Children of the Earth

Power of the Earth

Power of the Earth

The prick of the needle dagger was digging into Finn's chest. Cutting, not deeply, but painfully. Bringing up with it a thin steam of her blood that mixed with the steady drip that ran down the dagger though Ebow's chest. The weight of his warm, larger, furry body in her arms was unfamiliar. She wasn't used to holding a full grown rabbit.

Finn couldn't look down at him. She couldn't lower her wide eyes. Her shaking hands were almost too weak to hold his new weight. Not from drainage sickness. From shock. Because no matter that she couldn't look down, she could feel the silver blade buried through his body and into hers.

Talen collapsed down onto his knees. Coughing as his energy left him all in a rush. The killing intention behind the blow had been absorbed into Ebow's body. It was enough to kill a shaman woman immediately. Talen's eyes were rolling back into his head as he began to succumb to drainage sickness from his unintended attack.

A moment later, Vallor hit the ground. He wasn't drained, but he could no longer support his own weight. The rabbit had been speared right through the heart. Pinned against Finn like a bug on a velvet cushion.

Slowly, struggling to breath, Finn lowered her head in a stuttered, uneven motion. Her heart was skipping beats. It felt like it stopped dead in her chest to see her little rabbit, once so tiny, now looking up at her through eyes full grown.

:Finn...: His voice was stronger. Deeper now. Like an adult.

"Ebow..." Her voice broke.

:You're okay.: It wasn't a question. He sounded relieved. :I'm so glad:

His sentences weren't broken either. Finn felt tears welling up in her eyes and she wasn't sure if she was grieving that he was now grown or that it was triggered by his fear for her. And now he was speared through the chest. Dying.

She could feel him dying. She could feel the hole through which his energy was leaking. He was going to die and this land was going to suffer. Because of her. All of these people were going to die. In exchange for her singular life.

Immediately, she wished herself dead instead.

:Please don't despair, Finn.:

He sounded quite calm and resigned to his fate. He was an Earth spirit, he couldn't really die. He would be reborn again. Finn's soul, however, would have been absorbed into the Earth. Maybe reborn one day, but she would never be his Finn again.

:I did this willingly.:

"No..." Finn shook her head, cradling him tighter. She could barely see through the tears flooding into her eyes.

:She betrayed me. She killed me. I was scared. I was in pain. I didn't want it then. I resisted, and because I did my power drained away from everything. This land began dying without me. All of this death, this is my fault.:

"No," Finn held him closer. "Don't die, Ebow. Please don't die."

:Don't cry for me. I will be reborn.:

He would, but Finn wouldn't be there when it happened. And now all of these people...

:Energy cannot be created, nor destroyed. It can transform and change. It can be given or stolen. You know that.:

"I know that..." she agreed, hiccuping. Those were basic principles taught in the temples. It was the basis for the Vow of Tens. The Goddess gave one percent of her power to all of the Earth spirits who, in turn, gave ten percent of their power to the elves who surrendered another ten percent to the humans. Falling down in tiers like water in a fountain. Energy given from one to another so that they were all connected to each other.