a/n: this story is very old. i wrote it when i was very young (younger than i was when i published it) and rather illiterate. there are a lot of grammatical errors and so-on that i never fixed and that i don't feel like fixing. i could delete it, yes, but i guess it means too much to me. my first fic i ever plotted and completed.

besides the extensive writing errors and short chapters, there are also some mature themes.

read at your own risk! (2018)

The Forgotten

Through Fire and the Crashing Sea

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The sun peeked through the cracked bricks crumbling on the walls, doting her vision with blurred flecks that had grown accustomed to the dark and the haze. There was very small light, and the air she inhaled was thick and filled with specks of ash. It was overall stale and heavy in her lungs. Her throat was scratchy and her mouth was dry, and her stomach rolled angry with hunger. The water that dripped down the rusty and shattered pipes that swung from the roofing was brown and tasted bitter, but it was all she had.

And as for food, the last meal she received continued to rot on the far side of the cell. She didn't dare go near it. The smell was enough to make her body repulse, and the surface of it sprouted little fuzzies of hair the day before. The girl was just waiting for it to grow a pair of eyes along with it. Not even the flies or rats bothered with it.

This was a prison.

The others told her that before they left. How she got here, she didn't remember, but she'd been here for as long as she could think back. So having had grown up here, what was outside these walls and past the angry sea was unknown to her. Sometimes she would peek through the walls to catch a glimpse, but hardly anything was visible through the constant smoke that liked to hang close and cover the land, and it clung to it like a stubborn and ugly sheet.

Being alone in this cell had only become a recent thing. There used to be an elder woman by the name of Mafalda who had been with her for several years. She taught Lucy everything she knew. Everything from basic speaking and reading, and groomed her like she was her own and hoped that she would one day be freed from the chains that locked her here.

Then one day the guards came and took her, and she still hadn't returned. The older woman was the only kind soul that showed her affections, held her, and acted as a family that warmed her to the core. So as it occurred to her that the woman was not returning, the blonde began to wonder her whereabouts.

Where was she taken? Why wasn't she coming back? How much longer would she be alone?

Lucy swallowed dry and sharp. She coughed, wincing as the tender and raw skin of her exposed chest rubbed against the brick, followed by her stomach rolling loudly beneath her weight, painfully reminding her of her hunger.

It was moments like this when she would think back of the woman and everything she taught her, and even the stories she would tell. It proved to be a useful distraction her mind needed when the ache her body was constantly in seemed to reach a peek. It helped mute the sounds of the other captors screaming that echoed in her chamber.

Mafalda told her that this used to be a kingdom of magic, a place where wizards and supernatural creatures, and even just your regular commoners, lived in peace amongst each other. Then it all changed when an unnamed man ended that peace by taking the life of the Queen. The woman, as powerful as she was, fell in love with a regular man and crowned him her King. Everything was well until it was announced that she would soon birth their first child, and it was when that child was born that things started to shadow. It was that child that proved to have greater magic abilities than the Queen herself, and it drew in nasty attention from all over the stretch of the Kingdom and beyond.

A hot breath left her lips as Lucy slowly cracked her eyes open, her adjusting vision focusing on her shackled wrists that laid limply above her. The blonde whimpered in pain when she attempted to turn her body, her limbs aching painfully at every light movement she made, and raised an arm to brace against the rock as her weak legs pushed her from the ground. The chains rung against the stone as she moved.

There were countless types of magic in the world, so much more than any record could count, and even some yet to be discovered. Mafalda had told her of many, but the one that had caught her attention was the dragon. As rare as they were, there were just a handful of mages that possessed the same power and elements as the brutes, and to come across one of them was even more so.

Lucy gained a great interest in the subject from the moment Mafalda began to tell her, but once the new King placed out laws against magic eleven years ago, the dragons disappeared without a trace. It was as if they never even existed. Some people were even starting to forget.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the chamber door being slammed open, startling her and bringing her to her knees. The blonde heard quick footsteps coming towards her direction and her heart begin to pound uncontrollably beneath her breast, and fear and unbearable discomfort swelled and rolled in her gut, forcing nausea up her throat. Lucy's body begin to shake, her teeth started to chatter.

"As brutal and cruel as they were, dragons were known to be very possessive of the things they loved." Mafalda said, brushing the small girl's golden locks between her boney fingers. The girl sat comfortably in her lap, her own smaller fingers toying with the rough cloak the elder was wearing, her expression twisting. "What's with the sour look, Lucy?"

"But they were monsters. What did they love?"

"The stars." Mafalda gestured her arms around her, a wide smile coming to her face. "All living things, from the trees to the mighty dragon, have a heart. And therefore they feel, and they are capable of loving. The dragons loved the stars they shared the skies with. They lit their way when the moon was resting and kept them company during their travels. They were their first friends."

Lucy, who was now gripping tightly at the fabric that bundled at her waist, looked up at the woman with big brown and shimmering eyes, her own wide smile coming to her lips. "Did the stars love them back?"

Mafalda nodded. "Oh yes, yes they did. And you know, sometimes the stars loved them so much, they would fall."

"Fall?"

"Fall." The woman paused, and Lucy waited. "Sometimes the stars loved the dragons so much that they would grow heavy and slip from the sky. And they would fall here to Earth and wait to meet their beloved."

"What do you mean?" The elder woman laughed as the girl questioned her with a curious cock of her head.

"Lucy my dear," A wrinkled smile, "you'll know one day."

As the bar doors to her cell were clanked unlocked, Lucy remained unmoved, even when they grabbed her by the hair and shackles and dragged her out, causing her to skin into the gravel and stone floors. She felt her skin tear and bit her lip, her eyes stinging and filling with hot tears.

"Tighten her wrists and let's get moving." One of the men said as a few others pinned her thin frame down, pressing their knees into her spin and doing as they were told. Lucy was pulled off the ground and pushed forward, and she yipped in pain when her neck cracked painfully, earning herself another rough push into pace. She kept her head bowed with long knotted hair sheilding her face as tears spilled down her cheeks and to the ground they walked, and swallowed the voice that wanted to cry out.

Lucy halted when the man in front of her stopped to unlock another door, and moved aside to allow her to step out into the torch lit hall. She lifted her head, slowly, carefully, minding her neck that was still throbbing with pain, and glanced beside her to the drop scaffold that was visible through the small openings of the wall. Her heart sunk to her stomach as the realization of where she was going dawned on her.

More tears started flowing on their own accord, burning her eyes. Her heart beat against her bruising rib cage and Lucy dug her teeth into her lip to keep her whimpers to a hush. Her throat burned so greatly and her chest screamed for the air she was neglecting to give it. She was afraid to even breathe.

All she had ever dreamed about was the outside world. The world outside these walls, the chains on her wrists, and the bars that kept her inside. Mafalda had given her hope but with every step Lucy took towards her death, that hope crumbled behind her.

The creak of another door entered her ears and Lucy was suddenly bathed in sunlight, instantly warming her chilled skin. The blonde took hesitant steps into the dirt, staring at her toes as rocks and warm ash pooled between them, staining her skin gray.

"Move it!" A shout from behind her, and Lucy was suddenly face down in the dirt. Her arms jerked forward and she was pulled through the rocks and ash, the guards ignoring her whimpers of pain as they dragged her up the wooden structure of the drop scaffold, tossing her into the thick arms of another man, who forced her upright and knotted the rope tight around her throat.

She bowed her head once again as the pit beneath the floor under her was lit, tears dripping between the creases of her toes. And as a bunch of men gathered along the walls that surrounded her and tilted their weapons forward, she bit her chapped lips and dug through herself and found it in her to accept this fate.

There was a slow second of silence as a gruff man walked over to the lever and pulled it on command, opening the floor beneath her, and Lucy let out a yell as the dry heat of flames blew through her, licking her legs with their scorching heat.

For a moment she felt the rope around her throat tighten.

For a moment she squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting to watch.

Time seemed to slow as she waited for the brief pain of her neck snapping or her flesh to start burning to a crisp.

But the rope around her neck suddenly snapped and Lucy found herself in the dirt. Before she could come to her senses and what had just happen to catch up to her hazed mine, a roar that vibrated and violently shook the air sounded from where she was prior, making her eyes go wide with alert.

From what she can see, all she can make out was the form of a person standing in the middle of the ablaze flames, mouth open wide, screaming at the top of their lungs. The fire seemed to swirl right into them.

"Get the girl!" Multiple men shouted as they jumped from their positions along the walls and into the ground space around her. The, whom was decided to actually be a person, standing in fire twitched an ear before turning their attention to the area they were standing, narrowing his slit eyes before dashing over, knocking most of the men aside before quickly grabbing Lucy.

Lucy was plucked off the ground, the sudden movement pushing the air from her lungs but soon refilling as she collided into her carriers chest. She felt them jolt and a sudden quick breeze hit her to let her know they were running. Her pulse was pounding in her ear. A pain enveloped her head and she felt suddenly faint. But when Lucy caught a glimpse of the walls rapiding becoming distant behind them, the swelling feeling in her gut suddenly took flight.

More people joined them. A man and a woman ran beside them in her view. A top garment was missing from the males torso, but the woman was fairly dressed, quite heavy for the thick, hot air around here. Suddenly the man spun around, smashing the side of his fist into the palm of his hand and before her eyes, a wall of ice was formed behind them, separating them from the men that chased them and the prison disappeared from her sight.

Lucy then tilted her chin up, her drooping eyes rolling and struggling to look up as the faint feeling weighting down on her grew persistent. She met the gaze of her carrier. He was staring intensely at her, almost like he was studying her from the outside, in.

But he soon tore his eyes away from hers and picked up his pace, his hold around her tightening. Lucy too followed his line of vision, catching the brief sight of the cliff as they leaped over it, and nothing but the crashing sea was in her sights.

The moment they broke the surface, the world disappeared, and she fell into a blissful darkness