Born of Life and Death

Forest Child

Libitina's POV

Libitina woke up to find herself laying on the ground, but it didn't seem right. What happened to the floor of her cell? Then after a moment she remembered what had happened and opened her eyes to see where she was. She sat up and looked around. She was in the middle of a forest surrounded by tents. People were laying next to her all of them wounded in some way. A man was swiftly moving between them checking on them and ordering others around. She realized she had on the skin covering things when she moved a little. At least they were comfortable and kept her warm.

Magdalena and someone else returned with food soon after she woke up.

"Glad to see you awake. We brought some food." She said.

"Who's that?" Asked Libitina.

"I'm Delmar." He said. "I'm an ... old friend of Magdalena's and I helped carry you here." She nodded in acknowledgement but said nothing. They offered her some food and told her what it was. She did not eat the bread but settled for a fruit. They started to chat and then told their stories.

"I grew up in a village not to far from here." She said. "I went to a school for magic and learned what I know now, at least that was before the plague. Many people in our village were killed and by that time many knew what had started it. Magic, very dark twisted Magic. Our school was attacked by the remaining people causing us to flee. I moved to a place with my family that had a school that functioned as a school for both people with magic and without. That's where I met Delmar. At that time schools like ours were illegal, and still are, were being hunted down and raided. Their children kidnapped and taken to places like where we were or taken other places. Most are just killed along with their parents. Our school was attacked and I ran. Me and my family once again fled from our home. This time we didn't make it. Me and my dad were sent to the prison where we just escaped from. He was killed and soon after I was taken down to that room where I met you and escaped." She paused for a moment as if remembering something then she smiled and silently laughed a little then asked Libitina "what's your story?"

"Oh, umm I was born in the prison. I grew up there. I learned a lot of stuff from lots of people like language and culture. Not really anything else." She said.

"Oh well ok. Its cool that you got to learn about other people's cultures. With the world being at war nobody knows anything about anyone." Said Delmar.

"I guess so."

"It's getting dark i'm going to find my tent." said Magdelena.

"Umm ok then." said Delmar confused as to why she suddenly decided to leave and head to her tent.

"Where should I go?" asked Libitina.

"Well you can ask someone and they can find you a tent to sleep in." He paused and thought. "I'm not sure in Magdalena knows where she's going. I don't either." Then he walked away in the direction Magdalena went.

After a minute of looking around for someone who looked like they knew what they were doing and could probably help her she walked up to them and asked where she could sleep.

"Well i'm not sure." she said. "You could probably go ask those girls over there if you could sleep in their tent." She said while pointing to two girls.

"Ok," she started to walk away before she quickly turned around remembering something other people said. "Thank you." She ran over to the girls and asked them if she could stay with them. They said "umm sure" and she walked with them to the tent.

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Libitina woke up to the familiar smell of smoke and burning flesh. Still dazed from sleep she sat up and looked around. Then she heard a scream as she realized people were fleeing the camp. Nobody was in the tent so she crawled out.

Outside it was chaos, people were running all over the place. Some were hopelessly trying to extinguish. Others were escaping thru the woods, trying to reach the road that could take them to safety. She started looking around for someone she knew.

Somebody ran up behind her and started to guide her towards the woods.

"Come on the others are this way." he yelled over the loud screams of everyone else. She followed him running towards the edge of the forest. "Come on we need to go quickly. They will know where we are from the smoke."

She looked behind her and saw that he was right. Some were taking people down with spells others were chasing them down or dragging them to the edge of the woods. One of the soldiers spotted them trying to escape and started to chase after them. She quickened her pace to the best of her ability but had never needed to move so fast or for so long. She was just going to slow down the boy who was helping her escape.

The guard caught up with them easily. She was just an arms length away from being able to drag them down. Just as she was about to use a spell to capture them vines started to grow around her legs bringing her down. Libitina wasn't sure what just happened but it didn't matter, she just kept running. They reached the trees a few seconds later going as far as possible.

After a few minutes of dodging trees and jumping over roots that threatened to trip them she said, "I need to stop and rest."

They slowed to a walking pace and he nodded and said,"If we can make it a little further we can reach a place to hide."

The forest got dencer as they went farther in. The land seemed to change too. It almost seemed as if the trees moved when you weren't watching them. When it was quiet whispers filled the air. They soon reached an area where the branches hung too low to walk under and they had to crawl. It was almost too dark to see anything with the thick branches blocking out the little moonlight. Then she saw a little bit of light, and it wasn't all that far away.

"We can rest here," said the boy. He moved some branches out of the way and revealed a hidden patch of forest. You couldn't see any sky, but it was filled with glowing creatures. Mostly large, luminescent butterflies. "We should be well hidden here. The trees will protect us when they come looking for survivors. Most likely they will head to the road where people will go to escape. Next they will check Darpick because people will use the road to flee there and hide. I've seen all this happen before, a few years ago."

"How many survived?" she asked.

"I'm not sure exactly.... Not many." He sighed and turned away to a corner.

After a minute or two of this she asked, "So..., where did you come from? Umm I mean where do you live? Do you have any ... family?"

"My blood relatives are dead. I live here in the forest."

"Must be lonely."

"Not really i've been here all my life. I have ... friends." She suspected he wasn't quite telling the truth and decided not to trust him yet. She waited in silence not asking any more questions until she ended up falling asleep.

"Wake up we should get moving again," he said. She got up and followed him back out of the trees. They moved quickly through the forest and soon enough they met up with her friends.

"Oisin, took you long enough," shouted Magdalena.

"Had to stop and take a rest for this one," he gestured to Libitina. She glared at him.

"Understandable, wont need to do that now we are close to a road." They grouped backup and she followed closely behind through the now very dense trees. "It shouldn't take long to get there."

"Shouldn't take long to get where?" said someone from behind them. "I don't think your going to go anywhere," he said as he waved behind him and more people came out from the trees. "We heard there were quite a few escaped highly dangerous criminals out here. Criminals with a high price on their heads."

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Author's note 

Sorry its been so long since iv'e updated.  I got stuck for a while and was also working on some other stories. Hope you like the story so far...