00: the little girl's song

No one could see her face.

Her blood red cloak trailed behind her like a bride's veil, as she slowly stepped through the gathering crowd - axe first, her tiny legs after.

"Stars, have mercy," someone cried, and although nobody noticed, her thin lips curved sideways into a smirk.

The content of the sack she was carrying was dripping. The townspeople hushed as she stopped her descent into the Giants' Woods. Wordlessly, she flipped the sack; and as she did, a collective gasp resounded through the usually serene, silent town of Pilaplaum.

There, in the little girl's thin black sack, was a brilliant black gem, oozing the dark liquid that dripped from the centre of the town square to the little girl's boot-laden feet. The girl ... had killed their Protector.

Chaos swallowed Pilaplaum. Guns, bows, swords were unsheathed. Enraged townspeople bore down on the little girl, who was barely up to anyone's knees. The little girl let out a cheeky, derisive laugh as she dodged the first attack, not even wielding her weapon.

She could have easily escaped into the Woods at her pace; however, she stayed, whistling as she sidestepped each of the townspeople's vain attempts to take her down. Not one bullet nor blade pierced her cloak as she finally jumped up above everyone's heads. The gust of wind blew down her hood, revealing waves of long, silver hair.

With a war cry, the townspeople attempted to strike her down. Within a flash, the blood red cloak was ten feet away from the chaos, skipping happily towards the mist of the forest. A haunting, childlike voice could be heard above the people's anguished cries.

"The light be willing bend,

Darkness finds ye no foe;

The elements are friends of ye,

Ye and monsters are of one

If and only if

Find ye its stone."

A child within one of the wooden houses in Pilaplaum - safely hidden underneath his bed - finished the last sentences of the song with the girl, not knowing that because of her, he'll never see his father again.