Half Breed

Chiron Crescent

Suspended in the deep lifeline, the stifling halted. The liquid no longer burned within me, its violet translucency now a soothing wave.

Where is this? I pondered, manoeuvring through the lavender blood with new-born fawn-like movements. My fingers buried themselves desperately into the rim of dirt cratering around the amethystine water. Trembling with weakness, I pulled myself out.

Dirt walls formed a rugged dome structure around me, spanning large enough to barely see the far end of the pool. I was underground somewhere and the darkness blinded me. A faint light at a passageway beckoned me to it.

A muffled sound echoed through the murky tunnel after a couple of forlorn minutes of an exhaustive gait. "-ly!" I heard an archaic, husky voice in the repetitious resonance of the tunnel. "Emily!" My heart shook a little when I realised someone called my name. Me? I wondered, a cascading bewilderment showering the corners of my mind until I grew tired of its two-mindedness.

"I'm here!" I yelled out, my throat's walls shaking in pain.

The absence of light made it difficult to see the man's face, that is, until he pointed his bent index finger upwards. A soft, yet somewhat bright incandescent light rolled off the tip of his decrepit finger and shadowed the old man.

He looked at me closely, catching a rather unique birthmark situated right below my left eye. His eyes interchanged indecisively between my birthmark and my eyes, as if identifying me. A faint simper adorned the edges of his bearded mouth after a trembling chill grasped onto his eyes.

With a stroke of his greying beard, he held his staff out and made a large circle in the air, opening a portal to somewhere. I could hardly react, still dazed and unaware of many things.

We travelled through the fuzzy portal and into a small cottage deep in the woods. The abrupt stoppage must've made me conscious of my nudity. My hands quickly covered the intimate bits boldly displayed in front of the old man, causing a scoff from him. "Please," he doused his word in sarcasm, "you are no more attractive to me than a new-born baby. After all," he coughed, a rhythmic wheezing to it, "you are my niece."

What? I thought, still silent.

The lanky old man threw a blanket at me for the time being, "The last I remembered," he scoured around his cottage, "you were just learning to walk." A soft wheezy chuckle fled from his lips.

His wardrobe, just a plain straw basket, was unapologetically crammed to the brim with black robes and mantles, the latter dropping right at his elbows. Unsurprisingly, that was the current raiment he wore.

"Wait right there, lass," he ambled over, holding onto his wooden, serpent-headed staff, "now I don't know what girls your age fancy, but I reckon something is better than nothing."

His bushy, greying beard moved about despite the silence, what was he saying?

Suddenly the end of his staff hit the ground with a quick lift and drop. A bluish-white circle formed with strange symbols filling inside it. Magic? I wondered, all misty-eyed, but still a bit sceptical to everything seen and heard from the moment I awoke in the strange waters.

My memories were blocked by something I could not see, only feel. I didn't know anything. "Who are you?" I inquired, then realised the more important question to be asked was, "Who am I?"

He turned his head to the side, only watching my through the corner of his eye, "I am Chiron Crescent, your uncle, on your mother's side. And you, young lady, are Emily Crescent. Amnesia is but a side-effect of scroll-based teleportation, it will fade with time."