The Wilting Ballad

28

Neania could feel the disappointed sigh of her father the minute she recklessly went after the voice of an enemy in their territory. She realized that her father would've waited, stalling to check if it could be a setup and make sure he doesn't go alone.

The air felt quite nice thirty feet above land, she noticed, she hadn't flown in a while, taking pleasure in it. Shame they'll be dead to mourn. Shame. Trying to lighten up her own, she laughed, though it faded quickly, turning into a game of sizzling flare. A game where one shoots wet cloth-wrapped arrows to a board on fire to make it go out. She could feel the presence of that fire she's trying hard to put out using a wet piece of cloth. From the moment she rose to the sky, from the moment she heard her speak.

Cold eyes. Cold, yet conflicted. She could even smell it in the air, the smoke of yesteryear's over-burned corpses. Neania saw her, tanned clothes and Moss assassin's mask and all, but she knew. She knew this is the woman who murdered her father.

She was standing, hands folded behind her, leaning against enormous triangle rock pointing towards northeast, stone-iron spear driven to the mud beside her. What looked to be trees loomed on each side over the muddy paved empty road. Empty but for her. Neania landed, sloshing her boots on the mud, staining its side and front. Yellow eyes... no turning back now. Yellow eyes. "Oh... Oh ho, ho... now... ginger hair brighter than fire. You must be Neania Dun Sailos, eh? A pleasure, though I hoped for... a certain, no hard feelings attitude but..." Said Dilivanir.

Neania realized she was extraordinarily wrong when she had thought she was ready. Ready to actually met her, but meeting the killer of her father was more terrifying than she'd imagined. Nothing at all like the bloody revenge tales she's read. She steadied her breathing after losing a few ones, "Sorry to disappoint but there are only hard feelings." She replied, drinking in the fear, turning them into the theme of the Ballad.

Thicken clouds hid the blue sky above their heads, the wind blew from the south to the rarely pleasant weathered island. They stand ten strides away from each other, locking eyes like a pair of wolves hungry to tear apart the skin off their bodies.

"You do know that I was hoping for my grandnephew, don't you?" Dilivanir asked, straightening herself, stretching. Neania answered with only a nod. "Wasn't personal, you know? Your father was..."

"'Wasn't personal?' Tell me, what could be more personal than that?" Neania asked, voice half-broken. She coughs and spits, to find it spewed red. "You killed him because he was doing his job?"

Dilivanir sigh, as if in anguish. "I would be lying if I say I regretted my actions, so..."

Neania darted to the Master of Moss, a portion of the Ballad fused with her whole. Her orange eyes were shy of red in their flurried state. Her cloak fluttered magnificently at her rear, her satchel hanging wretchedly on her shoulder. Guess it's a little late to throw them off.

She reaches for the blade strapped at her thigh and draws it out from its sheath as Dilivanir did the same with her spear. The stone-iron spear clashes with her unknown steel, sending bolts of light and smoke in the air.

Neania staggered sideways, nearly losing footings at the force of power her opponent wields. She turned in time to see the end of the spear aiming for her temple. Calling the aid of the Ballad, she stopped the attack mid-air, as if there was an invisible wall guarding her.

"A transparent wall, eh?" Dilivanir barked, withdrawing her spear. "Impressive. Most impressive for a girl your age, but allow me to warn you..." She threw her spear spinning in the air, when it landed on her hand, it was no longer stone-iron. It returned as a metal rod morphed with mountain lava, six feet long with its tip gleaming in sharp silver, silver that looked familiar, the silver blade that was the same as Neania's. With markings and all. "I'm not your average Leafsinger, girl."