Thread Closed
Deep in the East Shroud, 7 years ago:
Blood on her hands, in her eyes, in her hair...screaming...
It was just another midsummer day, the sun bright and hot. She'd started out before dawn, intent upon visiting all of her usual haunts deep within the woods. There were sure to be mushrooms, herbs and berries for the taking. She'd spent the better part of the morning clambering over roots and wiggling her way through bramble patches and was finally making for home, the sack at her hip full to the bursting with her finds. Her clothing was perhaps a bit worse for wear - stained with mud in some spots, moss in others. Even her waist-length braid of red hair had a twig or three tangled in it - evidence of her adventures in the brambles and trees. She'd just made it past the stream that ran out of the woods towards the fields outside the village walls when she smelled the smoke.
The world washed red and green and brown, the ground itself moving, taking, breaking. But all was quiet in the center. She could see everything, hear everything.
She ran along side the stream, nearly slipping and falling a time or two in her haste to get out from the cover of the forest. All gangly legs and no coordination - her mother promised she'd grow into her body, small though she was. Not yet a woman fully grown, she had time yet. She nearly fell on her face as she pushed her way through the last line of saplings, then stopped dead in her tracks, her eyes widening in horror as she stared in the direction of her village. Not one house...but all of them...roofs ablaze, black smoke filling the air. In the distance, she could hear screaming. People screaming. Women screaming.
Where was her mother? Where was her father? Her sister...
The redhead shrugged off the sack - it would only slow her down - and took off running towards the gate as fast as her legs would carry her. It took her only a few minutes to reach the gates, to see the first bodies. She realized then that the fires were no accident, no disaster. No...they were deliberate. Agnes Tanner lay on her face in a pool of her own blood, the too-still body of her infant daughter still clutched in her arms - little Hilda had only just reached her eighth moon the week before. Agnes had been stabbed through the back, as though she'd tried to flee and not moved fast enough.
Only a few steps away lay Elwyn Milner, his trusty axe resting a few ilms from the tips of his bloodied fingers. Half his head was gone, his brains spattered over his clothing. She began to shake, turning to look towards the houses just inside the low wall - a wall meant to keep wild animals out, not people. Before she could stop herself, she found herself moving, suddenly desperate to know where her family was. She forced herself to keep going, past the bodies of friends and neighbors, determined to make it to her house.
She wanted them to pay. They would pay for everything they had done. They would pay for what she had lost. For what they had taken.
She heard the rough laughter before she saw them, blowing smoke obscuring her vision, making her cough. Soldiers, clearly, but not Wailers. Nor Adders. She'd seen those, from a distance, of course. But she'd seen them. These men were neither. Black and red armor, metal...so much metal. Then she saw why they were laughing - they were toying with someone in front of her house. A woman, shoving her back and forth between them as the woman wept piteously.
She moved towards them as if in a dream, putting one foot before the other, unable to process what she was seeing. Then her mother caught sight of her, and broke away from the soldiers - only briefly. She stood rooted to the ground as her mother ran to her, screaming that she should run. Her mother got only few yalms away from the soldiers before her body suddenly jerked, and she fell to the ground in a heap. A man stood over her mother's body, his sword red with her blood.
"Mama..." The word was a bare whisper out of the redhead's mouth as she stood, her feet seeming rooted to the ground as she stared at the body of her mother. Then, she was screaming, because her mother was dead. Her mother was dead, and she realized that she could see her father's body just outside the burning husk that had once been her home. She shook her head and started to back away - one step, two steps. Then then soldier made a move in her direction, and she darted away, running for her life.
The redhead's knowledge of the small village came in handy as she snaked her way between the burning buildings, the smoke obscuring most of her sight. She could see the gates of the village, and beyond the safety of the woods, when a hand closed around her arm in a painful grip, stopping her in her tracks and knocking her to the ground. She heard an audible popping sound as her shoulder exploded into pain so intense she saw black spots before her eyes. She was screaming inside her head, coughing and struggling as she was dragged to her feet. That's when she heard it.
That they would dare.
It was low and rumbly, distinctly inhuman - the kind of voice you would expect an earth golem, perhaps, to have. If earth golems could speak, anyway.
That they would dare harm one of our chosen.
That they would dare bring fire here.
Burning our land.
The soldier that held so tightly to her arm that she would later find finger-shaped bruises in her pale flesh was yelling into her face, but she couldn't hear him over the voices in her head.
The ground abruptly shook, and the other soldiers with him stopped watching to look around nervously. One took hold of the soldier holding her arm, the action breaking his tirade as the first treant crashed over the wall.
They will pay.
The soldier holding the redhead dropped her arm to run, shoving her towards the treant, likely hoping that it would attack her instead. But the treant veered around her to chase the soldier as the wind picked up and the ground shook once again. She stood in the middle of the street, cradling her arm to her side as a gust of wind began to swirl around her.
I want them to pay.
She wanted it more than she wanted to breathe, more than she wanted to live. In her mind, all she could see was her mother falling to the ground, her father's skull split open, his brains spilled upon the grass. The faces of Agnes and Hilda and Elwyn and Einar and Dalla and so many others passed through her mind's eye. But she could hear them...the voices. The trees, the air, the land, even the water. Their rage filled her, suffused her limbs, bled into her mind. Her loss was their loss, her grief their grief, her need for vengeance their cause. And she gave herself up to them, uncaring of the consequences. She had nothing left to lose.
Let them all burn. Let them suffer, as my kin suffered. They deserve this.
She found herself cocooned in the midst of the chaos. Nothing touched her, save the air that swirled around her almost protectively. She watched as the trees themselves seemed to come to life, roots and brambles emerging from the forest to wrap around the legs of men attempting to flee in terror. They'd heard the stories, but they'd never believed them. Not really believed them, until it was far too late.
She watched men torn limb from limb, blood streaming into the air, and she felt nothing but rage and grief. They were no longer people to her, but monsters...evil monsters who had destroyed her home, taken everything from her. They deserved to die. But then some began to beg and plead for their lives. They were young, around her age, most likely. They wept, and they pleaded, and they died, and something like sanity began to filter back into her mind. She realized she was soaked in blood, the copper taste of it thick in her mouth, the scent of offal emanating from the bodies that surrounded her. One soldier - little more than a child - screamed for his mother before a treant crushed him beneath a rock, and she was suddenly filled with horror.
What was she doing? What were they doing? They were people. They were people.
Oh gods, she didn't want this. She didn't want this much blood on her hands.
Except, she had no idea how to stop what she had started. She begged and pleaded, to no avail. She could feel the power coursing around her, but could not understand how to control it. It was as if that knowledge was just beyond her reach, a memory she couldn't recall. She beat her will against the rage of the spirits and found herself utterly outmatched, at the head of the raging storm but with no ability to direct it.
What have I done?
La Noscea, present day:
Liadan curled her hand around the small shell she'd found on the beach, sitting on a rock just out of reach of the gentle waves. She looked out over the water, her expression pensive as she thought over the last few days. The fear that had suffused her when the Imperial gunship had come to the aid of the Iron Bitch.
They're evil, and yet they are men, and not monsters. And that somehow makes it so much worse.
She looked down at the shell in her palm, running a finger over the ridges that crowned its gentle shape, then looked out over the water again. After a few moments, she tossed the shell out into the water.
A thousand lives saved, would that be enough to tip the scales? For what I did? For what I didn't do?
Blood on her hands, in her eyes, in her hair...screaming...
It was just another midsummer day, the sun bright and hot. She'd started out before dawn, intent upon visiting all of her usual haunts deep within the woods. There were sure to be mushrooms, herbs and berries for the taking. She'd spent the better part of the morning clambering over roots and wiggling her way through bramble patches and was finally making for home, the sack at her hip full to the bursting with her finds. Her clothing was perhaps a bit worse for wear - stained with mud in some spots, moss in others. Even her waist-length braid of red hair had a twig or three tangled in it - evidence of her adventures in the brambles and trees. She'd just made it past the stream that ran out of the woods towards the fields outside the village walls when she smelled the smoke.
The world washed red and green and brown, the ground itself moving, taking, breaking. But all was quiet in the center. She could see everything, hear everything.
She ran along side the stream, nearly slipping and falling a time or two in her haste to get out from the cover of the forest. All gangly legs and no coordination - her mother promised she'd grow into her body, small though she was. Not yet a woman fully grown, she had time yet. She nearly fell on her face as she pushed her way through the last line of saplings, then stopped dead in her tracks, her eyes widening in horror as she stared in the direction of her village. Not one house...but all of them...roofs ablaze, black smoke filling the air. In the distance, she could hear screaming. People screaming. Women screaming.
Where was her mother? Where was her father? Her sister...
The redhead shrugged off the sack - it would only slow her down - and took off running towards the gate as fast as her legs would carry her. It took her only a few minutes to reach the gates, to see the first bodies. She realized then that the fires were no accident, no disaster. No...they were deliberate. Agnes Tanner lay on her face in a pool of her own blood, the too-still body of her infant daughter still clutched in her arms - little Hilda had only just reached her eighth moon the week before. Agnes had been stabbed through the back, as though she'd tried to flee and not moved fast enough.
Only a few steps away lay Elwyn Milner, his trusty axe resting a few ilms from the tips of his bloodied fingers. Half his head was gone, his brains spattered over his clothing. She began to shake, turning to look towards the houses just inside the low wall - a wall meant to keep wild animals out, not people. Before she could stop herself, she found herself moving, suddenly desperate to know where her family was. She forced herself to keep going, past the bodies of friends and neighbors, determined to make it to her house.
She wanted them to pay. They would pay for everything they had done. They would pay for what she had lost. For what they had taken.
She heard the rough laughter before she saw them, blowing smoke obscuring her vision, making her cough. Soldiers, clearly, but not Wailers. Nor Adders. She'd seen those, from a distance, of course. But she'd seen them. These men were neither. Black and red armor, metal...so much metal. Then she saw why they were laughing - they were toying with someone in front of her house. A woman, shoving her back and forth between them as the woman wept piteously.
She moved towards them as if in a dream, putting one foot before the other, unable to process what she was seeing. Then her mother caught sight of her, and broke away from the soldiers - only briefly. She stood rooted to the ground as her mother ran to her, screaming that she should run. Her mother got only few yalms away from the soldiers before her body suddenly jerked, and she fell to the ground in a heap. A man stood over her mother's body, his sword red with her blood.
"Mama..." The word was a bare whisper out of the redhead's mouth as she stood, her feet seeming rooted to the ground as she stared at the body of her mother. Then, she was screaming, because her mother was dead. Her mother was dead, and she realized that she could see her father's body just outside the burning husk that had once been her home. She shook her head and started to back away - one step, two steps. Then then soldier made a move in her direction, and she darted away, running for her life.
The redhead's knowledge of the small village came in handy as she snaked her way between the burning buildings, the smoke obscuring most of her sight. She could see the gates of the village, and beyond the safety of the woods, when a hand closed around her arm in a painful grip, stopping her in her tracks and knocking her to the ground. She heard an audible popping sound as her shoulder exploded into pain so intense she saw black spots before her eyes. She was screaming inside her head, coughing and struggling as she was dragged to her feet. That's when she heard it.
That they would dare.
It was low and rumbly, distinctly inhuman - the kind of voice you would expect an earth golem, perhaps, to have. If earth golems could speak, anyway.
That they would dare harm one of our chosen.
That they would dare bring fire here.
Burning our land.
The soldier that held so tightly to her arm that she would later find finger-shaped bruises in her pale flesh was yelling into her face, but she couldn't hear him over the voices in her head.
The ground abruptly shook, and the other soldiers with him stopped watching to look around nervously. One took hold of the soldier holding her arm, the action breaking his tirade as the first treant crashed over the wall.
They will pay.
The soldier holding the redhead dropped her arm to run, shoving her towards the treant, likely hoping that it would attack her instead. But the treant veered around her to chase the soldier as the wind picked up and the ground shook once again. She stood in the middle of the street, cradling her arm to her side as a gust of wind began to swirl around her.
I want them to pay.
She wanted it more than she wanted to breathe, more than she wanted to live. In her mind, all she could see was her mother falling to the ground, her father's skull split open, his brains spilled upon the grass. The faces of Agnes and Hilda and Elwyn and Einar and Dalla and so many others passed through her mind's eye. But she could hear them...the voices. The trees, the air, the land, even the water. Their rage filled her, suffused her limbs, bled into her mind. Her loss was their loss, her grief their grief, her need for vengeance their cause. And she gave herself up to them, uncaring of the consequences. She had nothing left to lose.
Let them all burn. Let them suffer, as my kin suffered. They deserve this.
She found herself cocooned in the midst of the chaos. Nothing touched her, save the air that swirled around her almost protectively. She watched as the trees themselves seemed to come to life, roots and brambles emerging from the forest to wrap around the legs of men attempting to flee in terror. They'd heard the stories, but they'd never believed them. Not really believed them, until it was far too late.
She watched men torn limb from limb, blood streaming into the air, and she felt nothing but rage and grief. They were no longer people to her, but monsters...evil monsters who had destroyed her home, taken everything from her. They deserved to die. But then some began to beg and plead for their lives. They were young, around her age, most likely. They wept, and they pleaded, and they died, and something like sanity began to filter back into her mind. She realized she was soaked in blood, the copper taste of it thick in her mouth, the scent of offal emanating from the bodies that surrounded her. One soldier - little more than a child - screamed for his mother before a treant crushed him beneath a rock, and she was suddenly filled with horror.
What was she doing? What were they doing? They were people. They were people.
Oh gods, she didn't want this. She didn't want this much blood on her hands.
Except, she had no idea how to stop what she had started. She begged and pleaded, to no avail. She could feel the power coursing around her, but could not understand how to control it. It was as if that knowledge was just beyond her reach, a memory she couldn't recall. She beat her will against the rage of the spirits and found herself utterly outmatched, at the head of the raging storm but with no ability to direct it.
What have I done?
La Noscea, present day:
Liadan curled her hand around the small shell she'd found on the beach, sitting on a rock just out of reach of the gentle waves. She looked out over the water, her expression pensive as she thought over the last few days. The fear that had suffused her when the Imperial gunship had come to the aid of the Iron Bitch.
They're evil, and yet they are men, and not monsters. And that somehow makes it so much worse.
She looked down at the shell in her palm, running a finger over the ridges that crowned its gentle shape, then looked out over the water again. After a few moments, she tossed the shell out into the water.
A thousand lives saved, would that be enough to tip the scales? For what I did? For what I didn't do?
![[Image: hFalP38.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/hFalP38.jpg)