Since the day they were born, Ida and Anya were fated to someday destroy each other. It was prophesied and so it must be. They were born on the same day, Ida in a glade full of honeysuckles bathed in the sun and Anya in a temple high on a mountain, swimming in the clouds. As young girls, they were taught to fight, preparing for the fateful day they would come face to face as enemies.
Anya left the temple once no one else there could challenge her. She was a fearless warrior, ruthless and precise. When the prophets could no longer teach her, she continued to teach herself.
By the time Ida was the same age, she had won a thousand battles. Whispers followed in her wake, saying she could withstand a thousand blows before …show more content…
The time they spent apart was not a truce for Anya. She returned to her training. By herself, she uprooted forests and caused mountains to tremble. She was surely stronger than her enemy now. She wouldn’t run this time. With this last encounter, the fate of the warriors would be decided. One of them would be destroyed.
Anya found Ida in a small village, living in a cottage crawling with honeysuckles and bathed in sunlight. Ida met her at the door, her spouse and children behind her. Anya struck the first blow and Ida received it. She didn’t fight back. “Anya,” she told her. “I’m not going to fight you. I will withstand a thousand blows and defend myself if I must, but I ask that you leave, so that I may enjoy the rest of the afternoon with my family.”
Anya was left in silence. Her blood boiled with strength unused and anger unsatisfied. She struck Ida a hundred times more, and still, Ida didn’t fight back. “The prophecy, Ida,” Anya finally said; “we must fight until one of us is defeated.”
“Then consider me defeated,” said Ida.
With nowhere else to go and nothing else to do, Anya was forced to flee once again. That was the last time the warriors ever saw each other. Ida spent the afternoon, and all her life after that, in peace with her family. And so the prophecy was fulfilled after all, and one of them was