[The Messenger's Story]
"Sweet mother of jesus lord!" Lily panted as they got to the middle of the mountain. The sun hovered just above the horizon and its dying rays barely reached the valley. The cave in front of them engulfed the light creating a dark void. Its small mouth opened into a large cavern with water trickling down from the ceiling. The musky smell made their noses scrunch up.
"I think we'll be safe here for the night." Lily said watching the sun slowly slide under the earth. She looked at the others who held piles of firewood. Grunting as they dropped it all into one pile, they plopped around the pile and watched as Lily pulled out a lighter.
"Whoa, Lily! You carry around a lighter?" Bellis asked. Lily made a face of disbelief.
"You guys didn't know that? Look I can wave my finger through the flame!" She said without burning her finger. Lily stopped messing around and set some of the wood on fire and left some for later.
Not too far away the odd boy and his group saw the plume of smoke and small light radiating from the cave. They smiled at their discovery and quickened their pace.
Helian stared blankly at the wisp of light while Bellis sat quietly next to him. The light reflected off of his sunglasses. Daisy sat near Rose who pulled out a book. Lily ripped it out of her hands and threw it into the fire. "Hey!" Rose screamed and tried to reach in for her book. Lily stood in front of her and blocked her reach into the flames.
"No boring books here, Rose! We're on an adventure! Let's tell exciting stories. Wait were you reading Twi-" She stopped and realized everybody was staring at her in horror. She ignored them and sat down on the other side of a fuming Rose.
"Let's tell a ghost story!" She grinned. The dim light reflected off of her glasses.
Bellis screamed like a little girl and held onto Helian's arm. Lily looked at him. "I haven't even started yet!" She snorted.
"Once upon a time, in Suun, a messenger of the Sun walked along a grey path. No, Daisy. We may not be in 'Kansas' anymore, but there was no yellow brick road. Perhaps they would have met a different fate that way. Anyways, they carried over their shoulder a messenger bag containing five perfectly round stones. Each one was translucent and bright. The Sun wanted them so that he could rule Suun. The Moon however, was a jealous and power hungry monster.
The Moon, as powerful as she is, is very short but her size isn't the first thing one notices about her. At the time she was blind. Her one eye had been stolen from her ages before, but she was still very quick and agile. Her hair was long and grey like the ash from Rose's book, and her teeth and nails are sharp like knives.
When she heard that all of the stones had been found, she flew over Suun in search of them. The messenger was very easy to find. That path was the only one that led to the Sun's castle and they stood out. They had long, flowing, orange hair and most prominent was their glowing red eye. Like the Sun, she had one eye, but this one attracted the Moon more. Why? Because it was the Moon's stolen eye!
Once she found them, she pounced on the poor messenger. The Moon took the bag, but she didn't stop there. She took her talon hands and gouged their eye out. The messenger screamed in pain, but nobody came to help them. They had failed their ruler and lost the stones to their greatest enemy.”
"So. They died?" Bellis asked slowly trying to comprehend the story. Lily again rolled her eyes in annoyance. "No. They lived. Who dies by losing an eye? After completing more of the Sun's work, they saw a witch who helped fix their eye. However, their sight was never the same. Right after, the witch banished her from Suun.”
"And that's it?" Bellis said still confused.
“No!"
"You just stopped talking for like 10 seconds!" Rose added.
"Can you please, just shut up, you dumb bookworm!" Lily snapped. She looked at them all as she huffed.
"They came back. After years of exile, they figured out how to get back.
"Do they have a name?”
"Their name is Tiger Lili!”
"Hey, that sounds like your name, Lily." Bellis giggled at the resemblance.
"Um, just because I look like them and basically have the same name, does not mean we are the same person! Does it look like I have one eye?" Her green eyes were filled with fire as she glared at her friends.
…
From behind a bush outside the cave, Lyon and his group listened to Lily's story. Indeed it was a story of horrors. "That brings back bad memories." The boy said. The others buzzed knowingly.
They waited through the night and slept under the crimson night sky of Suun. The only light came from the bright moon. Upon the crescent sat the Moon herself. Her red eye glowed as she search with no avail to find the keys. Her screech of frustration echoed through the valley.
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