You stand up again (Hans' path)

"You be leavin' old Noan already?"

Noan's voice rattles through the morning mist, breaking the silence. You don't bother to turn around to face the old woman, you can tell that she is standing just at the door of the dilapidated watermill. She's probably leaning over her cane, leering at you and watching with an amused look on her face. You just keep doing what you were doing before while looking westwards into the horizon.

"There's an old dirt path about a mile northwest of here." You say, putting your belongings and some food scavenged into a sack you borrowed from Noan. "If I take that trail it should lead me to one of the main trade routes leading to Morgent."

"I takes it then, that you mean ta' do it? Fight the Pretender again?" Noan says.

Your hands cease their busy movement and slowly reach to squeeze the straps of your bag. "I won't let Vanarim or Nautilex have their way. Even if I've lost the Shining Stone, I'll find a way to stop them." Looking down, you see that your knuckles are white from exertion and you slowly release your grip on the leather, "I won't lie down and let them win."

There is a sound like rolling bones, which you realize later to be Noan laughing. This finally makes you turn around to face her. Her eyes are shut and her free arm is wrapped around her waist, each spasm of laughter making her clutch all the tighter. "Lookit you! Like a big player on ta' stage. 'Ohh, 'tis be a dreary, dreary world we be livin' in. But where there be life, there be hope and a chance!' Eh? Eh?!" She throws her head back and cackles again, making you blush from your melodrama. When her laughter finally subsides, like a parade of skeletons at sunrise, she grins back at you though and says, "But aye, that be the way, boy. Never give up. Never give in."

When Noan disappears back into the mill, you think that those were her last words to you. Perhaps some words of encouragement, you think. You shrug and continue packing. Once you finish and sling the sack over your shoulder though, you stumble back with a start when you realize that the old woman is standing right next to you, and has probably been standing there for quite some time. "What are you doing?" You ask.

"I may as well walk you outta ta' forest." You begin to protest, claiming it would be too strenuous, but she silences you with a rap on the head with her stick. "It be the least this old lady can do for giving her some company in the last, dark nights o' life."

You shift uncomfortably with the mention of her last nights, but you eventually nod and agree to her companionship. At first you think you'll need to help Noan walk and carry her things, but the old woman is surprisingly spry and she easily keeps up with your walking pace. She needs little help climbing over fallen logs, and she gives not a whisper of complaint. She provides nothing in the way of conversation though, and the journey is made in silence. As you trek through the forest, the sun streams in rays through the canopy, dappling the floor in golden spots. This would be a serene place, if it wasn't so quiet. Only the sound of your boots crunching through twigs and leaves assures you that you are alive. If not the only thing alive in this place. You wonder where all the animals could have run off to.

You hike for an hour through the woods with these idle thoughts before the foliage finally opens up and the forest transitions into open, rugged ground. As you cross the threshold, a cool breeze licks at your skin. The first sign, you think, of the coming autumn. You stand at the crest of a hill with the trees of the forest beside and behind you and look down to the scenery past the forest. Just below, you spot the worn trail you noticed before, snaking westward, partially hidden in a valley between two grassy knolls.

"And so," Noan begins, "We be at the end of ta' trees, and so be the end of our story together."

The old crone emerges under the sunlight from behind you, and you can finally get a clear look at her. Old. It's foolishly simple, but by looking at her, you are struck with a profound sense of age. A feeling of watching your face in the mirror shrivel and dry up into something you don't recognize. A feeling of being and dying alone. Of wanting and hoping, being uplifted by dreams of a bright future, a little home somewhere in the woods, with a loving husband or wife, and beautiful children to call out your name. And then crushed by your sacrifices, the regret you feel from closing the door to other futures, and seeing how far off and different life had become from what you expected. And harboring deep in your chest is the vague, yet distinct, feeling that everything you have done, all the choices you have made and all the battles you have fought, have been for nothing.

Noan looks up at you, and a slow, sad smile creeps up on her lips. "Tears? For an ol' lady? Might as well pour water in the desert, boy."

Your hands reach up to your eyes and touch the moisture that you could not feel on your cheeks. Noan had been the first living person you met since crossing the Dragon's Spine. You may have been alive back then, but you didn't plan on living much further. Then an old woman, with nothing left to give, with nothing left even for herself, somehow gave you back your life and your hope for the future. What words could possibly express your gratitude?

"Thank you, Noan." You say, embracing the old lady. She opens her arms and takes you in, like a mother would. Was she always this small? You think to yourself. It is as if the light is wasting her away. When you break contact, you continue, saying, "I don't know how I can repay you."

"My life be full o' unclaimed debts, one more won't hurt. I ask you only one favor." The crone says, looking up at you, her eyes gleaming at you in their jet-black mirrors.

"Anything."

"...Punish ma' boy. He be gone too far."

You make to reply, asking what she meant, but a **** of crows squawks violently and scatters up from a nearby copse of elm trees. The birds fly ravenously upwards to catch an unsuspecting sparrow in mid-flight. It cries out once in a short, sharp tweet and then is torn up by their maddened beaks, falling to the ground as a bloody lump. You watch the cloud of black as it cuts toward the western horizon after its feasting frenzy, towards Morgent.

When you turn back to answer Noan, you find that you are alone. The old woman has disappeared, leaving you to your thoughts and the journey ahead.