22nd Trial of Saun, Arc 716
The sound of the crackling fire kept her attention to the flames that licked up the charred bark, twisting in an intimate dance of orange and red. She stared long, caught in a trance that seem too foggy to really move from but, nonetheless, she remained ever so fixed to it. Leather gloved hands laid atop each other, the fingers decorated in the metal that defined her culture, her status. She was a lady, for all intents and purposes, but Dionysia rarely cared to act like one.Blinking, she looked down at her gloves. She never had to worry about these things growing up. About keeping covered and pushing distance but something was amid with Dia and she felt it in her very soul that things were different. She was different. Though her mother kept trying to discard her troubles, she had a strike of intuition that pushed some unknown truth. Did her mother know something that Dia did not?
Laying next to the fire, Dia turned her eyes back to the flames and settled down for the night. She would reach Lysoria in a matter of days, sent by Lord Lokhert of Ironridge with gifts for the residing Lady. A festival was to be held in Lysoria, one that Dionysia had to attend on the Lord's behalf... Dia wasn't a fan of parties but if her childhood taught her one thing, it was that drunk politics meant open information. That's what she was to collect.
Her eyes fluttered as her body relaxed... The shadow black hands of sleep beckoning her mind into a place far off from the soothing warmth of the fire. Her thoughts muttered aimlessly in the background and for a moment, she felt the leather slide off her hands.
The woods were her home, a place she loved to explore. Dia wasn't concerned about its dangers. She was fearless, unbreakable, wild. Her very nature was to conquer the unknown and devastate it to her whim. She would make the mountains bow.
Her legs propelled her over a fallen tree trunk as she ran. There was no path but all she had to do was follow the flowers. Easy enough, right? They were always there, in the same bunches decorated against the trees and shrubs. Her breath kicked, heart racing. Did she need to run home? Was it dark now?
The afternoon sky suddenly darkened, night encasing her.
She needed to run. Run!
Warmth spread up her body as her heart raced faster just before she felt fingertips graze past the skin of her shoulders.
Run! RUN!
Her foot snagged on a tree root and she slammed into the ground.
Body jerking harshly, Dia sat up and grabbed at her chest, heart racing. She looked around the darkness, the fire having turned to embers while she heard the horse scuffle around a few meters away. Looking still, Dionysia listened to the sounds on the wind before laying back against the ground. Her eyes stared into the tree tops that she could vaguely see due to the light of the moon. Then slowly, very slowly, she fell asleep.
A twelve year old blonde child ran through the thick brush of Falcon Haven Forest, wandering like a leaf on the wind. Off in the distance was a noise, several actually, and though she knew what awaited her, Dia continued forward.
Each step amplified her sense of fear yet she faced it, and while she stood strong against the expected terror, fire bloomed from her hands and up her arms before she realized she carried a torch. She was going to burn them all alive.
Her eyes turned from the torches in her hands to the ground around her and noticed moving shadows sliding from half buried bones to the next set. They stuck up from the earth, as if they were slowly being swallowed... Then she turned to the camp in front of her.
White tigers stacked in piles, their bodies bleeding out while the furs were stripped one after the other. Blood caked nearly every inch of the place from the caravan to the tables and cages while the meat from the animals rotted off near the edge of the camp. Flies were already infesting the scrape muscle, tissue, and fat.
It was so horrifying, she could have vomited but instead, she just stood there watching with wide eyes.
