Tale of the Fox - (Part I) Beginings

Ariel speaks:

I remember the first time the Scourge invaded our lands.  Back then, I was a decade shy of maturity.  That was the day my whole world came crashing down, and I mean that very literally.  Looking back now, it almost feels like another lifetime ago…as if it were all but a dream, but it wasn’t a dream…It was a bloody nightmare!  

First there was Light.

“Mother…Who was my father?”  The stalky young red-headed girl standing in the arboretum sorted through herbs while her mother planted cuttings from a swiftthistle plant across the bench from her.  The sun was shining brightly that particular morning through the glass panels in an attempt to warm the moistness from last night’s rainfall which still clung to the air. 

“Ariel, you are still much too young to know who he was.  I will tell you when you’re older.”  Her mother’s voice was sweet and reminded Ariel of the morning dew drops on peacebloom petals in their gardens.

“Is the Ranger General, Halduron Brightwing my father?”  Her curiosity as she grew older was getting more and more difficult to avoid when it came to this subject.

“And what makes you think that it’s him?”  Her mother laughed light-heartedly.

“Well, he visits overnight sometimes and…” she began.

“And…?”

“Oh, well…”  She hesitated briefly, “I also heard some of the ladies in the market talking about us the other day.”

“Ariel Lotus Foxglove!  What have I told you about listening to such scandalous gossip?”  The natural sweetness of her mother’s voice had a stern edge as she scolded her in a calm manor that evoked a feeling of guilt within her.  “Now please, I’ll need more terra cotta pots from the cellar soon for these cuttings.”  Ariel knew it was unwise to argue with her mother and so went down into the damp dark basement of their quaint little cottage to retrieve more. 

The cellar smelled of drying herbs and scented flowers.  She lit an oil lantern and went to the back of the room where the extra clay pots were stored.  While stacking a few of the ones she knew her mother would need, a strange smell overcame the familiar scents of the herbs…twas the smell of death.  Before she had a chance to set down the pots and investigate, a strong rancid breeze blew through the cellar, slamming the door shut and diminishing the only source of light she had left.  “Mother?!”  Ariel had cried out nervously while trying to feel her way around in the dark room in an attempt to make her way towards the stairs.  Then it came…the loud unforgettable, terrified screaming voice of the gentle woman who cared for her since birth, the shattering of glass and a rumbling of the earth.

BAH BOOOMMMMmmmmmmm………

Ariel shouted out again for her screaming mother, trying vainly to get to the stairs while everything around her came crashing down.  From the bottom of the stairs, she could see a feint light pouring in through the crack of the door…

…And then there was pain, a throbbing sharp pain, and then more darkness.

When she awoke, her body did not move easily.  She lay still in the darkness with the weight of building debris pinning her down.  Ariel slowly struggled to push the heavy boards off her frail aching body and eventually managed to slide out from a small crevice.  As she sat up, another throbbing pain grasped her attention and she felt with her hand a wooden spike projecting out of her thigh. 

Part of the cellar door had been broken and some light now trickled in through the cracks.  She had watched her mother bandage wounded travelers before and so knew what to do next.  An agonizing scream came forth from her lungs that she had not realized she processed as she pulled the spike from her thigh.   After flinging it across the room in a fit of anger, she ripped a piece of her muddied robe and tied it tightly around her injury.  The poorly bandage wound would have to suffice for now, she thought to herself as she recalled her mother’s screaming before the building collapsed.

She managed to climb the broken stairs to the surface and her face hardened in disbelief to what she saw next.  The land beyond their cottage had been completely decimated and her mother was nowhere to be seen.  “Mother!?”  She limped towards where the arboretum had stood as fast as she could and searched in vain for the elder Foxglove woman.  Ariel’s fingers bled as she hurried to remove the broken glass from the spot where she last saw her mother standing.  Then she stopped suddenly and her eyes widened in horror from what she spied from the broken, bloodied glass.  “Mother…” She said softly as tears welled up in her eyes, blurring the image that stained her retina and later her memory.  “Could you still be alive?”  She managed to say through her sobbing as she reached, hesitantly towards the pool of blood, stopping short of just barely touching the delicate, soil-stained finger that she was sure belonged to her mother.

It had been days before anyone came to their homestead near Fairbreeze Village to check for survivors.  Some of the guards as well as search and rescue units arrived on the scene to see the golden red-headed child, in a fit of fever wandering in search for her mother.

“This one’s in need of immediate medical treatment!”  A ranger called out just as he caught Ariel in his arms as she collapsed from exhaustion.  It was apparent to him from the fever that the bloodied wound on her leg was infected.

“My…mother….here somewhere…”  She managed to say weakly.

“We’ll find her.”  He said as he laid her down on a stretcher for the medics to begin treatment.  “You must rest now.”  Whether it were by a sedative or the ranger’s order, she did just that, but before she passed out completely, she overheard them speaking.

“Do you think her mother’s still alive?”

“If we don’t find her corpse, then she was probably devoured by plague eaters or worse…became infected with the plague herself.”