The Druid

Nobody is certain where Lyssa came from.  She leaves no paper trails, she doesn’t seem to have any living family, and she never leaves friends.  If you were to perform a background check on her, it would look normal.  It likely says that she has a happy family, that she’s an astounding student and or worker, and she seems to be well liked in her community.  If you have the skills to dig deep you might discover scattered bytes of information, references to her past lives, her past families and friends, maybe even the last name she used if she was sloppy.  A strong, well crafted divination would reveal pieces of her past with small circles of magic that vanished from existence in a matter of months.  Any sane man would wonder where she came from, and what her intentions are when her identity is so soundly hidden from the rest of the world.  I know I sure as hell did. 

~Finis

“Lyssa, come back!” the large, dark haired man shouted.  The woman had lured him into a hedge maze, but he suspected that was only to provide him with a false sense of security.  If the woman had survived this long, had done the things he suspected she did, there was no chance that she wouldn’t know his particular abilities.  He sighed, exhaling slowly and closing his eyes, hearing the voices on the wind as the plants themselves bent to whisper of her actions to him.  She was waiting at the center.  He hesitated, almost turning to leave but deciding that if he could not defeat this hack on his own grounds then he was doomed to fall on hers.  He strode forward, determined and defiant, the plants parting for his footsteps until he reached the end of the maze.

Lyssa saw the dwarf boxes part, a grin crawling onto her face.  She was laying on her back, her head towards the man that currently pursued her and her arms spread out to her sides, tilting her chin up to look up towards the man.  "Did you like the maze mister?  I know how much you love plants.“  She saw him hesitate again, only grinning wider, stretching comfortably on the grass.  Reaching this moment overjoyed her, the peak of her efforts, the climax of this story.  The man was reluctant, but he too had fallen to the strings that bound all living beings, and in a moment he would be no more than a mere puppet, a toy for her to toss away as she became bored with him.  Toys were never any fun after they stopped working.

He had loved her like a daughter.  He still did, but he needed to know what she was.  He continued his strong stride towards her, her words like needles in his mind, laced with that all too familiar giggle.  He snapped his fingers, the hedges moving like vines to snap around her limbs and hold her on the grounds.  She squirmed a little, but her grin did not waver in the slightest.  Was she so confident he would not kill her?  It would take only a moment like this, another snap, but he dared not imagine what the brambles would do to her if he did.  He would only envision the movement of the brances, as though they were moving silently through the air, and close his eyes to the act.  He felt suddenly dizzy, falling to his knees and slowly losing control of his body.  What was this grief.  This pressure pounding at his forehead, the sudden need to hold back tears that weren’t there.  He needed to kill this girl, he knew it was so, but suddenly he lacked the energy even to snap his fingers, to finish the spell and rid the world of the nightmare that was still giggling before him.

She shivered in anticipation as the man dropped to his knees.  The man had seen through her lies, discovered pieces of what she had done to the others that had cared for her in the past, and that let her veins pulse with an energy that most humans couldn’t even imagine.  The arcane energy pulsed and she released another wave, watching the mans arms go limp in response.  The fool probably didn’t understand that he was under her spell yet.  She giggled again, snapping her fingers, the rough plantlife slowly uncoiling and returning to its place within the plants of the hedge maze.  She could feel the deep connection with nature as she manipulated this new ability, solidifying her belief in what this man was.  A druid.  Oh how she had always wanted a druid, but their tendency to avoid interaction with humans had protected them from her until now.  She stepped towards him slowly, lifting his chin to look into his almost lifeless eyes.  She sighed softly, moving down to one knee and pressing her forehead against his, feeling his body convulse as all those who succumb to her do, and slowly sapping him of his power, storing it in her reserve to replenish what she had expended to destroy what was left of his will.  "You were fun Finis, if short lived.”  Her lips pressed against his softly, draining him of what little life he had left and letting his body fall limply to the side as she stood.  She took a step over him and tried to remember the way out of the maze before shrugging, walking the same straight line that he did and parting the bushes as she took the easy way out.  Once she ran out she could always find another.

Author's Note

This is a little piece, most of what I've heard from people I've asked for feedback on is just a lack of content, which was somewhat intentional but still a mistake. I'm working on Lyssa as a villain for a larger piece.