With heavy heart she returns.A second sword hangs from her saddle, rust pocked, neglected. The seasons have passed to swiftly, as she chased rumors across a hostile land. Seeking word of an sapphire eyed warrior.A warrior who will never hold the sword again.
The man beside her once stranger, now a mate, his atonement now unattainable. How can he right the wrong? How can he make the broken whole? His eyes seek answers that no longer exist. He promises to stand as protector until his death. Unable to erase the past he will guard the future. Never again will she fear.
The night is lit only by stars as they approach the strong hold. Allowed in, they notice how eyes shift from them and sorrow haunts many eyes. Has their been an attack? What has happened? Her friend walks from the hall slowly head down.~"She will not see morning."~
Tumbling from the horse, she runs up the stairs, followed by the man. His last chance of forgiveness slipping from his fingers.
She lay's pale and still upon a bed, as an old woman bustles around. ~"Twice cursed the child will be. Coming from hate, taking it's mother's last breath as it's first."~
~"Child?"~ She kneels beside the bed, Her sister's body misshapen by the accursed weight of a child. ~~"No, how can the fates be so cruel?"~ Laying her head down upon the bed, crying tears she has denied herself for too long.
A gentle hand soothes her hair startled she looks up to see her sister's leaf green eyes staring back at her. Reason returned to her for the first time since her beloved's death. ~Weep not, for all fires must die. Promise me that you will love my daughter, for she shall be the best of me."~
Nodding through her tears, she wonders how she will keep the promise. As the sky reddens with false dawn, her sister screams one last time and fades away like the stars beyond the window. The child cries it's anger at the suns first rays.
Someone hands her the squalling infant, she sees that it is a girl. Briefly she wonders how her sister knew. Anger at the child weals up in her, it would be so easy to simply drop the squirming bundle.....A flash of green catches her eyes.
Taking the child to the window she holds it n the light. No it wasn't her imagination the child hasn't the milky blue eyes of an infant but clear light green as her own......as her sister. How can it be? Peace flows through her. Some where another child has been born with sapphire eyes. The neglected sword will have an owner again.
~~What will you call her? The man stands behind her staring in fascination at the now sleeping babe.
She stares at him for a minute. They will travel far from here she knows, they will become simple farmers and raise the child quietly. Protected from the harshness of the past. She will grow strong and curious.
~"She is all that remains of the fire that has died.... So I shall always think of her as Luaith.....Ashes. But others will call her by another name."
The sun lights up the room, turning the child's red-gold hair into an angel's halo....
