About

There ain't no stopping this train we're on;

It's an old story, the kind that's been told many times before. Once upon a time, there was a knight who lived in a faraway kingdom. Like all knights, he had a princess, as beautiful as the dawn after a cold and bitter night.

One day, while they were riding through the forest, an arrow came whistling through the distance. The arrow was meant for the knight, but instead the princess threw herself at him, taking the point deep into her own flesh. It was enchanted, as such arrows are, and so the princess fell into a deep sleep from which she did not wake. The knight searched far and wide for something that would bring his princess back to him.

And so he wandered, desperate and yearning, for many years. His eyes grew tired and his heart grew cold but his sword arm never slackened, the memory of her like a valiant knife inside him. For the arrow that struck her in the heart had struck him in the soul.

Finally, though it took him all his chivalry and all his kindness, he found what he sought in a cave of fire. The ancient relic was but a stone, a pebble small enough to fit in his hand, cracked through the middle. Its magic rose like bile in the back of his throat. Quickly, he returned to her ruined palace and held the relic high above her sleeping form. After all those years of dreaming, she at last began to stir.

The princess only had time enough to look at him and smile before the wound in her heart too awoke and killed her. When she smiled it was like the rose and the thorn together, and he knew he was forgiven.

It was not until much later that the knight realized the stone was no longer cracked.

The story also goes that once there was a young man with sandy hair he kept tied up a blue bandana. He called himself a treasure hunter, though others would call him a thief, and eventually he came to be known as a hero. When the world was torn asunder and all, save hope, seemed lost, he and a few other brave souls (we call those folks a "party") climbed the mad godking's tower and slew the tyrant, bringing the world into balance. At his side, he carried a dagger. It a valiant knife, because the more he bled the sharper it grew.

But the real story is that one day a silly little fangirl wanted a new place to store websites and disparaging remarks about RPG hair styles. It was a noble quest indeed. The search for a host was long and arduous, but she was lazy and settled on the cheapest. After many months of procrastination, she worked it into something strange and rambling and orange. And she called it a valiant knife, because she had too much respect for 16-bit treasure hunters and not enough for about pages that make sense.

Character Shrines

Amends Kain Highwind FFIV
Black and White Nash Latkje Suikoden
Consequence Princess Zelda OoT
He Who Asks for Ruin Lezard Valeth VP

Libertine Reno FFVII
Lightbringer Cecil Harvey FFIV
Renaissance Locke Cole FFVI
Sterling Chris Lightfellow Suikoden
Veracity Laguna Loire FFVIII