“The Silver Souls have been on this earth for as long as man can remember. It is a creature of might and magic in the shape of man. However, do not be fooled by the stunningly beautiful exterior of these creatures, Silver Souls are dangerous and cruel beings who feed of off the energies of life, most commonly called ‘soul’....The only way to tell a Silver Soul apart from other human beings is to look at their eyes. The expression ‘the eyes are the windows to the soul’ originated from the eyes of the Silver Souls, as the frequent consumption of souls have made the color of their eyes a mixture of mercury and silver. This is the reason that these immensely beautiful but deadly creatures have the name ‘Silver Soul’, as the windows to their soul are a swirling mass of liquid silver....”

- The encyclopedia of magical myths and dangers, chapter 14, page 634.

As the woman turned around to leave was she met by the sight of the girl standing frozen on the path with her mouth wide open in shock.

A surprised expression came to the woman’s face and her mouth formed a small ‘o’ in surprise. She recovered almost immediately and gave the girl a smile that lit up her face and made her even more beautiful then she already was, and stared to walk towards the girl with determined steps. The girl had recovered so much so that she could come to the conclusion that the woman had taken that light from the man and that the man had been unwilling to give it to the woman.

The woman stopped right in front of the girl and looked down on her quite shorter frame. Now that the woman was closer to the girl, did she realise that the woman was much taller than herself, as the woman towered with a height that was more than one and half a head taller than herself. The woman opened her mouth and was just about to start to say something when the girl exclaimed

“How did you just do that?! That thing with the light I mean. That was awesome! Was that magic? Are you a magician? Where did you learn to do that? Do you usually take light from other people?”

The girl asked as many questions as she could without even taking a breath in between sentences. She continued to rapidly fire of a series of questions about everything that came to her mind, such as how come the womans hair was so silvery or how come she was in this forest and so on. The woman looked astonished at the girl in front of her and then began to laugh. Not the kind of laugh that she had before, at the man, no it was not a laugh of cruelty or mockery. It was the kind of laugh that lightened the hearts of those who were listening, full of pure uncontaminated joy.

“This is the first time that I am spoken to like this. Most people get unexplainable speech difficulties in close proximity of myself.”

She laughed a bit more but stopped as sudden as she had begun and gave the girl a thoughtful look.

“How come you speak in this language with me?”

She looked at the girl once more with a suspicious glance.

“Every mortal I have happened to come across have never spoken my tongue so clean and without accent.”

Surprised, the girl looked at the woman and answered

“Really? So all the people in this area does not speak English? *sigh* How troublesome”

The girl muttered to herself and thought that it would be very hard to communicate with other people if everyone in the surroundings spoke the same language she had heard before. It was completely incomprehensible and sounded just like a couple of children pretending to speak another language. She heard the syllables but the combination of them was completely foreign to her. Actually if she thought about it, it didn’t even sound like that, she had not heard a language that was comparable to that one. What was she to do now? It would be so much harder If she was unable to communicate with the native inhabitants. Even something as simple as trying to go shopping for groceries would be an extremely bothersome task if not an impossible task.

The girl was so busy trying to come up with a solution that she did not notice the strange expression on the womans face as the girl mentioned the word English.

“English..?”

The woman said to herself and looked a bit surprised and suspicious at the girl who was deep inside her own thoughts. A look of greed flashed though the womans eyes.

“How interesting..”

The girl turned towards the woman

“I’m sorry, my mind was somewhere else so I didn’t get that. What was it you said?”

“Oh, nothing of great importance. I was just wondering what a girl like you are doing in a place like this. This part of the woods are not for the faint of heart.”

The woman waved her hand and looked apologetic at the girl.

“Oh, I see. Well, to answer your question the thing that brought me here was a wish of some kind”

The girl answered. She did not want to tell the woman the specifics of where she came from. Who knows what someone with the capabilities to preform magic would do with such information.

“A wish brought you here? That must have been one powerful wish, to take you this far in to the depths of the Forest of Redemption.”

The woman said with a smile.

She actually believed me?! The girl thought. Is she an idiot? The girl looked at the woman with pity in her eyes. She felt bad for tricking the woman but it is common sense to not reveal that much about yourself to someone who is a complete stranger.

As if the woman read the girl's mind she exclaimed

“Oh, my. How rude of me. I forgot to introduce myself. My name is…