Part 1

A child is playing with her toys. She is holding a doll of a knight in one hand, and the doll of a monster in another. In her little play she proudly proclaims: “HAHA! I have slain you, beast! Now hand over the princess!” The mother sitting next to her child puts down her book for a moment, and in a rather harsh tone states: “Could you quiet down? It’s almost bedtime for you.” “But mom, I can’t sleep with the storm outside anyways!” Gesturing to the window behind her. The girl puts her toys down and looks out into the sandstorm. Barely anything is visible but the dirt being flung into the air. She keeps on staring, having nothing else to do. That is when she finally spots something.

There is the shape of a Traveller approaching through the heavy storm. The girl tugs at her mother’s arms, desperately pointing to the figure wearily pushing itself towards the village. After a few moments of contemplation the mothers utters “Oh, fine!” as she leaves her home and walks towards the Traveller. Barely able to hold her own ground in the raging storm, she aids the man to the best of her ability and leads him back to her home. The Mother attempts to carefully open the door, but it flies open and slams against the wall with just the slightest push. Not wanting any more sand to make its way into her home, she slams the door shut with the whole weight of her body.

She’s leaning against the door for a moment longer, just to make sure that it’s really closed now, when she hears the clang of metal falling to the ground. Both the child and the Mother look over to the Traveller, whose unconscious body is now laying face down in the entryway of their home. The child then hesitantly asks, stumbling over her own words: “Is he dead?” To which the mother simply says: “He better not be. Owes me something for dragging him in here”

The woman lowers herself to get a better look at the Traveller. He is wearing a torn, dark cloak, with red stains all over. She turns him around, to lay on his back. They now see his weathered Armour, and blood dripping from under the plates. With her eyes wide, she turns to her child and gently tells her: “Go into the kitchen, and get me the box in the second cupboard from the left.” The girl runs off immediately, while the mother stays by the Traveller. She takes another look at him, and only now spots the curious mask he’s wearing, partially covered by his hood. She carefully moves her hands towards his face, when she all of the sudden feels something cold grip tightly onto her arm.

His eyes are now wide open, and looking directly at her, almost seemingly past her. She immediately tries to pull herself away, but can’t go far because of his hold on her arm. She falls over and onto her back , as he lifts his head and torso a little, once again looking directly at her. The blood starts to pour heavily as he raises himself, and with a pained voice he proclaims: “Do not… touch… the mask…” The woman fails to form any coherent words, trying to calm down from the scare he just gave her. Shortly after, however, he falls back into unconsciousness. The mother sees her child run back to her with medical supplies in hand. “What happened? I heard you fall, and scream!” The child hastily asks, to which the Mother takes a deep breath and states: “Nothing. I just thought I saw something. Come on, help me get him onto the table. I need your help with this one.” The child can’t help but smile, as she nods along and places the supplies next to the table. In the meantime, the mother takes another look at the arm he held onto her with, and notices right away that it is not made of flesh, but of metal.

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Part 2

The warm light of the morning sun falls upon a battle worn mask, as the person wearing it tosses and turns. Skin and clothes drenched in sweat, the traveller appears to dream a violent dream. With each turn, his expression became even more pained than before, with each toss, the breathing more frantic. His eyes shoot open and he tries to lift himself up to no avail. He falls back down and realises that his prosthetic arm had been taken from him. Still panicked, the man closes his eyes and takes a desperate breath in, and slowed breath out. Breath in, Breath out.

He opens his bright blue eyes once more, and takes a better look at himself, now that he is more relaxed than before. He is wearing simple clothes he hasn’t seen before, his body is riddled with scars, both old and new. He reaches for his face, and sighs in relief once he feels the cold metal resting on it. That relief is cut short though, when he hears repeated thuds from the other room.

In the room next door, the adolescent child is dodging imaginary blows from imaginary foes. Masterfully dancing around every last attack they make, until she’s close enough to land the final blow with a majorly oversized gauntlet. However, all of her playfulness and energy drains away when she hears a bone chilling voice utter: “Just what are you doing?” Straightening her back, she slowly turns towards the Traveller. With a voice that’s higher than before, and a face that’s paler than a ghost, she attempts to explain herself to the man standing in the doorframe. “I- I just thought that I… My mom told me to clean your Armour, Mister Traveller Sir. I just kinda got carried away when I got to the gauntlet. I’m sorry”

His expression doesn’t change, as his cold eyes seemingly pierce into her soul. The girl just stands still, sweat starting to run down her face, hairs starting to stand on her neck. He turns his head a little, slowly opens his mouth and calmly states: “Your form is all wrong. You gotta plant your feet firmly, and then swing your whole upper body with the punch. Something like this.”

The Traveller assumes a fighting stance, and attempts to show what he has been explaining to the Girl. She studies his movements, and attempts to replicate them. Seeing her attempts, the Traveller’s face brightens for just a moment, and he smiles. Something you can plainly see he hasn’t done in quite a while. That small moment of happiness, that little time of relaxation goes as quickly as it came, and his smile fades.

He looks to the stairs leading down, and places one trembling foot in front of another, making his way to the ground floor at an unbearably sluggish pace. Once he’s all the way downstairs, the Mother looks to him and nonchalantly says: “Huh, you actually woke up. You’re lucky, I’m just about done with making Lunch. Could you call Moné down by the way?”

The Traveller hesitantly nods and turns back towards the stairs. Once he’s gone, the mother just sighs and shakes her head. “How the hell is he still alive? Came in looking like a pincushion, slept through 2 and a half days. Then wakes up and acts like that’s normal.”

The Mother continues to ponder the nature of that Man, but she’s pulled back into the now when she hears the laughter of her daughter, and the heavy footsteps of their guest. She spots them come down the stairs, with the Traveller carrying the giddy child under his one arm.

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Part 3

The Mother, the Child and the Traveller are eating together at the same table. Moné, the child, is quietly eating without paying much attention to the people around her, while the Mother meticulously studies the Traveller. His posture, face, movements. He still refuses to remove the Mask covering the upper half of his face. Currently, he is endlessly stirring the small bowl of soup in front of him, looking aimlessly into the spinning liquid for an eternity.

“What’s the matter? Don’t like my cooking?” The Mother asks inquisitively, furrowing her eyebrows as she sharpens her gaze in an attempt to observe how their Guest reacts.

He drops the spoon he’s been circling along the edge of his bowl, and in a slightly bewildered manner turns to the Woman as he blurts out: “No, I’m… I apologize. I’ve been lost in thought for a bit. I should really go now.” Before he’s able to stand up, the Mother grabs him by the wrist, to which he cautiously plants himself on his chair again. “You haven’t even tried it, and you’ve told us nothing about who the hell you are! That’s the least you could do after painting my floor and table with your bloody insides.”

He looks away for a moment and sighs deeply. The Girl is waiting impatiently to hear anything about the Man now that her Mother seemingly backed him into a corner. The Traveller quickly slurps down all of the soup, as to not waste any more of their time. Once he’s done, he doesn’t look up again, refusing to make eye contact during his explanation: “I’m just a wanderer, who brings trouble wherever he goes. I don’t know how long I’ve been here, but I know that it’s been too long.”

This time, the Traveller forcefully lifts himself from his seat, to the mild surprise of the Mother. He reaches for something on his belt and slams a sack of coins onto the table, throwing everything else on it just slightly into the air. “Take this as a thank you for all that you’ve done for me”

The mother reaches over to see the contents of the bag, and with a very pleased look on her face she replies: “That’s mighty kind of you, I’ll put it to good use” The Traveller smiles once again, and makes his way out of the kitchen and up the stairs to gather his gear.

The girl frowns after she realises that their Guest won’t be staying much longer. The Mother notices her child getting sad, and tells her: “Maybe you can ask him to tell you a story before he leaves?” The girl lifts her head and with slight anticipation building says: “Yeah, I’ll do that!”

Eventually the Traveller comes down again, fully equipped with his armour, prosthetic and cloak. There are no weapons on his person, except for a small dagger that seems unfit for battle. The Girl is waiting just before the front door, and hastily blurts out a question once she spots him: “Could you tell me a story about your adventures?”

As soon as that question leaves her mouth, a bit of light seemingly fades from the Traveller’s eyes. He gets down on one knee and bluntly states: “I have no stories you would want to hear.”

A bit confused, she asks him: “Well why do you think that?”

He tries to handwave it away, but the girl presses further and further. With every question, the tension in the Traveller’s voice becomes clearer, until he finally snaps and yells out: “It’s because they all go the same. I tried to help and then they die! I have no other stories. I always let the ones who rely on me, who believe in me, down. That’s why I don’t wanna talk about it”

Shocked and scared by the sudden aggression, the girl runs back to her Mother. The Traveller doesn’t look back, but he can clearly hear the sobbing of the Child, and feel the disappointment of the Mother. He opens the door, and starts to walk away from the scene.

Before he is able to leave the town though, he is spotted by one of the townsfolk, who immediately after seeing him calls out: “There he is sir! That’s him, ain’t it?” A few hooded men wearing a similar cloak to that of the Traveller start to surround him. He stops, and carefully takes in his surroundings. One of the men takes a step forward and says: “Finally found you! Let me tell you it was a pain in the Ass to catch up to you after last time, but we aren’t about to let that bounty get away again.”

The hooded man takes a step back, puts both of his hands to his face and shouts out into the town: “That’s right, this guy right here has a bounty of 20,000 gold on his head! Either dead, or alive, it doesn’t matter!”

The Traveller takes a deep breath in, and then out. He takes his hood off, and raises both of his fists, ready for a fight. He can now clearly make out more and more people going to surround him.

The hooded figure mockingly asks him: “You ready to die, maggot?” The expression on the Traveller’s face doesn’t change, as he simply states: “I don’t know, I was waiting for you.”