A life like a fly

Alya found herself back in the garden, she was still sitting in the grass. Her blue eye was closed, yet she started to see. The blue lights appeared in her vision, big and small fires in the hundreds spread around her, many of them moving.

A large number gathered at the noise. The large mass of light made counting impossible, but some of the lights caught her attention. They had different shades of blue, some were even closer to purple or green. One of them burned brighter than the rest.

"Souls?" Alya kept looking.

A man laughed impishly, "Oh, hello there."

Alya turned around to see to large fires in front of her. She carefully opened her right hand. Two men in leather armor armed with short swords stood before her in the garden. They towered above her. Brown skin, brown hair, brown eyes. "Slaves." Alya scorned.

"What'cha think?" The smaller of the two turned to his companion. They looked at the legless woman sitting in the dirt.

"Worth it." The man kept a straight face and looked around, "Let's go." He approached Alya. He knelt down and looked at her eyes. He waved his hand in front of her face, "Can you see?" Alya did not blink, nor did she answer.

"Think she' blind." The man went to pick her up, "Don't struggle, now."

Alya felt cold when he picked her up. She looked calm, but her head spun. The book's stories came back to the surface. She saw a man standing inside a large arena, another layed on the ground in an alley, threatened by armored knights. A woman with two kids stood in front of a slave. A noble man handed a crown over to another noble, who wore a griffin's crest on his chest.

These memories of people empowered her feelings. But, there was no sadness in these people's minds, there was no sorrow. It burned hot in Alya's chest, a deep crimson color glowed inside her. She was filled with rage. Only one action came to mind behind her calm facade.

Alya bend her neck next to the man's. His smell drew her in like nectar. She licked her lips.

The small slave walked up front, "Where should we bring h-" He turned when he heard choking. The two had been slaves together for years. He had never seen his friend with a look of suffering or exhaustion. They had always worked hard, so they or their children could someday live in peace. And yet, this same man fell to his knees. The woman in his hands gripped the man's neck. Somehow, the skin around her hand had turned black. He was not suffocating, he was simply dying. The light left his eyes in a matter of seconds.

He had never seen magic like this, the slave could only watch in awe. Was he also in danger? The black-haired woman had folded her arm around around the dead man's neck and rubbed her hand along his face. Then, abrubtly she turned her head halfway. She lifted her arm and unfolded her hand, revealing her palm. A human eye with a light blue iris. Coldly, it watched the man standing there.

Hairs stood up on his neck, something ran along his spine. He stepped back. He realized quickly, she had no legs, "If I get lucky..." He turned around and ran for his life. He had abandoned his only friend, he had run away from fighting a woman in close quarters. But his life was more important than honor, the latter could always be regained.

Alya crawled through the garden and lifted herself onto a bench. She took out the book and started scroll through the first few pages. In theory, she could understand a large part of the first page. Rather, she could understand the overarching emotion and similarities in situation of the memories hidden in the first page. The same could be said of two other pages. The later page of the blue eye and a new one, the fifth. Along with these new feelings and memories, she understood the power of the book. It was a magic tome, just like the ones in school, but written with emotion.

All magic was described and written down in the ancient language. No one could read it, since no symbol ever meant the same thing, but the scriptures could be understood with experience. If one truly tried, they could live life as they read the tomes and sometimes learn these spells.

Common types of magic were easily understood even by commoners, that was were the term had been derived from. Just by doing a certain thing multiple times, one could develop a spell. Simple things as starting fires used to amaze Alya as a child.

The path to learn a spell could never be replicated, there was a certain emotional understanding tied to magic, which made teaching spells with multiple effects impossible if it were not for the tomes. They used vague pictures and symbols to present a direction. Alya had chosen the tome of Archery, recognizable by the green leather cover and the arrow facing upwards printed on the front.

The exact way of creating new magic tomes was unclear, but whenever a new one was made, the creator often used symbols he had seen before or tried to describe the spell in different pictures. Many spells were never learned, most of the newest tomes had tons of spells, that were simply not understandable by the symbols. Schools used collections of spells that were known to be understood and thereby learned by most people. Even those books took time and creativity to learn. Alya still knew the spells she had learned, but she had no bow and did not know where she would even go to find one.

For a second she wanted to search for her family and live with them again. A moment later she decided it would be of no use. There were no parents to look for, she had lost them in the darkness.