Controlling Destiny - 20 Luzith's Pas

Magmus was sitting in his office again when two figures walked through the door.

“Ah, forensic inspectors Marlowe and Reagent, I was waiting for you.”

The two inspectors saluted politely before sliding a small runic token to Magmus.

“All of the information is on this token as per protocol,” Reagent said as he passed the token over.

“We will be taking our leave now, if you need us, let us know.”

“Just one second,” Magmus said as the two men were leaving the office.

“Yes, headmaster Magmus?” the two men replied in unison.

Magmus pondered for a moment before responding, “Whatever you discovered, please do not let anyone know the contents of this token.”

“Of course,” they replied politely. “That’s part of the protocol, after all.”

Magmus nodded approvingly and saw the two men out of his office.

Sitting back down again, he quickly scanned the room before letting the runic token do its job.

Tapping lightly on the surface of the token, a small hologram shot up.

The hologram was a perfect recording of all the findings and a deep analysis of every small scratch and detail at the incident site.

As Magmus went through the token, his expression went through many stages.

At first, he was in shock as he realized Ultrix was the sole culprit, but then he was slightly relieved it was only a mere accident. However, shortly after, his eyebrows knit together in frustration as he realized that this meant he had a lot of explaining to do at the next elder’s meeting.

[Ah, blast it,] Magmus sighed to himself. [hopefully, I can come up with some kind of compelling argument before the meeting so I don’t have to do too much explaining.]

Elsewhere, a small figure was nimbly darting up a cliff-face. She paused momentarily once in a while to check her surroundings before darting up again.

Now and then when she paused she would bend down and pick some kind of herb which grew on the cliffside and put it in the basket she had on her back.

Before long, she had scaled to the top of the cliff and her basket was already full of a variety of herbs.

“Luzith!” a little girl ran up to the figure, who was just taking off her basket.

“Luzith! How was your trip?” the little girl asked.

Luzith finished taking off the straps from her basket and put it on the ground before turning to the girl.

“It was great, I got quite a lovely harvest this time, Poppy.”

Poppy jumped up and down enthusiastically. “The village elder will be so proud!” she said with awe and admiration twinkling in her eyes.

Luzith bent down to playfully pat Poppy’s head before standing up again.

Looking around her, Luzith felt happy to be back home once again.

The sun felt great on her skin and the mountain air whistled past her, swirling up a light gentle breeze that was cool to the touch.

[Ah, how I have missed this little village,] Luzith thought to herself.

The sounds of song-birds filled the air and the quiet village soon was filled with the joyous conversations of the village residents.

Suddenly, the skies darkened without warning and a great wall of fire washed over the little village.

Luzith reached for her dagger to suddenly realize that her clothes had changed. She was now in rags and burns and rashes covered her body.

“Luzith!!” came a cry from a distance.

“Poppy!” Luzith shouted back with great agitation. “Poppy, where are you!”

“Luzith, Luzith, help me, I’m scared!” the voice cried out again, this time weaker.

“Poppy, hang on, I’ll come to save you!” Luzith shouted back. However, to her horror, her movements were sluggish and she did not seem to be making any progress towards the voice.

The cries of anguish and fear eventually merged into one collaboration of voices.

As the voices of the damned grew louder, the fire burned with greater intensity than before.

“Luzith!” the voices cried. “Luzith, you forsake us. Come, join us in the sea of the damned. . .”

Luzith shook her head in denial. “No, no, I didn’t want to leave!” she argued with tears in her eyes.

“It was all a mistake, this was not supposed to happen, just leave me alone!”

The dead ignored her and their voices merely grew louder and louder until it merged with the crackling of the fire.

As the sea of fire converged down on Luzith, she stopped resisting.

“I’m sorry,” she said, with tears in her eyes. And then her body burned away with everything else.

Luzith woke up with a start.

[It’s that damned dream again,] she thought to herself angrily.

Her entire body shook from trauma though, and her clothes were soaked with sweat.

A man walked into her room with two cups of hot beverage and sat down next to her.

“Bad dream, Luzith?” he asked with a calm voice while handing her one of the cups.

“Yeah,” Luzith managed to stammer out. She almost dropped the cup from her hands shaking so much, and the man quickly grabbed her hands before she could spill it all over herself.

The warmth from the cup helped calm Luzith down a bit more before she started talking again.

“It was terrible, Owyn,” Luzith said, and her voice trembled a bit.

“I- I was back at the village again and there was Poppy and-”

At the mention of Poppy, Luzith’s voice caught in her throat and turned into a sad whimpering.

“Oh, Owyn, it was just, I, I couldn’t do anything, you know?” Luzith said.

Owyn sat down next to Luzith on the bed and ran his hand through her hair.

“I know dear, I know.” He said softly. “It’s not your fault though, you know that right?”

Luzith took in a shaky breath before replying. “Yeah, I know I couldn’t have done anything when it happened, but still.”

Owyn gently caressed Luzith’s face and brushed the tears out of her eyes.

“There, there,” he said gently and quickly pulled Luzith in for a kiss before looking in her eyes again.

Luzith looked back at him and kind of felt better about the situation again, although her hands still shook a bit.

Owyn smiled warmly and then turned to leave the room.

Luzith instinctively reached out to grab his shirt to stop him from leaving.

Looking backward, Owyn smiled gently once again before saying “I’d love to stay, but someone’s got to make breakfast, you know?”

Luzith only clenched onto his shirt harder, almost as if she was afraid that he would disappear as soon as she let go.

Owyn let out a defeated sigh before sitting back down next to her again.

Patting her head gently, Owyn held onto Luzith and stroked her hand gently.

Feeling a lot better now, Luzith finally started to talk again.

“I’m so glad I still have you, Owyn.” She said with a small smile on her face.

“I’m glad I have you, too, Luzith.” Owyn replied with the usual smirk.

Kissing her gently on the forehead, Owyn lazily stretched his arms before wrapping Luzith in a small hug again.

[I might have lost some things,] Luzith thought to herself. [But what is in the past, is in the past. I can only look forward to the future.]

With a slightly mischievous smile, Luzith suddenly wrapped herself to the front of Owyn and licked her lips slightly.

“Well then,” she asked in a playful tone, “how about we get some breakfast?”