Hi. Could I just ask you . . . what's your name?"
"Grace."
The boy smiled back as he took a seat across from his reincarnated guardian angel.
They talked for hours, but couldn't remember.
They went on a date, but couldn't remember.
They were married, but couldn't remember.
They fought, made up, had four kids, loved each other with everything they had, but still couldn't remember.
They grew old together and traveled the world after retiring, but couldn't remember.
And when the girl named Grace died, she smiled at her husband. Her last words were "I love you."
When her husband went to join her where she waited for him at the gates . . .
They both remembered.

Reviews

[Demi Rose]

a treasure of a read.

[Kat Calathea]

Gripping! Hooking in the beginning, amazing all the way through. THIS is a story!

[SilentlyDying]

This is heartwrenching and the ending is, I don't know, I can't think of words to describe it. I didn't understand at first, the point of the story, but...just wow.

[Shep]

Now that was a good story, it touched me deeply. The details were awesome as if I was there living the story. I never wanted it to end.