“…For so long as you uphold this oath,
I shall follow you for the rest of your days,
And shall be your shadow and your shield both,
Until the time unto which we are parted by Death…
I shall be your Protector, always…”
~ Qui Protegit




I protected a boy once, long ago… I watched him grow from boy to young man, unaware of my presence, but even so, I watched over him. It was at time of War, I remember… And many humans were dying…
Their screams tortured the young man, and I felt his anguish at the death and injustice of those around him. Like dark flames, War crept up upon the land, until one day it even touched his home. His father and brothers were killed in battle, his mother… raped and murdered when the young man had left her alone to find work. The young man… could not forgive the perpetrators, and he could not forgive himself… The night the young man found his mother’s crippled body, was also the first night he picked up a sword. I followed him into battle then as well, for his despair… was mine as well.
The young man silently followed the trail through the small wooded area near his home, that his mother’s murderers had left in their wake. It was not difficult to find, for the men had felt no guilt upon their actions, and therefore, no need to hide their presence. In times of War this lack of caution would no doubt lead to Death, for enemy soldiers were always close at hand… For the young man, such a thing was to his advantage…
The riotous laughter from their camp could be heard clearly as we approached after Dark, and the young man shook with rage at hearing that laughter, understanding its meaning instinctively. It was that Rage that nearly carried the boy forward, that rage that nearly flung his body into the clearing into disaster! Were it not for my hand upon his shoulder…
The young man spun around, lunging at me with his sword, but found nothing. It was only natural that he had reacted as such, for I have only ever rarely interacted with him physically, and wariness at this time was wise… The young man could not see my form, and yet regardless of this, I still whispered caution...
“Be careful,” I warned him from the Dark. “And stay your blade, for I am an Ally…”
“Who are you?” The young man replied, with a shaking grip upon the sword.
“I am merely one who walks beside you…” Came my answer. “For I am your shadow and your shield both.”
“Why are you following me?” He questioned, slowly lowering his blade.
“I have followed you all of your days, since the moment you were born into the Chaos that is the World…” I told the young man. “And I have watched you grow… It is a Life that I now know well, yet I have no wish to see its end…”
“Then why did you stop me?!” The young man demanded of me. “They killed my mother!”
I nodded, though he could not see it. “ Yesss… This I know well…” I felt the Rage vibrate throughout my entire being, and yet fought to contain it. “However, you must be cautious, Young One… It does no good to join your mother on the other side of the Veil without achieving your Revenge, does it not?”
The young man swallowed hard, his sword at his side. “Then what do you want me to do?”
I merely tilted head to the side, watching him. “Only that you be cautious…” I repeated within the Dark. “For if Revenge is truly what you seek, then you must be patient…”
“You want me to wait!” The young man almost called out, abruptly realizing his location was not far from his enemies… “To let them get away with what they’ve done?!”
My quiet laughter could be heard echoing through the trees… “I spoke nothing of waiting, nor Mercy, I merely ask you to watch and wait… In Time, your quarry shall come to you…”
I spoke no more with him afterwards, leaving the young man to ponder my Words… And ponder them he did, for as the young man crept towards the camp he soon realized the situation at hand… A situation that was not promising to the young and hotheaded.
There were five of them in total, all of them drunken deserters from his father’s side of the War. In another lifetime, they could have been his brothers-in-arms, but not men like these… These men were scum, no better than the enemies they were supposed to be fighting- worse after what they had done to his mother… The young man almost lost to the Rage again, yet held back, waiting for an opportunity.
At some point during the night, one of the men got up to relieve himself in the woods… The young man followed him closely behind, and awaited his chance to strike… When the Time came, he only hesitated briefly, before letting the Rage overtake him, and running his mother’s murderer through, but grown men do not parish so easily, and so the young man was forced to hit him over the head with a rock. Afterwards, the others were dispatched in a similar fashion…
A second man had come, looking for his companion, and was quickly brought down with a blade to the throat… The young man then returned to the camp to find two of the deserters had passed out, with one standing guard. After killing the first two, his grip had become steadier, and thus, so had his aim… The young man came at the guard from behind, and the deserter breathed his last…
As for the unconscious men, their heads were removed from their bodies in two swift movements, blood staining the ground… The young man’s Revenge was completed upon the rising of the sun, yet in that moment the young man knew what he had done, and the weight of it crushed him… His face had become white, then green, and in an instant, he was running for the tree-line, to empty his stomach.
Afterward, the young man fell to his knees, and lay slumped against a great elm tree, still clutching his father’s sword… In the hours that he lay there, I kept vigilant over him as I have always done… The wolves I scattered away with merely my presence, and most other creatures did not even draw near, however, there was one…
It would seem that a sixth man was returning to the deserters’ camp, a sixth man that the young man was in no condition to deal with at this Time... I took care of it. The young man never saw him, and never heard the deserter as I knocked the wicked man to the ground and choked the life out of him in a similar fashion to what he had done to the young man’s mother. The last deserter never even saw the face of his own killer…
Once the deed was done, I began to retrace my steps back to the young man’s location, for surely now there was no more reason to fear for his safety- The young man’s scream of agony propelled my body forward at instantaneous speeds, tearing through brush and tree alike to get to where I knew I had left him! To where I knew he was safe! I was wrong… And I was too late…
When I returned, the young man had been run through, his hand still on the hilt of the blade… Some Time after I had left, he had regained consciousness… While I was gone, the young man pierced himself with his own blade…
The shock of it left my body numb, and yet tears still ran down my face… The wound was mortal. There is nothing more that I…
“Why?” The young man asked as his Life bled out onto the ground. “Why did you help me?”
He looked at me directly. Right into my eyes… For the first Time, he could see me, because he was dying…
I tilted my head to the side and watched him, no longer able to help the young man I knew so well… The Words I spoke next were wasted words, yet they must be said all the same… “Was Revenge truly all you had left, Young One? Was there truly nothing more? Not even your own Life…?”
“Everyone’s dead.” The young man answered. “I have nothing left… It hurts too much!”
“I understand this Pain…”I replied, bending down to meet his dulling gaze. “However, your Death will not bring them back…”
“I know…” The boy nodded, coughing up blood. “So, I’m going to find them… I am going to find my family…”
The Pain of Grief howled within my body and consumed my Soul as I watched him take his final breath, until the boy I had watched grow into a young man was no more… Once again, I am alone. The forest echoed with the sound of my screams, and the blood-soaked ground trembled as my Sorrow rose into the sky in a fierce and vicious Wind.
Some Time later, when the Winds had died along with my Voice. I finally rose to my feet… I rose up, and turned my back on the empty shell, and walked away... I had no idea how much longer it would be before I learned my lesson, perhaps an Eternity, but of all the dangers in this World, I cannot protect them from themselves… Nor Death, when it takes them.
© Britt Clark