Saiph had waved to Cuan as the kitten had headed off to conduct her own studies of the planet. It had been a little surprising that the little lykoi was so keen to accompany her up, but Saiph wasn’t about to deny her. She felt a little easier visiting when she had company.

Even if said company was off wandering through the mammoth trees.

Chuckling softly, the chibi senshi considered the ruined wooden platform hanging amongst some of the bigger branches of the trees. She’d told Almadel that she thought the people here had taken to and lived in the trees to stay safe. Now that there were growing leaves and the occasional scattered blossom she was even more convinced of her theory. But the swathes of bright mottled green made the remains of the massive platform more obvious. Bits had rotted away, crumbled. But the overall shape of the thing remained. Maybe homes couldn’t have been built on it, but something lighter? Like merchant tents? She could easily see that in her mind's eye. Homes would probably have been built into the places where the branches were thickest. Climbing the treetrunks where she could find carven hand and footholds, she thought that she really needed to get Almadel up here. She could tell him her theories and see if they were any good. Then maybe he could point her towards the bones he’d found.

A strong breeze rippled through the trees, actually pushing at her as she clung to a tree. Smaller leaves broken from their branches to swirl around her and for a moment. Deciding to err on the side of caution, she dropped down to one of the wider, more horizontal branches. Taking a seat, she tipped her head up, watching as the wind played through leaf and branch, imagining that she could see it swirling like a vortex around her.

A vortex…

Without warning, memories rushed up and jumbled distressingly. The briefest glimpse of a scornful, orange haired woman that faded into an angry vortex of energy that sought to consume and destroy a frightened boy with dreadlocks. And she knew that swell of energy intimately. It was her own magic and it was killing the boy. Locked within the memory, Saiph screamed as she heard a hissing voice whispering poison, His name was Hematite. You killed him. He died because you broke his skull and the bone pierced his brain.

Almost as suddenly as the bits of memory had risen up, they suddenly vanished, leaving behind horror and disbelief. Her magic had killed a boy. Her MAGIC had KILLED a boy! And it hadn’t even been a clean death! She could still see his body twisting in the vortex, tossed around like a discarded doll. Her stomach knotted and Saiph was forced to scramble towards the edge of the branch, retching and coughing as everything that had been in her stomach came up. By the time her guts had emptied and then some, Saiph was laying on her side, panting, tears and ribbons of snot pouring from her eyes and nose. Oh, she knew that Hematite was a Negaverse name, but that didn’t make anything any better. As she lay there, waiting for Cuan to come back so they could go home, one thought rang clearly within her soul

Her magic had murdered a boy.

Word Count = 566