Amethyst

Chapter 10 - An Attack On SweetWood

We ride our horses hard to SweetWood. The sounds of their hooves pound the dirt as we get closer and closer to our destination. No matter how fast we ride, it still feels like an eternity before we even make it there. Nuna rides on the back of my horse, able to somehow stay on despite the bumps in the road. Nyko and Onyx run behind Ben. 

When I came back outside from my room, having put on my clothes that I wear for training, I saw him getting a horse ready, his wolves sitting next to him. Another sharp glare from Nyko made me stay well out of their way. 

The sky has now turned a deep blue, making my pale skin dark as we finally reach the town; and what I see in front of me painfully grips my heart. The wooden gates to SweetWood are blown open, a mix of huge and small wooden pieces laying on the ground. Unlike the Amethyst Court, none of the homes or shops are broken or destroyed. But there are people that limp out of SweetWood, some are injured, bandages wrapped around their foreheads while some just have bruises on different parts of their bodies. Just inside the town, some lay dead on the ground, trying to get away but unable to in time. We dismount our horses. Nuna jumps off and sits beside me.

We all begin making our way into the town. The Bow is placed securely on my back; the strap holding the quivers and arrow placed at a comfortable angle. A few daggers are placed through loops on my belt, making me feel better about being able to defend myself. I just hope that all the training I've done these past two weeks will come through. We reach the center of the town. To add insult to injury, making the situation worse than it already is, the statue, the one that has all the first rulers of Liliya sculpted together, is broken. The head of the Amethyst ruler is gone, sunk into the ground just next to it, while other various parts of the other sculpted rulers are missing. All except for the Ruby Court leader, that is. I have no doubt she was one of the kind rulers. but obviously Rohit and Celadon left her alone. Ben, the soldiers and I take no time at all as we move further into SweetWood and look around us. We get to an area of the town where we see that there are people helping each other stand up, some burying others. 

A group of people who are too injured to help are set up in a group. I immediately go over to them and start with the youngest, intending to help however I can. The person I go over to first is a little girl who seems to be the age of nine. She has pale skin, deep purple hair, and lavender eyes. She's from the Amethyst Court. she looks at me, tears in her eyes from the pain of what I realize with a twisting knot in my stomach to be a broken leg. It's purple and swelled very badly. I slowly squat down beside her so she's eye level with me and I say in a gentle voice,

"Hi sweetheart; what's your name?"

The little girl looks at me, scared, unsure as to what's going on around her. Then she finally says,

"C-Clarice."

"that's a very beautiful name. Clarice, would you like a gift?"

"O-okay, miss." I smile a sweet smile at her and move my hands behind my back so she can't see me grow a sunflower. She looks at me, still nervous. I reassure her by saying,

"it's okay. I have no wish to hurt you. I simply want to help." as I say this, she looks a tiny bit less nervous. As we talk, me trying to help her calm down and be slightly more open, I focus my hands behind me on raising the most beautiful, most bright yellow sunflower I can. My hands make a raising motion out of the ground until, between my hands, I feel the petals of a sunflower touch my pale fingers.

"Clarice," I ask her as we continue to talk, "Would you like to see a sunflower?"

She instantly gets very excited, quickly abandoning any feelings of being scared or nervous.