Break ((Solo))

[Armitage Apolithymius]

Armitage felt hollow. She thought of her family. Their legacy. Whenever she tried to ascribe a feeling to it she felt numb. Nothing. There was a point in time when she would have considered it her legacy too. Is that truly how I feel? It would be easy to say her legs felt tired but, more accurately, they felt like nothing. She had walked a long time. After she finished that walk she continued to walk even further. Her legs carried past the point of exhaustion and now her legs felt like entirely separate beings from her body. Their movement was purely mechanical and she thought very little of them. She was unsure of how many days it had been. Nor could she remember the last time she ate or drank. If she thought really hard she could remember finishing the last of her canteen and dropping it earlier in the day.

Where’s the sun… The last time she was truly lucid it was daylight out. Now the darkness was oppressive. It was cloudy out and the heat of the night was mixing with the humidity to create a light fog in the distance. There was some light breaking its way through the clouds—the moon and all of its smaller sisters were persistent that way—but it wasn’t enough to truly light her path. This would be the point when any person in their right mind would camp or find shelter. Armitage was long past the point of caring what the elements did to her or her belongings. Not that she had much of those left to speak of.

Armitage had been laid bare and shed most of her outer shell to reflect that. He armor was all but gone; broken, battered, destroyed and otherwise sundered. Her gambeson was a deep red but the color had been nearly beaten out of it. It was cut and ripped in places, revealing her rough and scarred flesh beneath. Her trousers were well tailored and tight. They fit well under her armor and were strategically flexible to not hinder maneuverability. Her leather boots were well worn and comfortable, but were she walking completely barefoot at this moment she would fail to notice. Her body had been fixed but something was still badly broken inside of her. With armor and weapon destroyed, Armitage felt like a different person. Different and somehow far less like a person than she had been before. There was something missing and it was beginning to dawn on her that she may never get it back. She had wrapped up her family’s heirloom armor and her quest so closely to her identity that, now that they were gone, she barely felt like she could be a person anymore.

Apolithymius was more than a name. Its legacy—its weight—had been grafted onto her soul. It was becoming painstakingly clear that Armitage didn’t think of herself as a singular person but, rather an extension of generation’s worth of lineage. Her self-worth was tied directly into how worthy she felt of bearing that burden. Right now she felt worthless. Worse than that actually, as if she owed worth to her lineage. If such a thing were possible. Like she could work part of her lifetime to try to earn worth only to still owe a debt to the bloodline Apolithymius. The past few years have been a culmination of increasingly frustrating waste. Wasted time. Wasted effort. All for nothing. The more she thought about it, the more frustrating that thought had become. She had not a single thing to show for the last few years of blood, sweat, and tears.

Both sets of armor were now lost to her. Her own set busted and shattered, broken to pieces. Her weapon gone along with it. It was hard to even remember the series of events that led to their loss. Thinking about them now made her head hurt. She raised a palm and pressed it to her eyeball. It felt weird to feel her hand touching her face. Skin on skin. She had been living inside of her own armor for so long she almost forgot what it felt like to touch something with her own fingers. The feeling was alien to her but so had everything else been for the last few hours, days since she lost her armor. Any time she tried to think about it all she got for her efforts was a world blurring headache. Once the gates of thought were open every worry, insecurity, and reflection raced into her head. It felt like her brain was a waterskin that was already stretching beyond capacity. Thinking made the cracks start to show.

Armitage banished the thoughts that filled her head. She held on to a precious few to chew and ponder on. How had her journey began? She couldn’t remember exactly. She was hurt. Hurt worse than ever before. Once her legs could support her weight she started walking. Everything since then was a blur. Holding her hand to her face, Armitage realized her palm was wet. Had it been raining? She touched her own face plaintively. It took her a moment to realize she had been crying. Or maybe still was. She felt so out of touch. Everything around her, including her own body and movements, felt surreal. A part of her mind felt like any moment she was just going to ‘snap back’ to being normal. Maybe all of this was just an out of body experience or nightmare. An even deeper part of her desperately wished for it to be true.

Her pace slowed and she let her eyes drift toward the sky. She searched for stars. Direction. Anything. A deep breath escaped her lips and it came out as a soft shudder. With her face turned skyward and the cool wind blowing against her face she could feel the tears forging a path from her eyes to the edges of her face. A light rainfall began. It touched her lightly on the head, cheeks, and shoulders before falling more vigorously. Inhaling deeply, Armitage let her vision lose focus as she felt the rain. A moment later she was pressing forward again, directionless like a raft without a rudder.

[Armitage Apolithymius]

The tempo and weight of the rain increased in equal measure. Armitage welcomed it. The pitter patter began pleasant enough but slowly escalated to drown out all other noise. The storm was more intense than usual for the area but Armitage wasn’t in the frame of mind to think about that right now. It was helping her. Helping to drown out not only noise but also any lingering thoughts in her head. Focusing on the hiss of the rain helped to keep a clear mind as she continued her spirit walk. Her mind was in a state not unlike what she would enter before a large scale battle. She was never quite sure where she learned it but somewhere along the line she had learned to meditate. It helped to focus her spirit and sort her thoughts. It began as a relaxation exercise and over time she learned to use it as a tool to help guide her in times of need. She wasn’t even sure if she were doing it intentionally in this moment. Even though her eyes were open, her sense were not focused on her physical body right now. She reached out, trying to tap into that ethereal and transcendent void, if only to forget about her own worldly struggles. It was such a strange feeling to be out of one’s own body. In a way, it helped put her problems in perspective. When thinking of the world not as a physical place, but as a manifestation of a collection of spirits, it did wonders to make your problems feel insignificant.

Unfortunately, as soon as she returned her thoughts to her body all of those feelings and emotions would come rushing back in. She was great at clearing her mind but awful at leaving it that way.

Her mind, as disconnected as it was, barely took notice as branches and low hanging foliage had started to scratch against her face, legs, and arms. She had wandered into the thick of the forest. Rain was coming down in heavy sheets. The force of the droplets strong and heavy enough to make their way through the canopy. The water was cool. Armitage held on strong to the small relief the cool water on her skin provided. She really needed a win right now and would take something even as insignificant as a small change in temperature. There was no effort to swat branches out of the way as she walked. They slapped at her face and body ineffectually.

A light within the forest caught her attention.

Looking forward, Armitage realized she was slowly making her way toward a brightness within the wood. The darkness of the forest, combined with the downpour of the rain, made it hard to see anything at all Even the outlines of the trees were difficult to make out but this peculiar light shone through. Armitage rubbed her eye. It wasn’t until that moment that she realized her hand was actually still being held to her face. Lowering her palm, Armitage slowly leaked some of her consciousness back into her body. She tried to temper the release; pay too much attention and all the emotions would come rushing back. Don’t pay enough attention and she wouldn’t be lucid enough to even care. The light was surprisingly bright but still quite far away. It was surprising that she could see it at all. Surprising enough that that thought had actually managed to punch through her vapid state of mind and register as a thought. It drew her closer. Armitage adjusted course and began making her way toward the light a bit more earnestly. She didn’t have to course correct too much; it was almost as if she were already heading in the direction of the light. As she lined up with the direction the light was coming from a feeling like a chord being struck vibrated deep within her. Not only within her body, but within her spirit. During her travels over the last few days, Armitage had was relentless in not only her wayfaring but also her mindlessness. She had walked through small camps, passed merchants and bandits, passed wild animals and predators, and even through an actual town all without any one or thing garnering her attention. This light, however, was different. She didn’t know how. She wasn’t sure why. But right now it was the only thing she could bring herself to care about.

[Armitage Apolithymius]

As she approached a clearing, Armitage found her body flooded with an unfamiliar emotion. It rustled something deep within her but she wasn’t sure quite why. It felt like trepidation, a bit of fear, mixed together like a feeling one would associate with seeing friends they haven’t caught up with in a long time. The light in the field overtook her vision. It was so bright it forced out the darkness and, for a brief moment, Armitage almost forgot it was night time. The feelings welled within her but they also felt strange and foreign. It was almost like she wasn’t feeling her own feelings but something else entirely. Within the center of the light was a staff…

No…a spear

The hairs on Armitage’s arms stood on end. The air felt like pure energy. Another emotion welled up inside, catching Armitage off guard. A feeling of being near something knowingly dangerous. Like being locked in a cage with a vicious beast. Or that chill that goes down one’s spine when passing someone in the street who has a sword and, for some reason unplaceable, it’s all too clear they know how to use it with deadly efficacy. She hesitated. Something within her wanted to run. It tugged at her legs and begged them to move. The taste of copper in her mouth made Armitage suddenly aware of her entire body. She was biting her lower lip hard enough to draw blood. She could tell she was sweating now, quite heavily in fact. Her breathing was quick and short, almost like it were caught in her throat. A fight or flight response was leaking into all of her muscles and Armitage exercised impressive control over it all. She swallowed hard.

Armitage strode forward, drawing herself closer to the weapon in the clearing. Her pace was smooth but graceful. It stirred the memory of how she would approach wyverns when trying to preen or pet them. Of course they could kill her in one bite if they deemed it necessary. But still, the desire to get close, to get right next to them and lay a hand on them—to share in that power if only for a moment—was overpowering. Armitage always did consider herself a bit of a thrill seeker. Perhaps it was her numerous brushes with death gave her a naturally high tolerance. Or perhaps a bit of narcissism coupled with pride drove Armitage to feel like she was worthy of living a high stakes life. As she drew closer to the spear the pounding in her chest threatened to escape her body. Her ears began to ring. Everything around her felt like it was vibrating with intensity.

Reaching out, Armitage attempted to grasp the weapon. As her hand got closer it felt as if it were trying to press through a thick syrup. Like the air around the spear was thick with its own energy. As she pressed against it, it seemingly pressed back. The light emitting from the weapon grew and soon overtook her entire field of vision. She tried to look away but found herself unable to. The emotions that were floating in the air were pressing down on her. Memories from her own past flowed like water through her. They made their way down the canal of her mind and then out of her body, mixing and commingle with the other emotions in the air. There was a sudden feeling of acknowledgement. Assurance. A sharp lance of hope cutting through the uncertainty, fear, and hopelessness of the other emotions.

Just like that, the spear was gone. Armitage fell to one knee, breathless. Her arms and legs shaking like she just finished running a marathon.

That’s…one hell of a handshake.

The light disappeared with the weapon and darkness fell around her. The ground below her was surprisingly dry and hot. Not warm, like the sticky humidity of the forest, but actually hot to the touch. With a bit more than a hint of urgency, Armitage jumped to her feet and ran through the woods. Continuing her journey in the same direction, this was not the same destination-less plodding she was doing before. This was a full on sprint. With purpose. She wasn’t sure were the weapon had gone but a part of her had a hunch. They had made an agreement. Armitage wasn’t quite sure exactly what she agreed to. Nor was she fully aware how she actually know she had an agreement at all. But she was feeling something. And it felt real. She wasn’t willing to let that feeling go. Holding on with all of her might she forced that emotion into her entire being. Embodied it. Let it invigorate her with life anew.

Clearing the edge of the wood Armitage found herself high upon the mountain overlooking the vast expanse of the Sacaen plain. Outside of the wood, the night air looked so clear and clean. Armitage felt like she could see nearly the whole way to Ilia. The night was near silent. No birds or bugs chirped or chirruped. It would almost be eerie if not for the smooth cooing of the wind as it swept down range and over Sacae. Fire stirred in Armitage’s stomach. She felt awake. More awake than she could remember feeling for the last few years. This was important. The sun began to creep over the horizon and chase away the night. The sky above was a mix of purples, oranges, blues, and reds. It invoked powerful imagery. Her eyes searched the horizon, hungry. Then she saw it.

In the distant plains of Sacae she could the brilliant glow of the spear she made contact with. It had shown itself to her. Why was beyond her comprehension. But she trusted it. Trusting herself had gotten her this far which, speaking honestly, had amounted to roughly nothing. But this was different. With a newfound resolve for life, Armitage found herself nearly sprinting down the mountain, desperate to chase whatever taste of majesty she just sampled again.