The book was given to Nall's neighbor Erezebeta by a traveler she housed for a few days, with a promise that her children would enjoy the stories inside it; tall tales and legends and hero's journeys. Erezebeta, delighted with the book, invited everyone she knew to her house to share it. Nall, five other women that lived around them, one reluctant young husband and many children showed up on that brisk autumn night. The apples were in season, so there was plenty of cider and fresh fruit to go around. Meyari baked bread, Alyane brought cheese and all brought enough blankets to tun Erezebeta's main room into a nest. Those that could read passed the book around to read a story. Nearly every story they could imagine was written in it, and some even old Omanre didn't know.
The Amythest of Triumph
Jack of Seven Strings
The King in the Mountain
My Maiden of Flames
Goodbye and Goodnight
Alayaya's Kiss
Then the book was passed to Omanre again, who flipped the blank page at the end of Alayaya's Kiss and raised her eyebrows. "It's got a picture," she turned the book around, holding it down for the children before lifting it so the adults could see.
"It's a girl!" a little girl exclaimed, bouncing a little.
The picture looked as if it was done quickly with a quill, but the curling lines were clearly a girl. She was standing with her feet apart and her hands clenched, a torn skirt and long hair being tossed in the wind, and determined expression on her face. Her eyes were carefully painted in, dark green around the pupil and a brighter green at the edges. The background was an afterthought, a few sketchy lines that could be interpreted several ways.
"Haven't heard of this one," Omanre muttered once she turned the book around. "Says it's a recent tale, from the Serenian mountains... The Very Brave Girl," Omanre's nose wrinkled and she began. "In a village far from here, there lived a girl..."
It was a hero tale, like Jack of Seven Strings. The girl lived peacefully in her village far from here, with her mother, father, sister and best friend; who, because it was a male friend, the village assumed she would marry once she was marriageable. The friend was taken "sucked into a black hole, so suddenly it was like he was being taken to hell". The girl gathered some supplies and set off to find him.
When she met her mentor, a brave winged woman who could shift into an enormous wolf who told her about an ancient magic she possessed and sent her in the right direction, Nall wrote it off as a coincidence. Like the older sister and the friend being "near man-grown". Then, after a brief confrontation with the "Evils" that kidnapped her friend, the girl met a runaway prince and his winged guardian. Nall sat up straighter, holding her breath so long she started hiccuping.
There was still some chance that it was a big coincidence. There were two Evils and the story didn't explain just what they were besides Evil. It was the wolf woman that sent her toward the Evils' base, not a friend that materialized out of thin air to help her.
Then the girl went to challenge the Evils, with her new friends. She defeated the Evils with her "strong and powerful magic", but died doing so. Her last words, before disappearing were: "I will be born again. Look for me, you will know by the eyes." There was no way that could have been a coincidence. It wasn't that uncommon for a hero to overexert themselves in the battle against their nemesis and die once the day was saved, but to promise their friends that they were going to be born again? That they would know who they were by looking into their eyes?
Nall pulled her knees in close, startling at the drip of water on her chest. She started taking deep breaths, rubbing her hand across cheeks and brushing them again until she stopped crying.
Omanre handed the book to the next person, but Nall couldn't pay attention to the next story. It was possible that another member of the Syndicate could have cobbled the story together from whatever they heard. Why though? Why write a story where their boss was Evil, and destroyed by a young girl? Even if one just wanted to write a story about something, why this story? Atambrean wasn't much of a storyteller, and he would have told her if he was traveling around, telling a rehashed version of what happened eleven years ago. Marduk didn't know enough to get all the coincidences right and the story didn't have enough fanciful elements. It shouldn't have been possible for Aznimal or Enki to tell it. Rennick... again... why? As far as she could tell, he wasn't in this story.
What purpose would whoever rewrote (or filled in the blanks) this story have for writing it? The children didn't seem any more interested in it than the other stories that night. It wasn't particularly flattering, aside from making the heroine as glorious as she needed to be to carry the story. Nall brushed it aside and continued listening and reading until the children were asleep, going back to her house afterward.
The next day, whenever she wasn't busy with something else, Nall tried to figure out why the story existed. That night, when she was looking for her carving knife a possible reason jumped at her. Eleven years passed since she searched for, and freed Atambrean from Deszeld. When he found her later, he said he didn't expect to see her. The last thing she said in Lair, Atambrean couldn't remember exactly what it was, implied that she was going to die and be born again. Eleven years was more than enough time for her to have been reborn and grow into a child.
Erezebeta got the book from a traveler... It wasn't that odd for people to pass through La'marri just, this one happened to room with Erezebeta. Who gave lessons to the families in this part of the city and whose house was always open to a child that needed a place to hide or a treat. And he left the book, when he already paid for his room and board in coin. A book with many different stories, but only one drawing. One drawing with the eye colour filled in. Nall didn't get a close look at the drawing when Omanre was showing it off, but dreaded going to Erezebeta's house to look at it, wondering if the shape of the drawing's eyes were similar to her own.
Nall gave up searching for the knife, taking what remained of a loaf of bread and eating it throughout the night. The Syndicate had to be involved with this story. They had the kind of people to make sure it spread, to send them into towns to look for children with eyes that could resemble hers. It was finally time then.
Time to own up for what happened, those eleven years ago.
