Lavender (Roman Godfrey)

Prologue

A field of lavender so large it stretched from horizon to horizon seemed more like a sea of purple than it did a field of individual flowers. In that sea of lavender laid a woman with hair the color of fire and cheeks stained purple. Lavender flowers braided into her hair and clothes the same color as the fields around her. She was gasping for breath, chest heaving with rattled coughs that made scarlet pool over purple colored lips and down her chin like thin, red rivers upon pearly white snow.

A steel sword laid abandoned just out of her reach, a howling wolf on the pommel carved out of the trees that grew around her home. The blade was stained red with a smudged red handprint on the handle as if the attacker tried to stop the bleeding only to back away and leave.

The woman clutched her abdomen, crimson seeping out from her fingers, tainting the faded lavender of her dress. Despite the rattling coughs, the labored breathing and pitiful whimpers all was at peace. The woman seemed to be glowing as dawn reached them, the first rays of the sun falling upon the dying woman. Birds started singing for her and slowly but surely the woman's breaths evened out to the sound of birds lamenting her, before she drew her last and final breath, the smell of lavender filling her for the very last time before her eyes fluttered closed and her hands fell from her abdomen.

A man rushed out from the trees, his long legs carrying him towards the sea of purple in which his love was submerged in. He stopped abruptly when he saw her, soft smile on her red-stained lips and eyes shut. His axe fell from his hands and for the first time since meeting her he broke the line of lavenders around him and suddenly the light around her vanished, making the man recoil in shock before deep sorrow filled his eyes.

He fell to his knees and screamed.