'Til Kingdom Comes - The Banished Prince Vol 2: Here Comes The Witches

Farah - The Firestarter

"I wonder how this winter is going to be with the group I'm travelling with. Imelda could conjure up ice and coldness around her which would not be any benefits during the winter and Farah is able to conjure up flames on her fingertips."

"I wondered if Farah played a part during the winter seasons since it is cold and wet all around, and besides making fire, she is able to heal through heat as well. That's what she did to my broken ribs when they first found me."

Andy turned around and watched Farah walking along, with a bundle of possessions ties at the end of a stick as she gingerly walked and kicked at the clumps of dead leaves that had fallen on the ground, indicating that it is already the start of autumn.

"Hi Farah, could I ask some questions about your special abilities, I mean besides lighting up campfires as well as smelt the minerals that Michael had brought up from the surface, what other uses would it be if it comes to winter?"

Andy queried Farah as he was curious in the other abilities and uses for Farah as a Fire Starter in the Pagan. Farah was just a few years his senior and was also quite close with Imelda - The Ice Manipulator.

"Oh... I could do this, to light our way if we don't ever need to travel at night under no moonlight." Farah snapped her fingers and a small flame danced on her forefinger's tip. That small reddish flame suddenly flared and became an intense bright white light.

It was as if her fingertip was like a wizard's wand and the intense bright white light was able to illuminate a wide area in the dark. "Here, touch it. It's not hot. This is a cold fire." as Farah reached out and Andy touched the tip of the bright white light and all he could feel was a buzzing sensation.

There were no signs of heat which means that it would not cause anything that she touched ablaze. He was astonished at her abilities and thought it was rather cool.

She snapped her fingers to snuff the bright intense light and then rubbed her hands together and thus made her palm looked red. "This was used to heal you back then, Andy. It unclogs the blood vessels that had burst and appears under the skin and partly heals you with the aid of herbs gathered by Hendry."

Farah added and she continued walking ahead and held the stick that was secured to a bundle of possessions that she had placed under her arm when she showed Andy the small demonstrations.

"Other than that, with the help of Earl, we could take shelter under a cave or an overhanging shelter. There's nothing I could do about the weather and the only thing I could do was to make everyone feel warm in cold situations."

"I see... Well, one more question, Farah. What do you expect in the settlement up ahead? We won't know who they are and what they were doing despite having lots of abandoned settlements and villages and yet this settlement seems to sprout in the middle of nowhere."

"I heard you spoke to yourself and said 'Come What May and let God be the decision-maker', so we let the Creator decides what's our future and destiny would be then. We can't know for certain and one thing we would not like is to be rejected and humiliated like the rest of the villages that we had gone through."

What Farah mentioned was true, the Pagans had been through a lot of hard times lately ever since they had been awakened with special abilities. They were looked down, scorned upon as well as being called names and such.

Some were pelted with rotten tomatoes while the men were pelted with stones. They had decided not to serve the community as they find that these people don't appreciate their services at all.

Presently at this moment, the farmers were having a leisurely time since their wages almost quadruple since the 'Great Pestilence' and the 'Hundred Years War'. They worked the farms at their own free time in the mornings and would stop to rest right after midday.

The farmers don't require to plot new farmlands and make do with what they have on hand and the landowners were mostly left to their devices as they depended on these farmers to toil the lands.

These farmers were not obliged to pay the services of the Pagan to make the land more fertile, to irrigate them nor to make their crops healthy. These farmers would not even plant the seeds of wheat or grains in an orderly manner and would throw the seeds in the air and let it being blown and scattered by the winds.

Such careless and carefree attitude of those farmers made the Pagan shun away since all these farmers were thinking was the weekly wages they will get from the landowners.

Before the farmers had this windfall from the landowners, these Pagan were considered as a boon for them if the latter comes visiting. They would be recommended to the landowners to help fertile the land by performing rites and blessings.

Even Walter was having a time of his life when he was able to work together with Earl to make wells nearby their farmlands and livestock areas.

But now, it was all in the past. Now people shun away from them like that were a kind of bubonic plague and the sight of them made the residents rushed into their homes and shut their doors and windows tight.

Ah yes, the bubonic plague that haunted the lives of many within England when it hit. Started somewhere in June 1348, the first known case in England was a seaman who arrived at Weymouth, Dorset, from Gascony.

By autumn, the plague had reached London, and by summer 1349 it covered the entire country, before dying down by December. It was a chaotic time when the Great Pestilence and the Hundred Years War coincide with one another a few years after it started.

Victims infected with the bubonic plague would only survive within 2 to 9 days once they contracted the disease. That's the reason why residents would flee to their homes when they see the Pagans dressed in black.

To them, wearing all black was like Death itself since the clergy treating the patients before wore mask with beak-like features.

Andy felt that there would be others who were bestowed with special abilities and not accursed like what most of the public was perceiving. He hoped one day that there would be more members with special abilities joining them.

=*=

The group walked until they reached Burghbrig and noticed it was just as abandoned as the rest of the settlement and villages. (Today, Census shows the population has peaked into more than 3,000 residents)

It was a disappointing sight since the village looked well developed with a stone bridge and all. There were even some stones about 15 feet or higher set aside the area as part of the marker. However, how well the village may look like, it was in a sorry state as there were plenty of dilapidated houses amidst the area.

=*=

Andy remembered the time when Farah had narrated how she got her powers and it came all of a sudden during the time she was helping her father at the mines. Actually not inside the mines but she was hauling the ores into the wagon and was keeping track of the load.

Her father was a foreman that time and was on top of the wagon, with the reins in his hands as Farah counted the last pungkis or scooping basket to be loaded into the wagon when suddenly there was an earth shattering explosion inside one of the mines.

The blast shook the earth and debris and smoke was purged out from the entrance of the mines, startling the horses around. Her father lost control of the wagon, lost his balance and fell. Right at the sides of the wagon.

The horse suddenly veered to the side and rolled away with the wagon. As the wheels turned, it inevitably rolled over one of her father's legs, crushing the bones, splintering it into many pieces.

Her father soon fell unconscious due to the extreme trauma and Farah tried to pull her father to safety. As her father was the foreman, he would definitely carry a huge sum of coins in a pouch around his waist.

During that confusion, someone rendered his 'help' but during that process, he tried to unsnag the pouch that was securely tied around her father's waist. Farah saw and intervened but she was manhandled instead and thrown to the ground.

"I would shut my mouth if I were you. Know what's good for you and also for me. Do you want to save your father, lassie?" the man hissed at her as he stubbornly tried to untie the coin pouch in which he finally did.

"Let go of that pouch...! It doesn't belong to you but to the rest of the workers...! It's their salary and don't take it away from my father. Help my father and we will reward you...!" Farah was tearing up and pleading with the man as she clambered towards the man and held on to his hands that was clutching the coin pouch.

"Let go of that coin pouch... HELP MY FATHER...!" she hollered but the man managed to slip the coin pouch inside his tunic as Farah stubbornly held on.

Suddenly, the temperature around Farah, her father and the man spiked and the air was suddenly felt parched and dry, suffocating and it hurts every breath the men took.

Farah's hands began to glow an intense red and then became a blistering white light. Her hair that was tied in a ponytail suddenly unruffled and rose in the air, like serpents of Medusa. She didn't let go of her hands on the man's wrists and he began to scream, wail and shriek in horror and in pain.

Farah didn't know what was happening but all she could see was hatred and determination to get back what belonged to her father. The man before her kept wailing and shrieking as if the world's coming to an end and without Farah's knowledge and intent, the intense blistering white light enveloped the man.

"Control your temper, my child. Run... Run as far as you can...!" a feeble voice croaked beside her. She looked at the state of her father who was lying on the ground literally with one leg that was bent out of shape.

The man, who was enveloped by the blistering white light, began to literally melt away in that intense heat. He was L-I-T-E-R-A-L-L-Y melting away like hot wax from a candle...!

His shrieks slowly wailed away until there were no more sounds emitting from him.

The rest of the rushing miners and helpers didn't notice what had transpired before the man melted away but the person who witnessed that part was Farah's father. Fearing for his daughter's safety, he insisted that she run away and cower for safety.

Farah couldn't believe her own eyes at what happened as she hugged her father and kissed his hands. "Go, my child. Remember to control your temper. It would do more good than harm. Harvest your new abilities, my one and only daughter. Now go... Run before anyone finds out..."

"Father....." Farah was reluctant to leave but she managed to rise in her feet and called for medical assistance to render to her father first. She then hid among the wagons as she watched her father being stretchered away and brought to the infirmary that was close by.

That's the last vision she had of her father and that was nearly two years ago. Now she had gotten a new identity and slowly she began to progress on, living in the future as she tried to forget the horrid past.

That was also a secret that she had kept buried deep inside her. A dark secret that she had taken the life of a man. How she wished she had her father beside her — his only precious jewel, watching her grow up and get married and bear him grandchildren.

But alas, fate had brought her together with the Pagan and even though she had a smile on her face and was laughing on the outside, no one would be able to know what she felt inside and the yearning on how she could meet her father once again.