One-Shots

Dance of Destiny

Newly Edited :) - Now there's (probably) no grammar mistakes or misspellings

- - - - - - - - - - 

It all started with a dance. 

I wanted to be the hero of the story once. I used to dream about going off on some grand adventure and slaying some horrific and intimidating beast only to return to my village or town or wherever I was living to a crowd of people shouting praise at me. Parades and festivities and a party that lasted weeks all because the dragon or whatever kind of monster it was that had been terrorizing everyone had been slain. 

But of course not. I had to be the girl that grew up next to the boy with a destiny. 

I remember how it used to be for us, when a simple stick was a sword and a game was the most important thing on our minds. We would go out into the woods and play together. We were equals. The trees were our home, leaves as both the ceiling and carpet. We spent hours together in the forest, acting out swordfights along the shallow river or on top of a fallen tree, catching small creatures (with a limited amount of success), climbing up into the tallest and narrowest branches of an old oak so we would feel like we were flying in the air with the birds we loved to imitate. 

Then, he grew up. 

We both knew of the prophecy, the words spoken by some wise old witch blessed with visions of the future. He was meant to be a hero the second he took his first breath. Neither of us cared at first. All we wanted was to avoid farm chores and to catch frogs on the riverbank. Then, he started to care. He started to go in town, where people would turn and stare and whisper. I watched as he began to listen. To slowly steal the hearts of everyone in the small town. They all adored him, and they all knew what he was supposed to do and to be. And, like an idiot, I started to go with him. I was his neighbor girl, his childhood friend who had grown into a young woman while he became a young man. I knew what people expected of us, even if he was blind to it. They expected him to become someone great, to be a hero and become a great force of power in the land. 

And me? 

All I was now was the maiden. The girl he was supposed to come back to. The girl he used as motivation to defy the odds of death and win whatever heroic and epic battle that was destined to be. The girl he returned to in all his newfound glory and whisk away to a new life of riches and happiness after a grand and frivolous wedding to celebrate his victory. Or, if things went down a darker path, the person to grieve most. The one who is so upset by his sudden and gruesome demise that I would stand in the middle of the street, cold rain pouring down my back and mixing with my seemingly endless tears streaming down my face as I screamed my pain to the clouds. Then I would become someone else entirety, develop some sort of eccentricity that couldn't be helped since I was so heartbroken over him. The strange-mannered girl everyone avoids and whispers of as I walk down the road, never moving on from the past even if I wanted to. 

I can assure you, none of that is what I wanted. 

I wanted a life of adventure. A life of travel and towns and trees. A life of camping out in grassy fields or forests or even a farmer's old barn. I wanted a life of freedom, of learning to hunt or finding my own food and making whatever was on hand work. Of learning how to use every kind of weapon I could get my hands on; swords, bows, knives, staffs, anything. I wanted to go on quests, whether it was helping get a cat out of a tree or raiding a dungeon riddled with traps and with encrypted clues carved into the walls. 

It didn't matter what I wanted anyways. 

There was no way to escape destiny. At least, that's what I'd always been told. My parents urged me to give up on my, "Ridiculous and childish dream of being some sort of wandering loner with a dangerous weapon." I was told to be grateful that I already had a future planned out for me, a secure one that was going to bring me great fortune and a fulfilling and satisfying life. A future that was going to continue my bloodline and bring great and eternal glory to my family and his. If I was lucky, I'd have a son that would grow up to be just as heroic and successful.