With the Roc's Divine Protection 3--Connie
By Natasha Weber
Clarice closed the diary with a fascinated face. Her friends, who were sitting on the stony ground in a circle around the bed looked stunned. Annabelle entered the room and said to the group of four, "hurry up or I'll leave you!"
Nana said, "how is this girl alive? The war between Yab and Haalan ended thousands of years ago."
Asha was in tears and she wiped them away. "This poor girl..."
Jonathan stood up and silently walked over to Annabelle. Clarice followed afterwards, and then Asha and Nana.
***
Clarice looked down at her feet silently as she walked and followed Annabelle. She felt a little desolate, knowing what she now knew. She was an old woman who had passed up most of her youth with no friends and no family. The Roc felt like her only friend much of the time. In many ways, she was a lot like Asha, who, indeed, had nothing in her life but her prowess with a blade.
Asha was married for many years previously. That man buried his way under her skin and she could never let him go. When he divorced her, Asha focused all her time on swordplay and defending the people of Dru from night beasts in her home town. Because that was all Asha had, she made it her lot in life to become the best swordwoman ever, but she was always being outdone by the others in the group. She got extremely angry when she would spar for fun with Jonathan, Nana, or Clarice and she would always lose. If she had no family or friends, she wanted to at least be the best at fighting, and she didn't even have that anymore when she met Clarice and the rest of the group.
For Clarice it was different though. She didn't really want or have a need to be the best swordswoman in the land; she wanted to have friends and a family, but she was a troubled youth who never got along well with others and began to repulse them until she had finally closed her heart to them entirely for much of her life. She instead chose to protect them with a sword; she could show people she wasn't heartless that way without having to talk to them or become friends with them.
There was a time very recently in which Clarice had had a change of heart. She had grown up and lived among humans for such a long time that she often forgot she was a troll. She gave up being a knight for the past five or so years to live among her troll kindred. They were creatures who had chosen to live with nature; few of them worked and if they did, it wasn't for money. They chose, instead, to spend their days harvesting food, exchanging stories, sewing, and making practical things to make life easier. They lived in peace in a sort of backwards fashion. Clarice decided she loved it, and although she still didn't have many friends, she felt she wasn't being judged, and managed to open her heart again to other people.
Before that, all she had was the Roc, and she could never quite forget about him. She had no interest in his bird form--an animalistic form in which it often seemed like he had no intelligent thoughts, just basic instincts--she was interested in his human form. He formed intelligent thoughts in that form, and there were two long periods in the history books in which he had stayed human for years upon years before switching back.
Annabelle was present during one of them; judging by the journal Clarice had read, the Roc was in love with this girl, but she did not return his affections. Clarice was furiously jealous.
Jonathan asked Annabelle as they walked, "you knew the Roc, right?"
Annabelle's eyes darted back and forth. She didn't want to talk about this. "No, of course not..."
Jonathan raised an eyebrow. "I won't push you to tell us anything, but that's a blatant lie... We read your diary."
Annabelle was silent. "Please don't talk to me about this... I'm giving you what you want."
Asha chimed in, "we're not judging you, Annabelle. What happened--it wasn't your fault. The Roc just--"
"Stop it! Just stop it!" Annabelle begged.
"You know, none of this would have happened if it weren't for you..." Nana murmured cruelly.
Annabelle ran of then with tears in her eyes. Clarice chided Nana as she dashed after her, "Nana! Learn some manners!"
***
Clarice followed the younger troll who always seemed to just disappear around corners as she almost caught up to her. Clarice's friends were following quickly after her.
They seemed to have run after the young troll for an hour before, finally, they reached the top of the mountain and Clarice saw Annabelle disappear upwards through the mountain.
When Clarice arrived at the spot she disappeared from, the way upwards appeared to be sealed by a rock. Clarice was angry, more angry than her friends had ever seen her. Her fists shook with anger. This girl threw away the divine gifts offered by the Roc and rejected his affections. Clarice would have died to be in the Roc's eyes and heart--he was willing to give up everything for her, but she still rejected him--Clarice, at the very least, wanted to ask Annabelle why.
Clarice's friends caught up to her and Jonathan put a hand on Clarice's tense shoulder. "Calm down, Clarice. Anger will get you nowhere..."
Clarice took a deep breath. "Sorry, Jonathan..."
Clarice looked upwards at the rocky ceiling through which Annabelle had disappeared. She thought for a moment and decided to simply knock politely on it.
The rock grumbled and was shaking. Clarice stepped aside just as it fell to the ground. Clarice grinned. "Okay... Are you guys ready?"
Her friends looked at her with little smiles of their own.
Clarice stepped up on the fallen piece of rock that had fallen and enjoyed the wind that was filtering down from the open hole in the ceiling above. She hopped up and grabbed the upper ledge--her legs dangling down in the cave for a moment as she hauled herself up. She reached down into the mountain to help the rest of her friends up.
Once they were all up on the mountain, Clarice and her friends noticed that the night beasts had thankfully gone.
Clarice breathed a sigh of relief with her eyes closed.
Asha yelled, "Clarice look!"
Clarice turned around and saw a gigantic glass egg, bigger than a house, in front of her. It appeared to be empty, but Clarice noticed something inside of the egg.
She clapped a hand to her mouth in horror. Annabelle was inside of the egg. "What is going on?"
Her friends had no answer for her. All they could do was look at the girl in the glass egg and gawk.
Was the Roc never real at all? Was it just this troll girl the whole time?
Clarice refused to accept that. She knocked on the glass egg angrily. "Wake up!"
When Annabelle didn't wake up, she pounded her fists all the harder and still yelled, "wake up!"
She could hear her friends trying to quell her rage--trying to pull her off of the egg--but Clarice finally got fed up and unsheathed her blade. She plunged the blade as hard as she could into the glass egg.
At first, it looked like nothing was going to come of it--but then the egg began cracking slowly. A crunching sound filled their ears as the crack spread all around until the glass structure shattered into pieces like an eggshell.
The troll inside shifted into a gigantic, white bird that looked like a dove. A beautiful, ivory creature that shone even in the night. It collapsed out of the glass shell, still sleeping.
Clarice was still angry, but she sheathed her sword. She began to calm down slowly. The Roc was real.
She had tears in her eyes, as did Jonathan.
Jonathan approached the bird and touched its head joyously. "I found him, Miranda..."
Jonathan had an Elfen wife by the name of Miranda who worshipped the bird frequently and who had passed ten or so years ago. Since then, Jonathan had wanted to fulfill the promise he made to his wife of finding the bird for the both of them. He had done it, and regardless of what came after, he was overjoyed to have fulfilled the wishes of the one most dearest to him.
Clarice joined Jonathan and wondered if the bird was alive. She was sweating with fear that he wasn't. Asha and Nana were examining the bird curiously. They all couldn't help but bury their hands in the creature's extra soft feathers.
Suddenly, the Roc shook and one of his big red eyes opened, and then the other. He reared up and cawed ferociously. He focused on Clarice and snapped at her. Clarice held out a hand and said, "calm down! We're not here to hurt you!"
The beast seemed mad; he was not like the stories at all. He snapped at Clarice's hand and nipped it a little, drawing blood. He snapped at it one more time and Clarice held his face in her hands. The creature stopped for a moment, and Clarice cooed soothingly. "Would Annabelle like this type of behavior?"
The Roc cooed back at that and shuffled down into a sitting position. He closed his eyes. Clarice's friends looked deathly afraid. The top of the mountain was only just big enough for all of them to stand on, and the Roc could push them all off easily. Clarice gently pet the creature's head and the blood that was on her hand smeared onto the Roc's head.
Nana was at her side, overcoming her initial fear. Her bird friend held out a clawed hand and grabbed Clarice's wrist. "You're hurt..."
Nana put her pack down and rummaged through it until she found a piece of cloth to wrap Clarice's hand in.
The group spent minutes with the Roc, who would not shift into a form that could hold a conversation. Clarice was still trying to soothe the creature with soft words, and the rest of the group were on the lookout for night beasts.
Hours past, and the group all cautiously leaned against the Roc, exhausted. After eating some dry biscuits from their packs, Clarice told her friends they could sleep if they wished. They did so.
Clarice stayed up with the Roc. She said to him, "I've waited to meet you for a long time. I scoured the world searching for any information I could on you. You've been my friend longer than anyone, even if you didn't know it. I want to speak with you. That is my greatest wish. I need you to be human for that... I promise, no one here will harm you."
The Roc made no motion of appearing to understand her. It was breathing harshly, however. Clarice noticed that, in comparison to the paintings she had seen of him, his feathers were dirtier and had lost some of their sheen. She wondered what had happened to him.
She sighed. "I'll stay as long as it takes."
***
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