Lucia the Crystal Scythe

Bodyguard to Lady Leiling of Andi Mone.

## Overhead

“That guard of yours...where is she from?”

“Hmm? Oh, Lucia? From far off. She was picked up on a derelict in the outskirts of Andi Mone. Everyone on board was massacred. It was a massive colonization vessel everyone had come across a strange disease traveling in the outer rim. Everyone had petrified, zombified. Everyone save little Lucia.”

“Little Lucia?”

“She was just a girl then. Barely twelve. She survived. She cut them down. All of them. When a fishing boat found her, she was sitting on the main deck, stained in blood. She made her way across the sky. I came across her when she was traveling through the Inner core, and retained her service indefinitely. She has been the best bodyguard I have ever had.”

## Excerpt from Lucia’s Journals

I heard her tell my story and it made me feel cold. I am more than a tool. I am more than a survivor. I am alone in these skies. I was not born here.

I was born in a flat land that stretched in all directions. It felt like a different world, even. I grew up on a farm with my family. We all had to help out. All had to work hard, defend the farm from the animals and monsters that lived in the forest beyond our land.

My curse developed when I was nine. Crystal grew where I touched. It exploded out of me. I had to run away from home, to keep them safe. I met others on the road, others with strange curses. We made our way through the land, cutting north through the great cities. We met more cursed people, others like us with strange powers.

After a year on the road, my friends and I reached the eastern edge of the continent. We became embroiled in a civil war. My two friends, the first two I had met on my journey, they crossed the sea with me to the eastern island of Jaren, where we had been told the curses originated from. We found our answer. We found the Observer.

Our questions were met with laughter. Our hopes and dreams were shattered. We crumbled. We were devastated. But more than that, we had entertained the Observer along the way. We were still valuable. We tried to rebel, to fight this god in man's shape. We were picked up and tossed through space and time.

I landed in these skies. I was a stowaway. Then I became a survivor. I became a pirate. I became a retainer and bodyguard.

## The Crystal Scythe

She woke with blood on her hands. Her scythe's blade was buried in the man's guts. His entrails were slowly pushing out of the gaping wound her weapon had made. Blood glistened along the crystalline edge shed honed to a glimmering razor sharp line.

"Lucia, where are you?"

Lucia heard her associate calling her from the next room. She could not look away from the man dying in front of her. The thick red blood dripped along her weapn's blade.

With a stiff yank, she dislodged her scythe's tip. The man gave a final shudder as his grasping arms fell limp at his sides. Lucia tugged her weapon free, slopping more of the man's viscera onto the floor. She gave the her crystal scythe a spin, cleaning her blade, splattering a trail of crimson.

"Lucia! Come to me! We have to get moving if I'm to make it to our soirée.

She turned away from the fresh corpse. Lucia felt less and less as she served her mistress. Her heels clicked on the manor floor as she moved to meet her mistress.

"What took you so long? A minor inconvenience, no doubt. Has it been dealt with?"

Lucia nodded. Her obedience was perfect.