It wasn't that long ago that I finally realized that I really could do anything I wanted. It's an idea that people try to instill in you when you're young and naive, and eventually you grow up to a point where you resign to it not being true, but recently, as I found out, that just isn't the case. In the end, no matter what odds lie in your way, you can always find just a bit more strength to help you out; to make sure that good ultimately perseveres against evil, and with just the will to keep going, you can always do it. It was a startling revelation, but really, it was something that I always knew to be truly true. But before I get too far ahead of myself, let me tell you all about how I came to this realization, let me tell you about amazing things I've seen and done; let me tell you about how the west was won.
I paused, exhaling just a bit, as fire spread across my body. I was concentrating perfectly, and with a raised arm and a careful twirl, forcing the flames into a single ball of fire, resting in my palm. I clapped my hands, extinguishing the flames, and opened my eyes to look at the crowd that had gathered. I bowed, impressed at the size of the audience that had shown up; they applauded.
I smiled at them; it was nice to be appreciated. I picked up the hat that was sitting in front of me, now full of coins; more important than being appreciated, it was nice to actually pull in some decent money. My jeep's been pretty run down lately; it's a piece of trash on wheels at the best of times-- and these were definitely not the best of times for her. I desperately needed to take it in for repairs, but I hadly had the money for that; fortunately for me, the residents of the rich city didn't disappoint.
"Thank you, thank you," I told the crowd, and they started to disperse. I emptied the coins into my purse and put my hat on, throwing my poncho over my shoulders as I walked away. After a moment, I tilted my hat down farther; it didn't help, the sun was still shining right into my eyes anyway.
I hopped into my jeep, not bothering to open the door; it hadn't been able to lock in years, and it squeaked loudly whenever I tried to open it. I was just about to drive off, when a man approached me. He was a nice enough looking guy, although not particularly well dressed; and looking fairly lost.
"Excuse me, I'm not from around here...," he said to me, telling me what I could already tell. "...I was wondering, ma'am, can you tell me where King street is?"
"Sure," I said, with a smile. "You just drive south for... around half hour or so, until you hit the park. Then just take the first left, then the second right, then keeep going straight for another few blocks. You'll know it when you see it, trust me." King street had the most absurdly extravagant market in the world at that part of the road; it was absolutely impossible to miss, especially if he wasn't used to the big city.
"Is this your first time in town?" I added, after a brief moment of silence.
"Yeah," he said; I figured as much. "I just got here from Goddoriche, in the south. It's... a lot smaller than here."
"It's a big city," I agreed. "I don't live here, either; I'm from a village farther west. You don't ever quite get used to it." He didn't say anything immediately; I guess he was sort of nervous. I knew what it was like to be overwhelmed by the big city. "Say, would you like a ride? If you plan on walking, it'll take hours, and you don't want to be walking in this heat. Around this time of day, the city's way worse than the desert, even."
He took a moment to consider it, then said "Sure, that would be wonderful. Thank you." He climbed in, the door making the ungodly screech possible as it closed.
"Not a problem," I said. I started up the car and we drove off.
I don't remember what we talked about for most of the drive; it wasn't anything either particularly interesting or particularly important. It might've been small talk about his part of the country, or something of that sort, but to tell the truth, I don't really recall.
"So, where are you going to exactly?" I asked him when I was nearly at King street.
"I'm trying to find... 76 King St.," he said, taking out a note from his pocket and reading it. "It's the Rider's Association."
"Oh, really," I said, instantly recognizing the name. They were a group of, at best, mercenaries, who took on what they called "odd jobs." On top of being folks of extraordinarily questionable character, they were a group of racists I'd had the misfortune of having to deal with in the past. But I wasn't going to hold that against my passenger, who probably didn't know any better.
"You're familiar with them? Oh, good," he said.
"Yeah... they're assholes, every single one," I told him. I stopped the jeep in front of their building; it was huge, and even more extravagant than most of the street. "Here, this is the place. Good luck."
"Thank you so much," he said, hopping out of the car. He thanked me several more times, then went off on his way.
I watched him walk in, thinking about what I was going to do next; finally, I decided that I was going to drive around the block a few times. I knew perfectly well that whatever job the kid had for them, they weren't going to oblige; in addition to being assholes, the Riders were also rather high cost assholes, and charged an abusrd commission for their services. Some boy from the south certainly wasn't going to be able to afford it. I figured I would be nice, and pick him up when he got the bad news.
By my fourth or fifth lap around the block, he'd already gotten out. By the upset look on his face, I could tell that my suspicions were correct. I pulled up to him and waved.
"Do you want a ride back?" I offered.
"Yeah, that would be great," he said. He climbed back in; this time without opening the squeaky door.
"So," I said, driving back the way we came, "I take it things didn't go well. What was it that you wanted them for?"
"Nothing," he said, sighing.
"You don't travel all the way from Goddoriche to the big city for nothing," I responded. "Why don't you tell me what the problem is, I'll see what I can do to help you out."
He sighed, shaking his head. "You'd find it ridiculous," he told me.
"Try me."
I eventually managed to coax the story out of him. He pulled a necklace out of his pocket, explaining that it was a magical amulet-- an evil one, with immense power. He continued that the legends described it as corrupting all that use it, and was capable of destroying the world. Therefore he'd taken upon himself the task of destroying it; apparently the only way possible was through incredible heat. His plan was to have it thrown into the volcano to the east.
"Oh, kinda like in--" I started to say.
"Yes," he cut in, interrupting. "I told you, it sounds ridiculous... but it's true."
I didn't particularly believe his story for half a second, but what I did believe is that he originally planned on paying the Riders for their work... and Mt. Lee was just a week's drive away. For what I had in mind, I didn't have to believe that it was true; I was willing to humour him.
"How much did you offer the Riders to do it?" I asked.
"I told them, I only had 500 crowns...," he said, trailing off. That was a lot-- a whole lot-- of money.
"I'll do it for half that," I offered. Dimly in the back of my head, I wondered why the Riders had turned down such an easy job for that much money; but I just chalked it up to pride at the time and left it at that.
"Really?" he said, surprised. "Wow, thank you...."
I shrugged. "I don't believe your crazy story, but I could certainly use the money," I explained, honestly.
"That's fair enough," he said. "There's just one condition for it... I have to come with you. You might not believe it, but I do, and it's important that I see it destroyed for sure."
"I could use the company anyway," I replied. After a moment's thought, I realized that I still didn't know his name; and asked him.
"John Rook."
"I'm Mira," I told him. "Pleased to meet you."
The first five days of the trip were incredibly uneventful. The jeep ended up overheating a couple of times, and it was burning through gas a whole lot quicker than I would've liked; but otherwise, everything was going fine. I still thought he was crazy, but he seemed like a great person, and I was glad to have him around. I liked him, he seemed like a nice enough guy.
But of course, that couldn't last.
"We're being followed," I announced to him, on the afternoon of the sixth day. They had been trying to keep out of sight, but I finally noticed the other car tailing behind when we started to enter the mountains. I assumed they must've been keeping a ridiculous amount of distance before; since outside of the mountains, the desert is incredibly flat. It feels like you can see for days away.
"Oh shit," he said, looking back; the other car couldn't have been more than half a kilometre away, and gaining quickly.
"'Oh shit' sounds about right," I said.
I tried to speed up, but my broken down jeep could only go so fast on the rough mountain road. Before long the other car had gotten close enough for me to identify the passengers: Riders. I started to wonder what they were doing here, but didn't have time to complete the thought; being interrupted by the Riders' car hitting us straight on from behind. I swerved, and my jeep spun out, crashing right into a cliff wall. I didn't have time to check how badly injured we were, because right afterwards, the other car screeched to a halt and the passengers all got out.
I mentioned before that the Riders commanded an absurdly high commission. No matter how they like to play themselves off as, at heart they certainly are, despite their good reputation, a group of mercenaries; and the reason that they were expensive is because they were very good at their work. Normally "their work" consisted of protecting caravans from bandits in the desert, or solving someone's mongoose problem; which didn't mean I wasn't frightened of them.
I pulled off my seatbelt and reached for John's, when I noticed that one had them had just thrown something at us. Something round, and about the size of my fist.
"Oh sh--" John started to say, noticing the grenade just as I did.
"Get out!" I interrupted, grabbing the amulet and jumping out of the car. I rolled when I hit the ground, and watched in horror as John tried to leap out, but got caught on the door by his shoelace and tripped. Exactly two seconds later, the grenade detonated.
The explosion was massive, catching the entire jeep in the fireball. I stared at it; there was no way that John could've survived that. My fists clenched tightly with rage, and I pulled myself to my feet; every part of my body was in pain, but I didn't care.
"Hey, our orders weren't to kill them," one of them said to another.
"Who cares? He's a fuckin' gypsy; think of it as a bonus," the second responded.
I stared at them, become more and more enraged. Not only was it horrific, but it wasn't even true; I might've been one, and dressed like one, but John certainly wasn't. If he was, he would've been more than just passingly familiar with their vicious intolerance. Something inside of me snapped. I was sick of that slur, horrified by the callous lack of regard towards human regard, and foremost, furious beyond all description of the continued existence of these monsters.
The first Rider to speak lunged at me, and reflexively, I opened my palm and put my arm between us, shooting a wall of fire out in front of him; I was expecting to heat up the air in front of him, making him stagger back. Fire magic may be flashy, but no matter how practiced I was, it was hard to hurt someone with it, usually. I expected a small burst of flame, right in front of my palm; but what happened instead was a massive fireball, engulfing the attacker in flames entirely.
I stared at the flaming Rider in shock, then at my still-burning hand... then my eyes drifted to the fist I was clenching the amulet in. I opened my fist, and looked at it; the amulet was glowing. It was around then that I realized that maybe it really was magic, like John had said. I closed my fist again, looking up at the remaining Riders. With what could've only been a combination of my rage at John's murder, and the realization that the task he'd entrusted me with really was as important as he said it was, I sprung at them. As I lunged, I immolated myself entirely, with every intention of unleashing fire as harsh as hell itself upon them.
I don't remember what happened after that, but I assume I must've. I hope so. The next thing I remember, I was driving towards the summit in their car. I had one hand on the wheel, the other on the amulet that had given me the strength to survive that encounter; all I could think about was John's senseless death. He was nice. He was a great person. Like the family of my village at home, I've dealt with hell from scum like the Riders all my life; but not until then had I realized just how horrible they were.
Possessed with fury and a desire to carry on what John had died trying to do, I arrived at the volcano's summit a day later. Or maybe it was longer. Or maybe it was shorter. Time didn't seem to pass the way it should. I just remember getting out of the car in the blazing heat, parking it not far away from an exposed stream of lava.
I stood there for a long time, staring at the amulet I was clenching. I thought about what it had done during the fight with the Riders; my magic was normally nothing compared to what it had enabled me to do. It saved my life. I thought about John had said about evil, realizing that no, he was wrong; evil wasn't some piece of jewlery, no matter how much magical power it had on it, no matter how much of a weapon it could be. It was just an object. Evil was human, evil was monsters like the Riders and their sympathisers.
He was wrong. John was wrong about evil, wrong about what it really meant. I realized then that, even if it meant his death was meaningless, I couldn't just throw away the amulet; it had potential for evil, maybe, but it also had potential to put things right. I couldn't just throw it away, or destroy it. It was much too valuable, too potentially good for that.
I looked to the west; from near the top of the volcano summit, I could see the big city we'd come from in the distance. It came to me that his death wasn't meaningless at all; I was inspired to fight the evil that he was killed by. Not just those specific men that had killed him, no, there was more than just that. I looked beyond that and knew that I could set right what society had bred that evil to begin with.
I got back in my car, feeling a whole new sense of purpose, and drove back the way I came, with a sense that I could make a difference. And that, is how the west was won.