A Fiery Start

“Little gnome, little gnome, don’t cry. It’s over now, it’s all over.”

Fizzlespizzle flinched as the soldier put a calloused hand on his shoulder. Was it over, the gnome thought to himself as he blew his nose, or was it only beginning? The soldier gazed sympathetically, as if knowing that it really was the latter.

Fizzlespizzle looked up after rubbing his nose once more for good measure to see the princess picking her way through the remains of the carriage. She really was beautiful, he thought. The gnome remembered that fateful day when she summoned him from his old life of mining the depths of their city, into this world of danger. The soldier, following his gaze, mumbled, “to think it was him all along.”

“M’lady, please, you may burn yourself,” cried a soldier as the princess crumbled on the charred remains, but he was ignored. Fizzlespizzle looked on as the princess clutched her lover’s burnt and shot body, as if daring the winds and the rains to pry it from her grip.

Meanwhile the fae, her wrists bound once again behind her back and guarded in the corner of the clearing by two soldiers, gazed at the scene with the patience of one who knows too much and has lived too long. She knew that this was only the beginning of their journey to the dark city.