Awareness returned in stages.
At first there was nothing but a blur of dim light, that slowly resolved itself into a star-st5udded sky that looked like nothing so much as a piece of velvet with diamonds tossed carelessly across its breadth. A thicker band of glimmering jewels, distant beyond knowing, lay across the heavens running from northeast to southwest; a band of blue and white fire, of reds and yellows and oranges and golds and other colors mixed in. The pale crescent of a moon just barely peeking up over a long line of rocky ridges did little to sully the crystalline quality of that celestial light. In fact, it may very well have enhanced it.
Then smells began to register. The acrid scent of smoke and charred flesh, the smell of blood an even more stinging flavor on the air - coppery, sickeningly sweet and saline all in once, as though either was something that could be discerned by her nose in any case. Sound came at last, the crackling of dying fires, their flickering light painting a scene that should not have been. But it was. There was simply no denying what her eyes relayed to her.
The girl-in-blue stirred. She hurt, hurt everywhere and nowhere specifically. Except maybe her head, which felt as if someone had clobbered her with an iron anvil (the truth was close - it had been a brass-bound cudgel). She reached a shaking hand to her scalp, and felt the sticky, not-quite dried blood that matted her hair, the tender spot, the lump. In truth, she should probably have been dead. She cast a prayer to any god or goddess that might care to listen at that moment, a prayer of thanksgiving for her life that should have been forfeit. Slowly, so slowly, she levered herself up, and charred timbers and broken boards clattered as they fell from her chest and arms, leaving sooty marks the her torn clothing. She had been knocked unconscious in the shadow of a wagon, its white cloth burned to ashes, its contents cast aside, thrown to the hard pan of the desert floor carelessly. Gold gleamed in the dying fires, as did precious silks and a hundred other assorted items of value. A merchant's eventual fortune, once brought to market.
As she got to her feet and stared blearily around her, she shook her head. Not going to market, this, she thought to herself. The corpses of the caravan guards lay where they had fallen, undisturbed by the carrion crows, jackals, or buzzards as of yet. It was too deep in the night, and much of the desert wildlife still retained a healthy fear of fire. She sighed, emitting a plume of steam as she breathed out. The cold should have touched her, but it did not, not really. She had long ago become accustomed to the harsh difference in the desert by day and by night - between cooking in her own juices and freezing to death. It was something of a cosmic joke that any such place could exist in all the world, but they were surprisingly common.
Luna sighed. It was soundless, a gesture more than anything else. She searched around where she had fallen, and found her staff. She blinked at the long bloody gash on her forearm that had already scabbed over, and shook her head. She could remember virtually nothing of what happened, yet anyway. All she knew is that they had been set upon.
But it wasn't bandits. Bandits would have taken everything of value. If she remembered nothing else, she would never forget the thoroughness of their search and their absolute merciless approach to dealing with the the master of the caravan, his guards, and his family. She didn't honestly know why she was still alive, except from some absurd oversight on their part.
The thing of it was, they knew what they were searching for, and that was all they were interested in. She tried to recall a memory of who they were, how many they were, what they looked like. All she was able to conjure was a series of confused images, men on horseback, men wearing concealing clothing, using high quality weapons, cutting down the caravan guards - surly lot though they were - as if dispatching craven animals, and no more. Very well trained, and very methodical.
Why?
And then she noticed what she herself was missing. The necklace, the chain forged of mithril and the stone upon it of condensed magic, was missing. She felt a bleakness enter her, and knew that whatever else they might have taken, that was certainly amongst their prizes. But, small comfort though it was, it wasn't their main target.
Small comfort indeed.
She looked out across the rock studded pan, the dun surface painted silver by the pale sliver of moon, and then looked off towards the ridges. Smoke rose in a thin plume over the remains of the caravan - a half dozen wages with seventeen bodies laying about in various poses of death.
Why, oh why, does trouble seek me out, and not someone else? she wondered wearily. She want back to her resting place, pointedly avoiding looking at the corpses near to hand, and searched through the detritus with no real hope of finding her mother's gift.
