Even after a year, the castle still felt like home. \u00a0Having just stepped in the forward break in the wall, she took a moment to absorb the nostalgic emanations of her old home. An overabundance of kudzu and moss still covered the majority of the stonework and the same familiar crumbling walls and breaks in the ceiling greeted her eyes. \u00a0She smiled. \u00a0She didn’t even mind the mustiness or the\u00a0heavy dew\u00a0permeating the air. \u00a0On the contrary, she welcomed the old smells and smiled even brighter.<\/p>\n
She turned her eyes upward toward the single remaining battlement where her training had begun. \u00a0For a moment, she became transfixed\u00a0by\u00a0old memories. \u00a0She had been so carefree then. \u00a0Even at the beginning, she had known what was coming, but at the time, it seemed so far away. \u00a0Her training was the solitary thing she had desired since she met her Master, and really the only thing she had ever dared to desire in her lifetime. She had been happy for the first time in her short, miserable existence.<\/p>\n
She snapped her eyes back in front and found her old throne, as she had called it, though that wasn’t even close to what it really was. \u00a0She didn’t have time to reminisce. \u00a0She had a purpose in coming back here. \u00a0She somehow knew that it should begin in this place, and she also somehow knew that it was almost time.<\/p>\n
They were coming.<\/p>\n
She strode forth to sit on her throne, which was really nothing more than a broken stone that sort of resembled a chair with one armrest, and when she did so, she\u00a0immediately felt their presence. \u00a0Suddenly, she realized she was afraid. \u00a0Doubts plagued her thoughts and she began to tremble. \u00a0Was she ready? \u00a0Was she destined to die here? \u00a0These were things never-before-seen in this world; was\u00a0it even possible to be ready? \u00a0Her heartbeat thrummed in her ears and she found it impossible to keep her hands from shaking. She took her sword in\u00a0both hands and attempted to grip it only to find that she could not.\u00a0Tears welled in her eyes as the fear took over her senses and her heartbeat throbbed from her face to the back of her neck. \u00a0She could barely breathe. \u00a0They were close.<\/p>\n
She forced herself to take a deep breath and Master’s words formed in the back of her mind. “Fear can be harnessed, shaped, and directed toward whatever you so choose. \u00a0As can all emotion, be it anger, love, hate, envy, lust, and so on. In fact, the greater the emotion, the more energy that can be harnessed from it. \u00a0You have strong emotions, as clearly evidenced by your non-stop crying just a few weeks ago (he’ll never let me live that down), and you must learn to use them. \u00a0Do not allow your emotion to control you. \u00a0Rather, let it spill forth in the direction you have need of it. \u00a0Let your anger fuel your desire for goodness. \u00a0Let your fear fuel your offense. \u00a0Let your pride fuel your defense. Let your determination fuel your speed. \u00a0Do not be afraid to experience\u00a0emotion. \u00a0Indeed you should seek to raise it ever higher.”<\/p>\n
She took another breath and waited. \u00a0She could hear them now; some climbing the walls, some peering over the breaks in the ceiling, some at the breaks in the wall. \u00a0Their raspy breath and incoherent mutterings could be heard like whispers from all directions. \u00a0She closed her eyes and allowed her fear to overcome until it drowned out her heartbeat and the whispers and she could no longer see despite her open eyes. \u00a0Then she took hold of it, shaped it, and channeled it into the pit of her stomach. \u00a0She had found her resolve.<\/p>\n
She stood and brandished her sword as she poured her spirit into her hands and into her blade. \u00a0A bright blue light burst forth from the blade\u00a0illuminating the tiny inner castle. \u00a0She could see them now. \u00a0She would prevail.<\/p>\n
She held her glowing blade aloft and cried, “I am Alice Thorn! And I am ready! Come.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Even after a year, the castle still felt like home. \u00a0Having just stepped in the forward break in the wall, she took a moment to absorb the nostalgic emanations of her old home. An overabundance of kudzu and moss still covered the majority of the stonework and the same familiar crumbling walls and breaks in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Alice Thorn","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-them"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7UkFD-F","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jasonclement.me\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jasonclement.me\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jasonclement.me\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jasonclement.me\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jasonclement.me\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/jasonclement.me\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":529,"href":"http:\/\/jasonclement.me\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41\/revisions\/529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jasonclement.me\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jasonclement.me\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jasonclement.me\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}