Heirloom
#1 of Zont
Heirloom
In the predawn light a cloaked figure approached a small plaza where if memory served there should have been a park. The once elegant neighborhood that replaced the park is now old and run-down. The large houses still stand a respectable distance from the road with their formal gardens now in vegetables or weeds, instead of ornamental roses, their splendid facades now crumbling from neglect. Smaller lesser homes in no better repair crowd the space in-between like so many children clinging to their parents in an uncertain world. Looking like what they are, refugees from a better time long gone and forgotten. Occasionally a dog would bark, but mostly the street is quiet, and dark.
Zelda had not been making any great effort to hide in shadows or conceal her identity with the cloak. It was cold and what she saw chilled her even more. This had once been founder's park in the center of the city. Zelda had neither recognized it, nor realized she was getting near to it until she saw the carved base of the fountain. Looking it over as she approached from across the plaza she was still not certain what it was. The base looked familiar, but the bronze of a mare very like herself playing happily with a group of mostly human children, among discarded armor, was completely new to her. The children and the mare were playing in what would have been the pond of the fountain if it still worked. Some were climbing over the side of the fountain and some were about to leap off into the water. All were obviously having a great deal of fun. The armor was of old Roman stile, and richly decorated, but discarded like an old skin. That was my armor once thought Zelda as she struggled with memories she had spent a very long time running from.
"Nothing lasts forever, dictator."
Zelda felt her blood run cold, and she nearly made an alarm sound as she spun around hand on her epée, to see a very old wolf approaching with the help of a cane.
"I smelled you on my son, but I did not believe it could really be you." The old wolf looked at the sculpture. "It was quite the thing when they built it." Looking back at Zelda, "it was the high light of the park, but you had been gone for nearly fifty years by then. Do you remember the day it depicts?"
Zelda was not sure she was actually speaking aloud. "We had just decided on a location for the city and I was taking a bath in the river. A group of children were playing tag, glad to know that they were not going to be getting back on the boats. They came over a rise, just over there," Zelda pointed down one of the roads that led to the plaza, "and found me in the water. We played games that have no names until we were all too tired to run anymore." Zelda looked at the wolf for a long moment before taking a deep breath through her nose. "Your Tracker's pup." Zelda walked up to the sculpture and touched the likeness of a tiny wolf pup cradled inside the helmet. "This is you?"
"Yes it is."
"I had no idea it had been this long." Zelda wanted to cradle his face in her hands, but she had never been sure when a touch would be welcome so she reluctantly held off. In the gradually building light of morning Zelda could see the tracks of his life, in the scars on his face and arms, and in the remnants of a large and powerful physique. In his prime he was easily twice her mass, but frail as he was now she was sure she could just as easily carry him.
"Come with me I have something to show you." Tracker's son led his father's commander to one of the great old houses up the front stairs, and past a desk with an aging human woman, who barely noticed their presence, up more stairs and into an apartment. "It really was a grand house once upon a time, but I guess that part of getting old is seeing things you love age and die."
Zelda thought to herself you have no idea. This thought floated on a background of memories accumulated over more years than she could count, or cared to. Memories she had quit running from but had not yet come to grips with.
"I am sorry bad as some of my nights are, I can't imagine what fills your nightmares. Forgive me. Ah here it is." Thacker's now very old pup retrieved and unrolled a tube of paper. He was incredibly carful and gentile as if handling a holy relic. As he did so a sketch of that day so long ago appeared along with a tiny new tear. "I have no idea what the young man's name was, but my father bought this drawing and kept it throughout his life. This is how he wanted to remember you. As a young wolf filled with the joy of the hunt I did not understand. When my own pups came into this world I began to, but it was when a good friend was killed in service to the king that I knew what he meant. Will you take it?"
"No, take your grand child with you and give this drawing to the city museum. You have rekindled the memory of a wonderful day filled with joy, sunlight and laughter, that will help me find my way back to the morning sunlight after a very long and lonely night." Zelda leaned over to kiss Tracker's son as his great grandson came sleepily into the kitchen to see the two of them frame the sunrise through the kitchen window.