Shards of a Perfect Gem (Solo)

[Ashla]

"F-Fina-a-lllly... H-ave h-h--her-r..."

Bloodied once again, aching all over, currently in tears, a young woman panted as she withered over her prize. A young child, a baby in fact, cried out from a basket. Her mother replied.

"I-it's oka-a-ay, H-annuh. The b-bad people - gone n-now..." She pulled the shaking baby out, wrapping it in an extra blanket, and just kept holding her as tears fell. In her own exhaustion, the wounded mother found the strength still to comfort her frightened infant.

Feeling herself rapidly going faint, she lay down. She pulled another blanket from the basket and made a bed for her baby. The mother curled up next to her child. A single, weary arm wrapped protectively around her. She still felt the nausea, the stinging, the internal shock. She shallowly echoed comfort to her child. "I let m-mnever let... happen... again... ..."

"I swear it."

~~~

Raiarea always promised to be an eventful place to be, even if all seemed to be in order. It was in a regular place to be. In a common restaurant, in a common street... heck would break loose...

Under a shabby looking oak building, a young woman played with her child who was safely settled in a basket. Dust collected on the mother's black boots as she happily scuffed in her seat. She chuckled as she pulled a hand into the basket, a baby giggled inside.

It seemed like the perfect picture, but it was doomed to be torn off the canvas...

[Ashla]

"Who's the cutest little baby ever, huh? Who's my sweety little pumpkin?? Oh, you are, that's who! Yes you are my cutest little baby doll! Yes you are! Yes you are!"

Ashla Icebreaker didn't care if she looked funny, bent over and tickling the blond bundle inside. As long as it got those adorable, tiny giggles out she was okay. As the baby, Hanuh, laughed and gurgled, her mother found herself chuckling with joy. For the first time in her life, Ashla felt completely lost in happiness and joy. Having her dear child right there with her, she often times felt overwhelmed. This was everything she knew she needed, her precious daughter.

While playing with Hanuh, Ashla's nixstella necklace dangled down. Finding the blue gems shinny, Hanuh simply couldn't resist yanking them.


"Ow!"

Ashla felt like she was being choked! She quickly grabbed her daughter's hand and pried it loose from the necklace's coil. She glared down at the chuckling baby, brown eyes dancing with delight.

Ashla found she couldn't stay angry.

"Hanuh..." Ashla chuckled as she lifted her finger and shook it, "Nuh, nuh."

The blond baby simply snickered some more as Ashla made sure her necklace was still okay. As she evened the jewels out, she heard a small, timid voice from next to her, "Oooh, shiny... Where 'yu git that?"

[Ashla]

Ashla's smile faded at first, she turned her head to the voice besides her. The voice belonged to a young boy, no greater than six, who was grubby all over. She realized he was looking at her necklace, the way his blue eyes dazzled.

The Icebreaker smiled and placed a hand on the nixstella strung coil, "You mean this?"

The young elf nodded quickly.

Ashla chuckled and turned to give Hanuh a toy to keep her occupied, a handheld teddy bear with oh, the softest fur one could ever...

Then, Ashla turned to the young boy, "My mother gave this necklace to me. Like you, she was an elf. The jewels on this necklace are called nixstella."

The child appeared to be hypnotized with it, "Ooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhh..."

Ashla smirked, feeling delighted to be the teacher and not the clueless for once. "Nixstella is from the country Eiskalt, where I was born. Rumor says, if you find the perfect spot in those mountains, these clear diamonds shine like rainbows."

The blond boy clapped, "It's very pwitty! Yew aw pretty too!"

Ashla's cheeks went slightly red, she had not expected that last comment, "W-why, tha-ank you!"

So busy enlightening the boy she was, Ashla wasn't paying any attention to her little girl... or the shadowy man right above her...

[Ashla]

Duty called when Ashla heard Hanuh start to squirm. She gave the boy a pat on the head, then turned to find that she was in for a storm - flashflood to be exact.

What she saw at first was blurred, but whatever it was, Ashla had looked down to see that her baby was gone! Instantly, the young mother heard her child erupting in terror. She was still in the room. Ashla threw herself onto her feet and rapidly glanced from left to right. All she could find was more people, equally caught up in the sudden chaos in sudden whispers and gasps. It was then though that she heard a door open. Ashla turned to see the door just barely closing... and the crying going faint.

"Hey!" Ashla called, racing after whoever the culprit was. As soon as she got there, the Icebreaker flung the door open. She stormed outside to find... absolutely nothing. Nothing of her child that was. Nothing but passing people on a busy street.

Hanuh was gone.

The desperate mother simply couldn't take it in. Her child was gone. She could only stand there, the screams that precious little girl released haunting her like a ghost. Tears flooded in heavy, dreary eyes. Blinding slowly, she questioned why on earth she'd been so careless. The only clue to be found was several feet ahead of her - a now trampled teddy bear.

[Ashla]

It felt like a nightmare. One of those kinds of nightmares you knew you were just dreaming, but was deathly terrifying anyways. The Icebreaker couldn't feel a thing. She felt like a ghost as she walked over to the dropped teddy. She slowly bent over, the sounds of passing people calling her out for getting in the way never reaching her ears.

She picked up the bear. It was filthy, the cotton seeping out through the half torn limbs. It was all she saw. This bear had been Hanuh's very first possession. As a newborn she snuggled beside it. Tears poured from her mother's eyes, Hanuh was lost and it was all her fault.

The Icebreaker slowly stood up, holding the bear with shaking hands. She was still haunted by those so terrible screams... but now the world began to come back to her.

Ashla took steps back up until her back contacted the wall of the inn. One hand held the bear, the other made it to her head in aching wonderings, How can I get her back?

Ashla heard a voice suddenly, "Lost your kid, eh?"

Ashla sharply turned to see a ragged, wrinkled man leaning on the wall at the other side of the door. He smirked, "Do not worry, dearie, she is safe for now."

Ashla's eyes instantly went frost. "What are you doing with her?" She asked in a surprisingly calm tone.

"Eh, keeping her until you come by." The man pushed himself up and handed a peace of paper over to her, "You have twenty four hours. Pay by then or she's history."

The paper was loosely scribbled on, the writing was recently made, most likely this same day. It read:

Meet us on Curel's Hill
Give us 10,000 Solid Gold
Your necklace.

Or else...

[Ashla]

After gathering up what she needed, Ashla was off! It had been a good three hours since Hanuh's kidnapping, and her mother was more anxious than ever. She felt so guilty, so guilty she let this happen. For the first time since even before the Eiskalt War, since when she first figured out her true heritage, Ashla truely felt like a failure. The young woman's heart ached, her head cluttered with dust. There was a void deeper than being left with nothing. Ashla lost what felt like everything before. She lost her name as an Icebreaker simply due to heritage. She lost her country, she lost her only home... but actually losing someone dear to her? She never was that close to her cousin Fulgur II, but she felt this deadness inside when he died in the war. She had felt so alone when her uncle died, it was her first time by herself and she had been terrified. But no, this was worse than even her uncle. Far worse. If something went wrong and they killed Hanuh anyways...

She would never forgive herself.

Ashla shook her head as she walked through the forest towards Curel's hill. The dark soil felt like jello under shaking feet, the wind carried the stench of some dead carcass. The trees whispered a dreary song of doom around her. Sunlight beat down from the skies like a beam of drought. There was no comfort here. Nothing could stay the words bombarding the mind.

Worthless! Branch member! Hopeless! Dud! Broken! Filthy! Fake! Unfavorable! Good as dead!

The accused kept getting beat down with claims of guilt. The guilt reigned in her, raining down, until she reached her destination.

[Ashla]

It was just a regular hill... aside those heads of long dead dark elves on sticks.

On the other side of top, away from the heads on toothpicks, were a group of elf bandits. There was six of them. Most of them were blonds, two of them being brunettes. One brunette and two blonds were woman, the other three were men. Thry wore common clothes and had axes and oak bows on them, as well as flint knives.

Ashla couldn't help but scoff at them all, So uncivilized...

The forest still contained the stench of the dead, but a much more recent kill than the heads promptly stuck on the hill. A group of crows flew away from the trees, broaking a storm as they went to scavenge dinner. The black crows flew away, shuffling the branches of tainted oak trees, leaving a gap within what was supposed to be silence.

Ashla stood at the bottom, eyes narrowed. She'd spent all her tears. Now, there stood a ticked off mamma who refused to play games.

"Where is she?"

One of the bandits, a heavily built blond, laughed. One of the underweight looking women called out, "Why so hasty, mommy?"

Ashla only blinked, her numbness causing her to easily shrug off the insults. "Where's my daughter?"

The heavily built one spoke, "Well, where's our pay?" He asked.

Ashla was no longer wearing her necklace, she carried a burlap sack in her hands. It was surely the ransom, as she indeed lifted it to show them. A skinnier man grinned and started down the hill to collect it. When he took it from her hands, he didn't seem surprised that it was heavy. He nodded to her, "Our leader is in the Hashkekowyn cave twenty miles from here, same with your child."

Ashla bit her lip... then stomped her foot like a toddler, "She's not here!?"

A brunette man called from above, "Of course not! What would you expect? For us to give you that brat before our pay?" The others burst into laughter. Ashla scowled.

"You don't know who I am, don't you?"

"Yeah," the noisy woman from before jeered again, "You're an anxious, crazed mommy. The perfect bait for ransom bidding."

Ashla let out a low pitched growl, "I am an Icebreaker of Eiskalt. You shouldn't mess with me..."

"Well we have!" The skinny man who took the bag waved it in front of her, "And this proves it."

It was as if the Icebreaker name meant nothing to them at all.

The man suddenly dropped the bag while waving it though. What was inside it shocked all six bandits there. The other woman, a girl with short blond hair, jumped. "Lady, you're in big trouble..."

[Ashla]

Blood.

There was a small puddle of blood on the forest floor.

Ashla choked on the remaining blood in her throat, dripping out of the side of her mouth, but not before the blond girl punched her again. This time on the head. Ashla was tough, she could stand most of the beating, but she was too weak to pull her arms away from the other two bandits holding her like a marionette doll. Ashla's head quickly rolled back to face the woman hitting her.

"You idiot! You dumb, old, freaking idiot!"

Ashla dared to roll her eyes.

The other woman, watching from behind, gasped, "How dare you?!?"

Ashla felt the impact of the blond's hand against her cheek. The Icebreaker coughed, more blood oozing out, then scoffed, "You jerks have no hearts, do you?"

One of the bystanding crooks walked over and punched her head, cursing her in the elvish tongue. Another bystander of the group chuckled. Ashla honestly couldn't tell what to do. She knew where Hanuh was, but could she escape these bandits? .... and how could she get there before they did? Behind the rest of the group, groggy eyes spotted the bag full of rocks, various stones scattered on the ground. Next to them was Ashla's one weapon she'd brought with her, her broadsword.

Ashla sighed, how to get out of this pickle?

Just then, her saving grace came in an unexpected form. The stench of rotting flesh had always been thick in the air, but none present could ever have guessed that an animal corpse had not been the only culprit. A group of undead elven corpses, survived from the days of the Corpse War, burst out of the trees. They didn't outnumber the six bandits plus one screwed up Icebreaker, but they were enough to get even these bandits worked up. In an instant they dropped Ashla like she was a rock and ran up to the four corpses.

Ashla couldn't take a single moment to rest, as much as she wanted to. She instantly applied her healing abilities upon herself. Before she could feel the Spirit Ability's side effects of nausea and weakness, Ashla crawled away.

[Ashla]

She didn't know how, but she'd made it back to her room in the local town's inn. Ashla wanted to rescue her child more than anything, but she had to nurse herself first. Ashla had several bruises covering her body from the beating those crooks gave her, and she was officially barfing into a barrel. She had been at this suckish rate for several hours, and the skies of Althanas were pink in sunset. It took a while, but Ashla put cream on her bruises and wrapped herself in bandages. Her healing had taken care of any other damage caused, but her body still naturally was left with some bruising like it was a piece of fruit. These too would heal in their own time though.

Unfortunately, Ashla had no time to heal any further. As soon as her nausea ceased, Ashla had put her chainmail and shirt back on over a loose undershirt. She threw her shawl and now bloodied cloak back on and clipped her remaining weapons on her belt. She slowly stood up and looked to the door.

Time was ticking. She had to move.

The door flung shut behind her.

[Ashla]

First stop, the hill again.

She'd left her sword there, and now hoped to find it there. She also hoped to find any signs of the bandits. If luck was on Ashla's side, they wouldn't be back to their leader to tell him what she did.

When Ashla got there though, she only felt dread.

By all means, Ashla was still a compassionate person. She valued life and tried to keep it up as much as possible... but there was a pile of dead bodies sprawled across the hill.

Ashla pulled one hand up to her mouth, but kept count with the other.

"One, two..." She counted six.

All six bandits were dead.

Ashla let out a shaky hum. If only four undead corpses could do this...

She shuddered as she walked up to the closest to her. She constantly looked left to right, maybe the undead were still around. With dread boiling in her veins, she turned it over. It was the brunette elf who had taken the rocks. The Icebreaker knelt down, looking around one final time, before focusing on the dead man. Ashla's eyes fell to the massive cut across his chest, most likely the killer blow. Then she looked down to his belt. Amongst all his weapons, one set somehow caught her interest. A pair of iron butterfly swords with rough leather sheaths.

Ashla pulled them up. She noted with how small they were, about ten inches, they could fit on her back waist. She placed them on as she looked over to her broadsword, sitting where the bandits originally cast it off to. Ashla then ran over, scooped it up, and left before anything bad happened.

She left the gathering crows to have their feast in peace.