After passing through the intense heat of the blue flames for about a mile or two, he came across a little girl in the distance laying in the blue fire. She was crying over a pile of ash.

"Was it her mother? Father? Siblings?" The man thought to himself. It didn't matter now because they're dead. The man started to walk past, but stopped. "Hey you!" He shouted. The girl turned over to the man's voice. "Whatcha doing out here!? Children shouldn't play with fire!?" The girl stared, she got up and started to walk over to the man.

The girl looked young, maybe eight or ten. Her clothes were on fire with some of it burnt off, but somehow managed to stay together. Her wavy blue hair matched the fire, one could mistake her head for fire. The way her hair moved in the air looked like a flame. There were gashes that covered her whole body. The most noticeable ones were the ones on her right arm and left leg. The one on her right arm had a cut that was deep enough to see the bones, it gushed with blood at a steady slow rate.

A dark red ring of dried blood could be seen around hole and ran down to her fingers. It appeared that she had been bleeding for a while. The fresh blood dripped from her fingers as she approached him. The gash on her leg wasn't as deep as the one on her arm. It still bled a little, but it was mostly covered by a scab. Dried blood covered her leg and foot like another layer of skin.

As she got closer, he drew his shiny silver sword in the attack position, ready to stab her. He noticed that she was stumbling over to him. She lost balance and fell over twice. Both times she got up trembling. When her face was visible to him, he noticed her lips moving as if she was speaking. It looked like she was trying to say, but couldn't.

One of her eyes was closed from a slash mark. Unlike the others, which were clearly from a wild animal, the mark over her left was a clean cut in the right diagonal direction, like she barely dodged a sword or a very sharp blade. Her right eye was emerald-green and tears were running down her face, even the blood leaking from her scarred eye looked like a river of blood.

Blade still in hand, the girl got within speaking distance, but far enough in the fire to where he couldn't strike her. The girl quietly said, "ar-are you going to kill me?" Tears still pour down her face.

His sword still pointed at her, "Who are you?"

"O-Opal," said the girl.

"Ok, Opal... I'm Mallary. No, I won't hurt you..." Mallary put his sword away, but still weary of the girl. "What happened?"

The Opal came closer to Mallary and hugged him. Her body burned his skin like sizzling meat on a grill, and her tears burned like boiling water. "They're... all gone... All of them."

Mallary, returning the hug asked, "Was it the dragon?"

"No, there were knights..." Opal now squeezing tighter cried, "...covered in red all over them... laughing."

He patted her head, "It's all right." He let go of Opal and looked away. "What am I going to do... I need to kill that dragon and there are those knights I'm probably going to take care of. And now this child. I can't leave her... Can I? No, not with those knights and other monsters lurking around. The nearest town is west from here, it's three days away. That's too long, they all might be gone by then."

Mallary turned back towards Opal, "Hey, I'm going to take care of the knights and dragons. I can't promise you'll be safe, but it will be safer than being on your own." Opal shook her head and grabbed Mallary's hand. "But first we should do something about those wounds.

Mallary got on his knees, took off his pack, and dug out some medical equipment. Opal sat down in front of Mallary while he was doing this. He pulled out a sponge and wiped away the blood on her legs and arms. "It burns," cried the girl.

"Well... you were in fire," replied Mallary. "Just sit still and think about why the sky is blue." Mallary then wrapped the white bandages over the scars on her arm and legs. "Do you hurt?" Asked Mallary.

She shook her head yes.

"Drink this," Mallary handed a bottle of green liquid. "It will taste gross but you'll feel better." Opal took the potion and drank it. The bitterness of the drink caused her to cringe.

"Iiiiit ttataastes bababaad," Opal said while wiping her mouth with her hand.

Mallary looked at her and smiled, "I told you it was... Anyways, we need to do something about your eye." Opal touched her eye and winced. "It won't take the pain away immediately, it'll take some time. It won't get rid of your scars, so I think we should get you something to cover up your eye. I doubt that it will ever heal properly." He pulled something out of his bag. "So I think we should use something like this." It was a green eyepatch that he showed to Opal. "How about this? It looks nice and it matches your eye color."

"Ok."

"Here, I'll put it on for you." Mallary put the eyepatch on Opal and adjusted it so that it wouldn't fall off. "I also have something else for you." He went into his pack and pulled out some clothes. "I bought these earlier from a strange kid. They're too small for me but they might be a little big on you. Get dressed, I'll be waiting over there." Mallary headed off in the distance.