Talia of the Thornlands

01 Scarlet-eyed Harbinger

...Amongst them was a child with wild curls and eyes as red as the ripest strawberries – an innocent harbinger of the great destruction to fall upon the world...

*****

Princess Talia crouched inside the ruins of a deserted hut, observing her target from the safety of her hiding spot. The cracked mud walls barely supported the weight of the collapsed thatched roof.

It was one amongst the many abandoned houses in this ghost town.

The Princess hoped that the residents of this hut had survived the onslaught of the Machines, choosing to ignore the tell-tale splotches of red that stained the floors and walls alike.

It was night time but sleep would not visit Talia.

Thornlands' second sun, Arcus, was at its highest point in the sky, imparting a faint reddish glow on the surface of the dead plains. Talia ducked her head to keep a stray sunbeam out of her deep, crystal-red eyes.

In the dimness, she could make out a faint shadow in the distance – her target was approaching.

*****

When she ran away from the village, Talia had started out with the intention of gathering information to help her people's war efforts.

What else could one girl do against these armoured monstrosities?

She spent her days tracking the Machines and noticed patterns in their movements.

She followed the tracks in the soil left by the creatures. They were unlike anything seen on the Thornlands.

The Machines moved on pseudopodia like snails but instead of muscles, their feet consisted of two rows of metallic plates that rotated around axles on either side of their bodies.

Talia also discovered that there were, in fact, two distinct types of Machines.

The quicker Aggressor type attacked, destroying all obstacles in their paths. Most Thornlanders only ever lived to see these.

The larger Gatherer types appeared on the scene after the areas were cleared by the Aggressors. These then reaped the resources from the conquered land.

Gatherers devoured wood, water and even raw ores buried deep within the soil, depleting the lands of all life while the smaller Aggressors stood guard.

Of course, it was dangerous to approach too close to the Machines.

Talia had observed them from safe distances with her ability to communicate with the Sap of Life, the essence of vitality that surrounded her planet.

She watched helplessly as town after town fell victim to the voracious appetites of these metallic abominations. Their hunger took mere hours to satiate. Once they were finished, the area would be almost completely drained of the Sap of Life.

Tali had also seen how futile it was to resist these fiends with simple human weapons. Swords and arrows barely scratched the surface of their toughened exoskeletons.

Even with the assistance of their fae allies, it was evident that the longer the wars raged, the more certain was the Machine victory.

Perhaps it was this looming threat that had urged the Thornlandian Princess to the warfront.

Dark Prophecy or otherwise, she was going to act!

*****

King Hesiod and Queen Celeana had been at the warfront since the Mechanical Wars began sixteen years ago.

They had spent the better part of their reign fighting the extraterrestrial invaders that threatened to wipe all life from their world.

The royal couple had not seen their daughter, Talia since her birth but they received regular updates on her. Lately, the war had become an all consuming effort.