Chapter 1:
Marion hears a scream somewhere in the distance. She leaves her energy shield up behind her and turns to her three year old daughter and newborn infant. She hugs them tightly, squeezing the baby in the childs arms.
"You need to promise me something." She tells the three year old. Solemnly, the girl shakes her head yes, blonde curls bouncing.
Marion sighs, and more screams are heard, this time closer. She hears her husband's challenge ring through the halls, and knows she has little time.
"Okay." she wipes a tear from her eyes. "Promise me you'll look out for your little sister. That you'll be the big, brave girl that I know you are and protect her. Can you do that for me Daphne?"
Daphne shakes her head again, tears escapeing her eyes and rolling down her pudgy little cheeks.
"Good girl!" Marion smiles and grabs them in for one last, quick, tight hug.
She waves her hands through the air and blue energy collects in a circle, large enough for the young girl to pass through. With a scared yet determined look in her eyes, Daphne pulls her baby sisters blanket higher around her small face before walking into the portal.
She turns back, hand slightly raised in a wave goodbye gesture. Marion mirrors her action, and their hands briefly meet before the magic current sweeps Daphne and the baby away.
Daphne cries "I love you Mommy!" Her voice fading into the wind.
"I love you too, darling." Marion whispers. "Please never forget that."
She hears her husband, King Oritel, scream out in the hall.
"Oritel!" she shouts, and runs out of the room toward his voice.
She skids to a stop three halls down, where a grizzley scene meets her. Oritel lay bloody on the floor, surrounded by five castle guards.
"No!" she screams, falling to her knees in the bloody mess. She pulls Oritels body onto her lap and holds his face.
"I'm so sorry, Marion." his voice is barely a whisper. His eyes close.
"No! No,no, no, no, no, no, no,! You can't leave me! Please!" she sobs, her heart aching, "Please stay with me!" She pulls him closer to her, and holding his head, rocks back and forth. She hears a cruel cackle from above, and looks up. The Ancestrals hover mid-air above the scene. "What have you done?! Why?!"
The head Ancestrals face turns from mildly amused to bored. "Well," she states matter of factly. "He was being most uncooperative."
Another of them started speaking. "We want the Dragon Fire," she said, before being interuppted by the third and final women.
"and your suffering. We simply must have that as well." she states simply, with a completely serious look on her face, as if she were ordering off of a menu.
"You monters!" Marion seethes through her teeth, looking back down and clenching her fist, wedding ring glimmering in the flickering torch light.
"Oh, come on, Marion!" the first cackles, then shouts. "You've got nothing left, your people are have dead, your kingdom has collapsed, and your husband is dieing in front of you. So just give us the power of the Dragon fire."
She squeezes her eyes shut. She will not give in to them. She see's the torch light flicker off of her ring again, and hear's her husbands haggered breathing. She prays one last time, sending her prayer up to God from her heart. "Please, God. Give me enough strength." Finally, she opens her eyes and stands, the Ancestrals still laughing untill they see the look in them. There is the flame in her eyes, a righteous, buring flame.
She raises her hands above her head and gathers all her energy, all whisps of the flame from all over the planet. Even the torches go out. The blue energy is still rushing towards her, forming in orange balls of flame in her hands. The flame slowly turns blue, and the power surge comes to a cresscendo. The Ancestrals shriek as the positive energy wave rips at them. She opens her eyes and there's nothing but flame in them.
She shouts one last time "YOU SHALL NOT HAVE THE POWER OF THE DRAGON FIRE!"
As she does this, she releases the wave of positive energy and falls back to her knees. It does it's job well, and the Ancestrals cry out as they dissappear through a new portal. Then the wave ripples across the whole planet, first ristoring and then freezing it's cities and inhabitants in protective, thick, transparent Ice. As it get's to the castle, it works faster, spiraling around and around. When the wave ceases, all around is quiet. Snow blows gently across the plain, chasing memories of the past that play out all around. A few hours passes, and then a ship can be seen landing there.
"Oh Saladin, what happened here?" a young womens voice whails out.
She leans into Saladins chest, her pale pink hair falling over her shoulder.
"I don't know, Farrah." The young man strokes her head reassuringly, trying to soothe her.
Another man at the front of the plane scowls, and states silently. "It would seem that we arrived too late."
Farragonda, who had just started to look up again gasped and burried her head in Saladins chest again, bursting out into fresh tears. Another girl with raven hair walks over quitely and hugs Farragonda from behind, shushing her.
"See what you did." a third girls voice chides. Hagen looks up, irritated. " Seriously, grow some empathy Hagen." the owner of the voice steps out from the back of the ship. "Besides," the girl adds "we don't know that they're gone for sure. This could have been Oritel and Marions way of slowing the Ancestrals down."
Hagen growls "I'm not just jumping to conclusions. The ships radar isn't picking up any life signs..." he's cut off by Griffen.
"Save it, mr. positivity. Usually, your "glass is half empty" thing is cute and attractive, but right now it's just wasting time and energy. Now," he goes to protest, but is cut off by her raised hand. "NOW," she repeats. "Your equipment cannot be working correctly, there is too much ice for the magi-lasers to refract off of. What will work is a spell. Unfortunately, my dark magic doesn't work like that. Herrick?" she askes.
Herrick shakes his head. "My energy sensing spell won't work from this far away. Farrah?" He turns toward Faragonda, who has joined them with Saladin over at the controls.
"I'll try." she says, with a determined look in her eyes.
She closes her eyes and transforms. Then, raising her hands to the air, chants her spell. The air starts to sizzle, and beams of pink energy stretch through and past the walls of the ship to the planet below. The beams come back, and Farrah opens her eyes. Wide.
"They're... all around us?" she says, puzzled. The group looks at her like she's nuts. "I'm not crazy. I don't know how or where, but they're here.
Saladin looks into her eyes, and then states "Right, then. I guess we get searching."
They exit the ship and head toward town. As they get to the gate, they gasp. The whole town is frozen in ice. It looks as if no one has attacked, nothings happened. The place is pristine, and the people too. Everyone is frozen mid action, as if they are part of a movie put on pause. Saladin whistles. "What ever plan this was, it was a doosey." Hagen gets out sword and starts running to the palace. "If this was they're last resort, they might be in big trouble." he shouts to the group. They run to the palace.
Chapter 2:
Farrah looks up at her best friend, and a few more tears escape her eyes. "What could have driven her to do this?" she thinks to herself.
Saladin stands back up from inspecting the odd scene and stretches. Rolling his shoulders, he looks at Farrah, then pulls her up gently. Griffen and Hagen jog back toward them from the throneroom. While Griffen bends down and leans on the wall, panting for breath, Hagen fills them in. Apparently, what they saw outside doesn't just extend to the palace. From the looks of things, and the fact that they haven't gotten a response from messaging the other kingdoms, the whole planet is the same way.
Hagen finishes by saying "... and it just doesn't make sense. What happened here?"
Saladin scratches his chin and says, "I don't know."
Farrah adds "It's like the whole planet was just frozen for no reason. There's no sign of attack, no dead, and yet... Marion wouldn't do this kind of thing for no reason."
"Well, that large a spell takes alot of energy," Griffen put in, "energy that no one person has. And the Dragon flame... there's no sign of it's power anywhere. I think it's safe to assume that it was all used up in the spell."
Just then, Melonie and Herrick run up from the opposite direction. Saladin asks "Any sign of the girls?" refering to their friends children, Daphne and Bloom.
"No." Herrick states, exhausted. "We couldn't find them anywhere. I even used my energy sensing spell..." he trails off. The group relizes that that's why he's so exhausted.
Melanie hugs herself and says softly "Those poor little girls... When I think of my own baby Musa..." she starts to cry.
"So what's the story here?" Hagen asks again. "I mean, there's got to be more to what happened then what we're seeing." They stare in amazement at the scene before them.
There, in the hall, stands King Oritel, proudly surrounded by his five knights and looking as if he were perfectly fine. The hall is completely intact, and nothing is disturbed. The only thing that shows that there's more to this then meets the eye is Marion. Unlike the others, she is sitting in a half crouch, one hand on the ground, fingers outstretched toward it. She's leaning on the other arm, placed hard on her raised knee. Her head is bent upward, a few cuts and scrapes marring her beauty. A victorious grinn is spread wide across her face, and her eyebrows arched, as if to say "Take that!"
