Blood Vines

In a remote clearing in the forest, a scream sliced through the silence.

"I can't do it! I can't!" Mi'an grasped the dagger in both hands; the quills on her back shook uncontrollably. "Please, Lynet, don't make me do this!"

Lynet looked at her younger sister with sympathy welling in her yellow eyes, and Mi'an stepped back angrily. "How can you feel pity for me when it is you who will die?!"

"Mi'an," Lynet's voice cracked slightly, "you know you must do this. If you do not--"

"I know!" Mi'an screamed. "I know the doom, the curses, the death of everyone we know! I know these things, Lynet, but this is wrong. This is wrong!"

Mi'an looked down and tried to kick a writhing vine creeping along the ground, but it veered from her reach. The entire clearing was covered with these hideous vines, filling the air with cracking and hisses as they twined in expectation. Mi'an raised her foot again.

"Stop!" Lynet grabbed her sister. "Mi'an, stop," she said again more softly.

Mi'an stared into Lynet's face, her sister's beauty magnified by her closeness. Her soft skin was the color of dawn and her quills, budding from her head and spreading down her back, lay flat with sadness, forming the shape of a flowing cloak barely touching the ground.

Mi'an continued to stare into Lynet's bright yellow eyes, filled with compassion for her enraged sister. How could they choose Lynet over her? Lynet was a bounty of loveliness and so kind, while she, herself, was so ugly. Mi'an's skin was the color of the wretched vines whose large leaves hungered for her sister's blood. Her quills were also dark green, which appeared an ugly black unless one looked closely, and their texture was an unpleasant hardness, which forced her to be careful when walking through the village so as not to accidentally prick someone. Unwanted quills occasionally sprouted from her arms, legs and even her face, which Mi'an painfully had to pull out so not to appear so unsightly. Yet, Lynet never had problems with her golden quills, which grew perfectly.

Lynet took hold of her sister's hands, which clutched the dagger's hilt. "Look at it," she commanded.

Mi'an stared down at the dagger's blade; its shape waved and curved down to a deadly point.

"Not that." Lynet took the dagger into her own hands. "This."

She indicated the hilt, which was the color of jade. It had an oily luster from the ritual polishing that Mi'an had performed the night before. The hilt formed the wings of the celestial Tarathems in flight, and in its center was a red jewel, carved in the circular symbol for Balance. It was an admirable dagger, a family heirloom.

"Grandmother held this dagger once," Lynet said proudly. "Her eyes were its color, just as your eyes are. Such beautiful eyes." She traced the curve of Mi'an's cheek. "Today, the honor is yours."

Mi'an shook her head defiantly. "This is no honor! This is murder!"

"This is life, Mi'an. This is Balance." Lynet looked up at the sky and saw the sun slowly setting. They were running out of time. "Mi'an, I accept my fate, as should you."

"But why you?" Mi'an asked. "Why must it be you?"

Mi'an remembered when the three Tarathems flew down from the sky four days ago; their lucent wings lighting up the village square. Short tentacles waved on the top of their heads, and their golden bodies grew fur as seen on sweet fruit.

The Tarathems lived in the stars, so it was said, but no one knew for sure.