Work Text:
As far as days go in the life of Egyptian Army Captain Fareeha Amari, today was a pretty normal one. It was Thursday, she had just gotten out of work, it was her off day from the gym, and she had absolutely no other plans for the rest of the day.
Well that’s not necessarily true—there was that book she was finally going to start reading. Some YA fantasy novel a coworker had suggested. It had something to do with a girl finding out she's a monster hunter. It didn’t sound too appealing, but she had read just about every good fantasy novel out there and was getting desperate.
Fareeha was an avid reader and had always loved fantasy the best. Ever since she was a little girl she was jumping from one book to the next, series after series because she absolutely loved the idea of going on a grand adventure and seeing sights no one had seen before; accomplishing feats no one had done before. She knew though, even at an early age, that in real life, most things had already been done and seen. A grand adventure like in the books could never really happen. But, that’s why there are books no? To let you live out that which you know you could never do. That’s how Fareeha saw it anyways.
The problem with this though, is that it leads to voracious reading and the problem with voracious reading is that there are a finite number of books and, eventually, you read them all—the good ones at least. At 27, the retired captain could hardly find a book she couldn’t guess the plot of near instantly. Lately, she had just been so bored with every book she read. They all went the same way, had the same characters, and ended pretty much the same. Unfortunately though, she didn’t have any real friends to otherwise take up her time so she took any and all suggested books and slogged through them. She tried to make it interesting for herself by trying to guess what would happen next and try to name all the tropes used in the book. If she were a bragging sort of woman she’d say her accuracy was damn near 98%, but she’s not.
As for this current book, it was your typical YA and Fareeha was having a field day with naming all the tropes and guessing key plot points. So far she was right on every guess. Currently, she had been contemplating on whether the main protagonist would end up being related to the villain, or, if her love interest would. While she walked back to her modest one-room apartment in the heart of the city she lived in she created a list for both sides of her argument. As she opened the door to her home, she was favoring the protagonist and as she headed towards her couch she was just about to settle the matter when she tripped over something on the floor and stubbed her toe. Hard.
Cursing and bouncing around her living room with one foot, Fareeha whipped her head to the object that caused this, ready to exact revenge against the stupid—
"Golden...helmet?"
Sure enough, sitting on her living room floor was a shining, golden helmet like those which adorned the knights of old. It had two sharp points jutting out from both sides of the helm that looked like horns and the visor curved out and downwards as if it were beak—the helmet was clearly fashioned to resemble a bird of prey. There were more details, but Fareeha could care less as she was more focused on the pain emanating from her toe. She wasn’t even sure she still had a toe.
“Who the hell left a damn helmet in the middle of my floor!” She rubbed her poor toe once more, the appendage still present and accounted for thank goodness, and gingerly set her foot down.
Fareeha took a quick look around for the only possible culprit and shouted, “Mother! How many times have I told you to stop leaving things lying around and to call before visiting!” The annoyed ex-captain went over to her bedroom and opened the door with the intent of giving her mom a strong word or two about leaving helmets on the floor when she looked inside and found no one.
“Mom?”
She called out into her bedroom. Hearing no response, she went over to the bathroom but still found no one. Her apartment was not big in any sense of the word, so it was clear that no one was here. Her mom hadn’t said she’d be visiting, but then again, she never did. Fareeha sighed and went back to the helmet and picked it up to get a better look at it. Her mom probably stopped by to drop it off but left it on the floor just to aggravate her daughter.
"If this were a book, this helmet would signal the start of a long and tedious adventure, with its mysterious appearance. But its probably just Ama being weird again. " Fareeha joked to herself as she turned the piece of armor around in her hands.
She laughed a bit to herself and added, "For extra flair, a note should be attached holding some cryptic-" a small note gently fluttered to the floor which bore her Mother’s unmistakable signature.
Fareeha looked at the note then to the golden helmet in her hand. She looked back at the note, paused, then promptly turned and walked away. The helmet could go right in the trash.
"Nope."
The Egyptian had not taken two steps when her phone rang—of course it was her mother’s ringtone.
"Mother, whatever it is you've gotten into, I want no part in it. I don’t want to deal with terrorists again." Fareeha answered as she carelessly tossed the helmet on her kitchen table so she could rummage through her fridge. She could feel it in her bones that that thing was trouble and was determined to ignore it.
Instead of hearing a teasing remark from her mother, a gravelly voice replied,
"Your mother is in danger and needs your help. The golden beak will pierce through the darkness and bring the light. The master of time waits for you more than you know and will open the gate. Hurry child, before it’s too late."
Then line cut off and Fareeha was left staring dumbly at her expired milk.
“Oh come on! Rhymes?” Not more than an hour ago her life was simple, if not a little boring and now, now she was being called by strangers who spoke in rhymes and helmets that looked like birds.
“I have no idea what’s going on, and this is usually the part where the protagonist can cry for like a chapter about not wanting to do it,” Farheea groaned as she closed the fridge and put her hands to her face. The retired captain moved her hands to run through her hair and took a deep breath.
“Well, nothing to it but to do it I guess,” Fareeha sighed as she closed the fridge and walked back to the note that she left on the floor. It read:
Dear Fareeha, magic is real and mommy needs your help. You'll need an army –use the helmet well. Good luck!
Love, your mother
"Well, it’s not a cryptic message, but it sure is vague." She looked over the note again. Everything about the note showed that it was written in a hurry; from the jagged, crinkled paper that seemed to have been quickly ripped off and stuffed into the helmet, to the hastily scrawled letter and slightly smeared signature. Farheea looked at the signature one more time before shaking her head and sighing once more, "Ama, just what have you gotten yourself into?"
The tired veteran tried her best to smooth out the wrinkles before carefully folding the note and pocketing it. She turned to the helmet on her table and picked it back up again. This time taking her time to notice the artful details added across the beak, horns and helm. It was expert work to be sure and it seemed well used too. Though it shined brightly, there were many scratches across the visor and helm.
"The golden beak will pierce....was that seriously some convoluted way to say 'put the helmet on'?" She flipped the helmet over and inspected the inside for any more clues. Finding none, she flipped the helmet back over and raised it over her head. She wasn’t sure what was going to happen, what even could happen, but…
"Nothing to it..."
Of course the helmet fit her head perfectly. Before should could roll her eyes at the convenience though, she was blinded by light.
She tried to shut her eyes, but she was assaulted by flashes of visions of places and people. The likes of which she had never seen before. There was a decrepit stone archway, a man in black with the face of an owl, a shattered door. The pictures were changing at a rapid pace and Fareeha could barely keep up. She thought she saw her mother, but then it was an angel? The pictures kept coming, but she her mind was straining and she felt like she was about to pass out. She fell to her knees and a yell escaped her as pain started to set in and her mind began to overload. With extreme effort, the ex-soldier reached her hands up and wrenched the helmet off her head.
Panting, Fareeha sank to the floor and held a hand to her forehead. She laid down and closed her eyes as she tried to catch her breath. The images wouldn’t stop flashing in her mind, but it was so hard to see exactly what they all were. A few stood out, like the archway and the masked man, but most were just blurs of colors and shapes. Nothing seemed familiar.
After maybe five minutes of deep breathing, Fareeha was able to open her eyes and turned to look at the discarded helmet.
"Gee, I wonder if these images are important" she muttered and then looked back at her ceiling. Still laying, she raised an arm in to the air and began counting off her fingers,“Step one: draw every image I can remember. Step two: try to find more clues, maybe check out some books. Step three: find the master of time I guess? "
Satisfied with her plan, the Army captain nodded to herself and then placed both hands behind her head. She had intended to do a really cool flip into standing position. However, she greatly underestimated how draining the helmet was. Though, she kicked and pushed, she got absolutely no momentum and flopped right back down on her back.
“Ow.” Her back wasn’t too happy at that pathetic attempt and now her head was killing her as it remembered the intense strain it was just under.
She rolled over to her front and raised herself to her hands and knees, “Step one, subset A: find ibuprofen. “She groaned.
As Fareeha laid down for bed after hours of drawing and writing, a thought came to her, “I gotta call off work. How many days does a thing like this even take?” Sighing for the umpteenth time that day, Fareeha rolled to her side and snuggled into her pillow.
“Guess I can finally make use of all those vacation hours I have.”