This is a prologue to a story I am currently working on. There is context missing that would obviously be found out later in the full story but I'll give a quick summary of now.
The point of veiw is from a young girl name Lily who's father was The highest ranking knight and most loyal friend to the king. Yet a surpise attack has left the king dead and the usurper putting out a bounty on all still loyal to the old king. Leaving Lily and her father on the run and being hunted.
With every step the mud pulls you in, weighing you down. The rain has only gotten worse since yesterday and you have a day left on this trek. You feel as if you could collapse any second, but you know you can't stop now. If you give up now then all you been through, all that your father has suffered would be for nothing.
"Y-you don't want to r-rest for a little bit?" You ask him. He has been letting out small grunts and sighs of pain every few minutes. The injuries from your most recent encounter with bounty hunters has left him with a few broken ribs and some sort of rash on his left arm.
He stops abruptly almost causing you to collide with him. His glare burns through you. He doesn't need to speak, the silence says it all. He continues walking while you take a second to catch your breath. If only your mother was here she would argue for a rest. You know he won't wait up for you so you run to close the distance between the two of you. You can't stop thinking of your mom. Your father doesn't know but you sa-
"Shh." The hushed whisper snaps you back to reality. You aren't certain but you think your father just told you to shh. He has stopped in his tracks and scans the forest surrounding you. After the second encounter on this exile you have came to realize his instincts have yet to fail him.
You tense up searching side to side, scanning every tree, Bush, and log. You can't seem to see anyone but you are starting to feel it too, as If time is frozen around you. The birds don't chirp, the wind is still, and even the rain falls silently on road. The world holds her breath waiting in anticipation to see who makes the first move.
In then with a flash of lightning the sky rips open forcing time to move forward. You aren't sure if the man just appeared or if he moved faster than you could see when the lighting struck, but either way he stands now in front of your father. He is dressed in leather armor holding a sword above his head. Although time has resumed the bounty hunter remains frozen.
"Ohh-" you let slip before you catch your breath. The sight of the cut across his chest spilling his blood across the ground. You didn't even see your dad reach for his blade let alone split this man open, yet his blood-soaked blade extended out is all the proof you need.
"Damn..." the man croaks before his sword falls behind him and he collapses into a pool of his blood. Your father brings his blade in front of him in a defensive stance clearly getting ready to fight. You are stuck in a trance watching the life seep out the man laid out before you. You don't think you could ever get use to the sight of death. You have gotten acquainted since the exile and yet it still has you petrified.
" LILLLLLYY Run! Get out of her-." You quickly look up swearing you could hear your mother in front of you. You are under the floor boards surrounded in darkness. With the little bit of light seeping into the cracks you see Luna Moonstrider run your mother through with his blade. Confusion and fear grasps your voice, keeping you from crying out. You peer into the darkness as you feel tears fall down your face, or perhaps its your mothers blood pouring from the floor above. After a few moments you hear luna leave the house and you quickly come out to see your mother. The life slowly draining as she weakly tries to speak.
" Lillllyy run to the forest and hide!" Your father yells without turning back to look at you. You slowly step back unable to leave your mother again. Then through the gloom of the storm a light reveals the truth. That you aren't standing in your home but in Byre forest, that you aren't leaving your mother you already left her, and that right now you need to act.
"Lily run dammit!" Your father screams once again. You realize that a fireball is mere inches away from your father. Fortunately his sword cuts through it, disenchanting the magic. Not before the heat glazes your skin, radiating fear throughout your body. You turn and run straight for the forest. You waste no time reaching the tree line and hiding in the first bush you come across.
You stand far enough from the road that you should be safe but still close enough to assess the fight. Your father is already surrounded by 3 hunters. Luna, a mage based off of his clothing, and what you assume to be a werewolf based on the stories told of them. You've never seen one before but it matches every story your father has told you. There also appears to be an illusion of you behind him. Which Dawns on you as it all begins to make sense to you. Your father being a skilled illusionist, must have cast invisibility over you when he sliced the fireball. Then created a illusion of yourself to keep the enemy ignorant of where you truly are.
You catch your breath trying to focus on a plan. You father would be more than capable of handling them all with easy, but given his exhaustion and injuries it is probably likely he will struggle with this battle. You have no real fighting skill. You never took the training with your father to heart, just another chore you had to complete. You do have magic though. When ever it was time to implement or learn magic you couldn't get enough, and your favorite was illusion magic. The possibilities were limitless like art you could create.
Now however is not training and you might be good for your age but you would still only be considered a novice practitioner. You decide to muster up the arcane energy pooled inside you to take over the illusion of yourself. Your father most feel the change and possibly planned on you doing that because he let's go of control instantly. This allows him to conserve mana focuse on the fight, and have the enemies at a disadvantage with false knowledge of the battle field.
You know luna is aware of you and your father's magical ability but your father always made it a point To hide the fact he uses illusions. Even to his allies. Which perfectly leaves luna with the belief that your father has specialized in teleportation magic, and that you know basic elemental magic. You use that to your advantage and instantly your illusion begins casting lightning strikes into the area. You mix the illusion with actual magical lighting strikes. Unfortunately you are not skilled enough to give any real power to them. The purpose is to recreate the heat and impact of actual ones so the enemies don't realize any are fake.
The ruse seems to work on Luna and the unknown mage as they jump out of the radius of the spells. The werewolf however either doesn't care or possibly thanks to its animalistic instincts can tell that it's in no harm. It takes this chance to leap towards your illusion, but your father acts instantly and kicks the hound in its ribs sending it scurrying back. You have no choice but to have your illusion act scared from the attempt and let the spell dissolve to keep the trick believable. As expected the mage and luna rush in on your father and you. The mage casts a fireball directly at your father followed by Luna hiding behind it. You secretly create the image of Luna in the flames so only your father could see effectively ending luna's hidden attack. He brings his sword down, slices the fire ball in half once again dispelling it but as his blade hits the earth he summons ice spikes outward. Luna is nearly impaled but barely manages to step back receiving only a gash in his left leg.
You know this can't continue with minor attacks. Your father won't be able to keep it up. If only he rested like you suggested, maybe he would have the strength. You decide you need to act more aggressively and stop playing support. Regardless if your father may yell at you for this, you will fight. You have your illusion rush towards the trees where you are hiding. Luna steps forth preparing to strike you down, but you summon a lighting strike right on to the illusion and cause it to vanish. You then summon another one where you wanted the illusion to go. This should appear to be a teleportation spell and shouldn't be questioned.
Now the illusion is in a position to cast stronger attack spells and still appear to be the illusion. You waste no time firing off a fire ball at the werewolf, but the wizard wastes no time summoning a wall of water to cancel out the fire. You were hoping the wolf would dodge and you could hit the tree on the other side of the road. Luckily the steam is just as good as the smoke you wanted. Your father realizes the opportunity and expands the mist with illusion to envelop the immediate area leaving the hunters blind.
Disappointingly your father didn't dispel the effects for you. Leaving you just as blind as your enemies. You know that it isn't a mistake and that he likely allowed this to discourage you from continuing to fight. You close your eyes to begin weaving through his illusion. You can see magical energy like strings. You family has a bloodline trait allowing you too. It's still must be trained and honed but it is a rare trait even among other bloodline traits. Using your fatum sight you weave through his illusion, slowly creating a opening you can see through.
When you open you eyes again the illusion is gone and so too is the head of the wolf. Your father must of attacked immediately knowing the werewolve's sense of smell and sound would make up for the loss of sight. The wizard reacts soon after casting a small tornado to absorb the mist, however the mist remaining is only a visual illusion and can only be dispelled. You watch as the tornado grows in size while the wizard frustratingly pouring more and more magic in it. You can feel the pull from here, if it gets bigger you doubt the wizard would be able to control it.
You aren't sure if your father planned for this but he seizes the opportunity to take advantage of the tornado. He pulls out 3 flasks of dragons spit. A highly flammable liquid highly expensive and rare. Fortunately your father hoards rare materials and items. Even more fortunate he grab as much as he could when you both had to flee. He then throws them towards the tornado. You watch as the flasks break and release the dragons spit.
After only a moment your father ignites the the tornado into inferno tornado. The forest lights up in a orange hue as the flames swim up the tornado. A massive wave of heat washes over you. You instinctually close your eyes and drop down. You lay still on the ground for what feels like forever trying to listen for any movement. You can feel panick set in as silence fills the forest. The inferno was huge, is it possible that your father got caught in it. You finally find the courage to look, and what was earlier lit to look like a morning sunrise has been turned to ash. Nothing is moving at all. You decide to slowly creep forward scanning what's left the trees and the road. Tears begin to sweal in your eyes as you look around. The rain quickly washing them away.
"Li-ly" you barely hear your father call out for you. When you rush to where he is at you gasp as your fears outdone. You now wish he was burnt in the fire because then you might have a chance of healing him. This is somthing you can not heal even if you noticed in time. Poison has turned his blood black. His veins show no part unscathed. His eyes are bloodshot with black veins and the rash now appears to be a crater of decay. He must of been poisoned on one of the last battles. Yet he hid it from you with his illusions.
"I'm sorry my littl- little lily." He croaks between struggles breathing. "I wish I... you didn't have to do this alone." You aren't sure if its rain but it appears as if he is crying. You have never seen him cry before and it only ensures you that this is no nightmare. The strongest person you know lies broken before you. Dying in your arms while there is nothing you can do, no one who could help.
"Please daddy don't leave. I need you please I need you." At this point the tears have became uncontrollable, your chest has tightened around your heart, and you feel as if you are about to throw up. Your father grabs your hand as he gives his final words.
"I'm sorry yo-your life might be hard for awhile, but I know you will make it." You feel his grip loosen, his strength fading. " I love you my little Lily. I'm s-so proud..." you look down and see What appears to be your fathers sword, except shrunken into a charm with a chain. You lose sight of the world as your tears blind you. The rain has finally stopped but your face remains drenched in tears
