[IP] Childhood

...

"Haha! You are vanquished!" The girl shouted as she set her boot down on her brother's chest, raising her arms up to the air. "I, the great Battlemage have defeated you! Bow before me, oh Black-Sword of the West!"

"Gaa..." Beneath her foot, the youth trapped under misfitting leather squirmed in dramatic fashion. "I am deeeeeead." The boy groaned. "Gaaaaa..." throwing out his tongue, he wheezed one final huff and spasm before falling limp in the dirt. "I have died." He gurgled.

"Eliot! You're ruining it!" Removing her foot, the young girl poked her brother with the make-shift staff in her gloved hands. "The Black Knight would never act that way! He would be much less dramatic!"

"Well how would you know Lilly?" The boy grumbled from the ground, "You've never met him!"

"I... Well!" Lilly stepped back with an instant of uncertainty as Eliot pulled himself back to his feet, retrieving his wooden. "Maybe I haven't- but Lady Sandra has! She said the Black Knight was very serious, and grim!"

"That mage woman? There's no way she's met him." Eliot dusted off his shirt with an uncomfortable expression. "Besides, Pa told you not to talk to her anymore Lilly. The local soldiers all say she's nothing but trouble."

"Only the Church Guards! And that's just because she's one of the Queen's followers." Lilly stood proudly, waving her staff towards the sky. "She's a Royal guard, and she knows all sorts of magic!"

"Royal Guard... What does that have to do with anything?" Eliot mumbled, eyes downcast. "Pa says-"

"Pa says a lot of things, but everyone knows that the Church doesn't like the Queen. Some say they've even tried to take her throne." Lilly continued, spinning about as she jumped from fallen brick to stone with quick hops. "So of course the Church Soldiers don't like her!" She stopped, balancing with a steady foot on what might have once been a building's pillar. "You should come with me today Eliot. Sandra's amazing, she's teaching me magic and she told me some of her companions will be arriving soon."

"I don't know..." Eliot replied, bashfully. "We should be heading home soon, Pa doesn't like it if we're not home before dark." Watching the growing shadows beside the pillars of the ruined village, he shivered slightly. "They say there are still ghouls that come out at night."

"Oh, don't be such a gobbly-gook Eliot! I thought you said you wanted to be Knight when you get older." Lilly turned about and pointed her staff towards him with a mockery of menace. "That means you need to be brave."

"Hey, I'm brave!" Eliot retorted, jumping to point his wooden sword back at her. "I'm just cautious, is all! Pa told me I have make sure nothing happens to you." Chest swelled with pride, he shouldered his weapon and thumped his chest with a fist. "He said it's my job to keep you out of trouble."

"Trouble?" Lilly's grin from beneath her hood turned devious, Eliot's own falling into a frown. A familiar look, that brought with it the uncomfortable certainty of unpleasant actions to follow. "Me, in trouble?"

"Oh no. Wait Lilly-" Eliot forced the words out, but it was already too late. That terrible grin had turned into a wide smile.

"Then you better follow quick!" His sister shouted, jumping off the rock-perch and sprinting off; forcing Eliot to give chase after her with panicked yelps as they ran through the wreckage, towards the wall. Over top the white bricks, the sun was already setting on the manmade horizon.

"We'll never get home on time Lilly!" Eliot tried to shout reason as he followed his sister's hooded form through the practiced twists and turns of the now-ruined streets. "Pa will be angry!"

"So what!" He heard Lilly shout aloud, "Sandra is teaching me Magic! I'll go without supper five nights a week if I can learn that!" As they left the village's final border, leaping through the rough wood of a broken fence to sprint along the dirt path towards the looming figure of white stone, Eliot finally found his stride, gaining ground at a steady pace.

"Lilly!" He shouted. "Lilly! It's going to get dark, we need to go home!" So caught up with the chase, he barely managed to stop in time as his sister came to a sudden halt, boots skidding along the dirt road. "Lilly?" He asked, uncertain as she raised her hand.

"Hold on Eliot... There's something there." Lowering her hood, matching brown and blondish hair to Eliot's own fell into the light of dusk, blue eyes staring straight ahead at the final bend in the road before it lead towards the Great Wall, and the encampments beside it. "Do you hear that?"

"What are you... talking..." Uncertain, Eliot stood beside her, peering ahead as he watched and listened. Trees along either side of the path seemed to rustle with the wind, calls of birds seemed far off and distant, and if he squinted, Eliot was certain a single bat had already taken to the dimming sky in search of a meal. "I don't see anything-"

"Shh!" His sister's hand rushed to cover his mouth. "Something's there."

"Lilly, nothing is..." Eliot stopped, as a branch snapped. Not ahead of them as he'd been looking, but beside them, in the forest to their right. Then came the voice: A tone all too familiar, the likes of which frozen both of them up with true fright, fixing their feet in place with terror. "Oh light."

"Graaaaaaaaa..." A sorrowful voice moaned, awful tone hoarse and deep from bloated lungs. More branches and underbrush shifted, leaves and dried shrubs parted by thick and heavy steps.

"Oh light, oh gods. Lilly, we need to go." Eliot grabbed at his sister's arm with panic, eyes widening at the sight emerging from the underbrush. "Come on Lilly!" He shouted, pulling her forward with his moving steps.

"Graaaaa..." In front of them another set of steps and horrid calls lifted up, and Eliot prayed to light and heavens and gods above: There was more than one.

"Lilly! Run!" He dragged her along, steps picking up at no-unsteady gait to sprint along further. Towards the wall, towards the camp: There were soldiers there, Queen's people or otherwise. If they could get to the camp, they would be protected.

"No, I'm tired of running." Lilly slowed, turning back towards the slow lumbering steps of their pursuers. Eliot watched in uncertain terror his sister raised her staff with a menacing hiss. "Pa's a coward, you're a coward, the villagers are cowards: but I'm not. Not anymore"

"Lilly?" Eliot released his grip on her arm, palms already slick with sweat as they fumbled with the small wooden sword. "What are you doing? We need to go, you know what they can do!"

"No, you need to go. I'm going to kill them." His sister replied, eyes dead set on the closest stumbling figure. Eliot watched on as it lurched forward towards them, speed increased to a slow walking pace as it breached the road's threshold with sunken and blackened eyes.

"We need to go!" Eliot repeated, voice quivering. "It's a ghoul Lilly! We can't fight that, that's what soldiers are for!"

"Not we- you can't fight it, don't lump me in with that. Lady Sandra has been teaching me magic." Lilly raised her staff higher. "I'm not afraid."

"Lilly, are you mad?" Eliot watched in horror as the creature stumbled forward and closer. It bore rusted armor and chain mail, both now visibly corrupted by the dark swirls of rot and evil in its flesh. From the barely visible symbols in the dying light, he knew it been a Holy Soldier, and it towered over them. A monstrous ghoul, or a once monstrous soldier. His knees shook, his throat caught, and his chest beat faster and faster still. "Lilly-"

"Watch this." His sister whispered, lifting her staff up from the ground with a sudden lunging step- launching a white-hot glow of something almost too quick for Eliot's eyes to follow, before whatever it was smashed hard and heavy into the ghouls chest with a loud crash. The ghoul tumbled backwards, arms and legs flailing in vain as it smacked against the dirt road. "That's magic." Lilly turned toward him with a wide grin. "See?"

"Graaaa..." She turned back, just as the second lurching figure reached the crumpled form of the first, prompting her again.

"Ha!" Lilly shouted, throwing another blast of white and blue to smack with a harsh impact upon the creature's shoulder, spinning it in a clumsy stumble- but not dropping it as the first. "HA!" Lilly tried again, this time twacking the creature 's head, but the blow glanced off a thick helm of Holy-steel, faint glimmer of the immaculate polish still aglow in the last light of sun.

"Lilly!" Eliot shouted in panic. "It's not working!"

"Shut up Eliot!" Lilly growled, stepping back and readying herself one more time. "If a magic missile won't work, then how about this?" Her staff raised up, glowing and smoldering with warmth as it collected. Panting with exhaustion, like she had been carrying some great weight, Lilly threw it forward with a shout: "Fire!"

The eruption of flame flew forward, as if an entire campfire had lifted itself through the air to crash into the ghoul with a ferocious vengeance, engulfing it. Within seconds, the slow steps fell flat, and crumbled to the ground, nothing more than ashes, metal and dust.

"Ha... Told... You..." Lilly muttered, wide grin on her face barely faltering before she too tumbled to the ground. Throwing aside his sword, Eliot grabbed her just as her body went limp.

"Lilly!" Eliot shouted in panic, trying in vain to lift her from the ground. "Lilly, get up!" Throwing aside his wooden sword, he tried to heave her onto his back. "Oh no... Oh no." He muttered in a panic. The sun was past evening now, and darkness was creeping in along the forest.

A Forest now filled with the sounds of cracking branches, and distant howling groans.

"Graaaaa..." Eliot turned just in time to see the first ghoul his Sister had hit, slowly pull itself back off of the ground, dark eye sockets smoldering like distant coals. "Graaaaa..." it began to press towards them, yet again.

"Oh no, oh no." Eliot pulled his sister further onto his back, trying his best to move with her added weight. "No, no no." He whispered in a panic as his legs began to move quicker and quicker. To the wall, he knew they had to go to the wall. The soldiers there would protect them, surely!

"Graaaa!" In front of him, another figure stumbled up onto the road, cutting off his path. "Graa!" another burst out of the bushes beside him.

"Help!" Eliot screamed, turning foot to run back just narrowly avoid a grasping set of arms. "Help!" As the ghouls closed in, Eliot tried to run back the way he came, but there were more! More and more of them, and entire flock of Ghouls had come to investigate the commotion, each with hungry stares and reaching hands of bone and sinnow. "Someone help!"

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP

Ghouls were thrown, flung airborne and smashed beneath a thick frame of glowing eyes and rumbling growls. Thunder stuck and cracked, ripping through the through the air, as fire spit and corpses dropped heavily into the brush and dirt before Eliot's dumbstruck eyes. A loud series of "slams" soon followed, as three figures stepped out onto the road, forms shadowed by the contrast of the glowing eyes behind him, and Eliot dropped to the ground in complete and utter horror.

Finally, one of them spoke.

"Well, well, well... It looks to me like you kids have seen some serious shit." A man spoke while twirling a menacing looking longsword, before ramming it into the nearest Ghoul's skull. "Couple of badasses, don't you think Joe?"

"Are you kidding? Rob, just look at them- they're terrified." An irritated voice replied, smaller figure raising their arm in the glowing light to point afar. "Ah, Eron, there's another to your left."

"Indeed." The largest man responded, open hand seeking in motion towards another ghoul with a burst of blue fire, which quickly engulfed the approaching monster in flames. As the creature crumpled to the ground with a hissing burst of steam and ashes stepping towards them cautiously before crouching down at eye level with Eliot.

"Hey there, kid. Listen, we're not going to hurt you or the girl, but I do need to ask a favor." Shadowed by the contrast, Eliot could only see the faintest reflection of specticles and frame on the face which stared at him. "Tell me, do you know where the nearest Royal encampment is? We have some business there."

Eliot nodded slowly, his nose and eyes dripping with snot and tears as he squinted into the bright light of rumble eyes that loomed behind the man in front of him.

"Great." The man smiled, free hand fixing his glasses as he patted Eliot's shoulder lightly and turned back towards the other looming figures. "It looks like we've got ourselves a map."