Chapter 45: A Lily’s Sweetness Tender for a Druid’s Grave
A lily sat upright admist the ashen soils, smells of burnt woods now carried through the fiery winds, as a lone Druid elder laid sprawled on the ground, her green hairs that resembled charred vines crawled all over the ground, webs of rotted mints tainting the youthful beauty despite her age.
The Druid elder's emerald eyes were on the clear sky, one her children used to laugh under, one her sisters used to frown upon for another day without rain. The depthed blueness of what's unreachable for the her lucid limb taunted of a morning that greeted her empty thoughts, forgiveness under the layers of silver irises for the murderers of her families, a mercy not out of rashness or casualness, but for a neoned relief that would color her hatred without regrets.
She glanced at the lily far beside her, the whiteness stood alone admist the tarred clearings that once housed a garden before it was all swept away, the scented sweetness clearing the charring bitterness at her lips. Adil felt disgusted, yet...willing to let the scent slide through her throat, for her wraith must not burn like the tyrant's flames, must not yield her last shred of sanity behind a wraith that would only bring her pain.
And yet, someone broke the trance with a wobbling steps, steps that would eventually intrude her vision, as they landed upon the comfort she clung onto. The lily among the footprint now an irony of a desperate struggle rather than sanctity, as the Druid elder widened her eyes.
Her wraith, left unchecked, gazed upon the damning human as he stumbled across the clearing, unaware he earned the unfair hatred of a lady-in-pain. Adil's control over herself slipped as much as the monsters against the world that betrayed them, as roots beneath gathered beneath the adult man, ready to strangle him the moment his wretched steps ended to meet his demise.
Yet, the mage merely leaned down, as Adil watched his hand hovered over a broken hilt of a waraxe, the woods shimmered as sacred as the home that used to house them. The Druid Elder frowned, as the man's quivered towards the hilt, before he stood up, gazing upon the clear sky just as Adil did.
His eyes, however, were iced sorrows that even the blue abyss could not draw his regret in. Upon observing his feature, the little beard on his chin, and the pi, she realised it was one of the adventurers their clan seeked help for from the guild, the unsuspecting group that was not ready to meet the tyrant's flame, even during this unpredictable wartime that is the Dragonsong War. And that hilt...must belong, or used to belong to one of his close comrades.
Her hatred burned deeper. Why only now? Why did they come late? Why must he be the only one who survive if he couldn't protect her family? The hypocrisy never soured the surged flame that once burned her home, as she extended her hand towards the man, the roots following her seething despairs.
But the unsuspecting man, merely sighed, as he threw the hilt towards the sky, as a blue tint of fingertip aimed and shot a frosted flame. The sunlight radiated the ambered resin shards as it flew along the gust, before melting away to leave behind a grieving old man.