Dive into your creative stream
Be Nice - Blog Posts
The same way you can’t force people to enter your life, you can’t force them to stay.
Let them go; let yourself heal. You’ll be okay, always have been, and always will be.
Literally all of this things, sometimes combined into one insult/complaint, at one point or another have been said to me. Growing up in a predominantly female home, I can assure you that these are things said to women frequently and sometimes even by other women. :/
Please reblog if you are a girl and have ever been made to feel ashamed of one or more of these things (wanting to prove a point to some asshole):
-your weight
-your clothing choice
-your amount of make up
-having sex
-not having sex
-breast size
-having your period
-saying no
-not appreciating catcalls
-masturbating
-body hair
Just saw the most awful post under someone asking for some help paying for her childrens school supplies and clothes because she was in a rut. She also expressed working her hardest to get out of it.
People lack so much empathy for others that it literally makes me so sad. If that was them on the other side of that post they would want the understanding. But instead they resort to posting nasty things under the post. Which posting those nasty types of comments isn’t going to make nearly as big of an impact as they think.
Instead of judging people we need to support people. It really makes me doubt humanity as a whole and who we are. Like instead of breaking each other down… could we focus on building each other up! The world would be so much better if everyone was like that. But instead we’re a society who thinks that we have the right to judge and look into everyone’s life and assume that we know every single detail that makes up there story.
But we don’t. And we don’t need to. We just need to focus on spreading love and POSITIVITY 💜
To LET LOVE OVERRULE
NEVER LOVE AN ANCHOR: A Dirkjake animatic.
i have two sides; they're both pink and Hello Kitty 🫡💗!
am i into this … :0
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE I WANT
Hes literally me (out for blood)
ALRIGHT!!! Ch. 12 :) i know it's been awhile since the last post, but this is where I've left off since the beginning of the semester! Everything post chapter twelve has yet to be written ajskakksks and may take a while longer... I'm hoping to keep the general motivation going for it though so !!! Wish me luck lmao
May and Oryn have decided it's time to end the siege, when Jonas makes an appearance.
Tags: @skidotto @idonthaveapenname
tw: mentions of death, abuse, murder, war, stabbing, blood, harsh weather
Ch. 12
“Open the doors, Demetrius,” May’s voice was sharp and clear.
“My Lady?”
“Get Alec,” she said, “and open the doors. Send him out in the camps to help gather and shift everyone indoors.” Their steps were in sync as they climb the stairs from the basement.
Demetrius nodded. “Whatever you say, My Lady,” he breathed out a light huff.
May stopped in her tracks on the next step, putting up a hand and turning to face him. “You only ever listen without complaint to my stupid plans when your vehemently against an even worse one I’ve hatched. Out with it.”
He moved past her, continuing up the stairs and gesturing for her to do the same. “It wasn’t smart to leave him down there.”
May’s jaw tightened as she followed, now in his wake. “He needs answers. There’s no one else who can provide them.”
“You don’t think he’ll kill the old sot?” Demetrius laughed, opening the hatch that led from the basement back up to the main manor.
May shook her head, rolling her eyes. “What makes you think I don’t already plan on doing that myself? Besides,” The two of them stepped out of the shadows and back into the torch-lit halls of the manor, “He need answers. I’d like some, too.” She pushed in front of him with a slightly faster pace and headed towards her office.
Demetrius nodded, letting the subject drop. “Tell Alec to start bringing in the men, and then what, my lady?”
“Meet me here,” she called down to him, “the siege needs to end. Tonight.”
-
“You remember me?”
The room was dank, full of moss that had started to overtake the forever damp stone floor and walls, creeping white vines pushing through the cracks to make homes amongst them. Oryn could swear they heard the scuttle of rats in the rooms beyond, but was too busy with the task at had to force themselves to look further.
“I remember,” they said, circling the man as if they were stalking prey. He sat upon a ratty wooden stool, legs bound to the legs and hands tied behind his back. May had requested that Oryn leave him here when they were done with him: she had her own questions to ask.
“Good, then,” he said, sighing as his posture sunk further in on himself. They had cleaned his wounds and dressed him in slightly cleaner robes, providing a meal of whatever bit of food they could had on hand. “I’m sure you have many questions,” he coughed for a moment before catching his breath, “and I hope to provide some semblance of an answer for you.”
Oryn stopped pacing to look Jonas up and down. With his face washed, feet bandaged, and beard properly braided, they could tell now that he must have been a man of status at one point. Alec had done well in teaching them the ways of local society and religion and they could recognize the symbols they saw floating amongst the books and scrolls; the large eight-point star representing the Siblings of Chaos was embroidered on his tattered undershirt, the same symbol with a circle enclosing it tattooed on the man’s chest. They hadn’t recognized that before, the one time they’d met that Oryn could remember.
“They branded you for making Chaos?” they said, motioning towards the tattoo.
He nodded. “But wouldn’t strip me of my status.” He shrugged his shoulder forward, once again showing off the pin. He’d carefully taken it off of the tattered robes he previously bore and attached it to the new ones provided him.
\ “You wear the High Councilor’s pin of the Sanctum,” they all but verbatim repeated from some thick tome or another.
“The Lady of Ilucia has been teaching you, I assume?” Despite the circumstances, the man laughed once again.
“The witches never told me,” Oryn muttered, eyes becoming slits as their jaw twitched. They didn’t want to defend those who had sheltered them from the world, and yet…
“They never told you much of anything, child,” Jonas said, looking up at Oryn from where he sat. “And yet, here you are. Making your way nonetheless.”
Oryn shook their head. “I’m not going with you.”
Jonas sighed. The look in his eyes suddenly became something dark and heavy, a deep pit holding all the answers anyone could ever seek and the horrors that come with them.
“You can’t change my mind,” Oryn’s voice was calm. They counted their breaths, steadying their heartbeat as it started to rage in their ears.
Jonas’s mouth hung open for a moment, his rotting teeth browning at the gums. “Your mother,” he whispered, his old and quivering skeletal body becoming still as his gaze bore into Oryn’s soul.
They felt the blood draining from their face as they contested his gaze with their own, taking another step further towards the precipice. “I want to know of her.”
He sucked in a fresh breath of air with force. “The Forgotten Princess, to be married to the Forgotten Prince. The stories they tell…”
The text they’d read said nothing about any of that.
Jonas could read the confusion clearly on Oryn’s face. “Not up to recent years in your lessons?” He choked on another short laugh, but his features remined hard and serious, his eyes lacking their jovial grandfatherly nature they’d carried before he’d mentioned…
Oryn shook their head. “Speak plainly.”
He sighed. “I find it a great shame,” he mumbled as he caught his breath once again, “that three women of such intelligence would keep such knowledge from you.” He hummed a bit to himself, scanning the small room he found himself in.
“My… Tutor,” Oryn started, “told me that knowledge is how average men hold power. How they cope with never being allowed to Mend the sewn Chaos.”
“Do you believe that?”
“Not completely,” they said, their gaze hard. “It’s powerful, yes. I am strong in knowing,” they started slowly stalking around Jonas yet again, one slow step being taken after another. “But men are strong in other ways. With swords, axes, bows… they are all so weak when they’re leaking blood.”
“The church,” Jonas mumbled, “the Sanctum. Do you think that’s power? Or the King?”
“It is so easy to die, so easy to kill,” Oryn mumbled, “that it’s hard to look at an old man in a chair far too large for him and decide that’s the image of power.” They shook their head, stopped their pacing.
“Men work in ways only the Gods may understand,” Jonas said, the legs on his stool creaking as he shifted his weight.
Oryn let out a sly laugh under their hot breath. “I am angry with the witches for never teaching me,” she laid a gentle hand on Jonas’s frail and bony shoulder, “And yet grateful to never have known. I can look upon the societies that man has built and see how uncouth it all is; how seemingly barbaric and unestablished.” She shook her head as she lifted her hand from the man’s shoulder and walked to be in front of him, crouching down to meet his gaze with her own. “And your Gods…” they scoffed.
Jonas looked upon Oryn with more than mere anger; the disgust was laid upon them with his unrelenting gaze. “You do not know of what you speak, child.”
Oryn eyes narrowed as they looked deeper into Jonas’s soul, into what he’s done and who he was and where he’s been. They swallowed hard and took a deep breath as the drone started humming at the back of their head.
He started to struggle against his restraints. “You don’t know what made you!”
“Then tell me, old man,” they spat, “for my patience is growing thin.”
His face contorted as the thrumming in his own skull started hammering harder and harder, begging to break free. “Demon!” He screamed, his hoarse voice echoing against the cold stone walls surrounding them while he strained against his restraints.
“What am I, Councilor?” Their skin crawled with the potential of another kill, more blood spilled atop old stones that would forget the death as it was washed away. And yet they continued to hesitate nonetheless. Although this man would never get the pleasure of taking them alive, he was possibly the only person left alive who knew what they were.
“Demon,” he repeated, his eyes still burning hot and wild as he coughed and caught his breath, trying to contain his fear.
Oryn shook their head yet again, standing and resuming their pacing. "I may not have a very deep understanding of your Gods, but I can tell you that if they’re real, they’ve either left your sorry lot or have died.” She scoffed. “I find it horrid how you all can believe in something so… untouchable.”
The man’s features changed, suddenly showing a deep and sudden pity for what must have been someone but a child in his own eyes.
“I hope, dearest Oryn, for your lovely mother’s sake, that the God’s choose to have mercy on your dying soul.”
He stoked the fire burning inside of them even more.
They stood behind the chair he was strapped to, gripping the back of the chair as they watched the wood crack beneath their knuckles. They leaned down, their neck creaking with the strain of their spine shifting inside of them, their skin pulling itself taught as the muscle shifted.
“Tell me of her,” they whispered against the skin of his ear, sending a shiver through his body as he mumbled a prayer, trembling in his seat.
The creak of bone on bone rang through the small room, mixing with the squeaking of dusting rodents and the soft drip of condensation running down the walls. Their breaths created a harmony, Oryn’s staunch snout spouting steam into the air as Jonas’s fear sucked it deep into his lungs.
He whimpered as the ropes dug deep into his wrists while he tried to break free and run from the beast lurking behind him, seeking answers only he could give. His eyes were shut tight as he felt the foul drool drip thick and heavy onto his shoulder.
“Leandra,” he whispered.
Silence.
The crack of a shot from a bow rang out, an arrow piercing Jonas through the heart.
Oryn’s face lifted quickly, standing on two hind legs and stretching themselves to reach against the stone ceiling, flexing against the restraint of their own skin.
May stood in the darkened doorframe, crossbow positioned at her chest, pointing towards the dead man’s body.
“Oryn,” she said, panting and wiping her brow. “We need you.”
Chapter 11!!! I'm getting close to having posted everything I've worked on up to this point. I NEED to get back to writing lol whoops.
This chapter explains a bit more of how Oryn came to be in the forest with the Witches in the first place.
tags: @skidotto @idonthaveapenname
tw: mentions of death, war, abuse
Ch. 11
The man was rugged; not the image of holy ambition and sanctity by any means. May didn’t know what to expect—gilded robes, braided hair, hard posture—but he was none of it.
Flanked by both Demetrius and Oryn, he sat beside the hearth as if his very bones craved the warmth it gave. His bony fingers shook as he held his hands before the flames, his cloudy eyes glowing in the soft light. They were heavy, thinking and turning and never quite still.
He swallowed another sip from the flagon Demetrius provided, coughing as he choked it down. His legs sat at odd angles in front of him, his bloodied and bruised feet emanating a smell that could only be a festering rot. He’d trudged through the mud on foot for far too long to make it there.
The tension was thick, flitted gazes passing between Demetrius and May as a deep and boiling heat was stoked in Oryn’s core. They all but vibrated with the anticipation of knowing what was to come; the iron smell creeping its way through their nose and to their brain feeling like a coil being wound tighter and tighter with each breath they took.
May’s jaw tightened as she shifted where she stood, the weight of her armor clinking as she settled. She turned the pin over in her hand: heavy, weighted with a dark blue stone at its bottom, the rest of it a soft gold.
“I’m sorry for the lack of hospitality, Councilor, but with the ongoing siege I’d hope you’ll understand my hesitancy.” She studied his face.
His bones all but creaked as he pulled his legs underneath himself, settling into a slouch within his tattered robes as he scooted himself closer to the fire.
He wasn’t deaf; she saw the way the weight in his eyes rattled as she spoke. No beggar would calculate himself so.
May took a deep breath, looking towards Demetrius’s hard gaze before continuing, “I had sent word to our good King in hopes of… Well, support of a different manner.”
That elicited what could only have been a laugh from the High Councilor, his ragged wheezing behind a smile quickly descending into a coughing fit. It took a moment for him to catch his breath, but his smile never left his lips.
Oryn watched closely as he pulled a muddy and deep brown-stained sleeve away from his mouth, a small trickle of blood and pungent saliva running down his chin.
He wouldn’t look towards May when he spoke. “The good King Terrance did not send me,” he sputtered, struggling to put the flagon back to his lips.
Demetrius rolled his eyes, his hands laying on the hilt of his sword.
“Then you’ve traveled all this way on foot with no supplies but the robes on your back for…?” May shook her head softly.
The man sighed. “I heard of the death of some people very dear to me,” he said, sitting up a bit as he reached into his robes and procured a tattered piece of parchment. “They thought I’d perished, too, but were right in their suspicions of my… continued existence on this mortal plain, with the God’s mercy,” a small, sad excuse of a chuckle left his cracked lips.
Demetrius sighed, tired of the Grandfather’s games right as they had started. “You still have not said why you’ve come, sir,” he clipped, ignoring any honorific if not those of who he directly served.
With a blink his body had snapped towards May, his long and dwindling arm extended towards her, his skeletal hand holding the all but unreadable letter that he’d carried all this way. As Demetrius jumped where he stood, the old man shook the wet parchment.
“They left something to me,” he huffed towards May, his breath the smell of death and decay. “And I had to come and claim it.”
Demetrius let his sword slide heavily out of its sheath, the grating noise of steel on steel a warning to the man to step back.
May took a moment to study the man behind the tattered page before gently taking it from his hands and standing a bit closer to the hearth to get some better light.
Jonas,
We know not where this piece of parchment will find you, but know deep within our souls that it will.
It’s time to make pace, High Councilor. The boy has taken the last we have to give; we’re joining our sister and suggest you come to proceed to the next steps in this wretched plan of yours.
Do not mourn us. We wouldn’t have mourned you.
Maureen, Starla, Elisa
~
She clutched the babe close to her chest with all the might she had left in her small frame. Her legs shook exposed to the chill air, her feet numb on the frozen earth, her arms burning and tingling as she struggled to maintain to her grip on the bundle she carried.
The cabin was close—she could feel the forest closing in around her as she pushed forward, her blood boiling with the fear it instilled in all those who entered. She knew she could make it, if she could just keep putting one foot in front of the other, taking one more breath after that exhale…
You have to promise me, he’d said to her, you have to promise me with every part of your soul. Swear it on the Waters and Winds, swear it on the church, swear it on the love we share. Please, Grenia.
His pleading rang through her head like the bells upon the church towers, bouncing from one side of her head to the other over and over again, reminding her what her purpose here would be.
This is the beginning of it all, he whispered to her, pulling her hands into his own and leaning down to look into her eyes, into her soul.
I love you, Genia, he’d said, his voice but a murmur against the soft skin of her ear. He’d never said it to her before this, never once. Not when she’d saved his life at the Sanctum, not when as she cried in his arms, not when he’d finally told her about where he came from and his purpose was here at the palace’s chapel. Not even when he finally bed her, their first moment alone in the months since they had met, in a dark and cramped alleyway between a scribe’s office and the sanctum’s entrance.
She thought of it all now. Thought of it while she ran, while her feet bruised with each step she took and the blood trickled from the scratches and cuts across her arms and legs.
At first, the babe was silent. They lay in her arms all swaddled in blankets that must have been made with love by one wet nurse or another. Their breath was soft and steady, heat steaming from their tiny lips as they drifted into a deep sleep.
Now, though, they screamed. She couldn’t understand how something so small and fragile would wail with such strength for so long. The blood-curdling screams pierced her ears as she ran, mixing with the dark and malicious feel bubbling up inside of her as her thoughts bounced around in her skull.
Then, for a while, everything went black.
When the warmth started returning to her it was the soft linens and skins laid beneath her that told her she’d made it where she needed to go.
She shifted in the warm bed, her entire body beginning to throb and ache as it started to fully feel alive again.
“Easy! Easy,” Maureen shot up from the chair beside her, gently laying her hands against her shoulders to push her back onto the mattress. “Don’t move too much, it’ll hurt. And you get nothing for the pain until I know where you’ve been, what happened.”
The conversation didn’t start for another hour after she woke, needing to reorient herself before breaking into tears at the face of the sister she thought she’d never see again. But their reunion was short lived.
“The child, Grenia. Is… is he yours?”
She shook her head. Jonas’s voice rang in her ears. They must not know.
But how could she keep this from them all when she was asking so much?
She looked throughout the cabin from where she lay, the walls keeping all of the warmth and life of the forest inside of the dwelling for the four of them to feed their practice. It was a small space full of trinkets and bobbles of all sizes and shapes that could do any number of different things. Books and charts and maps were scattered across every surface, littered with sketches of the local flora and fauna, but also symbols and glyphs she knew weren’t holy.
That’s how the three of them found themselves out here, after all.
She swallowed the lump in her throat before looking down at her hands.
Swollen. Bony. The joints all red and enflamed, her fingers bend in odd shapes and the skin of her palms scratchy and rough. Those fingers, that just a few weeks ago were spinning threat and crafting needlepoint and practicing piano. Now so changed, so stained…
“You will not be happy with me, sister,” she said, her voice hoarse and full of sorrow.
Maureen nodded, standing to move the chair closer to Grenia, laying a hand on top of her own. “That’s alright,” she nodded, her eyes serious but soft, “What matters is you made it back home to us. To me. As long as we’re together, we can handle the messes you’ve made.”
Grenia’s eyes filled with hot tears as she looked up her older sister. She was both gentle and firm, loving and strict. She hated herself for knowing what she had brought here.
“The babe,” Grenia muttered, her breath hitched. “Is not what you think.”
And so, she told her.
Your writeblr coffee shop order is ready!
Coffee: Does your character hold a lot of grudges? What is something they are bitter about?
Oh, May? Holding grudges? Yeeeaaaah.... she has a lot of rage inside 😌 From one thing to the next, she's been left making choices that were not of her design. Nothing that has befallen her was an opportunity, but rather a curse she needed to learn how to bear. And she had no say in that. Her anger comes from the facade of free will that comes with the responsibility she carries, knowing she will never truly make a choice solely for herself.
LOSING MY MIND !!!!!!! @skidotto just keeps making absolutley INSANE character art for my lovely oc's. This is May!! EVERYONE TELL HIM HOW COOL HIS ART IS R A H
Chapter 10 aaaa!!! Things really start picking up now as the siege has put its pressure on Ilucia to the point of nearly breaking it, a strange visitor all but seemingly an omen for turning tides.
Still editing the earlier chapters, so stay tuned for those edits!!! And all feedback welcome, of course please and thank you 😌
tw: blood, death, bodily harm, horror, war, food shortages
Tag list: @skidotto @idonthaveapenname
Ch. 10
“You know,” Maureen was covered from fingertips to forearm in slick blood, the pungent smell of iron and the very beginning of decay permeating throughout the dank room beneath the cabin. “There are those who would have us hanged for what we do.”
Starla etched away at the blade of the old knife, intricate runes taking a long while to carve on such a sharp and old piece of silver. The dust piling on the table was picked up by a gust of wind gently sailing through the open window. “Since when have you cared about those who’d hang us?”
Elisa grunted with disdain as she held the struggling sack of birds underwater, the churning quickly fading away as they met their deaths. “It’s one thing to be heretical,” she mumbled, her breath heavy as a bead of sweat dripped from her brow into the now still sink, “It’s another to do what we find ourselves doing.”
The three of them continued to work mostly in silence. It had become routine, yet none of them found comfort in it. When they closed their eyes at night, they no longer dreamt of each other’s warm embrace and being at one with Vitality. Instead, they bled carcass after carcass dry, praying to whatever gods they thought might listen to make each dying breath the last they would hear unless it be their own.
It was a true waste of what they could do, but they did it nonetheless. Each animal sacrificed; each child butchered… Was there any such thing as the greater good while you pulled the meat from the bones of a babe? Any grief felt when the hundredth dying heart was held in their hands, pink matter turning gray as the bucket at their feet filled?
The three of them sat amongst the riverbed as the child ate. Their feet were drifting in the clear water, the cold not enough to numb them the way they needed. The blood under their fingernails was dark and browning, no amount of river water able to wash it away.
“We’ll die before it happens,” Starla said, looking nowhere in particular as the sun began to set across the horizon. “If we’re bringing this upon the world, I don’t want to see it when it happens.”
Elisa nodded.
Maureen’s gaze didn’t change—it rarely did anymore.
“Let’s decide now.”
The three of them continued to sit in silence for a while. Starla knowing when she’d like it to end, Elisa never wanting it to, and Maureen wishing it would have long ago.
Maureen closed her eyes, breathing in the fresh earth around her as dug her blood-stained fingers into the dirt beneath her. “Everything we stood for was toppled in an instant. All the love we’ve ever felt greedily taken from us. There will come a time where our deaths will have that same impact on him. Then. That’s when we do it. I want him to hurt.”
~
It was dark. Late. Most men who had been well enough to be tended to in the manor’s once-banquet hall had found themselves hobbling on two feet again, well enough to stir a pot or muck the stables if not picking up the sword. The longer the barricade held, the more secure they became in their positions. Less of them were hit by the searching arrows as they learned where the best nooks and crannies were to seek cover, got quicker with the barrels of hot oil, rarely allowing the enemy to cross the threshold.
And yet the standstill was putting them all on edge. This wasn’t a matter of holding their ground; they could do that in their sleep. They needed an offensive play and, from behind a siege wall, it was far easier said than done.
“If you held the meeting and announced your loyalty, it would end. Isn’t that what we want? Isn’t that the goal?” Demetrius followed May at as close a range he could as she hurried through the halls.
She strode with purpose, her boots hitting the floor as thunder roared in the sky above the manor. “My loyalty has been sworn for as long as my bloodline has commanded Ilucia,” a slow pounding rhythm started sounding near the base of her skull as the rage in her blood boiled hotter, thicker, “and I am committed to the oaths I took.”
He sighed, grinding his jaw. “We’d never win against him. You know this.”
She shook her head, her hand gracing the sword in its hilt at her side, “This is not a matter of control to the crown—”
“Then what else!” His whispered shouts were hoarse, his eyes all but emerging from his skull as his face turned red.
May stopped in her tracks, facing him for a moment. Before her lips opened, he knew the answer.
“You don’t feel it? You don’t know?” the pounding in her head grew in strength, as did her conviction.
For just a second, they stood there in silence, the rain hitting the roof so far overhead.
“It ends tonight, Demetrius. When it does, you’ll see that I’m right.”
They made their way through the corridor and down the once-grand set of stairs, the few candle nubs and spent torches barely lighting the rough stone walls. The muffled sounds of the raging storm were both a blessing and a curse: only a fool would procure an attack under such circumstances, while the makeshift village of tents and shacks scattering the courtyard would all but be washed away in the aftermath. She’d have opened the doors to the manor weeks ago for more stable shelter had Demetrius not reminded her that she didn’t know who she could trust.
Oryn and Alec were already standing near the main entrance, shrouded by the shadows playing off the dripping walls and shuffling where they stood.
A shiver ran through Demetrius’s spine as he leaned towards May. “The boy can’t be a part of this.”
No one was summoned to the hall.
In fact, May hadn’t thought she’d be running into Demetrius as she assuredly slunk into her armor, peeking through darkened windows to see if she could spot any wayward fires amongst the storming winds. Of course, there were none.
When she opened the heavy oak door, his silhouette was lurking just beyond its precipice. Something’s about to happen, he’d said.
May took an uneven breath as she looked over Oryn’s figure covered by the heavy robes they wore to sleep. The bit of their body that she could see was taught, straining itself against something unseen.
They feel it, too.
“Alec, go back to your chambers.” May’s voice was firm.
His hair was ruffled at its ends, bits and pieces sticking up from what must have been restless sleep, if any at all. He wasn’t wearing any armor, just his boy’s pajamas. His cheeks flushed a deep, hot red as the pounding in his head slowly started to fade and he found himself for what he was.
He nodded, swallowing the lump in his throat as he turned on his heel. “You’re… you’re all about to go and do something,” he muttered under his breath, not wanting to show how embarrassed he felt as the little boy who could barely hold a sword. “And I won’t be much help. But there has to be something. A reason to… Why’d I come down here?”
The rain continued its relentless beating against the manor. Time seemed to slow.
There was a slow, solid knock on the door behind them.
Chapter 9 😌
Since college has started back up, I've taken a step back from writing *more* of the story and have been really focused on editing what I have, both for grammatical errors but also lots of worldbuilding, plot heavy stuff. Alluding to different events, setting up later plot lines, etc. I'll be going back and editing previous posts for the chapters as I go through them, but haven't yet! Stay tuned for that lol.
tw: mentions of restrains, bondage, bodily gore and harm, knives, blood, war, grief, death
tag list: @skidotto @idonthaveapenname
Ch. 9
“Is it too tight?” Starla mumbled as she gave a tug to the thick rope binding Oryn’s wrists together. They shook their head, eyelids drooping as a yawn escaped their lips.
The three witches worked in tandem as they set everything out of the room one at a time, slowly taking care not to break anything. As Maureen cast a soft yet powerful protective ward on the hard floor, Starla and Elisa continued with securing Oryn to the wooden bedpost atop the extra mattress.
The tears brimming in Starla’s eyes were in stock contrast to the anger in Maureen’s and the fear in Elisa’s. As the three of them woke together every morning, they wondered if they would survive the following night.
“It won’t work forever,” Elisa mumbled.
“I know,” Starla said, hiccupping a soft cry. “What happens then?”
“Fuck them all,” Maureen chided, finishing the transcription on the floor before lighting the lone candle on the windowsill. “Fuck that old man on that stupid throne, fuck the clergy, fuck every high councilor who had any hand in this… this ridiculous plan!” she grabbed at the windowsill with her bony fingers,
“Maureen—”
“No!” She screamed, ripping off a part of the ornately carved wooden piece, splinters falling to the ground as she crumbled the wood in her fist. “Fuck them all! Especially that good for nothing, washed up, old geezer who thought he had any right to lay a hand on her! To bring her into this! To bring us into this!”
She stormed to Oryn in her rage, her hands twitching as she looked down at the small child. It hadn’t even been a year since they found their way into the Witches care. The concoction given to them to help them sleep had already taken affect, their head lolling to the side as their chest moved with even breaths.
“It would be so easy to kill it,” she muttered, watching. Waiting.
Starla looked at her, whispering, “But he’s just a child.” Another tear rolled down her cheek.
“He killed her!” Maureen roared, turning on her two lovers with more rage than they had thought she could hold. “That bastard…. That monster… all I see when I look at him is her blood. I can’t…”
She stalks from the room, hands soft and laden at her sides, closing the door behind her.
Elisa looked at Oryn. Starla looked towards the window with the broken sill.
“It won’t ever be the same,” she muttered as she made her way towards Oryn, still lost to slumber.
“No,” Starla said, “it won’t.” She put a hand on Elisa’s back, leaning her head against her shoulder as Elisa continued to tie Oryn down. “But it’s not our place to choose these things.”
Elisa scoffed, wiping away a tear. “How do you still believe? After all this?”
She shrugged, pulling away from the bed and looking upon Oryn again. Elisa stood again next to her. “I don’t.” She pulled her tight into her chest, holding her close, letting her sob into her. “The Waters and Winds… it’s all a lie, Elisa. But with him… with that child here, it’s impossible for me to believe in nothing. Not with all he can do.”
~
“You’ve been reading about the clergy?” May set down the hot mug on the table between the two chairs, sitting in the empty one next to Oryn.
Oryn nodded, crossing their legs in the chair and leaning against the cushioned back, holding the warm mug to their chest. “It’s interesting. I didn’t know people could be so… structured.”
May laughed softly, only bringing more comfort into the room with them. The soft fire blazed lazily in the mantle before them. “That’s something you’ll keep finding as you keep learning. People like to control things. You can’t control things unless you make rules and make sure people follow them.”
“And to make them follow the rules you, what, reward them with titles? With the right to… do what they want?”
May sighed, looking towards Oryn. The differences in their features didn’t disturb May as much as they used to; she had grown to expect them every now and again. It was the calm look in their eyes that she found jarring. The way they were suddenly so calm in the midst of the first siege Ilucia had seen since before her father’s time; most don’t take their first battle well, let alone their first intentional kill. And Oryn was so…
“You’re staring.” They said, sitting straighter in their chair.
May shrugged, looking towards the fire and taking a sip from their mug. “Do you know how you got to be with them? Out in the cabin?” She knew it’d be a hard conversation to have.
Oryn let out a deep breath and set down their cup, closing theri eyes and leaning back again in the chair. There was a soft drone creeping its way towards May’s brain, starting from the base of her neck. She shivered as she realized it was comforting her.
“My mother died in childbirth,” they started, “I don’t know much about her. The Witches never told me; they said to never ask.” They opened their eyes and looked towards May as the skin around their jaw started to shift. First, she thought it must have been a trick of the dancing firelight, the shadows playing across their face. But the longer she watched, the more she could truly see the change.
Pain painted Oryn’s face as they continued, May unable to look away. “There was a man named Jonas. He was so old back then; I doubt he’s still alive. I met him once and he said he was there when she died, when I was born. He was the one who took me to them, out at the cabin.”
As they hissed softly between their teeth and gripped the arms of the chair, Oryn’s skin seemed to become a shimmering blanket of thin silk, bubbling and molding itself to the bones that had started to shift from one angle to another.
May shook her head. “You have to know more than that, even if they didn’t tell you.” It was a sight to behold.
As they slowly writhed in their seat while the rest of their body contorted, Oryn continued to talk through the pains. “Not much,” they stuttered, hunching over themselves. Their spine protruded from their skin, the vertebrae contorting with every small move they made. Their skin tore and regrew, the sinew stretching over the fresh wounds like an artist painting something anew. Oryn heaved, sucking in a breath between the agony, meeting eyes with May as their face was lost to the mass overtaking them; no, becoming them.
“They never told you what you are?” May whispered, brows furrowed as she studied them changing, the pounding in her head begging her to do something—anything—as she fought to resist it.
Oryn’s maw sat agape, brown teeth like daggers dripping opaque saliva as the eyes sitting behind their snout rolled back to the front of their head, the lids opening ever so slowly.
“I don’t think,” they huffed, voice no longer human, “they ever knew.”
They could only hold that form for a moment before crumpling in on themselves, the ravenous SNAP of realigning bone making May jump in her seat. Their skin was gray, sagging along their joints as it slowly rippled itself back to where it was meant to sit. But even then, the place where it was meant to sit was something different now.
Oryn’s head hung low, chin on their chest as their jaw ground itself down, chest heaving erratic breaths. “I don’t think anybody does.”
The heat building in May’s chest was abruptly extinguished, the thrumming in the back of her head ceasing. “We can find out,” she said, determination cascading through the room with her voice.
“Do you think there was a book they didn’t read?” Oryn laughed, sighing to themselves. “A spell they didn’t try?” They looked up towards May, their body shaking. “There’s never been any reason to it; never any explanation. I’ve never had control. Not until—”
“The fire. The start of the siege.”
The smile flitting along Oryn’s lips was small, but noticed. “I’m learning,” they muttered, slowly standing on shaky legs and walking with a limp towards the fire, leaning into its light. Their jaw was softer, their eyelashes longer, their body still a recovering version of what it’ll be once it’s finished. “I’ve ruined so many things. Destroyed so much, ridden with so much guilt…”
May stood and joined them huddling by the fire. “It can’t be your fault if you were never taught how to control it.”
“I know,” Oryn turned to face her, “I didn’t realize how much I didn’t know; how much they kept from me.” They smiled, a soft look of reverence overcoming their face. “I think I understand war now, May.”
“Really?”
“If someone is trying to kill you,” they said, “and you don’t want to die, then you’ll have to kill them first. Not because you want to.”
May shuffled a bit where she stood, sighing. “Almost, but… Well, that’s self-defense, I guess. War is a lot more than merely protecting yourself. Hell, if that’s all it was, I could only imagine where I’d be now.” Her gaze was lost in the fire.
“What I did, then, up in the attic… I didn’t do war? I just protected myself?”
May stood back a bit and laughed. She couldn’t help it, no matter the circumstances. “No, no. Gods,” she shoved Oryn lightly. “You don’t do war; you partake in it. It’s too big to think about in terms as simple as that,” she grabbed their mugs from the table between the empty chairs, handing Oryn theirs as she took a sip of her own. “And I’d say you did more than just protect yourself up there. You protected us,” she motioned to the room around them.
Oryn nodded, holding their cup with confidence. “Demetrius, Alec, you…” they lost themselves in thought for a brief moment, then met May’s eyes again. “And without you, who would be running the place? Who would be protecting these people?” Oryn’s eyes went wide, finally realizing that there’s another side to the coin bearing guilt.
May smiled and finished her tea, sauntering towards the door of the office. “With the control you were just able to exhibit,” she said, opening the door and motioning for Oryn to follow, “I think it’d be best if we starting getting you into a more… structured routine.”
The way (and I love her so much) my therapist is LITERATE?!?! I sit down with an I Feel statement and this warm and kindhearted woman smiles at me and READS ME FRONT, BACK, UPSIDE DOWN, AND FUCKING BACKWARDS like I know it's her job to Explain the Things to Me but she has just read, reread, annotated, and written an analytical essay on my emotional intelligence and mental health. When she hits me with the "I think we should unpack that :)" i KNOW I'm about to get the spark notes on the last three chapters fed to me like a baby bird.
Chapter 8 is here mwahaha 😈
The siege has been going longer than expected as May tries to come up with something to save her men from the impending doom of being locked behind the courtyard walls for too long, still not sure of where the attack came from.
P L E A S E give me feedback and critiques 😌 only partially edited as well so keep that in mind lol
tw: mentions of death, war, bodily harm, blood, food shortages
Tag list (dm me if you want to be a part of the club lol): @skidotto @idonthaveapenname
Ch. 8
They started calling it “the Bitches Siege.” It enraged May’s men in a way that made her proud, no matter how twisted the circumstances.
The makeshift barricade lasted longer than anticipated, especially after the local masons and carpenters took to work reinforcing it on their own volition. Food and certain other supplies were growing scarce, though that was to be expected from a siege. It wasn’t going to end in a matter of days; they’d be lucky if it were over in a matter of weeks, if not months.
May was a studied Duchess, understanding more than others the ramification of what this attack could mean. It’d been months since Giardin’s men were at her gates; they had settled their three-generation long debacle after May had all but killed him in hand-to-hand. She knew him as a coward, but never expected him to yield. The truce was signed within the day. And, considering the lengths at which they were at odds, she had never seen him possess such tactics.
But what would he know about Oryn?
There were no secrets among her men. At least, none that May couldn’t control. Oryn was a secret that was spread wide throughout the manor and surrounding encampment, the stories of a man who can become a beast saving the day.
Little did they know that the entire attempt at this siege was one made on Oryn’s life.
It was obvious who they were searching for; they distracted as many of May’s men as they could with the hopes that Oryn would be tucked away into the saferoom that they must have known about long before May herself had discovered it.
How was it all related to the summons she received from the King? The call to war?
She had yet to call a meeting to discuss anything more than battle tactics with her men. The looks of desperation and curiosity grew in numbers with each passing day, more and more of them needing answers to feel satiated. But May didn’t have any.
Someone is leagues and leagues ahead of me, calculating every step I take and making sure I fall into place like the pawn they want me to be. Whether it’s one of my own men, someone from the church, some imposter hiding amongst the chaos—
“You’re brooding,” Demetrius’s heavy hands clapped together as he stood at attention next to may, staring ahead.
“Planning,” May interjected, sighing as she changed her own stance to match his. They stood atop the barricade as the sun set, the small flames of invader campfires glowing softly in the distance.
“We need to ask for further assistance,” he mumbled, his brows setting deeper. “Look at them all out there. A few thousand, at least.”
“We can hold,” she said, her own confidence wavering in her voice, “I’m not concerned about the barricade. You know it comes down to supplies, which we’re steadily running out of.” She sighed. “Any word yet?”
He shook his head, not daring to make eye contact. “I doubt there will be,” he scoffed.
May’s jaw tightened. “I’m not going to disagree with you, Demetrius, but what proof do we have?”
“Who else knew?”
She took a moment to respond, wishing she could ignore the obvious signs. “You know what that would mean, Demetrius! That’s treason. I can’t risk that yet.”
“Then when?” He finally looked right at her, the anger flaring in his eyes. “When our men are starving? When we’ve eaten all the mounts and burned the last of our fuel?”
She glared at him the way one does when you’ve disrespected your superiors. “I’ve sent my ravens. Until we get a response, the only thing we can do is wait.”
Demetrius shook his head, turning to face straight ahead again. “You know,” he started, “I don’t know much about politics; never cared to. But playing their games can only end one way. Your father knew that.”
May’s jaw tensed as the taste of acid coated her tongue. “My father…” she fought against the lump forming in her throat. “I’m standing firm, General. Tend to your men. I doubt a raid tonight, but be prepared nonetheless.”
She felt his eyes on her back as she descended.
“It has to be about him,” he called after her.
“I know.”
-
There was no brooding after this kill, just a constant worry nagging in the back of Oryn’s head about Alec; the young boy reminded them so much of… some warm and tingly feeling. May’s men quickly turned the dining hall of her manor into a makeshift infirmary; there weren’t enough structures that would properly hold out all the elements within the barricades wall. This was the safest they could get, dying amongst one another.
May’s boots made a crisp sound as they clicked across the stone, walking amongst the rows of beds. It couldn’t be more than maybe a hundred of them—if that—but every single one of them was a devastating blow when your entire retinue only consisted of maybe 600 men total.
There was no doubt that she continued to inspire them just by being in their presence, allowing them to gaze upon the person they thought was wiser and more deserving than themselves. In the recent weeks, however, she could tell that the light behind their eyes was slowly fading. They didn’t see an end coming soon to the carnage, no matter how slowly it was reaped.
She looked from one patient to the next, smiling and shaking hands and bowing as was expected of her. It took longer than she would have liked, but she finally approached Alec’s bed, where Oryn was perched by his feet hunched over a massive tome.
His injuries weren’t as severe as May had assumed. The burns were the worst of it, taking the longest to heal and the only reason he was still being kept in bed.
“How are you holding up?” May smiled, meeting his gaze. He couldn’t help but smile back at her, his eyes still full of hope.
“You could’ve let me up days ago,” he said, nudging Oryn with his foot under the blanket. “But at least now you’re letting me be useful.”
Oryn nodded, shuffling where they sat and waving their hand at whatever it was Alec said, too absorbed by the book in their lap to have heard anything.
“He’d do really well with proper tutors,” Alec said, all but beaming with pride. “I never thought Clergy History was too fun, but we have to cover that first before we start with the real stuff. Look at this,” he said, immediately changing the subject as he slowly peeled back one of the bandages wrapped around his arm.
May peered into the healing wound, still leaking a bit here and there with the skin having faded from a vicious red into a more tender pink. “You seem more anxious than excited to get out of bed,” she said, eyeing him with suspicion. “I don’t want you fighting yet. Besides,” she gestured towards Oryn who had all but stuck their face right up against the aging parchment, “it’s too important to teach him about the world. I can’t risk you,” she tousled his hair, not realizing the care in the gesture until her hand was back at her side.
He laughed before pouting as he fixed his hair. He really was just a boy.
“Alright,” May sighed, “I’m sorry to have to pull you away from your studies,” she waved a hand in between Oryn’s face and the pages of their book, finally pulling them away from whatever they were reading, “But you and I have some planning to discuss.”
Commission info found on the 18+ blog!! Dm for details :)
Broken Legends
Character concept art (follow the amazing artists @skidotto and @thebluester2020 )
More art!
Prologue
Ch. 1
Ch. 2
Ch. 3
Ch. 4
Ch. 5
Ch. 6
Ch. 7
Ch. 8
Ch. 9
Ch. 10
Ch. 11
Ch. 12
Message me to join the tag list if you don't want to miss a chapter as they're posted!!
Current tag list: @skidotto @idonthaveapenname
Wonderful and amazing art of my oc's by my wonderful and amazing artists friends ♡♡♡ @skidotto @thebluester2020
Back with Chapter 7! How are we feeling about the balance between povs's and flashbacks? Trying to balance the emotional integrity of the scenes and worldbuilding can be difficult.
The aftermath of the surprise siege is upon them, May and her men needing to prepare for what comes next.
tw: mentions of death, bodily horror and harm, murder, war, blood
Ch. 7
It took what remained of May’s men another hour to clear the courtyard of all attackers, and another few hours after that to properly barricade the main square of the small town surrounding the manor. There was a line of destruction straight through the middle of the once beautiful yard, showing where the other troops had marched through to get to the Manor—to Oryn.
Scouts were sent out into town to assess the damage and bring as many townsmen into the barricade as they could. Although most men of the duchy were already wielding weapons under May’s command, any that couldn’t still find themselves wanting to serve her in any way that they could. The entire population was loyal to May’s blood, not a single one of them turning down the chance to defend their homes when asked.
As May paced back and forth in front of the main gate to the courtyard and watched her men scurrying back and forth to make sure everything was set before they were attacked again—which they most definitely would be considering the slaughter wrought today. The only thought raging through her pained head about Oryn and their safety and whether or not this attack could potentially have anything to do with them.
It’s obvious, she thought. They wouldn’t have gotten into the attic… they were tracking him, listening to me. This had everything to do with Oryn.
Demetrius came limping towards her, still a hulking form despite his burns and other miscellaneous injuries.
“The barricade is sufficiently guarded and secure, my Lady. Scouts are being directed to their designated areas as we speak,” he said through a hoarse throat, hacking up a glob of ash-stained phlegm, the bit of blood staining the dirt beneath them.
May shook her head, worry plaguing her. “I can’t afford to lose my Chief General, Demetrius. You need medical attention. Go,” she commanded, looking him up and down with scrutiny.
He held her gaze longer than usual; he never liked letting her know how much pressure he held. And yet, just this once, he let his eyes meet hers.
May shuffled where she stood, crossing her arms. “That wasn’t you, was it?”
“No,” he only let the shock play on his face for a moment. “But that wasn’t you, either, I surmise.”
Word travels fast. It’d been a half a day since May had skewered one of her own men, the blood that served her own staining her blade. How many know? Does he? It was a question that had never crossed her mind before: how much would it take for her men to betray her?
Demetrius towered over her, and yet his presence was that of a scared child. “Do you think it was him?” he murmured.
May took a deep breath, closing her eyes for a moment. “I do. But I don’t think he knows.”
Demetrius shook his head. “How can he not know?”
A small group of scouts was seen scurrying through the growing crowds, the townsfolk clearing the way with loud shouts and demands of clearing the way.
~
Maureen paced the length of the cabin, her long hair flowing softly behind her in a graceful waft. Elisa sat upon the cushioned stool with her back as straight as a board, following Maureen back and forth. Starla was merely prepping the afternoon tea, humming a soft song to herself.
Oryn sat beside Starla on the soft wooden counter. It always smelled so lovely when Starla was the one to make the tea. Oryn could never figure out what made hers different from the other two; it just tasted better.
They could all but see the haze of tension cascading over the room. It was terrifying in a way that made their hair stand on end. Oryn couldn’t think of a time when any of them ever expressed so much fear before. Well, once. But that was another matter entirely, nothing like this.
“When he arrives,” Maureen mumbled, “we need to have a plan. We need to be ready to strike before he decides to do anything drastic and—”
“He won’t,” Elisa interrupted. She slowly stood up, stretching her neck and back. “It won’t come to that. However, I do think a plan needs to be set, just in case.” Her hard eyes met Maureen’s, something unspoken being shared between them.
Oryn all but jumped in their seat as Starla stopped her humming and spoke up. “You’re both so cynical,” she chided, sighed as she grabbed a few mugs from the cupboard. “He’s the one that left him with us. If anything, he’s the only other living thing on the face of this good land that shares our goals.” She started to set the small table with their finest placemats.
“But what if—”
“You shouldn’t expect—”
Starla shot them both a glance, the fire roaring in the mantle behind Maureen dulling under her gaze. “We are more than capable of handling ourselves. How much do you think the poor old man truly knows of us? Of our capabilities? Whatever you assume of him, stop. He’ll be here sooner rather than later and the last thing I want is for him to feel as if he’s unwelcome. We need to discuss what comes next. And Oryn,” she said, turning to them. “Don’t ask too many questions. In fact, ask none at all.”
It was rare of Starla—of the three of them—to set her boundaries with such brute force, letting her powerful senses overtake her and express themselves. They decided to listen.
She continued to set the table and arrange the baked goods and tea, letting Oryn have a small taste of the honey and sugar. As Maureen and Elisa sat down at the table to wait, their gazes towards one another never broke. The air was electric with their fear.
There was a knock at the door.
The forest was silent with anticipation.
Maureen and Elisa stood from their seats. Starla opened the door.
The man who stood there was old and frail, the white wisps of hair on his head matching the scraggly beard flowing down his chests. The gray robes were modest and seemingly understated for someone of his status.
“Hello, High Councilor,” Starla said, smiling with pride and bowing just slightly to show her respect.
“Please,” Jonas said, “No need for such formalities.” As he returned her smile, Oryn saw a heaviness in his eyes. He reached an arm around Starla’s shoulder, Starla leaning in and hugging him.
“It’s good to see you. You look well,” he said, pulling away to take a look at her.
Her smile softened as she looked him over, a different weight heavy in her own gaze. “As do you. Please, come sit,” she said, beckoning to the set table full of pastries and tea. Maureen and Elisa both curtly nodded their heads as they waved towards the man, sitting after doing so and starting to fill their own plates. Oryn took that as the queue to fill their own.
They sat for a few moments in silence as they ate and drank, Oryn delighting in the fact that they were being allowed so many treats. They didn’t notice the odd glances and long stares from the four adults at the table with them.
“You look well, child,” Jonas said, setting his napkin down on his emptied plate, letting his cup sit idly on its saucer.
Oryn looked from Maureen to Elisa to Starla, each of them glaring into his soul with their own piercing gaze as if they were each willing what words to come out of their mouth.
“I’m sorry,” Oryn said, making eye contact with the man as they swallowed the last of their pastry. “But I don’t think I know you.”
Jonas nodded, leaning deeper into his chair. He took a long, deep breath. “How much have these lovely ladies told you about how you came to be here?”
Oryn’s brows furrowed in confusion as they once again looked from one witch to the next. Now, though, the three of them each avoided their gaze, squirming in their seats.
They knew an opportunity when they saw one.
“Not enough,” they mumbled, their own gaze darkening as something deep within them said it wouldn’t be smart to ask.
Jonas nodded yet again, maintaining his gaze with them. The witches sat silently in their seats.
“Your mother,” Jonas started, tapping a finger on the table, “she died.”
Oryn nodded. “Yes. And that’s why the three of them take care of me,” they said, gesturing towards where they sat.
“That’s right,” he sat up straighter in his chair, leaning forward as his gaze grew deeper. “I’m the man that got you here. To make sure someone could take care of you.”
Oryn nodded, not understanding the behavior of the witches; what could possibly be so nerve-wracking about an old man with a soft spot for a motherless baby?
“My mother,” Oryn’s curiosity had gotten the better of her. “You knew her then?” their voice was innocent, yearning.
Jonas smiled widely, finally breaking her gaze. “I did,” he said, a small frown creeping to his face. “I knew her well.”
“What was she like?”
The three witches’ necks all but snapped as their heads swiveled and their gazes met Oryn’s. It must have been one of the questions she wasn’t allowed to ask.
They were all silent again for a moment, a solitary tear brimming in his eyes and running down Jonas’s cheek. “She was wonderful,” he muttered more to himself, “and dedicated and beautiful. It was a shame she had to pass so young.”
The relief was palpable, everyone’s shoulders relaxing and sighs being let out.
“Oryn,” Starla said, a forced smile splayed on her lips and an edge behind her voice. “Go outside and play. We have important work we have to do with Jonas today.” Her eyes flicked to the door.
Oryn sighed, looking one last time at each member of the table before hopping off of their stool, grabbing a final pastry, and heading out the door.
Jonas shivered, his gaze becoming cold and hard as his fist slammed down on the table. “What is that?”
“He grows fast,” Maureen mumbled, “much faster than a human.”
“His appetite…” Elisa whispered.
Starla shook her head at them all, meeting Jonas’s gaze. “That’s a young boy,” she said, her voice firm and back straight. “A young boy who has been loved and provided for, even when the things we must provide are challenging and… unethical.”
Jonas closed his eyes, resting his fingers against the bridge of his nose. “It hasn’t even been a full five years,” he muttered to himself, “and he’s seemingly twice that age.” He lifted his head, his eyes meeting Starla’s. “Don’t you forget what he did to her. Do you understand me?” He stood from his seat, walking towards the window that overlooked the yard where Oryn had gone out to play. “That boy… that thing… the things he’s capable of…” he trailed off.
“You think we don’t know that?” Maureen snapped, twiddling her fingers in her lap. “You think we haven’t taken the utmost care in nurturing something your people think is the devil?” She scoffed, getting out of her own seat and standing next to Jonas, following his gaze out the window towards Oryn.
Starla stood as well, starting to clean the mess of the table. The daggers in her voice were sharp. “My good High Councilor, don’t you forget who have been the ones raising him all this time; the ones fighting to understand his nature, his abilities, his…” she trailed off, stacking cups in the wash-bin. “The things we’ve had to witness. And the worst of it is the fact that he has no idea what he’s capable of.”
Chapter 6!!! Is here!!! A direct continuation from the previous chapter, May is tasked with saving her new housemate only to realise she's being faced with than more than she'd first thought, MUCH more than she could've prepared for.
Definitley trying to add more bits and pieces of wolrdbuilding throughout, as well, so let me know if it flows well!
tw: blood, gore, fire, burning, mentions of war, death, bodily horror
Ch. 6
The laceration on May’s arm throbbed as blood gushed from the wound, only fueling her desire to cut down the man responsible for it.
There were no shouts of warning as the first volley of arrows was released into the main courtyard of the manor. The whistles of easily a hundred arrows arching with grace over the main wall, many hitting the cracked cobble at their feet and too many more sinking deep into flesh. A score of men downed in but a moment; she was caught with her backed turned. She wouldn’t let it happen again.
Her sword bit home in the neck of her opponent, sending a hot spread of blood back at her. Her men had started surrounding the outermost section of the courtyard, working their way towards the center and slaughtering everything in their paths as tight units of fifteen to thirty men. They were efficient; May trained her men to be deadly.
Her sword killed one man after another, the rage she felt becoming the passion of the Winds. Her heaving breaths of unbridled anger became the steady breaths of a woman singing in the Gods praises. Her feet were weightless underneath her as she spun and ran through entrails, the death rattles of the fallen a prayer to her victory.
Time both slowed and flowed faster, men seemingly growing old and dying as May severed an arm here and slashed across a chest there, a whirlwind of honed chaos. She continued pushing forward, a large group of her men now rallying behind her as they met the center of the courtyard. Their main advance would be towards the contingent of archers that managed to huddle towards the manor’s gate.
As May lifted a dead man’s shield from his corpse, instinctively blocking arrows as they headed towards her, she caught a glint of something from the corner of her blood-red eyes. Off in the corner, towards the right of the manor, smoke started to bellow from the peaked roof.
The attic.
She was smart to have listened to her instincts those few weeks back, vacating the few valuables from the room and cleansing it in whatever means necessary. Putting the remainder of the old texts and records either in the vault or the archives, the room was merely a little secret hiding space that made for a good saferoom in this particular instance, where Oryn’s safety was in danger.
Oryn? Why would this be about Oryn?
It didn’t matter. She needed to protect them—hide them—and Demetrius was the only other living person who knew of it’s existence.
Something much larger was at play here. Someone deeply connected to May and Ilucia had infiltrated the system she fought so hard to build, making her seem a fool. As she watched the first soft licks of orange cascade across the eaves decorating the attic, her resolve quickly returned.
“Squads four and nine, come with me! Everyone else,” she turned, her throat already horse from breathing in smoke and screaming as she killed, “Kill the rest of these bastards!”
Although she’d already seen more than a squad or two lying dead on the cobble, the morale in her remaining men didn’t waiver. They stood tall, weapons ready, in the exact formations they’d practiced. They stomped their feet in time, yelling their war-cry as praises for their Duchess.
She started towards the side door of the manor, the two squads called for quickly falling into a defensive formation around her. As they ran, May couldn’t keep her eyes off the roof being enveloped by the flames.
The manor itself was hardly damaged but for a broken window here or a scuff along the mortar there. It’s as if the goal here wasn’t to destroy, only to kill—and to do so quickly. The fact that the fire was now reaching towards the sky in only one part—specifically from one room—There must have been another motive, a plan…
Sprinting through the side door and running straight for the closest set of stairs, May noticed just how quiet the manor was now that all who are usually patrolling it took up arms to fight out in the courtyard. This is my fault, she thought to herself, but not because of the weight all of her fallen men; because Oryn was sat in a burning cage and it was May who had put them there.
Out of breath but nowhere near exhausted, they arrived at the top floor, May ripping the door off the closet. The heat was nearly unbearable, the immediate wash of newly born flames reaching from what was once the sealed entrance. May’s blood rushed through her, her heartbeat loud and persistent in her ears as the hum slowly started seeping into her skull.
The men behind her stood back, staring at the soft blaze set before them.
The clang of a desperate fight could be heard over the roar of the flames, someone battling for their life.
“Get me up there!” May screamed, turning to her men with her jaw set and eyes ablaze.
“But—”
Without thinking—without even a second to blink or take a breath—May’s sword cut deep into the abdomen of the Squad Four Commander, the hilt meeting the soft leather of his armor as the blood seeped onto May’s hand. Her eyes were dark, determined.
She turned to the other’s, their eyes wide and mouths slack.
“Get me up there,” she repeated, her breath low and hot.
Without a second thought, she was all but thrown by her men off the floor and up into the searing flames of the attic entrance.
The pounding hum resonating beneath her skull got stronger as she hoisted herself up on burning beams into the center of the alcove. The smoke burned her eyes and left her in a wake of dense fog, unable to see much of the world around her besides the roaring flames slowly dissolving the wooden room. She gasped and hacked as the ash entered her lungs, burning her insides with a fierceness she hadn’t ever felt before.
“Oryn!” She called, her voice horse and meaningless amongst the raging fire. The fighting continued, the clanging of steel just barely making itself heard. She stepped forward, her own bloodied sword held in front of her.
She was getting closer, the battle sounds growing louder, her vision fading with each step she took, her skull vibrating as the pressure of the pounding built. She cried out, falling to her knees, the flames seeming to edge their way closer and closer to her with each passing moment.
There was a shriek of pain, something almost animalistic in nature. The ripping of skin, grinding of bone, tearing of sinew and blood coursing through changing veins.
Fuck, May thought, heaving up smoke as tears rolled down her cheeks Not here. Not now!
The pounding in her head slowly turned from raging, meaningless rumbles into the staccato beats of something being beckoned forth. She didn’t feel any pain, but the soft mush inside of her skull slowly separated, something new emerging from the inside. Her eyes snapped open as the rush of something powerful washed over her. She lifted herself from her knees, her vision steady and clear as she saw what unfolded before her.
Demetrius was fighting neck and neck with two soldiers May had never seen before, wearing the livery of a duke or duchess she didn’t recognize. Their faces were covered in what must have once been white linen, now burnt at the edges and covered in soot. Their skin had been scorched in places and was completely barren in others. How they continued to wield a swords was beyond her comprehension.
With a new weightlessness pushing her forward as the thrumming became a hymn in the back of her head, May threw herself alongside Demetrius, her own sword flying in beautiful arches over her head as she tried to even the odds.
Demetrius was worse off than those they were fighting, a large slash across his face leaking a garish trickle of blood. His leather plate was slick and oily, his hair plastered to his head as he swung his sword ruthlessly. There was nothing but the power and flow of the Wind behind his eyes, the battle rage holding his spirit.
As May ducked under a slash from the enemy, she quickly brought her sword behind the legs of him. As his tendons were cut deep and a spray of blood hit May’s hands, she stood and turned towards the hulking creature behind her. She made a final puncture to the soldier’s throat, killing him.
May could barely make out the full shape of the beast, her vision clearer than it should’ve been in the smoke but unable to focus on whatever Oryn’s form was. She could just hardly see Alec peeking out from behind what must have been the right shoulder of the beast, clearly hanging on to the protruding thorns and masses of skin running down its back. As it steadied itself on its two legs, finally meeting eyes with the fight between Demetrius and the other soldier—flames roaring just barely behind him— Oryn let out a deep, guttural cry.
Oryn leapt into the fight, Alec hanging on tight, trying to hide his face in whatever he could find to block out the smoke. The pads of Oryn’s feet hit the smoldering floor like a clap of thunder, sending shudders through the attic and bringing both May and Demetrius to their knees. It was instinctual: cover your ears. As Alec did the same, the pounding in May’s head ceased. She watched the remaining soldier bring his sword up above Demetrius’s bowed head as he knelt, readying himself for the killing blow.
His arms, strong and lean and glistening in the light of the fire—were steady, the linen finally falling from his face and being devoured by the flames. Then, something changed.
The silence finally enveloped May’s skull once again as she lifted her head to meet the eyes of the man ready to kill her most valuable soldier; one of her closest friends. Holding his glowing sword high above his head, his arms began to shake. The veins in his arms started to bulge, his skin draining to become a ghostly white. His veins started to move, the blood inside of them seemingly thick and collecting in places. As a slow drip of blood started to leak from his nose, his head exploded.
May couldn’t tear her eyes away. Blood and chunks of brain matter and shards of sharp skull bits flew with force from the viscera, a loud hisssss being heard as the fire licked the liquid into more smoke for them all to choke on.
She was yanked to her feet by something that wasn’t a human’s hand and lobbed over the beast’s shoulder, feeling a scared hand reaching out and holding on to hers as Oryn then picked up Demetrius, who was just as stunned by the scene that unfolded before them. Alec squeezed May’s hand, Demetrius gripped the monster’s ever-moving flesh, and Oryn barreled through the outermost wall, letting the group of them fall into the courtyard below.
Back with chapter five!! Things are starting to pick up now 😈 please feel free to leave any and all feedback!!!
tw: fighting, bodily horror, mentions of death, war
Ch. 5
The air in the room was thick with anticipation. The humidity was rising, heavy breaths hanging on every crevice. As the door clicked shut behind the last soldier, May cleared her throat and rose from her seat. Her men followed suit, standing straight with their hands behind their backs, eyes straight ahead: alert, at attention.
May raised her hands and subtly relaxed her wrists, allowing her men to sit. May remained standing at the head of the table, solid chair sitting crooked behind her. To her left sat Oryn, starring directly ahead, eyes fixated on a random point in the table. Next to them sat Alec, blushing and trying his hardest to keep his composure at being invited to such an exclusive meeting. To May’s right sat the head of her personal guard, Lieutenant Demetrius.
“Thank you,” May started. Oryn—through quick glances—was making eye contact with each soldier around the table, intentionally or not. “I have several things I must get off my chest this evening, all of which are meant to benefit you—all of you—in the long run. There may be outrage and there may be those who would rather walk away in peace. Either is fine with me; your servitude is a gift that you may revoke at any time.” She looked towards Oryn, who’s unhooded figure looked more ethereal in the waning sunlight, skin seeming to sag in certain places and be pulled taught in others.
“The skirmishes between us and our fellow countrymen must come to an end.” May’s eyes scanned the room, searching for the first sign of upheaval from her men. Not one of them stirred.
She folded her hands on the table as she continued, swallowing a lump forming in her throat. “It is with great sadness that I report to you all the death of our beloved High Councilor of Ilucia,
The very air in the room became stagnant, the unsteadiness rolling through the room like a wave. Each man around the table had a look of distant mourning—a mask to disguise their fear.
The guard’s words were sharp as he spoke, “Tt was Giardin.”
The small crowd murmured, more men agreeing silently with each passing second.
May sighed, sitting up straighter in her seat. She knew the accusations would come, but not this quickly. “I’ve already considered him the cause, but it was unfounded upon further inspection.”
The loud grumble they gave in dissent reminded May of their loyalty to her and how fickle a thing it was.
“The border disputes have never been an act of unperturbed violence; we marched in fields, we followed oaths, and both ourselves and Giardin’s men have carried the Crown Banner into every battle fought. The disgusting act of murder upon our Holy Councilor does not spell anything close to the Lord who, may I mind you, has done nothing but fight with honor.” May looked from one man to the next, her conviction unwavering.
The silence was heavy.
There was a soft shuffle near the other end of the table before a young man spoke, “Honor?” His breaths were labored, his shirking eyes never daring to make eye contact with May’s own. “That scum… Has fought with honor?” His crude laugh echoed in the suddenly cold office.
May’s jaw tightened as she stood from her seat, the young man doing the same.
“The man kills your kin—has been trying to stake his claim in what’s belonged to your family for more generations than his own has walked the sodden dirt he calls his own duchy… That man is far from honorable, my Lady.”
His statements strengthened the men’s resolve, their eyes becoming certain in their own convictions. May ran her fingers through her cropped hair, taking a step away from the table to get a better look at her men.
She looked at Oryn, then at Demetrius. He nodded, knowing what would come next.
The fire was powerful behind her, roaring in the mantle as it cast dramatic shadows upon the Duchess. Her eyes were hard, yet her voice was on the edge of wavering. The weight of their lives was behind her, supporting her, supporting Ilucia. Without them backing her, what was she?
“I’m ending the dispute.”
The slack jaws and shocked faces were no surprise. This war had been funding them for much longer than May would like to admit.
“But—”
May held up her hand in protest, the guard’s mouth falling shut. “It has to end. I will no longer permit any more of my men to die fighting a battle neither shall ever win.”
He held her gaze longer than he should’ve, but May wouldn’t break it. She would show her men she was still strong, despite pulling out of a generation’s long skirmish. She had more important things to focus on.
Demetrius grew restless in his seat as he watched the May’s play of dominance. He was ready if the man didn’t back down.
“You can leave my service, if you’d like,” May said, relaxing her stance as her gaze hardened.
“I have dead brothers to avenge,” he mumbled, trying harder with each passing moment not to shrink from her watchful eyes. “Our men. Your men.”
“Do you want to die fighting the same war your father fought? The same war your sons will fight? Do you think I want more of you to die for a lost cause?”
He stepped back as he broke her gaze. “Lost cause? They all fought—died—for a lost cause?”
“The border is set, men. The dispute is done. Leave your pin on the table if you’re leaving,” she said, sitting back in her chair as the man stared at the floor beneath his feet.
“What did you give him?”
She sighed, shaking her head.
“You must have given him something!” The anger in the man’s voice was growing, his brow bunching as the veins in his neck bulged, “What did he demand for his peace?”
To everyone’s shock, May laughed. She laid her head back against the hard chair and laughed, going as far as to wipe a tear from her cheek and flick it towards Demetrius.
“He came to me asking how I infiltrated his home, wondering how I killed his High Councilor.”
The few who had started to remove their pins quickly stopped in their tracks, immediately looking back at May.
“I had met him to discuss my own predicament in much similar terms, but he seemed to have beaten me to it. We paid each other nothing besides the intent to bring forth the sacrilegious killer and have him pay his dues,” she placed her hands on the table in front of her, leaning over herself as the fire behind her cast the shadows of a warrior upon her. “I won’t fall victim to whatever plan is being hatched by whatever man is hatching it. Is that clear?”
She had managed to bring them back within her grasp, but knew it wouldn’t be easy to continue to hold them there.
The remainder of the meeting went as planned, the opposition to the truce floating away with the realization that there would be no more fighting upon the muddy banks, death spilling upon the shoals and staining the flow of the river.
They didn’t seem to mourn the holy man Voth much after the announcement of the ending war, instead choosing to celebrate bringing in a new era of peace.
She let them cheer as they ran to meet their wives through the manor corridors, choosing instead to meander a bit longer in the office with Demetrius after she’d dismissed them.
His jaw was sharp and tight as he faced her, slowly shaking his head. “They’d have more to celebrate if you told them the truth,” he said, unabashed as was his way.
May met his eyes, pleading dripping from her own. “What they did to Giardin for refusing—”
“Is not our responsibility!” His heavy fists slammed the solid table, the wood shuddering underneath them both.
May met his strength with her own. “Who are we if we let them win?”
The silence between them was quick in passing, but heavy in foreboding.
“You’ve never been religious, May—”
“This has nothing to do with the church, Demetrius, and you know it. What he’s doing… it’s wrong. I don’t want to sign them up for a war. A real war, with more than a few hundred men marching upon one another.” She scoffed, tilting her chair back towards the fire, “They don’t know what real war is.”
“They’d immediately support him. He’d be getting rid of all tithes, forever.”
May shook her head. “I’m not in support of the tithes, Demetrius. You know this.”
He nodded, folding his arms in front of him as he sighed. “You’ll have to tell them at some point. Sooner rather than later. Either that or risk your head.”
“I know,” she let her chair fall flat to the floor again, leaning her elbows on the table. “But not yet.”
-
Oryn didn’t know how to feel. They didn’t know what to say. The thought of May killing something sentient, something living, let alone commanding an entire… What was it called?
Alec skimmed another couple of pages before handing the book over to Oryn. He stood from their plush seats, rummaging through the scrolls littering the desks and shelves. “This passage is about the main structure of the Councilors,” he said, a distracted air about him. He wouldn’t look Oryn in the eye and didn’t want to stand too close; his fear was palpable, but Oryn could see the spark in the child’s eye, too.
Oryn shifted in their seat, sinking a little deeper into the cushions. “How do you want to go about this?”
Alec froze mid stride between one bookshelf and another, fumbling with the small stack of scrolls in his hands. “Well,” he started, “Our Lady wants me to teach you. That’s… that’s what I’m doing.”
“Well, yes,” Oryn sighed, “but I image there’s got to be a whole lot of information to cover.” She looked around the archive from where she sat, never having seen a room so tall with shelves so large. So many books to read, so much to learn. It was just a tad overwhelming.
Alec tapped his foot on the stone, a soft echo resonating around the archive. “Yes,” he nodded, “there is. Here, I’ll have you start with some of the basics of the clergy, then some old hymns and poems…” he nodded, growing more confident with himself. “I’ll put together a few of the basics for you to read through while I try to form some semblance of a history lesson.” He turned and started down the hall, mumbling to himself about which books he should pick first.
After his original search down in the archive, Alec knew he’d need to make some changes if he were ever to find what it is he was searching for. The layers of dust and debris could be hiding any number of precious tomes holding exactly what he was looking for. Things were strewn about without rhyme or reason, and Alec took upon the task of fixing it. Although it had only been a few weeks since he began, the polished stone floor and fresh candles made the place where Oryn sat seem completely different than the one Alec had first entered.
He didn’t know if his father would be proud or enraged at his current position, flitting amongst stacks of books instead of training to fight, yet taking direct orders from the Duchess herself. He wouldn’t worry about that now, though—he had lessons to prepare, books to find. He was getting better and better at pushing things from his mind, like the fact that the man he’ll be spending the majority of his time with is a beast wearing sheep’s skin.
Oryn started reading the book laid on their lap from the page Alec had flipped to.
The torment cascaded through the flesh of what was once man, devouring a soul in exchange for sanctity. To live safely amongst the banished demons, you had to become one. An act of evil that has occurred only once throughout the history of our realm, shattering the unity of man and the vitality bestowed upon us by our Gods. In doing so, order had lost all meaning and Natural Chaos enveloped the land, any semblance of what was once holy lost among those maimed in the sacrifice, their secrets disappearing with them upon their deaths.
A large portion of the rest of the page was an author’s note, pertaining to the time skip in this particular text. Several centuries of strife and chaos and ruin befell humanity, with most being hunted for sport by the rampaging beasts fueled by our indecision and selfishness.
It was with great hardships that the Council was risen, restoring holiness to a dying race. It was with a Herald’s blessing—glorious in its horrifying visage—that all was saved and greatness restored. Upon his descent—
Boots thundered down the hall as what sounded like a full battalion of soldiers making quick pace through the manor. Muffled orders were shouted, someone on the other side of the door sounding afraid.
“Shit,” Alec scrambled out from the tall shelves, dropping the large stack of scrolls and books and parchment. “Sounds like a call to arms,” he muttered, looking towards Oryn. “There hasn’t been one of those in well over a month now…” he rambled, his eyes constricting as the door was opened with force.
Demetrius’s hulking figure stood in the door frame, his great-axe looming at his side in his shadow. Guards and soldiers alike rushed behind him down the hall, getting louder and louder as each order was barked from the many superiors heading to the center of the fight.
“Attacked from the southwest. Looks like Lord Giardin’s banner, but we can’t be sure. Duchess has asked I take you to safety,” he said between heavy breaths, sweat staining his brow. He had fought already tonight, and would have to fight yet again.
“At… attacked?” Alec muttered, his skin starting to pale.
Demetrius sighed, grabbing the boy by his shaking hands and turning towards Oryn. “Follow me. Stay close.”
He turned quickly from the room, Oryn following in his wake. It was tumultuous to make it through such a packed hall. As the majority of them turned off into separate halls and headed towards their designated battleground, Demetrius and his motley crew headed up a winding staircase.
He continued his brisk jog up the stairs, pulling Alec along with him. Oryn’s chest burned with the exertion as they went through one door into another hall and up the second—or was it the third?—flight of stairs.
The screaming only got louder with their ascent, the battle on the ground accelerating quickly. The screams of the fighting and dying, the roars of the flames as barns were lit ablaze, the shrieking of steel on steel…
Oryn’s blood rushed hot through their veins as the sounds seeped deep into their skull, striking something primal within their core. Their hands shook as they ascended the rickety ladder after Alec, Demetrius having headed up first. The sounds abated as they were muffled by the final floor of the manor, the hatch being pulled shut tight behind them, Demetrius effectively sealing them in.
This AMAZING concept art of early days Oryn and May is by @skidotto and is PHENOMENAL 😭😭😭😭😭😫😫😫😫😫 absolutley obsessed with the life they were able to bring to characters that I never thought I'd get to see outside of my words on a page. I'm fucking FLOORED.
Everybody go get a com from them rn 😌
Chapter 4!! Although I've gone through more than once for some brief editing/re-reading of what I've already got written, I didn't realize how much of a set-up there was. This chapter is the final chapter of "set-up": after this, a bit more action comes into play.
Also, please keep in mind that although this has already been edited, it's nowhere near how I'd like the end product to appear. I've got lots of ideas for additions and changes and would greatly appreciate any and all feedback!!
tw: mentions of death and war
Ch. 4
“War?”
May sighed, standing and brushed herself clean of the bit of dirt. “It’s hard to explain,” she started, holding out to hand to prompt Oryn to do the same.
He took it, standing and joining her. They started their walk back towards the cabin—towards the witches and a warm lunch, a soft rug, and a place to forget all these things for a little while.
“What is it?”
She shook her head, not wanting to meet their eyes. Years ago, when May had first laid eyes on the place she now visited so often, she saw the woods as nothing but hostile; both in nature, and in who it inhabited. There was an aura of fear permeating around the tree line, warning all who crossed the threshold that something unwanted and probably painful was awaiting them on the other side. And yet, tucked inside of all that, was someone so innocent as not to know of war; of death and blood and battle and victory. She didn’t know when it happened, she didn’t know the cause, but the fear was replaced with a warmth that had been missing from the manor for quite some time. That aura became a beckoning call when it was once the Witches’ defenses.
“It’s nothing good, Oryn.” May said, stopping in her tracks and looking to them. “I don’t want to think about those things. War is… it’s something men don’t always come back from. I don’t want to think of my brother like that.” She took a moment before continuing to walk, their paces now slowed, lethargic.
“Alright,” Oryn said, a look of clouded questions hiding in their gaze. “Would the Witches tell me?”
May smiled, shaking her head. “Probably not, but I don’t see how it’s something they could avoid. It’s everywhere, all the time.”
Oryn sat up a bit straighter. “Is it here now?”
May laughed, bumping into them as they continued. “No, no. Not like that. Think of it as an argument between big groups of people. As long as people live, they’ll have things to argue about, right? Differing opinions and such.”
Oryn nodded.
“War is like when you and I disagree on something, but instead of just you and me, it’s one kingdom versus another. If there are people, we will fight. If there are kingdoms, they will go to war.” She kicked a small stone along their path, her words falling from her tongue before she could stop herself thinking of them.
“Oh,” Oryn mumbled under their breath, slowly nodding as their brows furrowed with more questions than understanding. As May realized the plethora of things she had just unearthed for them, she looked at them with a worried glance. They chewed their lip, staring at the ground ahead with each step they took. “I argue with the Witches all the time. They say it’s normal; that a person is supposed to question things and feel strong emotions. But, in the end, we are still the same. We don’t go anywhere. Why wouldn’t your brother come back?”
She saw it coming. “People fight with more than words, Oryn. Weapons. Spears, axes, swords and bows. They…” she followed suit to them, looking down at the path ahead of them. “They die.” Please, for the love of the Waters and Winds, tell me they’ve explained death to them.
Oryn stopped in their tracks, eyes wide as they met May’s. “People just go and— they just run off to fight so hard they die? Why would someone…” they shook their head, continuing down the path.
-
“You have no idea what you’ve just done,” Maureen seethes, pacing the creaking wooden floor of the deck. “The things you put in his head!”
May sat straight-backed, a stern look of her own displayed on her face. “If you’d just told him—”
Maureen stopped in her tracks, her cold gaze settling on May’s, as if sizing her up.
“You still don’t understand, do you?” She said under her breath, her thin tendrils of what was once beautiful hair flinging itself into the breeze behind her.
“Understand what, exactly?” May huffed in exasperation. “The three of you do nothing but talk in circles!” Her throat started to constrict as she went to ask about the vile, viscous brown liquid she drank those many nights ago. “And you—”
She choked on her words, gasping for breath, hacking up phlegm and bile. There was a taste permeating her tongue, enveloping her entire mouth as she struggled to catch a breath. With each arduous inhale there was more gagging, more pain. She could taste it, feel it lethargically slugging its way down her throat again, coating her insides with something rancid. It didn’t matter how much time passed, how hard she tried. This is what happened every time; what held her back from speaking her truth.
That’s what this must be, she thought, retching yet again, this is lies. This is what lies taste like.
One of Maureen’s thin arms snapped towards May, her hand grabbing the girl by the neck as her steel grip tightened, piercing gaze causing a shiver to ravage her body. “Stop struggling,” she said, voice thick with authority, “and stop trying to speak of it. You can’t. That’s what makes it so effective. Don’t you get it?”
May took another moment to gasp and struggle, digging her nails into the bony hand wrapped around her neck. When there was no flinch—not even a modicum of pain splaying on the witch’s face—she decided to do something different for once and listen.
Breath slowly steadying as Maureen released her grip, May raised a hand up to her own throat and rubbed the sore skin. It’s their fault, she thought, locking eyes once again with the witch. She wouldn’t back down; she would be told the truth tonight.
“What did you do to me?” she muttered.
Maureen scoffed, brushing her skirts with the backs of her hands. “We saved you, child. I saved you. This life you live? The freedom and luxury of not having to do anything to cover it up?”
They knew.
“Because of what we did for you, no one will ever know what you did, May. No one will ever have the privilege of locking a spoilt girl such as yourself down in a dank cell. No, not you, May. You’re—”
Elisa rushed into the room with a gust of wind behind her, the door whipping open and slamming itself shut after she entered. “I swear, if you’ve laid a harmful hand on her—”
“I couldn’t if I wanted to!” Maureen shrieked, knowing full well her intention behind her brief stunt a moment ago, even if it was out of her command to execute it.
As they looked at each other with disdain, May found herself starting to tremble in her seat.
They knew.
~
“My Lady, we have to advise against—”
“I’d have asked if I wanted your advice,” she said, secure in her judgement as she swiftly made her way down the hall. To think, just days before, blood and gore painted the walls. You wouldn’t know if you hadn’t seen it. “I’d have already asked for it.”
The shuffling of leather and clinking of mail grew louder behind her, too afraid to stop her but holding too much respect for her to listen. “But he—”
She stopped short, turning to face the gaggle forming behind her. They stumbled over one another at such a short stop, most looking towards her with wide eyes full of something she hadn’t seen in any of her men for a very long time: fear.
“I took him here,” she started, making eye contact with each soldier, one by one, “therefore I am responsible for him. I’ll be the one to decide what comes next. If you cannot trust that your lives are of the utmost importance to me, then why have you ever taken my orders in the first place?” She paused, allowing the men to think on her words. “I know more now than I did a week ago, as do you. Trust that I am doing what’s right.”
One of the spearmen—a guard—from the back row of soldiers shuffled where he stood, eyes darting between May and the men standing beside him. With what must have been an enormous amount of courage, he spoke.
“Our lieutenant trusted you,” he mumbled.
May’s ears perked, eyeing the man. He couldn’t have been much older than herself. “What was that?”
The guard blushed, his cheeks matching the deep crimson of the uniform he wore beneath his leather vest. Yet, still, he spoke again. “Lieutenant Riker, my Lady. He, uh… he trusted you and, well, he died.” He seemed to sink into the small group even more, if possible.
May shook her head, her piercing gaze not letting up on the poor spearman. “Did you forget that Lieutenant Riker expressly denied orders to leave our guest in peace? Do you think the proper warnings and precautions were not taken? Do you think,” she said, her voice raising, gesturing towards the door at the end of the hall; her ultimate destination. “I would risk the lives of my men—our men—by inviting something hostile into our home with no reason?”
She had their attention now.
Looking once again from one man to the next, she sighed. She owed them more than she could ever tell, and yet they’d all have her head if they knew the truth. It may be time.
“Tell your officers there’s an impromptu meeting this evening,” she said, gazing towards the shadow through the ornate window adorning the plain stone wall. “Give it four hours' time. I’ll tell you. I swear it.”
As she started striding once again down the hall, Oryn’s door coming ever closer, the men behind her merely watched. The door hadn’t been open since the attack, locked from the inside by a man who thinks he’s a monster. May approached, taking a deep breath, her hand reaching for the handle as she heard a soft click, the door opening but a sliver to reveal the dark recess of the room beyond.
“Just you,” Oryn said, voice but a whisper, pulling the door back slightly more, allowing May in.
They sat in silence, looking at one another. May’s ambitious attitude melted away at the sight of them, all shriveled up upon themselves, draped in two or three robes hiding their visage from being seen. There was nothing in the room but a shredded mattress upon a stone dais, raising it slightly in the center of the room. All other furniture—most likely broken beyond repair—had been removed. Long scratches lined the walls, trailing from one end of the room to the other, their twins cascading over the floor. The smell permeating the air was rancid, of rotting meat and decay. The closer May got to Oryn, the worse it became. As Oryn sat upon the remnants of mattress, May adopted the soldier's stance—hands clasped behind your back, feet apart, chin down—giving them ample time to prepare for her onslaught of questions.
Suddenly, the thoughts were flying away, leaving nothing but an empty void in their wake.
“I’m sorry,” Orryn said, breath hushed and full of something heavy and painful.
May shook her head with disbelief, pinching her nose between her fingers and sighing. “I didn’t invite you here to watch you rot in this room. I didn’t come here today to chastise you for what happened.” She made her way closer to them, standing over them near the mattress and offering them a hand to stand next to her.
Oryn, between the hoods of the robes they wore, looked at May’s outstretched hand. “You aren’t afraid?”
She leaned closer, peering between the sheets of fabric with might. “I don’t think you could hurt me. Now get up.” She reached down and took their hand in her own. It took everything in her not to recoil with shock as she felt the cold, dead weight laying limp in her palm, sweat starting to bead on her brow.
Oryn felt something when May grabbed their hand, warmth flowing freely from her body into their own. They looked upon the two hands sitting together, held there by the sheer will of two people.
“I said,” May barked, tightening her grip on Oryn’s hand, “Get. Up.”
She pulled on their hand, yanking him off the tattered mattress and out into the cold center of the empty room. Limp and cold, Oryn stumbled behind, finding themselves standing next to May, her conviction visible and flaring from her ears.
“You can’t do this anymore. Sit here, brooding. Wallowing.” May sighed, eyes narrowing as they continued to stare.
“But I... You—”
“You’ve never killed anyone before? Not once? Not for any reason?”
Oryn shuffled where they stood, refusing to meet May’s eyes, wishing they could curl into the mattress behind them. “Why would I have...”
As they lifted their chin into the light, meeting May’s gaze but for a moment, she saw something there that she’d never seen before. She shook her head, dropping Oryn’s hand and letting it fall beside her as she started pacing the room.
She sighed, the sound of her boots hitting the stone matching the drone of the soft pounding playing in the back of her head. “What did the Witches tell you about death?” she said, her breathing even.
“Everything dies,” Oryn mumbled, “it’s a part of being alive. It might be the end part, but it’s a part we all come to.” They hugged their arms to their chest, pulling the robes tighter around them. From the corner of her eye, May could see the shape of the body underneath; one she wasn’t familiar with. She kept pacing.
“Do you remember when I told you about war?” She kept her eyes straight ahead.
“Yes.”
May nodded. “I’m fighting in a war,” she said, pausing her pacing to meet Oryn’s eye.
As expected, the shock on Oryn’s face was magnifying. She could see the layers to the fear crossing her mind, the horror of murder and untoward death upon the innocent. May knew that—in Oryn’s mind—there was no real understanding of the world as it is. If she was going to stay here, she needed to understand. And, despite the pounding ringing through May’s skull, she couldn’t think of any outcome to the events leading here in which she didn’t take Oryn home.
They shuddered. “I don’t understand. Why would—”
“I’m going to explain everything to you. I promise. But it’s going to take a lot of time: there’s a lot I need to teach you. But,” May said, stepping closer to Oryn, keeping her eyes locked on theirs, no matter how wrong they looked. “I need you to know that those men—my men—they all choose to be here. They all choose to fight. And they’re not fighting in search of death, but in spite of it. Do you understand?” The hardness in her eyes melted away as she leaned forward, taking her hand to pull back the hood concealing Oryn’s face.
She tried her best to hide her shock, but Oryn read her like a book. They knew something was different; whenever something like this happened, they always were. First it was subtle, but as the days passed, the differences became more obvious. They didn’t dare to look at themselves since the attack, but they knew. The soreness brooding in their ribs when they took a breath, the aching in their joints, the tight feeling of their jaw... it always happened.
Oryn nodded, shallow and slowly. “I understand choice,” they started, hands trembling, “and I trust you, May. But I can’t just… I can’t just kill.”
“I never asked you to.” May took in whoever it was in front of them; the new shape, the new structure. “But I’ll need your support. Your undoubted, unequivocal support. No questions asked. Can you do that?”
“I’m not going to be another one of your men—”
“I never asked you to, Oryn. I’m asking you to be my friend. To trust me. And you just said you could, didn’t you?”
Another nod was exchanged between them.
“Good,” May sighed. “There’s a meeting a few hours’ time. Come to the Hall, okay?”
HI!!! Back with chapter three!!! All feedback welcome 😌
tw: mentions of death, murder, depressive symptoms
Ch. 3
May sat at her desk, her head weighing heavy in her hands. She didn’t need to look towards the paintings and sculptures adorning the walls and mantle; every inch of this room was known to her like the back of her own hand. She spent hours upon hours here, possibly entire lifetimes. After her father fell, the duchy of Ilucia rallied around her, looking to the only remaining legitimate heir. They loved her father—revered him, almost. There was a strict way about the man when it came to keeping things running, making sure jobs were filled and trades were made. They would say he was a kind man who knew how to speak in a way that made other’s listen. He ruled here through a combined force of love and fear, managing to balance the two in a way that allowed their family to remain influential in a time when Dukes and Duchess’s were finding their heads rolling across the wooden floor.
As she lifted her head, laying it back on the chair behind her and taking a deep breath, she found herself looking at the chair across from the desk. How many times had she sat there? How many glasses of brandy did she watch the man down? How many bruises had faded over the time since his death?
Her mind didn’t travel here often—at least, not anymore. There was no use in thinking of all the things you’d never be able to speak of. Gripping the arm of the chair until her knuckles turned white, May found herself wondering what a man like him would have done in a situation like this.
He’d never allow himself in a situation like this to begin with, she thought, toying with the idea of a monster prowling the halls of the manor while her father was still above ground. If only.
There’s something to be said of the burning urge May felt regarding her rule of the duchy. It had nothing to do with pride; she wasn’t proud of what her father built, nor his father before him. The countless hours of preparing in the feminine arts and learning to be the daughter her father required of her. It was like she wasn’t meant to be spoken to or asked questions but only looked at by prospective husbands to further the financial stability of the Ilucia. It was a simple life.
Simplicity was a gift May was never to receive again. The day she found herself groveling at the feet of a witch in the mud was the last time she would ever know what that word truly meant, even if she didn’t know it at the time. By the Winds and Waters, though, did she know it now.
There was a lot she had to learn in quite a short period of time, her motivation pushing her with a desire she hadn’t ever felt before. There was a certain weight that came with responsibility, one that she found herself becoming comfortable under. Finally, there was a purpose for her, one beside what her father had created.
But this isn’t where she thought she’d end up. There was very little about life that May understood, even after years of serving her duchy; she felt like something was still wrong. The trade was going well, bolstering the economy, creating plenty of work for all her people. The militarized approach to running the area has taken quite well over the last few months, as well, with all of her men supporting the change. There would always be the problems of ruined crops or overdue taxes, but things were well and stable, thanks to May.
But something was wrong. Something had been wrong since the day of her coronation: this pounding that never seemed to dissipate, but got quieter the less she focused on it. This screaming force begging her to follow it’s sound, only for May never to locate the source. Something was deeply wrong, and she didn’t know where to start looking when it came to fixing it.
Running her hand against the smooth grain of the desk, she felt more aware of the feeling of the chair beneath her, the seat of what came before her now cradling what was once a scared little girl. Looking upon the office that had barely changed since it became hers, she found herself wondering what it all would be like if they knew; if they really knew of what had happened to him, what she had done. No matter how many times she played it again in her mind, she never stopped feeling proud of it, even when every fiber of her being was telling her that guilt was the only way forward.
She was beside herself as she slowly came to her feet, shuffling over the creaking floor towards the door. As she looked back behind her, towards the hearth she was just moments ago sitting before, she felt rage being stoked within her. Things were starting to crack in a way that everyone else could see. And what of when they started asking questions? No part of the truth would ever escape her lips. It couldn’t.
She couldn’t tell you how long she stood there wrestling with emotions she felt she shouldn’t have, and yet as the sun started to peek over the horizon, bathing the office in shades of oranges and pinks as it shone through the window, May’s throat constricted and sweat started to bead on her brows. Her fists clenched at her sides, breath hitching behind her tongue as she struggled to get the words out.
Quiet squeals left her lips, the whimper she made doing nothing but embarrassing her in the empty room. It didn’t matter how hard of a breath she put behind it; it didn’t matter how hard she prayed or to what God. There would be no answers where she searched for them; there would be no voice when she dared to scream.
~
The sun was bright, bouncing from each full leaf and meeting the ground with a kiss. The birds sang along with the babbling rhythm of the brook, lulling May into a calmness she hadn’t felt for too long. Someone so young wasn’t meant to bear the things she wore, and yet she wore them nonetheless.
“Do you think they’d ever let me come to the manor?” Oryn quipped, tossing a stone from the bank off into the river, watching the waves swallow it.
May sat a bit straighter, looking towards her. “The Witches?” she scoffed. “Absolutely not.” She swallowed the lump forming in her throat, struggling to hold it in.
Oryn sighed, shoulders sinking low. “It was a stupid question,” they said, picking up another small stone.
May scooted a bit closer to her friend, taking off her shoes and letting her feet dip into the river. “You aren’t missing much, anyway.”
They nod, taking a moment to think before speaking again, voice heavy with something May couldn’t quite place. “I won’t know that until I see for myself. Besides, you talk so much of your brother, I’d like to meet him, eventually.”
May found herself laughing. “My brother? You and him… you’re different,” she smiled, meeting Oryn’s gaze. “I don’t think he would… well, I don’t know. I won’t say you’ll never meet him, but I’ll never take him here. He’d never come.”
Oryn nodded. They didn’t take offense; the way they lived here with the Witches wasn’t something that everybody would understand. Maureen told them that time and time again.
“Would he want to kill them?” Oryn asked, cocking her head the way she’s seen May do when she asks a question with a nonchalant air.
May’s brows furrowed as she turned her gaze down, watching her feet in the water. “Probably,” she said, “People don’t really know the Witches.”
“What do they call them again? Out in town.”
“Hags,” May said, meeting Oryn’s gaze again. “But they’re not.”
“I know.” And she did know that. Truly.
“They’re good. Good women, good people.”
“I know,” Oryn said, their voice ringing clearer with conviction. “Do you?”
May caught herself staring off into wherever the river went, down towards the horizon and off into some land somewhere that she didn’t know, off to an ocean she’d never see. “I trust them.” she finally said, looking for something she’d never find.
“But your brother wouldn’t,” Oryn stated.
“No, he wouldn’t. But it’s because he doesn’t know them. He is… strict in his convictions. I doubt he’d let himself.” She sighed. “People are afraid of things they don’t know.”
Oryn nodded, letting their hand sit softly atop May’s. May let a content smile splay on her lips, still staring off into nothing and everything.
“He was thinking of leaving, actually,” May said, letting herself speak about something she’d been holding in for a while. She took her feet out of the river, the cold water making her feet numb for a moment, grass and mud sticking to them as she tucked them under herself and turned to face Oryn.
“Leaving?” Oryn turned, too, meeting May’s serious gaze.
“Oryn,” May started, “Do you know what war is?”
~
There was a distrust in May’s men. It wasn’t against her, necessarily, but against what they knew she didn’t say. Standing behind her and glorifying her name was something none of them had ever thought of twice. But Alec, feeling a new sense of bewilderment, found himself asking more questions than he had answers to.
The dank cellar was full from floor to ceiling with books bigger than he’d ever seen. As he made his way from one row to the next, he saw words he didn’t recognize bound by skin in colors he’d never seen. He didn’t know specifically what May wanted him to search for besides some sort of mention of a monster like the one they saw that night
“No,” Alec said to himself, “Not monster. That man,” he mumbled, letting his fingers trail along the spines of the tomes, leaving a line amidst the dust in his wake. There was knowledge hiding here that no one knew, and the boy didn’t know how he’d go about finding it. He wasn’t even sure what it was.
He was young to handle any guilt, but not so young that he didn’t understand it. He thought of death more often than not in these passing days, wondering how responsible he should feel and whose fault it was and what he could have done differently, if anything at all. He didn’t think he’d find any answers for any of those questions here, but the others… maybe.
He didn’t sleep the following night, nor the night after that. It was harder to sleep when he’d close his eyes and see that thing hiding in the darkness, ready to rip another door from its hinges. First, it scared him. He knew his father hated that he harbored so much fear, but his mother made sure he knew that he was still just a boy; it was more than normal, but expected. A boy didn’t become a man overnight—he wouldn’t be able to conquer those fears from a meagre month in the militia. You don’t just grow up, all at once.
The fear turned into something else, though; the other thing his father told him never to harbor. Curiosity. He’d been on enough hunts with his brothers to know what beasts lurk in the shadows, and this certainly isn’t one that they’ve ever heard of. It didn’t matter how long he wracked his brain of the stories of great hunts and beast slayers, there was nothing about this thing that could point to its origin. The scouts of the area have an extensive list of any and all beasts that they’ve been able to track and hunt locally, making sure to dispatch of any of the less… safe species. But this wasn’t a beast. It was a man.
When the Duchess had made her announcement to the staff of a prolonged guest taking up stead in one of the unused rooms, there was a stifle of what could only be excitement amongst her men. There hadn’t been a single visitor to the manor since she’d become the standing Duchess.
There were very few who opposed her. Although not in direct opposition, Alec’s father wasn’t one to take his dismissal lightly. May shed her father’s cohort quickly, making it her first proper action when she became standing Duchess. They all thought she’d come crawling back to the group of old men, looking for some sort of guidance in what to do next and how to help her people. Their anger was mellow at first, masked by their grief for their former duke and, not too long thereafter, his proper heir.
Alec didn’t find much of anything on that first day in the archives. He looked from one book to another, trying to find the ones that would talk more about beasts and monsters and where they come from. Everything he found terrified him, but none as much as he originally had. His thoughts ran rampant with the things the Duchess could be planning or where she could have picked up someone like him in the first place. Why, of all the things she could do—of all the men she could recruit—would she go searching for something like that?
She must be planning something. Something big.
He concluded that whatever it was, it must be something worth more than the lives of all the men she could lose trying to tame it.
-
“I’ve no idea what the fuck to do,” May mumbled, her foot bouncing with anticipation as she starred upon the idol, sat shiny and untouched upon a shelf nothing else would ever grace. She didn’t pray often, and never in the way she was supposed to. There was meant to be a certain etiquette to prayer; quiet and unadorned speech, modest robes, offerings, the list could go on and on. Most people of May’s generation and those that followed disregarded more and more of the rules and regulations with each passing year, finding themselves making their own relationships with Gods that many barely knew, if ever making a relationship with any of them at all. May’s father was a man of appearances, hiring gardeners and masons and carpenters to add constant flourishes to his gardens and shrines. After his death, her brother slowly forgot about all the groundskeepers and by the time May was the standing heir, they were all dismissed.
She found herself sitting in front of a shrine shrouded with natural growth. The thick branches of the bushes held themselves tight against the rotting wooden ornamentations, the stone platform and shelves encrusted with years of mildew and moss. The thick pool of algae swam atop what used to be a fountain that sprayed scented mist, eating whatever fell amongst the scum. She found a beauty in the disheveled look; admired the strength of nature reclaiming something that was once so carefully manicured.
She crouched over a wooden stump that was so old it had started to petrify here in the shade, hands clasped tight and brows furrowed. She looked towards the idol, lessons of the Great Winds flashing through her mind. Her father made sure she was schooled properly, even if only to make her a good potential suitor. Although the masculine arts were out of her reach until she found herself the standing Duchess, May liked to think that, in another life, she may have been a true scholar. Not here, though. Not now.
As she gazed up towards the polished clay vase, she wondered if something made in a man’s image—in a man’s hands—could ever truly be a vessel for communicating with the Gods. All the questions in such nature started occurring not long after her mother’s death, but with the beatings she received when she voiced them, she thought it best to push them far from her mind. Now, though, the doubt and uneasiness of not being an honest believer started to nag at her.
This was stupid, she thought, remembering the times she prayed for first her mother’s soul, and then her father’s. She didn’t bother to pray for her brother’s—she sullied his soul far beyond repair. There was nothing prayer could have done for him.
She sat up straighter, sucking in a deep breath and setting her feet firmly on the ground. She tried with everything in her to think hard enough of something that would help her, something to steer her in a direction that would tell her what to do with Oryn. What to do about the trail of death that seemed to follow them; the responsibility and guilt not weighing on her the way she knew it should. She bought them here. She is the one who has her men’s blood on her hands. So why did she feel so relieved?
She’s not unused to blood. Her own, her men’s, her family’s… But those all carried a weight to them that she could feel; one that kept her in a state of hostility, never knowing whose death she’d be responsible for next. There was a numbness that came with it, the last several years serving to alienate her subjects from her more and more. It wasn’t the way she was supposed to think. The value of life is something she used to cherish; something the Waters and Winds were supposed to help spread throughout mankind, if we would accept them into our lives. Feeling the guilt and pain was all a part of the Natural Way, molding them—the meagre supplicants of their Gods—into a warrior that was fit to battle the Natural Chaos that the world had to offer. There was a balance to be maintained.
Her prayer was bitter and full of a vain desire to understand oneself—a prayer the Gods most likely wouldn’t answer. And yet as she held the idol in her gaze, the sun glinting off the glaze of the vase, she felt like she had finally admitted something long overdue.
She closed her eyes, letting the few rays of sun sneaking through the overgrowth caress her skin, before grabbing a pebble from the long-forgotten footpath beside her and hurling it at the vase, the stone hitting the ceramic with a satisfying clunk as it split and shattered to pieces. Whatever birds were lounging in the nearby bushes and trees took that as their cue to depart, leaving her feeling alone in a forgotten shrine that no longer had a purpose.
She stood, stretching her arms and taking a few more big, deep breaths. Good throw. She knew she wasn’t going to find any answers here. Hell, she wasn’t going to find any answers anywhere. She had that little boy—what was his name? Alex? Alvin? —rummaging through what must be years and years' worth of tall tales and nonsense. She knew he wouldn’t find anything useful, but she needed to make all of her men feel as though they were doing something that was. The last thing she needed was a reason for her men to fall apart and start rallying against her. It was up to her to give them purpose, no matter how unimportant it truly was in the end.
May started making her way down the stone steps and back towards the manor, her shoes hitting the ground with purpose. He needs to learn.
Oryn had spent the past week sulking in their room, blinds drawn, and door locked. As May walked from one side of the manor grounds to the other, it was determination fueled by anger that flooded her veins. There was too much being hidden, not enough known. She found herself thinking back to her first brush with death. She understood what it meant long before her mother died… a childhood cat, maybe? Or was it her grandfather? She didn’t remember. When was Oryn’s?
Back with chapter two!! Again, this has been read through once or twice for editing but isn't perfect so please feel free to point out any more gramatical/spelling errors!
In this chapter, we get to look at little more at May and Oryn's past.
tw: mentions of death, grief, loss, slight bodily horror
Ch. 2
There was a glare in May’s eyes that no one had seen before. A look that made her seem more like her father with every passing second. As the beads of sweat slowly started to drip from one man’s head to the oak table they all sat, May sat straighter in her chair.
“He stays,” The solidarity in her voice for something that wasn’t human sent a shiver down the spines of her men. “And if any of you disagree, let it be known now. Otherwise, you’re all dismissed.”
The men started to stand from their seats, the drag of wood across the stone floor ringing in their ears. It was silent but for the noise of their movements; no one dared disagree.
“Alec,” May snapped, seeing the young soldier starting towards the door. “Not you. You stay.”
The rest of them filed one by one out the door, Alec’s hands shaking as he looked down at his feet. He’d never spoken directly to the Dutchess before. He didn’t even think she knew his name. He knew the meeting would be about everything that happened last night, so it wasn’t a surprise when he got the summons. She must know he was the one to start the whole thing…
The slow tick, tick, tick, of the ancient clock droned on as May sat behind her desk, eyeing the child in front of her. He couldn’t be more than twelve, maybe thirteen—nowhere near old enough to experience the horrors of war. Why the recruits kept getting younger and younger with each passing month, May couldn’t tell, but she couldn’t argue with the strength of numbers.
“You’re not in trouble,” she started. She could see him shaking, the red hue of his cheeks as he stared at the floor slowly fading the more she spoke. “But there’s something important we need to discuss.”
There was a slow and painful droning starting to cradle the base of Alec’s neck.
“Please, sit.” May said, extending her arm to the chair in front of her. Alec looked up at her with tears brimming in his eyes, his hands slowly reaching for the arm of the chair before his heavy feet began to move across the floor.
“There was a sacrifice made by a man last night that I’ll never be able to repay,” she said, taking her time to make sure Alec heard the severity in her words. “I need you to know that your lieutenant’s family is going to be taken care of by me, personally.”
Alec’s shoulders slowly started to unfurl themselves, a small wave of tension slowly washing away from him.
“What happened here last night can never happen again.”
Alec’s brows furrowed as he wrinkled his nose, sniffing a bit to keep his tears at bay. “How can you say that and let him stay?” He said, his eyes pleading with May.
There was a part of May’s heart that, in that moment, slowly started breaking for the small boy. “He didn’t know,” she started, giving way to Alec shaking his head.
“No animal ever does,” he choked, a tear starting to fall.
May stood from her desk, her cloak shrouding her massive form as she walked around it to kneel beside Alec. She took his hands in hers, looking up at his eyes, past the tears staining his cheeks. “He’s not an animal. He’s lost. And I think bringing him here…” she sighed, dropping his hands but keeping her eyes locked on his own. “I think it changed something inside of him.”
As she stood and walked back to her desk, Alec wiped his tears with the back of his hand. They weren’t shaking anymore. The low hum slowly crept up his skull. “Where did he come from?” he asked, “What is he?”
“I don’t know what he is. I don’t think anyone knows what he is. But there’s human in him. Because of that, I’m not going to subject him to whatever torture some High Councilor or Mage might have in mind for him.” She locked eyes once again with Alec, her own brow furrowing to match his. “I need your help, son.”
Less than twelve hours ago there was a pain and a guilt racking Alec’s chest, swallowing him whole as he prayed for the life of a superior whose death he felt responsible for. And yet here he sat now, being praised for his duty and taken aside by the Dutchess herself to ask a favor. His sense of duty was whole and always would be; his grandfather’s grandfather plowed the fields his grandchildren one day would, and through all those generations they’ve diligently served May’s family. He didn’t question May, but in that moment, he questioned her motivation. In no scroll or parchment anywhere in Aphoreum did it say to praise a man for causing death—rather, the Gods call it a Natural Sin unless to protect one’s self—and yet here he sat.
“I need to know if I have your full loyalty, Alec.”
He swallowed a lump in his throat and sat higher in his chair. “You do, my Lady.” The words fell off the boy’s tongue before he could have a moment to think of them.
May nodded. “I’m sure you can tell that we’ve been slowly building ourselves up since the last set of port raids, but in a way much different than in the past. Steering away from Crown Union Mercenaries, the King’s trade policies… Do you think of me as less of a leader for that?”
“No, my Lady.”
“And how do you think of the church?”
It was a loaded question, of course. There was a million and one things Alec could’ve said in that moment, knowing the God’s wrath and understanding the world’s Natural Chaos. There were those who were so afraid of the God’s that they’d cower in the daylight for fear of being stuck by a stray bolt of lightning.
He huffed out a solid breath. “Are you asking me what I think of the Gods, my Lady? Or the church itself?”
The smirk that spread on May’s lips told Alec that he’d answered correctly.
“There’s something coming, son,” May said, “and it won’t be for those who can’t stomach it. That… thing you saw last night, that beast—there’s a man in there who can learn how to control that. Do you understand what that means?”
Alec thought he did, and slowly nodded.
“Good. It’s settled, then.” May stood from her desk, prompting Alec to do the same. “I’m promoting you. Congratulations, . You and I will see a lot of each other. I’m going to provide you with a copy of the keys for the manor’s archive. You can read, yes?”
Alec was shocked, his jaw all but sitting on the floor. He nodded vigorously.
“We need to figure out what he is. And I don’t want them to know.”
-
Oryn and May sat in silence in May’s study, the cracking of the fire behind them burning strong, the spring wind softly blowing through the open window.
May looked at Oryn and saw someone she thought she recognized. There were the bags drooping under their eyes and ashen skin, showing a lack of sleep. But that wasn’t what was different. The way they sat in the chair said something was amiss; the muscle under their shirt seemingly misplaced, the crook of their jaw not matching the glide of their neck. This was someone May knew, but not someone she could truly recognize.
After moments of May’s puzzling stare, she spoke, her words soft and clipped.
“What are you?”
May’s presence in that mighty carved chair positioned behind the sturdy oak desk was something Oryn wanted to keep fresh in their mind. They’d never seen May as anything other than an afraid child, much like the way May must have viewed Oryn. Until now, of course. As a sigh escaped their lips, Oryn let themselves fall deeper into the cushioned chair they sat upon. There was no use in fighting it now; not here, not with her.
Their eyes traced the grains of the wood in the desk. “I don’t know.”
Oryn understood rules: there were things you couldn’t do, or bad things would happen as a result. There were small rules, like being gentle with glass potion bottles. And there were big ones, too, like the rules made by a king. Seeing May sitting behind the desk reminded them of all the rules they had to follow, the order they had to keep; there are consequences to actions, punishments when rules are broken. Oryn knew they were wrong, knew if anyone else had done what they had, they’d be strung up and left for dead—that’s how May ran her duchy. And yet, here they both sat, in comfortable chairs beside a blazing fire, the sweet scent of blooming flowers in the chilled air settling over the room.
“Who are you?”
Oryn’s eyes met May’s. “I’m me. I’m not—”
“But you look different. You’re not… you’re different, somehow.” She leaned forward, resting her arms on the desk, peering at Oryn like there was something missing.
“I don’t know how to—”
That puzzled expression vanished from May’s features as she slammed a hand on the desk, Oryn jumping in shock. “What do you fucking know?!”
~
There was a rush of something hot sucking May down to the floor, the heat scorching her skin and burning away any thoughts she had outside the pain. The blinding light of something better unknown sent her eyes rolling back in her skull.
When they told her there would be a price to pay, she didn’t expect something like this.
Her screams of pain soon mixed with Oryn’s screaming pleas, falling upon the desperate yet stern ears of the three women.
“You’re killing her!” Oryn shouted, their own skin started to vibrate with what they thought was fear, or maybe anger.
Starla wrapped her long, bony arms around Oryn’s waist, restraining her with more strength than many thought the old hag capable of.
Elisa’s eyes darkened, her brow furrowing as she took a long look at May writhing in pain on the floor. “Maureen…”
“She begged me!” Maureen started, her stable hands—one touching May, the other, her brother’s corpse—starting to shake. “She begged me…” she trailed off, sweat running down her neck as she sucked in a deep breath.
“If she could pay—” Elisa started.
“She can! She can pay! She’s—”
There was a reverberation felt throughout the cabin, the wooden floor cracking and splitting, the mud walls crumbling in places and every small animal and bug scattering out from the structure and into the forest beyond. Then all was silent, but for the settling of the cabin back onto its own weight.
May was left on the floor—unharmed, unconscious, and unable to pay.
Maureen lifted her hands from both bodies, stepping away from them as if she’d just seen something unholy.
Starla released her grip on Oryn, who fell to the floor and scrambled to May, cradling her head on their lap. “What were you doing to her?” They spat at their guardians.
Starla joined Maureen and Elisa, the three of them staring at the two on the floor.
“Why didn’t—”
“She asked for…”-
“What is she going to do?”
-
When May finally found herself waking, it was in a soft bed of furs in front of a roaring fire. She felt as though she had just fought a war; she felt as though she lost.
Maureen was at her bedside, softly cooing a lullaby under her breath and wiping at the sweat staining May’s brows. As May looked up at her, her eyes practically dripping with hope, she was met with Maureen’s look of unrelenting grief.
Through violent, choking sobs, May asked her, “Why?”
Maureen shook her head, Oryn bolting through the doorway of the small room, their breath heavy and eyes wide. “She’s awake?”
May grabbed Maureen’s arm, raking her fingers down her skin. “WHY?” she screamed, hot tears falling to the blankets surrounding her, breath hitching in her throat.
Oryn ran to her bedside, a look of astonishment upon their face. Here, for the first time, Oryn was meeting Grief; something primal and carnal and deeply engrained in what it means to be alive. Oryn beheld the only friend they had known in her throws of pain and wails of loss, clawing for something that didn’t exist and gasping for air that seemed so easy to breathe.
Maureen turned to Oryn, who was tempted to place a hand upon May’s back and comfort her the way they thought they should. But the look on Maureen’s face—the daggers in her eyes—screamed not to get involved. This is a human thing, her eyes said, something you can’t understand.
Maureen held May as she screamed her throat raw and bloody; she held her through her convulsions and the begging and the desperate feeling that comes from being and feeling utterly and completely alone in the world.
Oryn felt like it was something she could understand if Maureen would ever let her get close enough to someone to know.
That distance, though, that forced space Maureen created between Oryn and anything else living, was a punishment she greatly deserved.
~
“I know I’m not all human,” Oryn said, their low voice droning out the sound of the fire and the wind, “But I don’t know anything more than that.”
May sat back, folding her arms in front of her. “What happened?”
As Oryn gazed at May, they started to cry. First it was just a small tear trailing down their cheek, gently dripping into their lap. “I… I killed someone,” they whispered, trying to blink away the salty tears but only making it worse. “I killed someone,” they repeated, their eyes boring into May’s soul as she sat in front of them, pleading for something they didn’t quite understand yet; mercy.
She wept in front of May, tears pouring seemingly with no end, as they felt the guttural urge of knowing they’d done something wrong and needed to pay for it.
I'm back 😈
Here's chapter one! The prologue has been heavily edited, up to chapter five lightly edited. So please be nice with all the grammatical errors if you find them! (Also feel free to point them out; I've obviously missed them as of this far lol, much appreciated!) Thinking of maybe doing a character post regarding the main characters you meet here, Oryn and May.
tw: mentions of death and funerals/burial, grief, blood
•
•
•
Our dearest Oryn,
Our faith is strong. Knowing it’s unorthodox means nothing; our souls don’t fear the plaguing nags of Chaos any longer. You can’t harbor any doubts as to where we will go once our souls leave our bodies: know they will all find their homes with the Gods. You needn’t waste your breath praying for us.
Knowing you, this cabin will soon find itself empty. The home we built together will be barren. It’s okay—you can go. We trust you. But remember who you are. Remember who we raised you to be. Please, for the love of all that is good and holy, remember what we taught you. You’re too smart for the world, so be prepared for the way they’ll treat you. It won’t be kind. But don’t let that discourage you. Know that here, in the forest, there is always our home waiting for you to return. Let it be your haven.
There are no others like you. You know what the world does to the things it’s never seen. Don’t go looking for answers in places where none will be found, even when it all becomes too enticing. That lure, that pull at your soul, it’s Natural Chaos slowly wrapping you in its snare. Don’t let it.
You’ve been loved, and in turn loved us. If you’re going to take anything into the world with you, let it be that.
Maureen, Elisa, Starla
Ch. 1
It seemed like mere moments, yet the two of them sat there for hours. As the sun bathed the sky in its hues of oranges and reds and purples and pinks, they sat in front of the three fresh graves in silence. Oryn turned the unlit torch over in their hands. The forest wasn’t mourning; it was empty. The life that the three of them had built here didn’t stop with Oryn or what they gave May; they kept the forest here full of purpose. Without them, it was like every living being knew that Oryn wouldn’t stay, so they didn’t need to, either. Once they left, they’d have nothing to protect anymore.
May wanted to give Oryn all the time they needed but didn’t know how time worked for them. She didn’t know how time worked for any of them; everything she seemed to learn about the three women they were about to bury only unearthed more questions that she never had the nerve to ask.
As the sun made its final dip over the horizon, Oryn stood, lighting the torch. May didn’t have the chance to stand before they dropped it in the first grave—Maureen’s.
The flames roared to life, like they knew they were releasing a soul to the Waters and Winds. Lighting two more torches, Elisa and Starla joined her.
May shuffled where she stood, clearing her throat. “Did they want us to perform any… rites? Or say any prayers?”
Oryn took their time to respond, making sure May understood their conviction. As a solitary tear ran down their cheek, they barked, “No.”
“You need time,” May nodded.
“No,” Oryn said. “Let them burn and fill in the graves. Then, we go.”
They stood their long after dusk, letting the flames turn to ash before filling the graves they sat in. Amongst the flowers and herbs and fruit trees would be three women who defiled every god in the name of building a home.
The silence surrounding them wasn’t one that bode dread; it was like the subtle breath of your lover lying next to you as you slept. The forest was letting them sleep in peace.
As May untied her horse from the post near the hut that was both Oryn’s home and prison, she could hear the wood sigh with relief.
They took their time leaving the forest, knowing they wouldn’t be back any time soon. The footpaths seemed to bleed into the plant life surrounding them, slowly rotting the roots and bushes into dust. It was a slow decay, the trees slowly dropping their leaves and petrifying within the few hours of travel it took for them to reach the forests’ edge.
“You should know,” Oryn said, clearing their throat as the steed took its’ final step from the forest into the field, “I don’t sleep well.”
As the crackle of the final trees solidifying rang behind them, May turned over her shoulder. “And by that you mean?”
“I talk sometimes,” they started, “and other times I’ve broken a few things.”
“In your sleep?” May asked, Oryn nodding a bit. “Should be fine. You’ll be on the other end of the manor so I’m sure it’ll be no bother. And there’s not much in the room to break, anyway. I’ll let the guards know not to worry if they hear you mumbling.”
“Guards?”
“Just a few,” May started. “They patrol the manor at night. Since I started commanding the New Guard…” she trailed off, her jaw tightening. “It’s just better to be safe.”
Oryn nodded, taking the two flasks from the small bag they carried. “We should drink these before we make it into town,” they said, reaching their worn hand over May’s shoulder and handing her one.
May slowed their horse, coming to a stop on the path in the lush field. Here, all the living things were normal, singing and chirping and fleeting from one patch of grass to another. She took the flask, holding it up to the moon to see the cloudy brown liquid inside. Taking a deep breath, she smelt something that took her back to the puddles of blood staining the manor’s floor.
Her hands started to shake, the brass ring she wore clinking against the flask. “How many times can someone take this?” she struggled, her throat and tongue contorting as each word barely made it from her mouth.
Oryn sighed, running a hand through their braids. “I know,” they said, downing their own concoction and gagging on the aftertaste. “It’s safe. It won’t break what you’ve built here.”
May sat up straighter, her free hand tightening around the reigns. “You know?”
“I know they gave this to you before,” Oryn stated, “and I know it worked. Drink it again and it’ll work now, too.”
May hesitated.
“I’m Oryn,” they started, their voice flowing freely and with a quality anyone would strain to hear. They starting listing prices for goods they didn’t know anything about, naming duchy’s they didn’t know existed and comparing them to men they’ve never heard of.
May wasn’t concerned if it would work. The hair stood on the back of her neck as the thoughts of the broken bottle and pounding feet ran through her mind; the gold sitting in the cove dug underneath the stairs in the manor by her grandfather. There were things worth killing over.
She put the flask to her lips, letting the taste of tar slide down the back of her throat.
“Good!” Oryn chuckled, a low hum droning in May’s ear. She gagged on the taste and dropped the flask, Oryn reaching around her to tug the reigns. “It’s sealed now. But you know that already.”
-
The cracking of wood rendering itself to splinters rang down the hall, sending another shiver down Alec’s spine. He turned to his lieutenant, looking up at him the way small boys do.
“Dutchess said not to worry,” he started, a yawn creeping from the back of his throat. “Besides,” he sighed, “we have to stay alert for real threats.”
Glass shattered, followed by a metallic grating that could only be a nail ripping itself across the stone walls. A deep hum started creeping its way up the base of Alec’s neck.
“But, sir,” he said, his brows furrowing. “Somethings not right.”
His lieutenant rubbed his temples before conceding, nodding at Alec and starting down the hall towards Oryn’s bedchambers. Alec followed in his wake, his falchion gripped the way he was taught.
Reaching the door, Alec stepped forward when he was gestured to and slowly grabbed the knob. The soft click as he slowly started to turn the handle made a bead of sweat start dripping down his back, the low drone of humming building pressure in the back of his skull. But, after a point, the handle wouldn’t budge.
“Locked,” he mumbled to himself, turning back to his superior. “We shou—”
Alec was flung back down the hall, the shreds of door shielding his front half from whatever came barreling down onto his Lieutenant. He couldn’t see it, but Alec heard the snapping and creaking of flesh tearing from bone mixed with the screams and pleas of his superior, which were cut short by a quick pop of his head. His gray brain matter hit the wood Alec was shrouding behind.
There were footsteps hitting the ground immediately heard down the hall, quickly running to the source of the commotion. As Alec trembled and tried to remember how to breathe, another man’s hand was yanking him up from the ground and pulling him back down the hall.
The beast was of no shape that any of them had ever seen. In a matter of moments, more guards were thrown back against the walls, the demon’s shrieking echoing off the stone. If anyone in the manor happened to still be asleep, they weren’t now.
As one guard after another went with spear after falchion, their meaningless cuts and stabs were rendered useless. As the thick, opaque blood started seeping from the gashes, the skin would mend itself, transforming itself into something new.
The hulking mass of meat and bone would grind, creak, and snap as its limbs changed, its agonizing cries of pain accompanying the transformations. The skin would contort itself, stretching and thinning to contain everything within.
May came barreling from her quarters, untied robes messily hanging over her old nightwear, sword brandished and glowing in the dim light. With a look of determination on her face—the one her men always looked to—she barked out an order and shouted the command calling the bulk of the guard to her back. As the echo of May’s voice started bouncing off the cold walls, a rush of wind flew through an open parapet, the torches amongst the walls hissing into darkness. The soft sigh of relief amongst the darkness turned into a quiet sobbing.
“I’ve…” there was a soft shuffling of skin on stone, a hiccup of a cry emanating down the hall.