As the houses burned away, people started running out of their homes. Screams of pain and anguish were heard throughout the tiny village as people began to escape their homes. As people fled, Ace and Tala started to put them into a pile holding them by swordpoint. 

"Olive, Alika, Archer, watch these people while I go fetch the rest of the people out of the houses," Ace ordered. At once, they stopped shooting the arrows, as all the houses were on fire, and started guarding the villagers. While they stood to watch, keeping each one submissive, Ace and Tala began to make their way to the houses. 

Ace first went into one house straight in front of the large group of petrified villages, and Tala went through a place just to the right of that one. Sword in hand, Ace walked through the doorway; the fire hadn't spread to the living room or bedroom yet. They had time to find the people who either didn't wake up or were stuck in a collapsed roof. Not one person could be left alive, and they had to make sure The Parakeet was not damaged. They went into one room peered inside. A bathroom, not much there, just a simple toilet with a string to flush, a wooden tub, and a sink that could be filled to wash their hands. The floor was unsanded wood, the walls the same. The only strange thing was the ash and sparks that filled the room and half the house; the whole house was covered in a thick grey smoke that filled Ace's lungs. It was getting hard to breathe, and they knew that they didn't have much time to find the people. 

They couldn't dawdle anymore. 

They turned out of the room, almost immediately facing a door. The house was small, as with most of the houses in the village. One room, one living room, and a bathroom were really all there were too tiny village houses like this. 

The door was average, a white door with muddy prints decorating the bottom like a design of sorts. They turned the handle and entered the room. The only light was from the fire that had now moved closer to the front entrance. Two women sat in the corner. Only in their nightgowns, arms wrapped around each other, their eyes were wide with fear, their bodies were trembling. 

"Look, rescue!" one of the women shouted in excitement at the sight of Ace. 

Ace didn't say a word. They just walked over to the women, their boots creaking as they walked along with ill-placed flooring. They took them by the arms and dragged them toward the room's exit. 

"Thank you... Thank you so much for saving us... My wife and I didn't know how far the fire had spread... We were both too scared... to move," the same woman spoke, coughing in between her words. And still, Ace did not speak. 

The fire was still moving, eating at the wooden house faster now as it grew. But Ace pushed through the smoke, pushed through the heat. Dragging these women with them. They had left the front door open, and the fire was nearing it.

"Shit," Ace cursed under their breath. They would have to run, but their lungs were filling with smoke, and it was getting harder by the second to breathe. 

But, to beat the fire, they had to do it. They hadn't expected the fire to move so quickly, or else they would've ordered the houses to be burned once The Parakeet was extracted. 

It was too late now. 

But they ran. They ran even though it felt like at any second, their lungs would explode from the sheer amount of pain that was being felt. They ran for the exit even though their brain was getting foggy and their legs were getting weak from the lack of oxygen to their brain. 

They ran. 

And they beat the fire to the door. As all three of them escaped, Ace fell to their knees as they began to cough and breathe in the fresh cold night air of Tarbrooke. Alika grabbed the two women, catching their breath next to Ace, and pulled them toward the pile of villagers. 

At this moment, they realized the situation that they were facing. This person that they thought was their savior was the person bringing them to their doom. Alika forced them down onto the ground; Olive had found some rope that had been in a nearby shed and was in the process of tying all the villagers' arms together. Making sure they were tight to keep them from morphing their arms into wings. 

During this time, Tala was searching the house she had gone in. It was laid out in the same way as Ace's a medium-sized living room, a bathroom, and right across the way, the only bedroom. The fire had started from the right side of the living room, burning and moving toward the bathroom and bedroom. She would have to be fast. 

"Find The Parakeet fast. Find it. Find it. Find it..." was all she could think. She rushed into the bedroom; the same crushing pain in her lungs began to form as the smoke traveled into them. As she reached the bedroom, trying to dodge the fire that had now reached the bathroom completely, she turned the handle. It wouldn't open, the handle would turn, but there was something in the way of the door keeping it from opening. 

She turned sideways, her left shoulder facing the door now. She backed up slightly, the heat from the fire scorching her right shoulder. She began to ram her shoulder into the door. Each time she did so, the object in front of it began to shift and move.

BANG! Her shoulder it again. 

BANG! And again, the object shifted, the door opened wider more. 

BANG! Again and wider still, it opened. 

BANG! Finally, it was open enough for Tala to squeeze through the cloth showing from under her armour was burned and frayed, the skin on her shoulder bubbling and blistering from the heat. The object was a piece of the ceiling that had collapsed. And there stood its parents. Both beautiful blonde hair, the woman's draping down to her lower back tangled from sleep, the man's short and dripping from sweat. They both cradled their child; it was screaming. Tears were pouring from its face; the parents tried to calm it down, but it was impossible under the circumstances.

Its right eye had a speck of light that glowed and slightly illuminated its parents with yellow light. It was dim, not polished, not blessed. Once Ramsey blessed it, its power would grow and get brighter. 

"Are you here to save us?" the man asked, his voice raspy from the smoke. 

"Are you parakeets?" Tala asked, ignoring the man's question. 

"Yes, but why is that important?"

"We found it," Tala said as if she was having a conversation with herself. As if these people, this family, this child was an object. That's how Tala talked about them, about their lives. She walked past the bed, eyes solely focused on the infant. She grabbed it, taking it into her arms.

The parents struggled to keep their daughter from this stranger, but being weak from the smoke, they lost and Tala, a mercenary under the Queen, was much stronger than these villagers. 

"Come," Tala said, and they had no choice but to follow her lead. 

"Maybe she was just trying to keep their daughter safe from the fire," they thought. 

Tala knew they couldn't go out through the bedroom door, and the fire was completely covering it, so she broke the bedroom window over the bead's headrest. She took her elbow, carrying the child in one arm, and elbowed the window shattering the glass onto the grass outside. She climbed out of the window, stepping her boots onto the window sill, broken glass crunching underneath them. 

The parents followed her lead, but they had no shoes on being in bed. When they stepped on the windowsill, the glass dug into the bottoms of their feet. They gritted their teeth in pain, and blood dripped off as they launched themselves off the windowsill, trying not to land into the large pile of glass that lay waiting on the grass below. 

"Follow me," Tala ordered, and they did. What else were they supposed to do? This woman wearing Ollum knight armour was leading them; they didn't know what was happening, and they didn't know what could be happening. They trusted her; at first, they weren't sure as she took their child, but she was just helping them, right? Trying to keep her safe, right? 

No.

When they turned the corner around the house, they saw the pile of people, their arms tied together, they realized this wasn't true.

Alika some them and rushed to them at incredible feet; her talons dug into the dirt and grabbed them by the arms, pulling them toward the people. They struggled, pulling themselves away, scratching, and trying to free themselves.

But, Alika swung her legs high into the air and kicked each one in the femur. 

Two loud CRACKS sounded after she did this. They dropped to their sides, gripping their legs, blood pouring from the puncture wounds where Alika's talons dug into their legs. Alika grabbed them, one in each arm, by their collars and dragged them to the pile of people. She tied their arms along with the others. 

"What are you going to do with her!" the man yelled at Tala. 

"She is going to help the kingdom become stronger," Tala says back while looking at the glowing orb in the child's eye. 

Ace walked over, still catching their breath. They took the child in their arms, looked down, and smiled. 

"Olive," they said, "You may dispose of them now." 

Olive had this giant grin on her face as she and Archer grabbed pieces of charred wood that had from a collapsed wall nearby. 

They arranged them in a circle around the villagers. 

Olive dipped an arrow in tar, then took her flint and steel and lit her arrow on fire one final time. She placed it on a still embering piece of wood, and it came ablaze almost immediately. The villagers struggled and screamed in terror as the fire traveled onto their clothes.

Ramsey looked on, not in horror, not in fear, not in anything really. He just looked as people's skin began to boil off of them. As their skin bubbled from the fire that traveled along with them, their skin peeled off their muscle, revealing a bright red that also just burned away. Nothing was left unscathed, and he just watched.

He watched. 

He watched. 

He watched. 

He watched. 

He watched as children burned. 

He watched as families died. 

He watched as his humanity left him. 

He watched and felt nothing. 

"Ramsey!" Ace shouted, breaking him from his trance. "I called your name three times. What were you thinking about?"

"Oh, nothing," Ramsey said, shaking his head. 

"Okay, then," Ace said, a little skeptical. "It's time to bless the child.

"Right, right, that's why I'm here after all," Ramsey said with a slight chuckle at the end. 

He walked toward Ace, who was holding the child. 

Placed his hand over its head. 

"With my words, this child will be blessed. With my words, this child's powers sent by you, oh Lord, will grow stronger even now. With my words, she will help the kingdom grow stronger even now," as Ramsey spoke, a blue light eradiated from his hands. Shining and illuminating Ace's face and chest. When he lifted his hands, the star in the child's eye was now glowing brighter, illuminating part of Ace's chest and shoulder's. It dimmed down soon after, but it was already growing more potent with the blessing. 

The six of them turned toward the pile of burning bodies. The fire glowed and lit up their faces. Shining and giving them an ominous look, sparks, and smoke billowed out. The smell of burning meat perforated their noses. 

Long live the Kindom of Ollum.