Shattered Moon

The sky was so blue, it was beautiful, it enchanted me every time I looked at it.

It was so infinitely vast, to it, it didn't matter what the people stuck on the ground did or wanted do, it didn't matter how much they struggled, they would never be able to completely cover it and hide its magnificence.

I looked at the birds, flying through the sky, free and unfettered as they ignored the bloodshed below them, as people risked their lives only to travel from one city to another, with the lives and happiness of many on their shoulders.

I was only 6 years old when I understood how small we humans really were, that was the day I witnessed a being so gigantic that I could only call it a titan.

A titanic beast of full black fur, eyes that reminded me of a cat's and horns all over its body from head to toes.

A fellow three times as tall as my own house while five times as long.

My house wasn't a small one, it was quite big actually, compared to average ones.

But that being still dwarfed it, thankfully it was friendly, otherwise I didn't doubt that it would have been able to snuff out mine and my father's lives just by breathing a tad more strongly than normal.

But not all creatures where that gigantic, fortunately for us.

The sounds of a sword tearing through tender flesh and the sight of my father cleaning his sword from the blood let me know that the battle had ended.

I had seen him deal with things like those many times now, but every single time I feared it would be his last fight.

"Hey Avys, everything's fine over there?" Asked the man I owed everything to with a nonchalant expression.

I wasn't his real daughter, as it could be inferred by our very different appearances, father's hair were shoulder length and often collected in a bun, they were snow white in color, meanwhile his eyes were an intense red color with specks of yellow.

He had wide shoulders and a tall frame that showed the power hidden beneath his clothes.

I was just a foundling with nowhere else to go and no one to rely on, a girl that couldn't bring any real gain to him, one that nobody else wanted, but he took me into his family anyway.

The man I came to acknowledge as my father was called Laurence Winterridge, a surname that he earned for himself by acting as a merchant between the cities of Icerock, the armored city we lived in, and Rockkeep, the nearby city and the local capital for dairy production.

Thanks to that role father became one of the most respected people in Icerock and it was all thanks to magic, my greatest love.

"Yeah dad, none of them even reached here, and even if they had I was ready."

And the reason for such respect was one and one only.

We lived in the Wild Lands, the land of the beasts and the land were only in an armored city could people survive from the onslaught of the never-ending tides of furry, feathered and disgusting creatures.

The larger the congregation of humans, the more beasts it would attract, that was common knowledge.

And for that reason most merchants would travel alone to attract as little attention from the beasts as possible.

"Good child, do you mind burying the corpses? We don't want the stench of their foul blood attracting more of them."

"No problem dad." I replied, I liked this about father, whenever he asked me to do something he would explain his reasons thoroughly, on the other hand, long ago mother told me to do things just because she said so, which lead to me not having the motivation to carry on her orders.

Father was different, he rarely tells me to do things during these journeys across the Wild Land, but when he does, it is mostly to deal with the aftermath of an encounter with one or multiple beasts, like right now, or telling me to behave.

I close my eyes and concentrate on feeling the energy deep inside my head.

I can feel it, deep into my skull a source of energy that permitted people like me to create what many would consider miracles.

I will the energy to leave my body to approach the ground below the two beasts corpses and in an instant, they are swallowed by the earth.

"Doesn't matter how many times I see it, you're really amazing Avys, you're so young and you can already such things, but I bet I can still teach you something." he said as he patted my steel grey head with a grin on his face, I liked it when he did that, it reminded me of mother.

"What?"

"Well, look at this." He said as he closed his palms together and the moment he opened them, a butterfly made of water stood inside.

"Wow, how do I do that?"

"That, Avys, will be the assignment I'm giving you to research on."

It's a few years since I started accompanying father on his job, before we started he was really against me going with him, so I had to use every weapon in my arsenal to convince him.

From the fact that I could use magic to help him dealing with the beasts to the fact that it wasn't safe for an 8 year old little girl like me to remain alone at home for extensive periods of time.

But the real reason I wanted to go with him was that I felt lonely staying at home alone, too much silence and coming gave me a way to practice magic too as a bonus.

My body was too weak to hold a sword like father, so magic was my only method of helping him.

Magic was the power of the individual's knowledge manifested into the world as a spell, people who could cast spells were called mages.

I accidentally discovered I was a mage when I sneezed once when I was 3 and a few months, exactly one year before meeting the greatest beast I've ever seen in one of my journeys with father.

The effect of that sneeze were obvious to both me and my mother, who was still among us at the time, it caused everything around me to be sent flying away, the dining table included.

From that day on I started slowly learning how to harness my power, step by step, to help around the house at first and then beyond the walls at a later date.

"Look dad, we can see the walls from here, we're back!" I whispered to him.

No matter how close we were to the walls, we were still in enemy territory and loud sounds could attract the beasts as I learned on my own skin.

That day was probably the only time I had to actually fight to help dad against the beasts.

"Indeed, just ten more minutes and we should be there"

The ten minutes passed and we reached the four meters (13 feet) tall metallic gate that protected the entrance to Icerock.

"Open up, it's me, it's Laurence!" Shouted my father to the guards patrolling the above the gate.

"Yeah, open up!" I shouted too just to have some fun.

Now that we were near it was no longer necessary to keep our voices down, we were inside the city's magical barrier that stops sounds from reaching the beasts outside.

"Oh, hey Laurence, Avys, I'll get you in right now" shouted back the guard.

After a few seconds the gate opened and the guard, Lesley, came out to confirm our identities.

Lesley was young, around his mid twenties, medium heigh, he sported short auburn hair and a pair of deep grey eyes, as was common around here as very few had different colors, me and father being just a few such exceptions.

I had long steel gray hair that reached just above my thighs, but during our travels they were too much trouble so I arranged them in a single long and loosely tied braid that went straight down the middle of my back.

While father's eyes were red, which coincidentally respected his preference for fire magic, mine were a deep and dark blue that became a lighter and lighter shade, becoming arctic blue near the middle.

"Everything alright during your trip?" asked Lesley as he checked our documents with a magical scanner to confirm that everything went alright during the journey.

"As usual, we've only been attacked by around ten beasts in four days, mostly lone beasts, so there is nothing out of the ordinary." Answered my father.

Unfortunately, only ten beast attacks in a four day trip were an average number, but it also meant that there was nothing out of the ordinary, which was good.

Lesley sighed "We really can't thank you enough, if it weren't for merchants like you we would have probably all died long ago"

"No need to thank me, being a merchant is my vocation, knowing that I bring a bit of happiness to our people every time I return means a lot"

"You're good man, you know that, right?"

"Obviously, he's my father!" I cut in puffing my chest in pride.

"Oh yeah, we owe a lot to you too Avys, thank you for your efforts, I believe that you'll grow to become a big and strong merchant in no time at all!"

"Thanks"

"No need to be thankful Lesley, we're just doing our job."

"No, really, my little daughter really loves the different foods that you bring every time from your trips, I hope she can grow to become like you instead of just a guard like me."

"Oh come on Lesley, have more pride in yourself, that's the secret to my success, self confidence!" I told the poor twenty something year old guard.

Lesley laughed in response and thanked me.

"I bet that it's a difficult live yours, as a merchant you always have to leave Icerock to adventure inside the Wild Lands to bring back what we need to survive."

"Oh no, it's more boring than anything, we just follow the road and fight a beast a few times a day, other than that it's just waiting and even that became much more fun since I started bringing my daughter along."

"Ahah, I bet, if I could bring my daughter to play with me too my job as a sentinel would be much less monotonous too."

"Hey," I interjected, "I don't play, I killed my share of beasts too with my magic!"

"Really?" Asked the guard while looking at father in search of a confirmation, which he received after seeing my father nodding.

"You're a really amazing little girl, aren't you?"

"Did you just realize?" I replied with a cocky grin, earning me a chop on the head by my father.

"Stop trying to sound cool when you're just a little girl, if you act cocky and over confident in the Wild Lands you'll end up getting killed." he scolded with a hard expression on his face.

Too bad I didn't take his words seriously at the time.

"There is no need to worry about that when I have you around, right?"

"Sure, but I'll not always be around to keep your hand, you'll have to be independent eventually," before he turned his attention on the young guard once again, "Sorry Lesley, but there are some things that have to be addressed as soon as they pop up when raising a child."

"Oh, no worry, I should actually take notes on your methods as a more experienced father than I am."