Lucid Memory

Fire consumed with no mercy. It purified. It destroyed. Its light cast back the shadows but did nothing for the darkness within him. Hard silver-blue eyes watched the blaze spread through messed and matted black hair shot with silver strands. He was crouched above the house on a slope; hard flat eyes fixed from the shadows. He had no clue she stood behind him until she spoke. "That was a rather rude thing to do." The young kal'dorei spun in his crouch, a snarl curling his lips. The glint of sharpened stone appeared in the darkness under his hunched chest. She stood patiently, unimpressed. "Is this a child or a beast, I wonder?"

He sprung from his crouch, crude dagger raised to attack. Her vines caught him in mid-flight; springing from the ground to wrap him in thorny, green iron. The boy continued to growl at her, eyes cutting through that mess of hair. She walked around him, studying him carefully. Soiled leather clothing. A chunk of flint fashioned into a crude weapon clutched in his hand. A layer of dirt covering everything. A pitiful wreck. He writhed wildly, feeling her examination of him, and heedless of the cuts and lacerations from the thorns. She came to look him in the face. Brilliant emerald eyes on a level with those bits of glowing flint. They were still for some time before she spoke. "Sleep." He did.