3. Story of a little girl

Story of a little girl


  • The spearhead made a sound thud as it skewered the bare chest of a Nars warrior and nailed him to the door of the little hut he had just jumped out of. The little girl was so close to his father that she got sprayed by the blood thrown around by the impact. A tiny spark lit in the eyes of the dying man as he set his gaze on the little girl.

    “Val, my girl…” a raspy voice, barely a whisper, called out before it was interrupted by a gurgling noise as blood poured in to fill his lungs and throat. With a violent cough the warrior managed to clear his throat for the last time in his life and addressed his daughter once more: “Never… forget… to believe. Now run… hide. Don’t… look back.”

    She was taught to obey her parents ever since she was just a tiny toddler, so she ran as fast as her five winters old tiny feet could carry her. She heard her mother scream but didn’t look back. The scream was abruptly ended by a steely swoosh of a sword followed by another heavy thud, but she didn’t look back. Her people were dying left and right completely caught off guard by the violent and overpowering surprise attack, but she still didn’t look back. She just ran, and somehow avoided the murderous eyes of every enemy soldier destroying the camp of her tribe. Only when she was several hundred meters away from the camp, did she stop. On top of a little hill, she turned around in the deep snow and finally disregarded her father’s dying words.

    As she looked back towards the smouldering remains of the camp, she didn’t even register all the killing, torturing and raping that was still going on. The only thing the five-year-old girl saw was the standard flapping in the chilly winter wind at the center of the camp. The crest and symbols of the City of Peltarch were forever burnt into the very soul of the little girl, burnt with the frozen, ice-cold fire of the north.

    …

    She felt like she had been walking for days, even weeks. Her feet were completely numb from the cold and she had never felt hungrier in her life. She could hear the wolves every now and then. The pack was still mostly just curious, but they too would grow hungry eventually. She knew all this by instinct alone. Those same instincts were the only thing keeping her still going. The little common sense she had developed during her short life just told her to give up, to lie down and give in to her destiny. But her instincts refused to give up, they drove her to seek survival with any means possible.

    In the end, even the instincts ran out of fuel. Valerie’s tiny body just didn’t have anything left to keep it going. She suddenly collapsed in a big pile of freezing cold snow next to a small juniper tree. The wolves - now hungry - were closing in on her, and she was just about to close her eyes and drift away, when a sharp ray of cold light caught her eye. It seemed to originate from an impressive icicle hanging from the top of the little juniper. The icicle was almost as tall as the 6-foot juniper and it was so perfectly shaped and coloured that even the finest of all the gems in Faerun could not compete with it.

    Valerie’s hazy eyes tried to focus on the icicle and she thought she saw a figure forming in the ice. It looked like a pale-skinned, white-haired woman with beauty far beyond anything mortal. The figure seemed to be calling her out by her name, but Valerie just shook her head in an attempt to rid these hallucinations from her mind. While turning her head, she spotted the alpha male of the wolf pack emerging from the shadow of nearby trees and the rest of the wolves following right behind.

    The little girl sighed deeply turning her gaze back towards the wonderful icicle. The light and the figure inside had disappeared but she thought she could still here the echoes of an ethereal, cold and emotionless voice in her head. “Valerie, come to me. Valerie, be one with me. Valerie, believe.” Just as the biggest wolf seemed to decide that the little human girl was not dangerous but merely a nice snack, the voice in Valerie’s head suddenly changed to his father’s voice repeating the word “believe” over and over again. The little girl lifted her head sharply, saw the light in the icicle again and screamed out loud: “I believe!”

    Million things seemed to happen to Valerie during one draw of breath. The feeling of cold did not subside but it seemed to become part of her. She was one with it now, not bothered by it. Her mind opened to so many new things at once that she felt dizzy. She could easily sense another being attaching very closely to her soul and thoughts. And, as seeing is believing, the most powerful manifestation of her newly found faith also saved her life.

    The alpha male of the wolf pack was already making the final leap to attack the girl, as she gestured towards it with her hand. With a flash of light, an icy-blue ray jumped forth from her palm and froze the wolf in mid-air. Not figuratively speaking “froze” but really froze it from head to tail, inside out. The big wolf dropped down from the peak of its leap and landed on top of a big rock shattering into thousands of little pieces of ice. The rest of the pack fled whimpering back to the shadows of the forest leaving the little girl and her frightening powers alone in the icy, cold arms of northern winter - the safest place she could now think of…

    Character name: Valerie
    Account: Jarcco


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