Arrival of a Nightmare

“Get lost you Nightmare!” A distinct man’s voice hollers, towering over the girl who looked up dumbly at him. The girl was small for her age, and that much was obvious. She was quit petite. Her face was almost fae like so it was no wonder the man was accusing her of being a Nightmare.

The girl huffs and pulls herself up from the dirt, wrinkling a cute little nose at the dirty gypsy man. The girl violently builds herself up, trying to make herself look bigger over the span of . . . at least two minutes. In that time span of course the much older gypsy crosses his arms over his chest and instantly looks twenty times bigger. Finding herself defeated the girl slumps, peering at the man from behind a curtain of pitch black bangs and a fringe of long eyelashes.

“Must you be rid of me . . .?” The girl asks her voice soft and like the tinkling of little bells. The man merely nods and sticks out a stubby finger to the wagon that waited beyond the edge of the Gypsy encampment. She turns a pair of green, twinkling orbs on the man one last time but she is greeted with another shake of the head and yet another pointing finger.

Defeated she spins on her bare feet, bells attached to her ankles. The pixie like girl tinkles her way to the wagon and as she mounts the back step she casts one last glance to the place she had called . . . home.

“Bah . . . I never needed them . . .” She says, suddenly gripping the wagon as it lurched from its place to move forward, toward the city of Eldarus. In her wake a breeze brushes the gypsy man’s cheeks free of the guilty warm tears.



Hours. It had taken hours—No days! To finally get to Eldarus. The girl had been driven through the woods by an elderly gypsy whose tongue had been cut out many moons ago. Conversation was out of the question so sleep had been a pretty good option.

A heavy hand grabbing a hold of her tunic woke her with a start. That, and the rude toss to the ground that immediately followed accompanied by a loud command to stand of course. The girl finds herself staring up at yet another man through her bangs, green eyes welling up from the scratch on her knee.

“Stand up!” He says. He was a gypsy man, like the other, from the camp. “So he finally got rid of you did he Nightmare?” He questions, grabbing her tunic to haul her to myher feet. He stank of ale and the inn just beyond the girl’s vision.

“No . . . I just decided to take a stroll and ended up here . . .” The girl responds indignantly, pushing the man away from her. He was drunk . . . obviously.

He gives her a rough shove towards the center of town. The girl curses at the man, shaking a tiny fist before turning toward the foreign city.

“Well Eldarus . . . Kira Smalt has arrived . . .” The girl says, bells tinkling as the tide rolls in with the night. As the darkness folds over the town, Kira approaches the Dark Arms Forge . . .