The afternoon sun shone warmly down on the village gates of Kazham, beams of sunlight playing lazily in the jungle heat. A lone Mithra child sat and played Seashells in the dirt, absorbed in her little game. White roundy to yellow triangle, take two hops back and... No, that's not how it went. Three hops? Or maybe…
Her line of thought was interrupted by tall shadows passing over her game pieces. She looked up to see several Hume men walk past towards the gates, heavily armored and carrying weapons. Probably off to fight goblins in the jungle, adventurers did that sort of thing a lot. They laughed and talked among themselves, pausing to snigger as a Mithran woman walked past them in the opposite direction, headed towards the dwelling huts. A rather familiar Mithran woman...
"Muirnin!" cried the child, jumping to her feet happily. "Muirnin, what'd you brrring me? What'd you brrring me!"
The woman laughed, dropping to a crouch in front of the eager, dancing child. "Well, Maehi, that depends. Have you been minding yourrr mother?"
"Uh huh," nodded Maehi enthusiastically.
"Doing yourrr chores?" grinned Muirnin.
"I did most of them! C'monnn," whined the child.
"Well then! Let's see what I have." Dropping her pack to the ground, the older Mithra began to rummage about as the younger stood on her toes, craning to catch a glimpse. Leaf-wrapped rations, bottles of water, strange little pouches... And something that caught Maehi's attention. Only one tiny flower poked a little ways out of a leather pouch, a beautiful deep red bloom with jagged blue streaks racing towards the center. She reached out to pluck it, examining it carefully.
"What's this?" she asked.
"Oh, a flowerrr a friend asked me to pick up for her. She says it's to stop bleeding, but I'm not so surrre," came the offhand response.
"It's prrretty!"
"Hey, come on now you rrrascal, you can't have THAT!" said Muirnin, laughing. "Instead, how about this white lizarrrd fa..." the words trailed off, lost in a thoughtful look that seemed... Hazy, somehow. "Arrre you alright?"
Maehi's head began to swim a little as she swayed. She hadn't been out in the sun that long, had she? She wasn't sick either, so why did her stomach feel like it was trying to tie itself into a knot? The blue streaks on the flower in her hand seemed to take on a life of their own, whirling and dancing merrily as the rest of the world slowly turned upside-down. If everything is so colorful... Why was the face in front of her turning white?
In a daze, she saw a strangely familiar adventurer, one she couldn't quite place, frantically look at Maehi, the flower, then her own gloved hands, where little purple stains had soaked into the cloth. Then fear swept over the adventurer's face, fear and a sudden realization.
"I-is something... wrrrong…?" Maehi asked tremulously, her vision fading. Whatever reply was made sounded distant, hollow, smothered by a growing darkness. She felt herself falling, falling into waiting arms that lifted her, cradled her, carried her away. The last thing Maehi heard as her breathing stilled was single sound: A rumbling, rising growl of fury.