"Oh, Sunwell, did Zosine get home early?" were the first words out of Hamearis' mouth when they caught sight of their home. The front door was ajar, but no light leaked out from the red-paned windows. Vistara's eyebrows furrowed, and her pace suddenly became quicker. "Looks more like you forgot to lock the door," she commented wryly, but her tongue had already gone dry and her fingers were twitching towards the hilts of her curved blades.
As they neared the door her spine became stiff as a board, but Hamearis remained as nonchalant as ever. It was Vistara who noticed the light splattering of blood on the archway of the door.
Without warning she burst forward into a full-fledged sprint, slamming open the door to their home and pausing just beyond the threshold. Her hands were balled into fists and her eyes darted to every corner, the door banging several times against the wall. The hallways were dark, no lamp glowed with the familiar ethereal arcane light.
Her ears were still, listening for any movement within the shadows. She disappeared down the main hall as soon as Hamearis reached her side, and he called her name after her, his voice choked with anxiety.
She paused by the kitchen, her eyes growing wider than saucers. The room was ransacked, all of the plants she had so carefully cultivated were thrown about the room. The clay pots that had sheltered them were shattered on the ground, plates and utensils were scattered all around. Broken glass winked in the red light that peered in from the windows above the sink.
Vistara became vaguely aware of Hamearis at her side, but he paused for only a moment as his wife took off again. She did not stop to stare into the other rooms of her house, she skirted straight up the steps to the second level.
She tried to ignore the blood splatters on the wall, tried to ignore how ragged her breathing was becoming.
She raced into her daughter's room, her heart in her throat. White hairs were still floating lazily through the air, and clumps of fur were littered about the floor. Bookcases were thrown facedown onto the ground, drawers ripped out of the dresser and thrown violently against the wall. Like she was looking for something. Her nostrils were flared and she dug her fingernails into the archway.
She's not here, she's not Daeron, Ell has her. Ell has her. Ell has her.
The window was completely shattered, and the sun shined defiantly on through the jagged teeth that the burglar had left behind. She followed the broken beams of light to the ivory walls, where painted in dried, blackish blood were the menacing words "You're next." Tacked just beneath them was the haphazardly skinned white pelt of what must have once been Loras.
Hamearis walked in first, she was struggling to breathe. He stared at something in her daughter's cradle, and reached out a shaking hand to touch it. There was the sound of rustling fabrics, and he leaped back in disgust.
Disgust, not horror.
He lifted a bloody, burlap sack from within the cradle, and attempted to shield her gaze from the sight of her mutilated cat. The animal she had spoken lightly of to her cousin not twenty minutes earlier.
"Where's his head?" asked Vistara in a hoarse voice.
Hamearis' eyes fell on something to the right of her. She turned her head, black ponytail whipping through the air.
Sitting on top of an extinguished arcane lamp was the brutalized head of what had once been her Loras.
A glistening black scale was stuck in between his eyes.
