The innkeeper, Hilda, and her husband Alex had been more than hospitable, but the time had come for her to leave. Her wounds had almost completely healed, and she would not burden these kind people anymore. Her belongings were packed, and she had insisted on repaying the couple in some way. Alex’s only fee was a little help in figuring out how to open the ruins near the inn, but Lorelai still couldn’t remember how she had gotten out in the first place.

On the day of her departure, Alex gave her some directions to Muse to meet a runemaster who may know about her rune. This piece of information, plus the fact that she could have the scythe properly appraised by a blacksmith, seemed to direct her toward Muse. As she was leaving the inn, she overheard Hilda talking to another person who had been staying at the inn.

“Yori, I can’t stress enough the danger of making the trip to Muse right now. Bandit activity is really high right now, with the border tensions distracting the army.” Hilda had a worried expression on her face as she said this.

Lorelai and Hilda had the same conversation before she was ready to leave, but Lorelai was not concerned with bandits or any other hardships that the road had in store for her. Looking back at Yori, she saw a young boy dressed in a sleeveless yellow vest and brown pants. The boy appeared to be unarmed, and badly out of place in this area of Jowston.

Then Lorelai heard Hilda call for her. Oh no, she thought, I know where this is headed.

“Why don’t you two travel to Muse together. After all there’s safety in numbers.”

Lorelai shuddered at the suggestion. The trip was going to be more dangerous if she had to baby-sit someone.

“Lorelai, it’d be a big favor if you could help this young man out.”

Well, that settled it. She still felt she owed the couple something, and this little favor could ease that burden on her mind. But if the kid couldn’t pull his own weight…

“Hi my name’s Yori, nice to meet ya.” The young boy held out his hand in greeting.

Lorelai simply scowled at Yori. “ If we’re leaving, we should leave now, so we can make it to muse before dark.”

“But can’t we eat lunch first? I just got up and I’m starving.” Yori looked down at his stomach as if he expected a response.

Lorelai looked the kid over. He seemed a little skinny, which simply reassured her of his uselessness. “We better not… The bandits won’t care how well fed you are if they decide to jump us.”

Hilda spoke up. “You have plenty of time Lorelai. Sit down and have some lunch.”

Lorelai looked at the smiling innkeeper and realized the futility of the argument. But after this, I’ll owe these people nothing, she thought.

About an hour later, Lorelai and Yori had eaten and were ready to go. The boy had eaten what appeared to be twice his size in food. Lorelai was beginning to feel grateful for the fact that they were only traveling to Muse. She looked into the sky, and making some minor calculations in her head realized that they had about three hours of light left. She knew lunch had been a mistake, and all the boy had talked about was how often his “master” had told him about the importance of eating properly. The boy claimed to be a martial artist, but judging by his build, Lorelai thought this was unlikely. She had known plenty of hand to hand specialists, and Yori was too thin to be an effective one. She looked at him struggling with his packs, and was already beginning to curse her decision of bringing him along.

“Are you done yet?” Lorelai was beginning to sound annoyed.

“Yep. Let’s go! With us traveling together, we don’t have to worry about any bandits.” Yori grinned at Lorelai, and seemed to be genuinely pleased to have her company.

The duo had traveled about 2 hours in an awkward silence. This didn’t bother Lorelai; she could care less about talking to him. But she knew the blissful silence would have to end soon, so she might as well speak first. “So why exactly are you going to Muse?”

“Well, I figured I should see the world before I settle down or anything, and Muse is the next place on my list.”

So he was a wandering bum. “And this master you talk about… I don’t believe you mentioned his name.”

“Well, that’s because I don’t know it. You see he just passed through our town for a few days and never said a word. I asked him before why he was traveling before he left, and he said he was on a journey to perfect himself. I thought that was pretty cool, so I decided I’d do the same.”

And the boy was a flake. Idolizing a person you’ve never really spoken to. How stupid was that?

Yori spoke again. “Yeah, all he did was eat and sleep, he never saw anybody or tried to make any friends. Kinda reminded me of how people acted toward me, ignoring me and all, and I figured if I lived that kind of lifestyle, then not having any friends wouldn’t bother me as much. So I set off on a journey to perfect myself and learn by his example. So I bought some clothes like his, started acting like him, studied a little about fighting, and tried to live by his example. Man he could just eat and eat and sleep and sleep, just like me. He was so cool, you know what I mean?”

Lorelai’s response was brief. “Shut up.”

Yori looked a little crestfallen, and continued the walk to Muse.

What was she thinking? She didn’t care about the kid, why’d she bother speaking to him? Lorelai realized that her time at the White Deer inn had made her a little soft. Stupid, should’ve never agreed to bring him along. Bad enough she was stuck in a strange country, she also had to look out for this brat. She still didn’t understand how she had gotten from the Toran republic to a little inn outside Muse. She looked down at the rune on her hand. It was sort of like a Draining Rune, but there was something different about it. After all, she had never seen a rune attach itself to someone. The scythe was another mystery. One strike had brought down a monster that her arrows couldn’t even pierce. She recognized a rune embedded into the flat of the blade, and she guessed that it was a Sleep rune, but she had seen one of those before, and this was something else, something Sindarin by her guess.

Before she had realized it, darkness had fell, and it time was to set up camp. As she unshouldered her pack she noticed Yori muttering to himself. He’s not just a flake, he’s freaking nuts, she thought. She decided to try and overhear what he was saying.

Yori seemed to ignore Lorelai completely, having some form of conversation with himself. “Whaddaya mean you recognize something about her? There’s no way you could know her, she’s way too young.”

“YORI!”

The boy spun around in a daze. “What? What did I do?”

“I was just wondering if there was someone else here, or was I hearing things?”

“I was just talking to myself. Nothing to worry yourself about.”

“Oh really.” Now the boy was hiding something from her. He had been at the inn; maybe he was interested in the Sindar too. Maybe he was going to try and latch on to her for information, or worse yet, to steal the treasures she had found. She was going to have to dump this kid and she was going to have to do it tonight. “It’s time to make camp, we’ve run out of light.” Yori raised his right hand and a burst of light lit up the surrounded the area. “It’s my Light Rune. We don’t have to stop because it’s dark as long as I have this.”

“You idiot! Why don’t you just put a sign on your back that just says mug me! You probably got the attention of every bandit in the nearby area!” Lorelai’s voice was getting louder and louder.

“And your yelling isn’t?” Yori looked a little upset about being yelled at.

That was when all hell broke loose. A rain of arrows came down on the two, one striking Lorelai in the shoulder. The two looked around to see they were surrounded by bandits. The leader of the bandits spoke.

“Throw down your valuables and we’ll let you live.”

Yori tossed his pack down beside him. The bandits turned and looked at Lorelai who was smiling. “If you want my belongings you’ll have to take them from my corpse.” She grabbed her scythe, wincing slightly from the pain in her shoulder. The bandit’s simply looked on in shock.

Taking this as a sign, Yori dropped into a fighting stance as he had learned. “Yeah, you can’t have my stuff either!”

Lorelai realized how bad the odds were. There were eight bandits and one of her. The boy would be useless. If she didn’t think up something soon, she was going to die.

The stand off was a tense one. The bandits had their weapons drawn and were eyeing the two like a piece of meat. Yori was the first one to budge, leaping forward and punching one of the bandits in the mouth. The bandit fell backwards, but before Yori could react three of the bandits were on him.

Lorelai took advantage of the confusion, swinging her scythe at one of the bandits. The blade tore through him like he was paper, slashing him in half. This was bad, she thought, I knew this boy was going to get me killed. She felt the pain increasing in her shoulder, and felt the blood flowing down her chest. But she had also never felt so alive in her life. It was as though the bandit’s death had empowered her. It had to be the draining rune taking effect. The only way she could survive this fight was to kill them all. There could be no survivors.

One of the bandits lunged at her with a sword, while another took a stab at her face with a yari. She leaned back and spun to the right, swinging her scythe down upon the back of the now prone bandit. The weapon easily tore him in half as well, spilling blood all over the field. The spearman was unbalanced as well, having put too much force in his attempted stab. Lorelai swung around, spinning her scythe as she did. She found herself behind the bandit, and buried the scythe in his back. The draining rune began to glow fiercely, and Lorelai found that the scythe was stuck. She had never felt such a rush of power in her life, as the bandit writhed in agony from the wound. The pain in her shoulder had almost stopped, and she could feel a white-hot burning sensation in the wound.

Meanwhile, Yori was not doing as well. The first bandit had already recovered, and the other three were keeping him on the defensive. He noticed the eighth and final bandit readying a bow and pointing at Lorelai’s back but there was nothing he could do. He dodged one sword swipe, punching at its wielder as he did. He then ducked and shoulder butted another bandit in the gut. He felt a massive pain in his back as the bandit brought his arms down in an axehandle smash. He fell to one knee, and felt a wave of faintness wash over him. The Light rune on his hand began to glow brightly, and the faintness passed. He rose up with an uppercut, and felt the bandit’s head snap back as he did. He then turned and lunged at the bandit he had punched first. He brought him down with a tackle, and began to pummel the bandit’s face mercilessly. But this didn’t last as he felt another blunt trauma to his back, as the third bandit he was fighting brought his shield down flat. The rune's light gave out, and Yori passed out.

A third figure sat on his horse observing the battle below. He had to do something to make it a fair fight. He gave his horse a swat on the backside, and unsheathed his sword. The horse took off straight for the battle, its rider giving an unholy howl.

Lorelai saw Yori fall, but the boy had taken down two of the bandits, so he wasn’t completely useless. She then felt a sharp pain as another arrow struck her in the back. She simply turned and gave the archer a crimson stare, and slowly stalked forward. The archer dropped his bow and pulled a dagger but it was too late. Lorelai dashed forward and ran the scythe across the bandit’s abdomen. The bandit fell, clutching his stomach, as though he could hold in the escaping organs. She then turned toward the two remaining bandits and saw the horseman charging at them from behind.

The black clad warrior charged at the two remaining bandits, bringing his sword down on one bandit’s head as his horse turned side ways, clipping the other bandit and sending him sprawling. It took no effort to bring the horse around for another pass and trample the fallen bandit, effectively ending the fight.

Lorelai glared at the new warrior, but could not bring herself to say anything. The exertion of the fight had finally taken its toll. She collapsed, unable to make the effort to hold herself up any longer.

The warrior looked down at the two fallen travelers. He seemed to recognize the girl, but couldn’t remember where. Without a word, he slung Yori and Lorelai over the back of his horse. He then pointed toward Muse and the horse began to depart. He looked at the horizon, now indistinguishable thanks to the darkness. “Could she be one of the ones I seek? For her sake, I hope not.” With that the armored man began a long slow walk towards Muse.

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"Lorelai" and "Suikoden 2" are (C) Konami, 1999. This chapter was posted on November 19, 1999 This author no longer writes for Lorelai