Beast's Lair - Jeanne's Prologue

"La Pucelle carried within her kindness, humility,

honesty, naivete, and her faith.

Those were all she had."

―Words of a certain theologian
Rouen, Place du Vieux-Marche

......Insults were like the song of the distant, endless lands, and so they did not bother her. To say that she was not hurt would be a lie, but it was a pain she could bear with.

Horror, she did not quite feel. Chagrin and regret, those she had thrown away when she decided to take up the sword, and they never returned.

She did not like being dragged around, and so she walked straight forward. Unconsciously, she touched her breast, where the cross she had been relieved of used to be. With her pillar of the heart gone, she felt somewhat sorrowful. An Englishman who seemed to have thought of that, ran up to her and presented what seemed to be a makeshift wooden cross.

Thank you, she said in gratitude, and he fell to his knees, tears running down his face. Though there were those who slung abuse, there were also those who were crying.

If insults were the song of the distant lands, then sorrow would be the lullaby a mother would sing.

Her hands were then tied behind her back, onto the tall wooden pole. The bindings were tightened with great force, so as to make sure they would never slacken, it seemed. There was no turning back now, she thought.

When the bishop finished with his recitation of the Last Judgement, the torches were thrown in all at once, and the flames began to lick at her feet, bit-by-bit. To those who believed that the erasure of the physical body was the greatest fear of all, this would be the harshest punishment.

The flames scorched skin, charred flesh, and burned bone. Over and over, they chanted the name of God and the Holy Mother.

―Your prayers are a lie.

Countless times she had been accused thus, countless times she had suffered abuse. Yet, she could never understand it. After all, there were no lies nor truth in prayer. Prayers were merely prayers, they did not change depending on whom or what you were praying to.

She wanted to tell them that, but no voice came to her throat. What had flashed before her eyes, was a scene from the past. She had been from a rustic village and an ordinary family, and she was a fool for throwing that all away.

Was she truly a fool? ...Indeed, she might have been one. After all, she knew that from the very beginning. She herself knew better than anyone else that this would be how it'd end.

―If she had looked away then, then she would never have met her end like this.

That's right. The sound of that voice stopped her ears. If she had abandoned the grief of the soldiers whom were likely lost, then she could have lived an ordinary life, have an ordinary marriage, and continued to live with her husband and children. That was the future she had, and she knew it.

However, she had thrown away that future for a different one.

She chose to take up the sword, to clad her body in armour, to bear a standard, and ride on horse-back to the front lines of war.

―She knew that this end would come, didn't she?

She knew. She surely knew. That as long as she continued to fight, someday, this day would come. Hence, it was inevitable that she was called a fool. But, the one thing she would not permit, was to mock herself as one.

"Even so, there were lives I saved. I was not wrong... to have chosen this path."

The scene from the past, the impossible future, and even the harsh reality, all of these were dispersed into nothingness before her prayers.

Merely prayers, merely sacrifices. Even if people told her she had been wrong, and insulted her, at the very least, she would not betray herself.

She regretted naught, and she had no longings, for the future down the road. All she wanted, was to lay in peace.

Despite being at the centre of such a brutal, gruesome scene―all that dwelled within her heart, was an honest, pure and selfless prayer, free of regret.

―Dear Lord, I give my body to thee―

Those were her last words. As her consciousness came to an end, she was released from her mortal coil.

Her dream will end, and reality would show itself. However, it had not yet ended. Indeed, the girl's dream had come to an end, but that of La Pucelle would start from then.

Courtesy of Beast's Lair