Summary: Jasmine was never very clear about how exactly her parents were captured. May be slightly OoC at the beginning.
Disclaimer: Deltora Quest isn't mine.
Notes: My own interpretation of how the scenario could have played out - it may not be in canon with the story but please bear with me!
- Lesson -
- by seori -
All Jasmine remembered of the Grey Guards were their harsh language - the first time she had seen them, she had been five and stricken with terror as they took her friends away. She realised, then, that she would never see them again, and that the Guards were never to be trusted. They were brutal, heartless creatures, and she was to avoid them at all costs. She had remembered, by the instruction of her parents, and later, by personal experience.
But the Ols, as she later found, could be very different. They had been so friendly, so kind, so helpful...
The clearing was bright and sunny. Green light filtered down through the leaves as they rustled and swayed to the music of the wind, and the stream bubbled joyfully to its song. At the stream sat a small child in a threadbare dress, perhaps seven or eight, with long black hair, dirty knees and bare feet. Beside her perched a small black crow, croaking softly. The child whispered to it, carefully, slowly. She talked to it as if it were a human, a friend.
The ladies watched from the trees. One murmured something, almost incoherent in the noise of the leaves. The other replied, just as quietly - and then they were gone, as if they had never been there at all.
Jasmine looked up from her stones. She had heard something just then, past the sound of the stream and Kree's cawing, just beyond the edge of her vision. Then she heard it - the sound of her parents calling for her, always afraid they would be heard by other, less benevolent ears.
She stood, dropping her two identical stones into her pocket, and swung herself into the trees.
Jasmine watched as her father turned to the next page of the book. His actions were reverent and slow – she always wondered why. She had never seen the merit in books and written language, but since father had insisted, she would listen.
"Monsters of Deltora," he read, enunciating each syllable carefully, "Chapter Three: Ols.
"Ols come in many different shapes and forms, but always identical, and always in pairs. They are malevolent creatures who do the Shadow Lord's bidding and stop at nothing to achieve the commands they are issued..."
Jasmine woke to the sound of crackling and the acrid stench of burning greenery. In a moment she was awake and wild-eyed, heart beating erratically. Her treetop home was on fire, the branches were about to give way, and the hollows where her parents slept were empty. Kree screeched, voicing her very thoughts. They're gone.
And then she heard the sound again, the sound from the clearing. This time it was recognizable as a series of words -
"Greetings from the Shadow Lord." The voices were foreign, unnatural. Jasmine turned towards the source of the sounds, but there was nothing there; only the sound of the fire remained.
"Where are you?" She screamed over the blaze of red, eyes streaming against the smoke. "Come out and fight me!" Her world was sinking, there would be no tomorrow, mother and father would never return, Kree was nowhere to be seen. Her heart thudded against her ribs, sounding louder and louder each minute, beating out of time, everything was wrong –
And then –
Rain. Jasmine reveled in its suddenness, its vigor; it would wipe out the traces of her memory and the fire that had burned down her home and restore her faith. She made no attempt to shelter herself from it – it was the healing process, the flood that would wash away the loss of her parents and fill her with no space to mourn.
Morning came and went, a flurry of birdsong and vines wet with dew. A lone girl sat within a pool of accumulated rainwater that used to be her home, sifting through the remains of her belongings. She would take only what she would really need, and leave the rest.
She packed her few belongings, cutting off burnt edges and shaking off the water, and left the shelter. It would return to nature easily enough. As a last homage to her family, she reached into her pocket and felt for her stones - but they weren't there.
It was then that she remembered:
Ols come in many different shapes and forms, but always identical, and always in pairs...
- end -