Alene Matz

'Even if I'm the last one standing in this desert, I will never retreat!'

She walks alone through the endless sands. When asked why, she always answers with bright conviction—saying she's guarding her homeland in her own way. She drifts across the dunes, unshaken by storm or silence, her gaze steady and warm as it lingers on the desolate land before her.

Only she knows the truth: she is the last of the Matz—the final soul bound to guard the Divine Body. That ancient line of desert Gravekeepers now lies buried beneath the very sands they once protected.

'The traces left by the hero of the past must remain for those yet to come.'

Her solitude shields the footprints etched into the desert; her wandering keeps vigil over the memories lost to time.

For me, it feels like a memory from a distant age.

Beneath the great tree by the desert oasis, Father and Mother would tell me stories of Joan—how she freed the desert from the nobles' grasp, how she restored freedom to the enslaved.

Perhaps it was then that the dream took root within me: to become a hero who would guard the desert. Yet I was just as curious about our own lineage. The Matz had watched over the Divine Body for centuries—so why had we never been called heroes?

'Those who become heroes,' Mother once said, gently stroking my hair, 'are the ones who can make the many raise their voices with them. But we—the few—can only fade in silence, and become part of history.'

I began to wander the sea of sand, seeking the traces Joan had left behind. I found the ruins of an old arena and ran my hands over the sword marks carved deep into its stone walls. In the songs of wandering bards, I pieced together the path of her conquests. Everything connected to her became the purpose I pursued.

Father and Mother could not understand my obsession, yet I couldn't stop. Heroes are not unreachable myths—they are living forces that walk among us. What I longed for was no longer to hear her story, but to witness her with my own eyes… and tell her: 'It was you who showed me the way to grow.'

My pursuit came to an abrupt end one arid spring.

A band of starving refugees tried to seize the oasis within the Divine Body's forbidden grounds—the very source that sustained the desert, and the sacred place we were sworn to guard. I drove them away with the skills I had honed over the years, yet as their frail figures vanished into the dunes, a hollowness settled deep within me.

All I had done was drive them off. Their thirst and hunger remained. In that moment, I wished more than anything that Joan were here—she would have found a way to save them. But there was only me.

For the first time, I began to doubt the hero I had been chasing. What are you meant to do when your enemies are victims, too? An invisible gulf opened between us. Her battles had been righteous and clear, while mine… were clouded in helpless gray.

I grew silent.

Wandering along the desert's edge, my eyes were clouded with pain and uncertainty, lost without direction. I often watched the tribes struggling to survive amid the barren sands, endlessly wondering what Joan would have done to save them.

Then, one day, Father's words shattered all the doubts that bound me: 'You're always looking up at the stars, yet you forget the sand beneath your feet.'

Joan was like the stars—illuminating the road ahead, inspiring others to reclaim their lost freedom. But we, the Gravekeepers, are meant to be the silent foundation, guarding the desert from the shadows. I don't need to become her; I've simply found another road that leads the same way.

I knelt alone before my family's ancestral altar, facing the direction of the Divine Body. Upon myself, I placed the bracelets and shackles that had once symbolized bondage and restraint. A cold unlike any desert wind wrapped around my wrists and ankles, its weight almost driving me to my knees. Yet in that same instant came a clarity that pierced straight through my soul.

These chains marked the surrender of my freedom to roam, binding my life to the roots of this desert. From that moment on, every step I took became an act of listening to the earth's memory; every strike I made would bear the weight of this land. I was no longer the girl chasing after heroes, but the foundation that guards their legend.

'You guard the world's past, and I guard its present. We may never meet, yet we still stand equal.'