Story time
Foricia
Light of the unwoken night filled an elfin child’s dreams with ecstasy. Her heart knowing nothing of cruelty or pain. No knowledge of even evils existence. Her world was perfect. Perfect in all senses of the meaning. Her world in the forest.
But light turns into heat. She woke covered in smoke and sweat. With no fault she moved quickly from bed to the back wall. Her small child hands clawed fiercely at the dirt to make a hole big enough for her slender body to crawl through. Instinct born in her had driven her under the wall of her hut.
Blinking more awake she saw in front of where she stood, her home covered in strange flames.
"Mommy," her whisper of help died out by the sounds of thunder. Her head slightly turned in curiosity, her lips opened partially in dread of how quickly everything is going. No day in her life ever moved so fast as just this moment.
“Foricia!” Never had she heard her name said in such a way. Panic filled her brother’s voice, or maybe it was fear. “Foricia, come on… I thought you were dead… Foricia if you don’t come right now I swear to you that you will be dead.”
The sounds of thunder shook the ground. Louder and louder. Her heart pounded quickly in her chest. Suddenly the sounds seemed far away. She was running with her brother’s hand on her arm and her sister grasping on his arm. But she was unaware of her sister being there. She could only feel the earth pressing her forward. She never saw her sister trip and fade away in the distance. Her brother kept moving. Foricia wondered who was screaming. The voice was like a dream to Foricia. She could only feel the high-pitched shrills curdling her blood. She just couldn’t hear it.
Foricia’s brother stopped running. As he tried to grasp his breath he looked around. “Foricia…” tears streaming down his face he repeated her name. Like he was trying to say more but the sentence kept ending with his first spoken word. He curled on the ground and cried. He wasn’t too much older then Foricia. Maybe equivalent to the age of 9 in the aspects of how humans look.
Both of the children jumped as the thunder returned. It pounded itself into their blood. Foricia’s brother shook uncontrollably. He muttered quietly to himself in panic, “Where? What direction? Where? What? I don’t know where we came from. Foricia I’m sorry I don’t know.” He stuttered the words out that he was lost. Foricia barely heard any of it. Her mind was too busy wondering about what was going on.
Foricia grabbed her brother’s hand and stood there with no fear in her eyes. She spoke to him in a whisper, “brother, what are we running from?”
Her brother’s response was never spoken. The blackest of all dragons stood inches from Foricia’s face. She felt its warm breath as it peered into her eyes. “Fresh meat or slave.” It said to Foricia as if she would choose for him. Its jaws were soaked in blood. Foricia stared at it only thinking about how tired this was making her feel. “Why aren’t you scared? Run child run?” The dragon pushed Foricia to the ground. She closed her eyes and fell asleep. She dreamt of a dragon black as hell itself, beat her ruthlessly. She dreamt of her brother screaming in pain as he lost his hand when a claw came striking down on him.
She awoke in such dank darkness she thought she’d gone blind. She was standing up against a wall, she thought at least. Her feet were stinging, but in her attempt to rub them she discovered her hands were bound. By moving them, the cuffs of some sort would dig into her skin making her wrists twinge in pain. Her deep emerald eyes watered as her senses woke to find her whole body to be in pain. She screamed and cried in the dark.
Her screams captured the attention of something because seconds later she saw movement. Light flowed into the room as a door opened. Following the light came the dragon. Peering at her he spoke, “you will do what I say. Follow the path of true darkness and only then will your brother live.” It slashed the chains from her hands and feet. “Come.” Foricia’s imprisonment was now bound by flesh and blood.
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