Faded

Once upon a time, so long ago that they can no longer remember the name they went by in those times, Faded was a knight, serving under the king who ruled the land they lived in. One fine summer, the king convened knights from all across the land to go on a quest, to see what lay beyond the thick wood no one had ever reached the other side of.

As the knights journeyed, armor heavy on their shoulders and teeth ready to fight whatever monster might leap out at them next, Faded marveled at the beauty of the wood around them, at the towering trees and the spikes of stone jutting out in random places, covered in moss and lichen. Smaller trees and bushes blocked their way sometimes, circumvented by the game trails they followed by doubling back for a while and then going around. Occasionally, a deer would leap by in the distance, never very near the noisy convoy but often close enough for them to see the spots on its back.

A week into the journey, however, Faded lost their way. One moment they had stopped to investigate a bubbling spring that came right out of a split rock, the next they were alone in the forest, unable to find the game trail again, the only sound the chirping of birds and the bubbling of the spring. Faded combed the area, but the game trail, and their companions, were nowhere to be found.

The sun rose and fell and rose and fell again, and at some point, they were never quite sure when, Faded disappeared into the woods, no longer getting cold or hot and somehow able to speak, although very briefly, with the animals. They always found themself back at the spring in the split rock, feeling responsible for the water and the forest that surrounded it.

In the spring, the company of knights, numbering about half as many as it had when Faded had lost them, came back through the forest on the game trail Faded had re-found some weeks after it was too late. Faded ran to them, but no one noticed them, all carrying on and laughing as if there was no one they'd lost at all. The only one of the company who saw Faded at all was the quiet knight from the southernmost region of the kingdom, the fidgety one who himself vanished into the woods for days at a time, claiming he spoke to the spirits. His eyes locked with Faded's for a long moment, and when he opened his mouth Faded hoped he'd say something. But instead he said a quiet prayer to the patron of the woods, and he looked away. Faded stopped following the knights and returned to their spring.

Winters passed, countless winters, and Faded never felt the cold, never grew older. Occasionally, a traveler would pass through, or someone else who had business in or past the wood, and they'd stop at Faded's spring. Travelers and hunters could always see Faded, but talked with them like they weren't quite there, a ghost, perhaps, or a patron themself. Witches and other magicians, when they stopped, could never see Faded, but they had conversations with them and left offerings for them. Knights, meanwhile, who traveled past for a long time but eventually stopped coming, never even stopped at the spring.