Phi-Fic Episode Two Hundred and Thirty-Three: Fateless Moments
Episode Two Hundred and Thirty-Three: Fateless Moments
I remained seated and sipped my warm latte. “We got this, Betty…”A ripple came from beneath my stool and I smiled. Hopefully, the Cat would calm down and see that we’d figure this out together.
If the book didn’t have anything for us, we could find something important that needed to be taken care of.
A massive shadow crossed in front of the glass door and it swung open. The bells sounded deeper than usual.
The clang of metal echoed through the shop as a knight in full plate armor stepped inside. He was tall, at least two feet taller than me, with massive shoulders. Metal ground on metal with each step. The armor itself might have been pretty at one point, but not as it was now, tarnished and bent in several locations. He carried no weapons; his hands hung empty by his side.
The visor remained down, but two bright brown eyes stared out.
“Welcome to the shop,” I said with a small wave.
Metal fingers rose in greeting. A faint voice drifted out of the closed visor. “I hope you can help me.”
“What are you looking for?” I slipped off my stool and set my mug down. The stacks of books hinted that the knight looked for a specific tale.
“Something I haven’t heard before,” whispered the soft male voice. “A story where the dragon wins…”
“Hmmm,” I mumbled as I ran through a few different stories that I personally knew with dragons and fighting. “Do the dragons need to be the enemy?”
The knight took a few steps closer to the main table. “I’m sick of the hero always fighting till the end… Never ending combat… Never any rest…”
Weariness hung in the air around the knight and, given the armor, he could use some rest. Something that would recharge his batteries.
I stepped out from behind the counter, and approached the table in the center. He needed something cozy, or maybe something where the dragon and knight weren’t enemies.
“A break from combat, maybe?” I asked as I sorted through the massive stacks of titles. Some were old books covered in cloth, while a few stuck out from a place like my world, with paper covers and white colored pages.
Most were action oriented, and were not what he needed. They went off to one side as I kept sorting through the tomes. Something kept me searching even after finding a title that fit. In this one, the knight died and the dragon won.
I didn’t like it, but I didn’t get rid of it completely.
“There can be combat… just let the dragon win for once…” Again, the words drifted out softly, and almost with a hint of pain. “Let them be…”
A weight hung about him that increased each moment that I searched through the titles. Again, I felt that urge to use my magic, but resisted this time. It wouldn’t tell me anything I didn’t know.
The knight needed something important. Something important after the intense battle that his armor reflected. Rest and friendship. A reason to keep up the good fight when necessary, and a reason to set down your weapons after the fight is over.
Taken from NovelFire, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
I placed two cozy titles with dragons being friends with riders, along with a tale of a knight who doesn’t win, instead deciding to put down his weapons and retire. Another with the dragon and knight becoming friends and opening a BBQ pit. The last was only a children's book, but still it fit the theme, and was a good story.
My fingers practically itched, begging for me to use my magic and see what he needed, yet I resisted. Each of these titles fulfilled the request. Each gave a different flavor of rest and recovery. All but the first.
The one where the knight died weighed on me, and I glanced back at the armor standing there, waiting. I carefully removed it from the others and placed it on the discards. With the other ones that didn’t fit what he needed.
He might want it, but it didn’t feel right.
“What about any of these?” I asked, as I set the others out in a row on the table. Then, I stepped back just realizing how giant the armor actually stood.
He stepped closer and raised a hand over the first book. Light drifted up from the story, glowing a soft blue color. The light faded and he moved on to the next, his hand just hovering over it.
During the third book, tears dripped down the metal visor, and I stepped a little closer, not caring how big he was.
“Are you okay?” I asked, lifting a hand but not touching him.
A shiver went through him as his hand went to the last book about the dragon and knight becoming friends and opening a restaurant together.
The blue light didn’t just rise to his hand. It started shining through the gaps in the armor and out the visor slits that had been too dark to see.
“Rest… not just rest… but friendship… I am unworthy…” The voice hung in the air, but I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t move as the light increased. The armor crumbled with another flash of the light, then it suddenly went out. A necklace with a deep blue stone thudded into the floor, but the knight was completely gone.
“Oh no…” I gasped.
#
The book remained blank, with the same lines as yesterday. Nothing changed. The pages wouldn’t flip. The fates had finally left me alone, yet without a path to free myself from the shop.
I paced back and forth in front of the book, trying to figure out what to do. What to say to Sable. She needed to know that I couldn’t depend on the book anymore. That the shop didn’t have direction. The shop needed only three things: sources of magic, direction, and a Shopkeeper. With the source of direction gone, who knew what would happen.
I needed to keep Sable safe, and we needed to talk.
Panic flooded me at the realization that something had entered the shop. Something filled with the frantic energy of combat, and death magic.
I leaped across the table and almost stumbled as my foot caught on the edges of the book. With a growl, I scrambled to my feet and sprinted out of my workshop.
Light drifted up from below as I crested the edge of the balcony, searching below.
The Death Knight stood right next to her, looking at a set of books.
Bright blue light rose from a book and drifted into his armor.
They were too close. I braced myself, then leaped.
Or tried to.
My paws wouldn’t come free of the floorboards. The rough wood gripped them, forcing me to watch in horror as his hands shifted to the last book.
Magic gathered inside him, then spilled out.
Then the armor turned to dust as he released his vow. The magic faded away as the shop ate the remains. I found myself launched through the air as the wood suddenly let me go, still straining to help.
I barely landed on my feet on the table, knocking a stack of books down onto the floor.
“Woah, Cat, are you okay?” Sable asked, as she jerked back from me.
The Death Knight was gone. Every trace of his magic was gone. All that remained was a blue necklace with a large gem. Peace and happiness radiated off it.
An Amulet of Rest and Recovery. One almost unheard of, that could heal the most wounded. Only a few existed as far as I knew, and now one sat at Sable’s feet.
No wonder they were hard to get, if you needed to defeat an unbeatable Death Knight to get one.
“Are you okay?” I asked, trying to wrap my mind around everything.
“I’m fine,” she said with a smile, as she bent down to pick up the necklace. “This feels powerful…”
“It is…” I let out a huff. “Sable, what happened?”