Polarized

The Sword Hoard

TW: blood, mentions of gore

Oh my God. Oh my God. OH MY GOD. Hyperventilating at a million miles per hour, Skye nudged the greenhouse door open. She violently shook from head to toe and could barely walk without stumbling. In front of her lay Lucian, collapsed onto his left side, in a pool of blood. The sword remained wedged through his abdomen, and its tip, coated with the sticky red substance, protruded out of his back. Lucian, I'm so sorry...

The logical part of Skye's brain tried to convince her that she had no reason to feel pity for this boy, that he wasn't even a boy at all but a half-dragon, troublemaking beast. But the other, more emotional part overwhelmed her, and within moments Skye found herself kneeling on the floor beside the body of Lucian with tears streaming from her face. "Lucian, if only I could save you..." she choked out, her voice trembling. "But I was too stupid... ugh! If only I wasn't so terrified of confrontation, if only I wasn't selfishly hiding and cowering while that horrible man was brutalizing you, if only I was able to jump into action without being paralyzed by fear... you know what, I may not have a shovel to bury you with, but I'll try my best to give you a proper funeral. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!"

Skye took the hilt of the metal sword in her hand, and with a painstaking amount of effort, attempted to pull it out of the body without messing it up further. A wave of nausea washed over her as she picked up the bloodied blade, so Skye cast it aside immediately, her face contorting in disgust after seeing what it had left behind. Now that she had pulled out the weapon, even more blood was spilling from its place, and the entire front side of Lucian's shirt was stained as red as the cloth around his neck. The crimson pool forming below him had gotten bigger, so Skye took another step from it, shivering.

For a moment Skye pondered over what she could do in honor of Lucian. Then it struck her: she was in a greenhouse, and using flowers to honor the dead was already a tradition, so she figured she could do something with that. First, Skye walked over to the bloody blossom section of the greenhouse and started picking fallen flower parts off the soil. The flowers she gathered ranged from fully-formed velvet blooms to less mature, milky-white buds and petals painted with scarlet splatters. After collecting the bloody blossoms, Skye began gathering more fallen flowers from other parts of the greenhouse, careful not to break any of the growing ones off the plants. By the time she was done, she had accumulated a fistful of flowers from multiple sections: flame lilies, gladiolus, red spider lilies, purple hyacinths, forget-me-nots, daffodils, and after some consideration— the stray begonias and chamomile daisies Lucian had spilled onto the floor.

Solemnly, Skye began scattering petals on and around Lucian's body. Bit by bit they formed a colorful ring, but while some of the petals and flower parts remained clean, others landed in the spirit's blood and soaked in it, turning a dark shade of red. Skye left her final flower, the purple hyacinth, by Lucian's head. "I'm so sorry," she whispered, her eyes watering and her voice breaking. "I should have saved you. Actually, you know what... I should quit my training! What kind of mage would I be if I couldn't even try to stop that man?!"

Skye had always idolized the mages of old for their heroic acts, from the healers of the healer guilds who recovered their patients from the brink of death to the fighters of the warrior guilds who battled enemies of the people. Nearly all of these mages faced high-stakes situations, and many of them had even risked their lives. But Skye? While Lucian was in the greenhouse getting slaughtered, she was too overcome with fear to do anything about it! She let him die, and it was all her fault—

"You only have to say sorry once, y'know. And I'm not dead."

Skye jumped at the voice. Lucian?

The body on the floor began to stir, and Skye felt her skin crawl. She tentatively backed away from the dragon-boy as he pushed himself onto his knees. He doubled over and gagged.