Hello there, and thank you for clicking my work! I've tried to write fanfics many, many times but somehow I always end up abandoning my ideas. This time I hope that I can write an actual story and not just a little snippet of something that could have been good, but kinda died when I forgot about it or thought that it wasn't worth continuing... Anyway, thank you again!
Please note that English isn't my first language (I'm actually a Finn... Suomi, perkele! Karjala takas! HK:n lenkkimakkara, jumalauta! etc.), so there may always be few grammar mistakes or strange word choices along the way. If you notice something that just simply doesn't make any sense, I'd like to know about those things so I don't accidentally disturb anyone's peace of mind with weird words or misplaced letters.
Without any further ado, let us begin. Enjoy! ;)
Loud knocks on a wooden door. Angry voices and clatter of metal.
"Run! Go!", mother shouted at her, fear straining her voice. Mom's brown eyes were wide from shock when she heard the armored men outside their cabin. She was scared and that made the little girl scared too. But the girl didn't understand. Why were they here? Were they here because of mother's hands? They could shine beautifully but she had never hurt anyone with them! Didn't the men know that? If she'd tell that to them maybe they would understand...
"You have to-!", her mother yelled at her again when the girl hadn't moved, but she didn't get to finish her sentence. The door slammed open and mother's hands were up in an instant. They were glowing blue now, but it was different from the green light the girl had seen in them before. She saw how a weak barrier formed between the men and her mother. They were angry.
"Apostate bitch!", the first man spat at her mother. His armor shined in the dim light of the cabin but it had dents all over it. Something red also covered its breastplate and nearly hid a picture of a sword under it. Two others were standing outside, waiting and looking at the scene silently like ghosts, but then the first man motioned the others to follow him.
Mother shrieked when they all came in and she moved quickly closer to her small girl.
"Don't come any closer. Leave!", mother shouted with a shaky voice.
But they did not listen, they didn't leave. The barrier started to weaken already. It wasn't a spell the girl's mother had used very much, she was good at healing hurts but otherwise her hands didn't glow. She was good with plants and potions, not barriers. The man closest to her mother chuckled and raised his sword, it was painted with even more red than his armor. Mother took a sharp breath in and backed away from the men. The girl clenched the helm of her green dress, terrified.
But when her mother was really close to the back of the cabin, she stopped. The men were almost right in front of them.
"Darling… you must do as I say now...", she whispered to her daughter. The girl turned her light grey eyes up to look at her mother who kept staring at the dangerous men. How did she suddenly look so calm? The strained, wavy tone was gone from her voice too and on its place was pure determination.
"... you have to run very, very far from here and you shouldn't stop even if someone tells you to… not even if I tell you to. Do you understand? ", she said with a quiet, steel hard voice. The girl was confused and scared, she had started to shake from fright, but she managed to nod.
"Good.", her mother breathed out and on that moment the barrier broke.
The men hurried towards mother but her hands were up again.
That's when the girl noticed the knife in her mother's right hand.
It was the same small knife mother had used many times to cut elfroot when they had moved in the forest while gathering herbs. It was a pretty little curved knife, one of the kind the girl wouldn't have minded having too.
But now the small knife made it's way to her mother's flesh. It made a deep cut onto her wrist and suddenly a bright red light flared in the air.
"She's a bloodma-!", one of the men tried to scream but something powerful cut through the man before he could finish. Blood spluttered from his mouth and he fell on the floor with a blank look in his eyes. When the two others saw this they raised their shields, let out a united yell and charged towards the mother and her child.
"Go!", the girl's mother screamed at the her.
Mother's voice was strange, like there would have been two people telling her to leave, but the girl obeyed. She was too scared to do otherwise.
There was no one at the door now that the third man lay on the floor and the girl jumped over his body without looking at it.
She ignored the screams, shouts and red lights behind her and ran, ran as quickly as she could.
The sky had already started to darken and the path before her was barely visible. Even when she was far from her home she could still hear shouts and see more flashing lights amidst the trees. The sounds of fighting were everywhere.
However, the girl ignored them too. She kept running even when her legs begged her to stop, even when her eyes filled from tears and quiet sobs shook her body. She would keep running, she would run very, very far away. She wouldn't stop.
That's what mother had told her to do.
Suddenly the ground under her bare feet turned down and the trees disappeared. She rolled roughly down of a small hill into an open field. The few houses standing there were on fire and many armored men and women fought with people in robes. Some had swords some had staffs and small rivers of red flowed on the ground. The girl raised quickly to her feet and shook her head so her vision would stop spinning. She noticed that there were many people on the ground too. They didn't move and some of them stared serenely at the darkening sky with their glassy eyes.
They didn't raise up like she had done, their hearts had been stopped, they were broken… they were gone…. they were dead.
The girl shivered and felt how tears streamed down her face. She looked around her to find a place where she could run, where she could hide. She didn't want to fight with anyone, she just wanted to wait for her mother to find her and then leave this awful place she had once happily called home. The familiar hills and roads had been turned into a scenery of a violent nightmare and the place she had known for all her life looked now terrifying and foreign.
On her right side there was an old fortress that had stood there for as long as she could remember. She had never went there for her mother had strictly forbidden it, and she decided that she wasn't going to go there now either. There were too many people between the remains of the castle and her. Now she looked at her left.
There was a small road which ended in front of an entrance of a cavern. She knew that there was a little village on its other side. Many people had moved there after the fighting had started few weeks ago but the girl and her mother had stayed in their cabin. When she had asked why they didn't move there too, her mother had just shook her head. "The people in that village don' t trust mages right now. It's better for us to stay here for a while. This will be over soon, love... " she had said and stroke her hair. But the fighting hadn't stopped. It was still going on and they had stayed inside their home for days before the armored men arrived.
After a short moment of consideration the girl decided to run to the village. Mother and she had been there couple times to sell potions and chat with the merchants. They had sturdy houses there, ones that surely wouldn't burn down easily. Maybe she could hide in one of them? The girl moved her gaze quickly from the field to the small cavern that would lead her to the village. If she was very quiet and quick she could make it there without anyone noticing her.
The girl's small feet were full of scratches and little cuts but she forced herself to move again. She winced from pain with every step she took but she kept going.
She moved from tree to tree and looked carefully around before making another sprint forward. She got to the cavern's mouth without anyone seeing her. Most likely no one around her wanted to end up like the people on the ground, so they didn't have time to look around them. The girl kept running. Only a little longer, she thought. She was almost there.
Then the cave ended. A small smile rose onto the girl's dirty face when she stumbled closer to the familiar houses. The village looked different in the dark but it hadn't changed completely like the field had. It was just really quiet and calm... which was a bit strange. The girl couldn't see any lights coming from the houses and the windows were shut tight. The village looked deserted, abandoned and forgotten.
"Hello..?", the girl shouted hesitantly as she kept walking towards the center of the village. No one answered her and she was starting to get nervous. Had all the people left? She knew that the Redcliffe village was near too and it was possible that the people had gone there… but hadn't anyone of them stayed behind?
"Is anyone in here?", she shouted, now a bit louder. Once again only silence greeted her.
"Maybe they are just hiding…" , she whispered to herself and walked towards one of the round houses.
It was built on a bit higher ground than the others and there was a couple of barrels and a wagon before it. The girl could see how the wind moved the grass and hay that grew on its roof and she decided to try to knock on its door. She knew she would have to hide somewhere but she should get help for her mother too. She took a shuddering breath in when she thought about her. She didn't want to think what had happened to her mother. She really hoped that she was okay and looking for her now, but if mother needed help the girl should find people that could come to look for her. She would have to hurry.
The girl walked determinedly up the stairs and turned to the door of the round house.
"Hello? Does anyone hear me?", she said but suddenly stopped.
She was right in front of the wooden door of the house and she had been just about to knock on it when she noticed something. She looked at it with wide, terrified eyes.
There was a big, nearly invisible circle with many complicated markings on the ground under her feet and it was now glowing with blue light which was growing stronger with rapid speed.
There was only a mere second of utter confusion when she felt her feet turn cold and then a strong, cold explosion made the girl scream. Icy spikes cut deep into her legs and feet, they froze her body and made the ice turn red from her blood. She couldn't do anything else but scream when the blind panic filled her. The pain was unbearable... It hurt, it hurt so much, the ice was so cold it burned her skin! She barely understood what was happening around her. The door in front of her had opened and an old elf stared at her in horror. He shouted something and suddenly the village seemed to wake up to life. More shouts and hurried steps. Then the ice broke.
The girl would have fallen to the ground if someone hadn't taken her to his arms. She felt dizzy and she was in pain, tears ran down her face again and the heated conversations around her had started to sound muffled and distant. She struggled to keep her eyes open and her view was hazy.
"...You…what… here?" she noticed that someone was now talking to her. She moved her eyes towards the gentle voice of a woman.
"What...your name da'len?" the woman repeated worriedly. Some of her words were muffled but the girl understood what she wanted.
She stared at the woman's face for a moment. The darkness made it even harder to see but the woman had big, beautiful hazel brown eyes. The girl let out a wavering sigh. She could trust those eyes. Her mother had brown eyes too, brown gentle eyes...
"Lily..." The girl whispered to the woman.
Then she closed her eyes. She could feel movement around her and she tasted something bitter on her tongue, but after that the deep darkness took her into its calm embrace.
Thank you for reading!
Please comment what you think to make me a one happy little nerd!