Visions
The figures moved in a slow procession, almost like a funeral march. At the front was a raven haired girl with her head downcast and sobbing. She was young and beautiful, only about the age of twenty or so. Veive. Behind her walked a stern man with his arm about a beautiful woman with wavy hair that reached the small of her back. Her cheeks were tear stained as she gazed at the back of the girl in front of her, but her eyes had hardened into a stern gaze filled with sadness and disappointment. To the side was a girl with features mirroring Veive's, but where Veive was fragile and fair this girl was slightly more robust and healthy looking. The rest faded into a large mass of townsfolk as they neared the jetty.
Veive stared in disbelief as she watched the people gather, only daring for a second to glance at the amused expression on Cassandra's face before looking back at the crowd. Her eyes drifted over the somber figure at the front, an older version of her current state with dark hair and who was entirely human. Next her eyes fell on the three figures behind the past-Veive. Tears welled up as she looked at her twin, Anala, who stood so rigid. It was unnatural for her, Veive recalled, as she was a fluid dancer, so graceful in every movement. The tears dried almost instantly as her gaze moved to the forms of her parents. Neither showed much emotion for what they knew was about to happen, and all at once the words her mother were about to speak came rushing back to her.
"I can't believe I raised you." The figure said slowly, eyes slowly narrowing. "I gave you so many opportunities that I never had and this is your fate. Well and deserved. You never did try hard enough."
A single tear leaked from Veive's eye and she quickly wiped it away, even as she watched the specter of herself do the same. Turning her head to Cassandra's watchful eye she calmed herself enough to ask "What point do you have in showing me this hag? You already destroyed my life once." In response, all she got was serene nod in the direction of the scene and a knowing smile.
A robed figure stepped forward from the crowd and grabbed Veive's arm, half-dragging her out onto the jetty. A member of the Council by the marking on his indigo robe. He made some long elegant speech that the waves droned out but Veive could understand every word of him damming her to an eternal suffering for her serious mistake of not only conversing with a monster but luring her so close to the village and accepting a demonic gift of power. For this, she would die. Before anyone could try to reverse the sentence a glint of silver appeared at his sleeve as he withdrew a dagger and slit her throat in one fluid motion. The final sting to her, killing her by slicing the throat that produced her greatest pride...her voice.
As the body fell limp into the sea, the village people drifted off, pleased with seeing justice done. Only a handful stayed behind, Anala among them, to watch the body drifting on the waves, refusing to sink from sight like it should be. Veive's eyes were riveted on her sister but a slight cough from Cassandra redirected her attention to the bodies on the surf as her sister turned away. Bodies? No...only Veive had died that day.
Running out onto the jetty, paying no head to the ghosts of her past life, Veive stared in disbelief at the aged corpse beside her own. Cassandra's corpse.