“Do you know what this place is?” It was clear she was changing the subject, but Kre didn’t mind that at all given that it was coming back around to a topic he was keenly interested in.
“Not a clue.”
“It was the site of a very famous battle,” she said, walking up to stand beside him. “From there,” she gestured to the north, “the red storm was rushing in, threatening to engulf the land.”
She waved her arms around her, “This place was once a rolling grassland, home to fantastical and intelligent creatures that shared their land with a people that knew only peace.
“It is a hard transition,” she continued in sad whisper, “to fight a war when your civilization has achieved a level of harmony and peace that no others have ever known. Theirs was a difficult choice to make. To have to choose whether to see the end of their civilization by the blade or by the hilt.”
She was silent for a long while with her eyes closed, as if remembering. Whether the memory was of the stories and histories that she had learned or whether she was recalling from personal experience was something that Kre couldn’t tell from her expression. She was so still that it almost seemed as if she were a statue standing there in the middle of the clearing, her breathing imperceptible to Kre’s eyes.
He tried not to, but he couldn’t help but shift his weight, causing the crinkle of leaves and twigs underfoot. The lady’s eyes fluttered open and she smiled at him warmly. “I am sorry. I tend to get lost with my thoughts in places like this.”
“What happened to them? The people that lived here?”
She turned her sad blue eyes upon him, and he suddenly felt an intense wave of grief engulf him. It was like being trapped a thick mud of sorrow, a swamp of sadness and misery that threatened to drown him as it pulled him ever lower into its depths. The feeling was so intense that his vision tunneled down to near blackness and he dropped to his knees.
“Kre…” the voice was soft, almost delicate.
“Kre.” Louder now, and with a hint of irritation.
“Wake up Kre,” Kitalia hissed into his ear before flicking his nose with his finger.
“What happened?” he muttered, pressing a hand to his temple. It was a dull, throbbing pain that was fast fading, but it was clear to him that the headache was the result of whatever it was that made him pass out. He looked around the clearing and blinked his eyes a few times, “Where is she?”
“What did you say?” Kitalia was barely listening to him and was, instead, looking around the clearing. Her face seemed to be twisted with concentration and she wore a disapproving frown.
“Nevermind,” he muttered. He rose to his feet and brushed the dirt from his pants. He spotted the metal object next to him and he picked it back up. As he did so, the sudden thought popped into his mind, “It’s a broken piece of a shield.”
“What is?” Kitalia looked back at him and narrowed her eyes at the piece of metal in Kre’s hands. “Where did you get that?”