Picture by [
Zab], story by [
Linderel].
Amber's life had never been an easy one.
Her first memory was of a narrow, dirty alley just around the corner from the town market square. She used to steal apples, bread, fish, clothes, anything she got her hands on, always barely avoiding getting caught. From what she had seen, Amber had very quickly understood that if she couldn't escape she would be dealt with like any other thief: put in the pillory, bared and completely vulnerable to the people's hatred, or even hanged. She must have been at least six before she was discovered by an elderly woman who, upon seeing her and taking in her extremely shabby appearance, tangled hair and defiant eyes, took her by the hand and told the little girl she would have to come with her.
That was how she had ended up in an orphanage.
After being cleaned up and given clothes that were a bit less ragged than those she'd had on, Amber had been sent to the matron to be scrutinised. Under the hawk-like gaze, where many a child had cowered, she just stared back, unyieldingly. Wrinkling her brow, the matron gave her a fillip as a punishment for insolence. The girl's glare merely intensified.
"Well, lil' Amber eyes, yer spirited. That won't do here. Ye must go by the rules. Now I'm sure ye did all kinds o' pranks and stole things out on the streets. Well, that just won't do anymore. Go on, git! Time for ye to meet the other kids."
From there on named Amber, she alternatively tried to fit in with the others in the peculiar little community and angrily lashing out rejected everyone, defying the nurses and the older children. The cutting off her previously long, thick hair accentuated the oddly pointed ears, and hearing whispers all around her did not make it easier for her to seek for the others' acceptance.
She became little short of a hooligan by the nurses' and the matron's standards. Because of this, her meeting with Jonah when she was about sixteen and her subsequent change to a gentler, calmer person was something truly radical.
Beside her betrothed, Amber felt more tranquil than ever before in her whole life. She smiled into his dark eyes, and, once again, could not help but be awed at her fortune. They had literally stumbled into each other's lives - and arms. She had met Jonah at a market after having slipped away from her chaperone. The old hag couldn't stand her anyway, and the feeling was utterly mutual. Browsing the foods, jewelry and clothes hungrily, she had missed the commotion that broke out behind her, and only when she was rudely pushed aside by someone did she realise that there was a thief about. Trying to regain balance, she had blindly flailed her hands until her fall was broken by a pair of strong arms. Peering up from behind her hood, she made out the features of the man she would eventually marry.
She said it was a connection between souls. Her nurses said it was nonsense, and everyone gave her odd looks and snorted at her suddenly changed demeanour.
Here she stood, ready to have her hand tied together with that of her loved one, and they were nowhere to be seen. Amber would find a place to be.
Life together with her beloved was absolute bliss. In Amber's eyes, Jonah was nothing short of a saviour to her, having taken her away from the place she had lived in for most of her life while never feeling she belonged. They spent days upon days simply basking in each other's presence, lounging on a hay pile in someone's barn or on a creaky bed in a roadside inn. Unable to stay in one place, the lovers traversed the land, often living on nothing more than berries, roots and perhaps a rabbit that one or the other had managed to catch.
Over two years they spent on the road, having no need to settle down. Jonah's family frowned upon his ways on the rare occasions they went back to his home town, but he had always walked his own path.
They were young, they were free, and they could go anywhere.
When Amber discovered, then, during a harsh winter when they had been practically trapped in a cabin with three other travelers, that she was pregnant, the news was bittersweet. The pair would have to stay and build a home in one place. Yet the one emotion that drowned all others was pure happiness.
Their child, when she was born one summer evening, became the ultimate joy in Amber's life. She treated the little being like a glass flower, with so much tenderness and care that Jonah whispered in her ear, less than half jokingly, that she could move a grown man to tears. The two had playful fights about what to name the babe, stretching late into the balmy nights, peppered by frequent kisses and teasing.
Eventually, after many weeks of tumbling, delightfully childish arguments and muffled giggles at each other's battle tactics, she was named Myrna.
Days, months went by peacefully, each marking the deepening of the bonds within the small family. Amber cherished their child and showered her with the love she had never experienced, and Jonah embraced them both. Having no need to work, being reasonably worthy by way of having inherited his merchant father, he had time to teach his wife to read and write. She was an enthusiastic pupil, if a bit impatient.
In return, she engaged him in the mysteries of playing the flute. Many an evening would see them in the main room of the small house they had chosen to live in, Jonah playing a melody and Amber dancing with the child, humming along with the tones.
She had never believed in any sort of deities, but if there was a heaven... this was it.
She had a sister. This thought was the only thing in Amber's mind, the only thing keeping her sane, anchoring her to reality. She could not fathom why she had never known, had never felt it, even though now there seemed to be such a deep connection between them. Amber looked at her sister's weary face and contemplated how all of this had come to be. She felt strangely distant after all that had happened. Laughing and sobbing at the same time, she gripped the bars of the cage and winced when the wagon hit a bump on the road.
It all had happened so fast. One minute, she had been happily playing with her husband and daughter, the next, everything was chaos. Aqua, her sister, had rushed in and without explanation started to plead them to leave the house, saying they were in danger.
She had been too late.
Soldiers appeared as if out of nowhere, ruthlessly destroying everything in their way. They had killed Jonah the second they saw him. Amber, Aqua and Myrna were defenceless against the men, and they had been captured in an instant. Now, without knowing why or how, Amber found herself a widow, imprisoned and on her way to a destination far away from everything she had treasured.
Five days later, she had lost her child, the sister she had only just found, and her will to live. Being thrown out of the manor in the middle of nowhere she had been brought into, she wandered listlessy about, not knowing where to go or why she had been released. She only knew pain.
Once her mind began to clear, she only knew revenge.
Sitting on a rotting bench as near to the fireplace as she could get, the cloaked young woman stared into the hearth with unseeing amber eyes that eerily reflected the light of the fire. Some of the tavern patrons threw lewd glances in her general direction, but the dagger with which she was absent-mindedl
y playing convinced them against trying anything funny. From time to time, her head would snap in the direction of the door, as if she was waiting for someone. If that were truly the case or not, none of the people present that night ever found out, for before anyone noticed, she was already gone.
Staggering along the road leading out of the village, Amber cursed everything to the deepest pits of hell. Having nursed a pint a bit too carefully, she knew she was going to feel awful the next morning, wherever she woke up.
As if she didn't feel awful already, no matter what she did.
Coming to a halt a short way outside the gates, the woman wandered over to the treeline and, with no pretense of grace, let her body fall down on the ground. Gazing at the stars above her, peeking from between the branches, Amber drowsily questioned herself.
What was she searching for?
Her life had been over... for years. Tears prickled her eyes, and the stabbing pain in her chest was as intense as on that terrifying day. Overwhelmed by her emotions, she curled into a ball and sought refuge in sleep.
Yet this night would bring dreams that forced her to take a stroll down the memory lane.
She dreamed every second of her life, going through all of it in a single night - her childhood, the happiness she had found, the losses - everything. She felt the same emotions, they engulfed her, and all the while she knew where it was going to end.
In her sleep, the young woman whimpered and desperately tried to chase away the shadows she now saw looming over the sky even on her wedding day.
Through the din of the town, Amber's sharp ears picked up a sound that was hauntingly familiar. Laughter of children... It seemed like the most beautiful kind of music to her, both exhilarating and devastating at the same time. Drawn to the sound, she walked forward as if in a dream, dodging bypassers and even pick-pockets expertly, until she reached a glum, slightly run-down looking building. The young woman looked it over and gulped.
Her heart was beating to an erratic rhythm now. Combined with memories of her origins, seeing this place accentuated her constant sense of loss to a numbing degree. She knew exactly where she was.
A sudden, sharp bark of laughter made her quickly turn her head to the right and give herself whiplash. Touching her neck gingerly, Amber made her way to the backyard enclosed inside a high fence.
Taking in the scene before her, she felt a dull pain in her heart. Children in baggy and ragged clothes running around, playing, enjoying themselves while two nurses kept a tight eye on them. They seemed so cheerful, and yet she couldn't believe they could be happy in a place like this. Orphanages weren't meant for smiles or tricks or warmth. It was the middle of winter, and most of the children didn't even have shoes. No, orphanages were about discipline and learning how to use your hands for useful things.
Sometimes there would be rumours about the nurses selling the children for other purposes, but no one ever spoke of it. Bruises or bitemarks never questioned.
She ground her teeth together and was about to step away, but then she spotted a solitary figure sitting in a makeshift swing hanging from a tree. As if sensing that someone was looking, the figure raised its head and stared unblinkingly straight into her eyes. Based on the first glance, the boy couldn't have been said to be more than ten, but orphans were often malnourished and their birthdates were usually unknown, so there was no knowing his real age. Amber steadied her gaze and stared right back, and the boy did the most unexpected thing... he smiled. A small, shy smile, but it was just enough to make her take a step forward.
She had an odd feeling she had found whatever it was she had been looking for. When she walked to stand before the boy, all the time looking at him in the eye and ignoring everyone else, even when they turned to stare, bewildered, she had no thoughts for anything else.
"Beathan."
She just knew she had to get him out of here.
Amber rubbed at her cheeks angrily. Crying would not take her anywhere. Looking over her shoulder at the prone form on the bed, she let a little smile spread on her lips.
She hoped she could be Beathan's saviour in turn.
In him, she hoped to find a new meaning to her life.
"Aqua, where is my child? Where? What have they done to Myrna?"
Her face tear-streaked, Amber held her sister's weakened body in her embrace, watching as her life force ebbed out second by second. Behind them stood the man who had led Amber here. She did not know his name, and she had a feeling he would not tell even if she asked. He had said he wanted to repent for his sins. At first, she had not understood, but when he opened the door to the little room in the farthest corner of the inn, his meaning had cleared.
She could not forgive him, but she was grateful he had shown her to Aqua.
A weak cough emerged from the other's lips. She was shaking her head, ever so slightly, but the enormous pain and regret in her eyes told Amber everything she needed to know. Myrna was gone.
Burying her face in Aqua's hair, she clasped her tighter against herself, as if she could give some of her own life. She did not want to lose everything all over again, after searching for answers for so long.
It was but a faint whisper, yet Amber heard it. "You have that boy... Beathain, to take... care of, don't you?" Her sister was smiling sadly. "Don't let him down... and... love him like you loved your daughter and... your sister..."
Breath hitching in her throat, she nodded.
She studied the old, worn revolver in her hand, tilting her head slightly, with a peculiar little smile dancing on pale lips. The weapon was a bit like her; forgotten, abandoned, its all former splendour gone. No longer did it shine in the hand of its holder. The sleek black had dulled.
Amber giggled hysterically. It was definitely too strange to be making metaphors between an inanimate object and a living human being...
Stop. Wait. Rewind.
Human? She doubted that. Humanoid at the most. Amber had never really known who or what she was. She had tried to fit in for so long. Had built herself a perfect life with a loving husband and a sweet little child, a life that had slowly begun to become loose at the seams and then, without warning, fallen apart entirely.
Merely thinking about it, even after these years, made her want to scream until she no longer had a voice and her throat was bleeding. The pain of betrayal was simply too deep.
A shuffling of feet jarred Amber from her thoughts. Smiling wearily, she turned her eyes, previously distant, on her unvoluntary companion. It was adorable how the boy could make even sounds seem timid. Her beautiful little guardian angel.
"Amber?" One word, her own name from his lips, and her angry defiance slipped away, leaving behind a weary shell. She raised the revolver slowly, drawing out the moment, and, giving it a final once-over, handed the weapon over to the boy.
"You win."
She smiled, then, a happy kind of smile, and hopped to her feet from the crate on top of which she had been sitting. Treading softly, she stepped outside and into the sunshine.
Walk. Just walk. Somewhere out there, a star waits for you. Until then, look at the world through unyielding amber eyes.
Stumble!