To Stand And Defend. Chapter One.

To Stand And Defend.

Chapter One.

Defend. Verb, resist an attack made on someone or something. To protect from harm or danger.

This is one of the first things I know as I come to be. A core value, one fundamentally ingrained in whatever driving force wills me to exist.

The second thing I know is that there is a little old woman smiling up at me, a sword longer than she is clutched in her fragile little hands.

And finally, the third thing I know is that I am not where I was, not how I was, and not as I was, a metallic, seemingly armour clad hand accepting the weapon from the woman’s hands.

I stare at the blade in my gauntleted grip, before glancing around.

A small clearing in some kind of forest. A decrepit looking well that I seemed to have been leaned up against. And a twinkling night sky.

Fascinating.

—

The little old woman is a mage, from what I can tell. A staff taller than she is allows her to weave impressive spells, powerful magics that cause flowers to bloom, wild predators to calm and retreat, and suits of ancient armour to animate.

I am a case of the last spell, as far as I’ve been able to deduce. My creator (for a given understanding of the term) doesn’t seem to realise that I have led a past life, one beyond what she has given me.

She speaks and shows me things as if I am a child, and though I can’t make a lick of sense of her strange tongue, I do firmly understand one thing, inserted as it is in the very core of my new being.

I am to defend this place. I am to safeguard the abandoned well I was created near. I am to preserve the small cabin and field of crops nearby. And I am to shelter the grave the old woman occasionally has us visit, even as she glances at me strangely.

This is my duty. My purpose. And strangely, I find myself entirely fulfilled by that fact.

—

“Defender!”

It is, predictably, the first word I come to understand of the woman’s language. It also seems to be my name, considering she addresses me by it constantly.

In my short time living as an animated set of armour, I’ve helped rip vegetables from the ground, clean the cabin my creator lives in, and occasionally carry said creator around when she gets a little too tired from all her walking around.

In turn, I have also studied the local tongue, sat atop a rock close to the well in the dead of night with what I have deduced to be a dictionary clutched in my hands, my sword resting against my thigh.

It is that sword which I now clutch tightly in my hands as I storm past the well, interposing myself between my creator and a creature of horror.

The thing is wretched, akin to a tall, hairless, pallid white and emaciated human being, one with a dislocated jaw and disturbingly long fingers.

Those same fingers gouge through wood like warm butter as the unknown being flings itself forward, using the tree next to it (a young one, I had watched the old woman plant and grow it in a matter of weeks) as leverage to spring at me.

Those same fingers do nothing as they slam against my left pauldron, and shortly after I am chopping, slicing, and stabbing.

The beast dies screaming as I kick it to the ground and raise my sword, the blade piercing through its gaping maw and out the back of its twitching head, point digging into the soft dirt beneath.

There is no blood, even as I rip my weapon out of the thing’s slack mouth.

Watching the pale light leave the monster’s eyes, I turn back to check on the old woman, and see her emerging from the cabin, staff in hand, only to pause and smile as she finds me victorious.

—

I have learned that I am limited in how far I can travel from my point of origin. The corpse of the thing I killed bothered me, and so I endeavored to remove it from our land and bury it somewhere far away while my creator recovered from the stress of her ordeal.

Staring at the incredibly faint, borderline translucent line across the forest floor, I try to pass once more.

My limbs falter right before they can breach the limit, and I tilt my head before stepping backwards, staring down at the corpse I had been dragging for the past few minutes.

…Here is as good a place as any, I suppose.

Though I don’t have a shovel, being made of metal and magic does wonders in one’s ability to dig by hand. My fingers displace dirt and foliage as I get to work creating a hole large enough to contain the dead entity beside me.

It’s as I’m kicking the emaciated thing into the grave with a booted foot that I hear a faint rustling behind me and turn, the visor of my helmet locking with the old lady’s eyes.

A moment passes, before I turn back towards the hole and kneel, beginning the slow process of returning the large pile of dirt I’d displaced back to where I’d dug it out from.

—

“You’re a good boy, Defender. He would have been proud of what you’ve become.”

I do not understand it exactly, but my creator glances out the window towards the grave, and I can only assume she means its occupant.

Filing away the minor bit of information, I adjust the cool rag on her sweltering forehead and reach for the bowl of warm soup, gauntlets carefully grasping both container and utensil as I feed the woman who still has not told me her name.

She has been sick many times now. At first she used some kind of spell to clear the disease, but she’s stopped since. One would assume she was getting weaker, losing her magical powers and thus unable to maintain her health like she once did.

As I gently rub a cold metal thumb against her cheek, cleaning away some stray drops, I watch her eyes close and lips smile, and decide that perhaps she just prefers being doted on from time to time.

Though I don’t quite know why, the thought prompts me to slowly rub her head, and as her smile widens and she makes a pleased noise, I decide that there is no reason why I shouldn’t oblige such a desire.

—

“Here, this is what we looked like, back when we were adventurers.”

I am the living armour of a dead man.

It is a realisation I make as the old woman proudly shows me a photo of herself and her husband, the man’s visor lifted to show a grizzled but grinning face, and a far younger looking version of my creator clinging to his arm, clad in what I can only call stereotypical wizard robes.

Her hair was blonde, once. It’s white now.

The staff she uses is the same though. A gnarled thing of blackened wood that seems just as durable as my sword, if not potentially more so.

The photo itself isn’t made of paper, but rather of what I believe to be pure magic. It ripples and shifts, occasional colours that don’t quite match the image forming and fading across its surface. Yet another incredible spell, used for such an ordinary thing.

Listening quietly as my creator continues to reminisce of her younger years, I tilt my head.

How curious, to be the animated armour of a mage’s warrior husband, long since passed from this world.

—

More emaciated things have arrived in the following months. I don’t know how they reproduce, or whether they do at all, but I do know one thing.

They recognise danger.

Every time one arrives, I confront it.

I fight it.

I beat it.

And I kill it.

The corpse is then used as a warning. I drag it away from my creator’s home and bury it at the edge of my perimeter. For every dead monster I have buried, a direction from which such creatures have approached has closed.

Today marks the day I finally enclose the circle. The body falls into the hole, and I begin to kick the dirt I’d piled up next to the grave, covering the pallid thing’s rotting flesh.

With my fence of death complete, no more of these invasive creatures should invade our land, provided they maintain their current behaviour.

I won’t let down my guard regardless, it's clear the beasts are fixated on the old lady, and I’ll rust at the bottom of the well before I let them get their grubby mitts on her.