The Blue Pearl

An old woman held Laanimere's sheared head with her hands and stared closely at it. The girl's young, beautiful face was gone. Instead, an ugly expression glared back at her, one full of accusations and mixed with the utter terror of being embraced by the cold arms of death. Laanimere had gone through a lot before the final blow had beheaded her.

The woman's own face was bruised and bloody. New scars had developed over the numerous old ones that bridged the folds of her wrinkles. She looked distant and cold as she slowly closed the wide and terrified eyes on Laanimere's bleeding face with her still fingers.

Carefully holding the severed head by the side of its ears, the old woman painfully limped across the main hall of the temple. Its rocky floor was thinly covered with drying and dingy blood of the girl.

Sap! Sap!

The floor rustled with each her step in that utter silence of the hall.

About ten footsteps in, the woman stopped and heaved. She looked down with a clenched jaw and a sudden snarl and took a sharp breath. Her hands trembled violently and she fell to her knees. Her shoulders rose and fell with long and rasping breaths as she clutched the head so tight that it looked like it would burst from pressure.

After a few gut-wrenching moments of remorse, her breaths calmed and she stood up again and hobbled through the darkness. A tranquil expression masked the guilt on her face.

Outside the temple, smoke rose from the embers that were put in for the feast that had just ended a few hours ago. A dull orange glow of the dying fire was the only source of light as the woman stepped out.

She paused before a c.h.e.s.t tall heap of bodies in the center, roughly staked over one another, and looked down. At the base sat a burly man, leaning on the heap with utter serenity on his hairy face. Near him laid the dismembered body of a teenager. His daughter, Laanimere. The woman watchfully put the head into his l.a.p, finally reuniting the family.

The woman took one last glance at Laanimere's face. Despite her eyes closed, it felt like the girl was staring at her with contempt.

"I… am… sorry." She whispered once and looked away and stretched her hand at the heap. With a sudden snap a fire burst out from the top of the pile. It began with a roar as it hungrily started spreading over the bodies.

Strengthened by the woman's magic, the odorless fire quickly, in a few moments, turned the pile into charred husks. She waited there, too close to the scene, calm and unmoved as the fire took its last breath and died.

A hazy smoke filled up the air, glazed by the fading embers from the celebration in the evening before. When she was ready to leave the parched corpses, something stirred behind her. The woman turned and saw a young girl walking toward the ashen heap. Her face was full of confusion and surprise. Her disheveled green hair flowed around her head and her eyes glowed like there was green fire behind them.

"Lady Ava, what-what happened?" The girl asked in a soft but troubled voice and looked around as if the answer would be hiding for her in the dull hue of the night.

"Our mission is complete. We should leave." The Old woman whispered coldly.