The Cosmic Princess

Live Free or Die Hard

"They know of you."

"I know." I replied, making eye contact with a green-skinned creature whose eyes were a daunting black and reminded me of a gargoyle.

"You freed them." She said simply. Leisurely, I turned my attention back to them.

"What?"

"Think months back girl. From their stories an avenging humanoid, like something they had never seen, freed them from the Dynoats, asked them for nothing in return and then disappeared."

Memory going back to that crazy adventure Zeal, Kaiya, Mist, and I had went on in search of my father, I bit back a smile. "So they made it." I said more to myself, both content at this outcome and happy that my earlier assumptions had been spot on. I had made a huge gamble and bluffed the entire way through with Othana, but I had been right.

"Yes, indeed." Once again, her dark eyes were on me. Something akin to appreciation sparking her eyes before the emotion vanished completely. "Some were lost to the Dynoats, but the majority made it to safety...made it here. This sanctuary is mine."

"How did it come to be yours?"

A small little grunt sounded from Othana's throat and it wasn't mistaken I'm sure it was a low chuckle. "Would you like to hear a story Avril?" My name along her tongue was a slow, savory drawl which caught me by surprise considering it was the first time she had uttered my name.

"Yes, Yes I would."

She moved her arms behind her back and clasped her hands. "Then let's continue our walk." She softly hummed, the echo of her heeled boot-like shoes tapping lightly against the ground.

"Like many of these creatures." She began as we exited the cavern of food and trees and ventured further. "I too was abducted from my world."

"Where are you from?"

Her face stayed neutral but in those dark eyes, I could see the nostalgia. "My world is called Wiccardia, but I am more specifically from the land of Uscea."

"What do you do?" I asked gently, watching the pool of nostalgia in her eyes flush out only to be replaced with a stoic gloominess. Try as she might, she wasn't as good as concealing her feelings and acting like she was impermeable to everything around her. I could see her pain and knew she wasn't as untouched by the Dynoats as she liked to act.

"My world did magic, in your simple humanoid words you could consider me a witch." She mused as we entered yet another space in the cave. Crystals, large, wide, small, and thin jutted out from every corner in the space. There was a purple glow to the darkened cavern, yet once again those colorful vines had traveled through the space and were visible along the ceiling making the area brighter. Not stopping her stride, I wasn't able to stop for long and instead had only seconds to suck up the scene before we were back into another dim lit tunnel with those roots being the only thing keeping the area lit. "My family, we were powerful. We were great."

"What happened?" I asked slowly, hearing a sense of foreboding coating her words.

"Greed." Was all she said. For a few moments, we walked side by side and did not say a word. I felt like I had heard so many backstories that I was starting to get pretty good when to push and when to shut my mouth. This moment was one of those shut-your-mouth type of moments.

"The Dynoats were also great once upon a time, but they wanted to be greater. It wasn't our greed that killed my family and everyone I knew, but it was the Dynoats' greed." Her voice lacked any emotion. By now, her hands were not poised behind her in a display of calm and placidness, but in front of her and fidgeting. What she took out of her voice, she couldn't hide through her body language. "Our only crime was sticking to ourselves and being great. The Dynoat ruler at the time was smart, very keen. They managed to run a campaign against us and turned their people against us. We didn't even know."