Author Topic: ♣ Mara: The Street Rat's Tale [Complete] ♣  (Read 1974 times)

emptyanima

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♣ Mara: The Street Rat's Tale [Complete] ♣
« on: December 24, 2013, 12:33:58 PM »
((Portrait located in Ravenloft Portrait Pack - click image for link.))

Name: Mara (Rat)
Age: 21 Yrs.
Race: Half-Elf
Vagrant/Mute
Origin: Amn

Silence is a source of great strength.” ~ Lao Tzu

Battle of One - 30 Seconds to Mars (Mara's Theme)
« Last Edit: December 04, 2015, 04:47:36 AM by emptyanima »

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Chapter 1 - The Guttersnipes
« Reply #1 on: December 28, 2013, 02:10:24 PM »
She is cloaked in shadow, and her dark eyes take in the streets as the sun scrabbles in vain to keep its light fingers upon the stone. She breathes deeply, slowly, focused, her gaze darting. Grime coats her in a thin layer, and her dark hair is licked with it, moved by the gentlest breeze over her neck. She takes in every corner, makes note of every point which is unknown. There is a breath behind her, familiar, from one about to speak, and she raises a dusty hand to silence them. She crouches a fraction, and hunched, peers a little further. For a few moments, there is stillness.

She nods.

Bare feet patter across the stone; some slink, others crawl. They reach the door. She raises a hand and they bend to their knees; she turns and scans about her, and with renewed security, reaches into a pouch at her belt and grasps at the tools of her trade. In stilted silence, she works the lock, an innate tenderness in her treatment of it.

Clunk.

The door is opened, and they slip into the gloom. With vultures' eyes, they search, and with dirtied fingers, thin and rough, they claw at silks, coin, gold, the lustre stark against their imperfection.

Sight is subjective, for they do not claw at such in their own minds - She snatches at her next meal, the beer with which she'll slake her thirst, passage to the rivers to wash the grime temporarily from her skin and soothe the bites of bug and vermin. She snatches at hope, the blessings of Waukeen in her radiance... the finer points lack importance. She does not care for the origin of the things she takes, their makers and those behind their emblems, seeing only wealth.

Her gaze darts once again, and the pouches at her belt complain at their burden, as she counts the youthful faces before her.
One, two, three, four...

She blinks, speaking in a hushed, low voice.

"Where's Mouse?" Four youthful faces shake from side to side in unison, and she swears under her breath. She beckons one of them, a human boy with dusky skin and bright eyes, no older than fourteen, but looking younger in his smallness. She kneels, resting her hands on his shoulders.

"Crow, take Snake and Gnat home. I'll find Mouse and be right behind you."

Crow nods, and a thin, pale boy with sharp eyes, twelve years old, and a waif of a girl (pale, seven) follow him, pockets jingling lightly with fandars and tarans, barely audible, but comforting. She turns over her shoulder, adding,

"Be careful." Three nods later, she begins her search, quickly, quietly, scanning the deserted house for a whiff of the lad. There is no trace. A slightly pointed ear twitches, and she inhales sharply, holding the breath.

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

There is movement on the stone outside, and she is seized with panic.

"Mouse?" She whispers, hoarse, the gloom becoming oppressive and far too near. There is a muffled sound. She cranes her neck.

"I'm here."

She breathes a sigh of relief and follows the sound, finds him. He is hunched, clinging a necklace, bright and beautiful, to his chest.

"Come on, we've got to get out, there's people near." Mouse stands, his eyes cold.

"Why should I? We found this place, finders-keepers. This is mine, and I won't share it with nobody." She glares at him, seeing herself in his eyes.

"No time to argue about this now, get moving. We've got to get back to Crow, Snake, Gnat, sort out who gets what."

"No. This is mine. I found it."

"Because we were together."

"I don't need you!" Mouse grits his teeth, whining like a child with a time-worn face. He is older, seventeen, and taut with the desire for independence on the cusp of manhood. "Any of you. Should be living for myself. If I share, I lose."

She opens her mouth to respond, and downstairs, the door opens. They freeze. After a long second, Mouse leaps forward, but she grabs him, defter, and snatches the trophy from his grasp. He scowls, daring to spend a few moments glaring icily, before darting to the window and escaping, swift, landing with little noise on the stone. She goes to follow in like manner, and he scurries into the shadows.

She clambers forward, and feels a hand tight about one arm, then the other. She grunts, kicks, and turns, meeting with a fiery gaze. It is a stern face, proud, noble, belonging to a man of some height, his ears holding rings of gold.

"I come home to find a rat, lining its pockets with the fruit of my labours." He holds her tighter, in a vice grip, and she winces. "Not worth sentencing." He throws her down and strikes her, hard. She is left reeling as he beats her, scrabbling to stand, failing. He grabs her neck and she gasps for breath, and he drives a thick pin into her ear, followed swiftly by a lump of ore, a little too large for the gap. She writhes, kicking as she grits her teeth against the pain. Ore, it is the greatest insult - criminal, filth, scum, it means. She shakes, sweating, as he stops. She stares at him.

"I-"

"Get out."

She nods, leaving quickly, dropping the necklace to the floor. Her heart races, her eyes are wide and fearful as she scrabbles through the now dark streets, follows the paths of guttering, scurries below. She finds her fellow guttersnipes, and her eyes gleam for the briefest of moments with the promise of tears, but this is frozen by a cool glare.

Mouse turns away, and she says nothing. This is a cruel world, and they are driven to a life of crime, living forever on the borders and fringes, outsiders looking into prosperity. She knows they will eat, thanks to what they have claimed. She keeps her fears to herself. She is marked with a warning. If caught again, there will be no room for such mercies.

She looks to her pitiful flock, expected to weather this life, and her heart aches a little.

"We won't go to that district again, not for a few months. Got to lie low. Be careful."

She watches the small faces that nod in the quiet, sees herself in their expressions and trembles involuntarily. She closes her eyes, sees that stern face.

Rat.


emptyanima

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Two
« Reply #2 on: April 01, 2014, 11:55:43 AM »
The air is thick with smoke and the stench of cheap ale, and she revels in it. This is the time to reap the rewards, to taste reward and take delight in sin. She has a strong stomach and years of practice, and tankard after tankard is strewn over the table like the bodies of a conquered force. More bodies, numbed and taken by drunken stupor, lie in tableau about the benches. She jumps to the table top, a wicked grin over her dirty features. She is victorious. She lives.

This is life. Life is not pleasant and harmonic and peaceful. Life is brutal. Life is bloody. Life is sweat and survival. She celebrates the mixed blood still darting through her veins. A tumble without meaning. A face she will soon forget.

Life is the cry to the moon. Life is primal. And she drinks it deep. She knows not how soon change will come.



The Mouse follows the trail of crumbs to the cats, caught in their trap. He squeals, begging for life. He has one thing of value. Information. No more competition. No more sharing. Victory for the one. He does not dwell on the faces of the young, nor the bond he severed from them. Life is brutal. Life is bloody. Life is sweat and survival. And he grabs it.

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Three
« Reply #3 on: April 01, 2014, 11:56:24 AM »
She screams, and tears leave trails in the dirt on her cheeks. Her Guttersnipes. Her vagrants. The little lost souls for whom she cares and provides, snatched from her before her face.

The little Crow with his feathers plucked, his skin flayed, torn. The young Snake lies on his belly in the dust. And Gnat, the quiet little girl... They have torn off her wings.

She looks to the men and women who have robbed the children of their hard-fought lives. A face she knows. She feels the ore chunk in her ear, the wound throbs anew.

“Silence the rat.”

She kicks, claws, but she cannot fight off the incantations they cry. She is held fast, and a knife shivers sharply in the gloom. Her voice is torn from her, blood pools in her mouth, down her chin, over her rags and to the floor. Her eyes flicker and she buckles, weak. More incantations. A rough finger is pushed to the stump that remains of her tongue. She feels a sharp pain travel over the stump, down her throat. A whisper against the dark. “Seek your voice at your peril, scum.” He tugs roughly at the ore in her slightly-pointed ear.

She is let go from a vice grip, and falls to the ground. Alone.

Life is the cry to the moon. Life is primal. And she drinks it deep, her blood courses down her throat and she almost chokes.

She will adapt.
« Last Edit: April 01, 2014, 03:12:30 PM by emptyanima »

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Four
« Reply #4 on: April 02, 2014, 03:18:05 PM »
She does not know from where her strength flows, and how she finds the will to continue, but she runs. Behind her is death, and before her, the unknown.  She does not know how much change will come. Hurtling, heavy breaths, bare feet against stone. Her dark eyes dart over the sun-baked soil as she reaches the city’s fringes. She is yards away from the limits and constraints of the stone. Every moment, every heartbeat, every breath… but she knows she will not know freedom. She will be hunted like an animal, and her life is all left to take. They have taken her voice. They have taken those for whom she cares most. What reason has she left?

The sands of time stream thin - she pauses, waiting for the trailing seconds to wane away. But then, the damp smokescreen, an armless, faceless thing embraces her, and turns the sand timer on its head.

Mist.



She is not a woman of many words. It seems fitting to keep to the point, as she would, were she able to speak of her past, or to spell beyond sound.

She has a second chance. A clean slate. And she taints it. She spots her target, reaches from the shadows into a pocket. Caught. She panics, steel cries. A woman slips to the ground, a crimson spring erupts at her neck.

The rat runs, but it is too late. To show her face is death. She must hide and skulk as she did before.

But in her time in this new place, there is hope. Kindness bestowed by men arrayed in gold, and red, and green. She is offered a new name, and she clings to it. Mara. A clean slate. Chalk.

Can she change? Or is this creature so set in her ways?

Those who stumble into freedom will seek chains.

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Five
« Reply #5 on: May 05, 2014, 10:13:18 AM »
There is sadness, and there is regret. She lies prostrate on the mat, hungering silently, but resigns herself to rest quietly as she waits for those who watch over her. She takes a battered doll from her belt, a little likeness of her, made for her by a friend months before, a man whose armour gleamed gold and whose smile was warm. He had been like the sun, but he had passed from sight so quickly. Cloud had long descended. She strokes the doll with dirty fingers, thumbs the diamond earring the likeness bears. She smiles sadly.

Rat was ore. Mara was ore. Ore is the scum and the waif and stray, of no promise and condemned to crime. But this likeness wears diamond, has promise, beauty in black button eyes. A tear rolls down her cheek, making a path in the dirt.

Martell has gone. Zivon, long unseen. Meetings with Thorn, fleeting now.

She let them down. It was Thorn’s dagger in her grasp that had slit the peasant woman’s throat.

She looks over herself, and is filled with shame. The slate was never clean. She is scum, waif and stray, of no promise and condemned to crime. She lies within the city walls, saved from the creatures of the dark, the were-rat. They kill and stalk and keep to shadow. But how far from Mara are these creatures? She cannot help but see a twisted reflection of herself in their malicious gaze. She lies within a place long abandoned, a place the garda will not search, where she’ll not be tried for a crime long ago committed.

Help had come, with a heavenly voice and compassionate face, by those who bore armour, blades, and fine titles. Knights, heros. She is in their care now. She closes her eyes.

Would they still deign to help that scum if they knew what she had done? She considers the family that she has lost, the children condemned to the same life as she, caught in the web of betrayal and killed. Silently, she gives thanks for her curse of wordlessness. Her tongue will not betray her.

Unless…

She fears their healing arts, and that one, in an act of kindness, will kill her. She recalls the words of the mage, of her seeking to reclaim her voice at her peril.

But these people… they are careful, warm and kind. Mara endeavours to trust.

It is difficult to give what you cannot easily receive.

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Six
« Reply #6 on: May 06, 2014, 09:47:40 AM »
Her friends are there, and they keep her safe. One slips away to find warm clothes, returns, and leaves once more to patrol the night for the man in black, the one they fear. Mara and Aviana put on their warm, flowing gowns, smile a moment, Mara nervous at the newness of it all. And then, a noise near the door. Mara ducks for cover. Aviana draws a sword.

The sound of combat rings out, then abruptly stops. Mara backs away, attempting to melt into the shadows. The figure draws closer, whip in hand, garbed in black. He knocks over cups, other items as he passes, searching. The figure cries a sharp, shrieking song, and Mara winces, unable to bear it. She is revealed, and she is cut down.

She wakes, with Aviana, within stone walls. They are then bound, suspended, their possessions taken. Then the torture begins, excruciating and unspeakable.

Mara is pale like death, wet with blood, her lips sewn shut. Aviana’s eyes are sewn open.

Her heart barely beats, and all that shakes, fitfully, within her, is the simple will to keep on, the faint hope that someone will come, and rescue them.
A hope regularly quashed. The guards will not seek her, the criminal, to rescue. Only one will be able to guess at their fate. Will the knight come for them, come to their rescue, his armour gleaming as it does in all the old tales?

Drip, drip, drip, goes the blood. A low laugh pervades the chamber.

“You disgust me.”
« Last Edit: May 06, 2014, 12:17:03 PM by emptyanima »

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Seven - The End
« Reply #7 on: May 07, 2014, 07:04:46 AM »

She stirs, hit by the wondrous scent, even more heavenly for its oddness. Her dark eyes flicker open, as the man in black eats roasted meat from a plate before them. The little creature feels several sharp agonies - the pangs of hunger, the dry roughness of her forcibly pursed lips, the shame upon her shoulders. She glances at the woman beside her, a little relief rising in her as she sees that her eyes are no longer forced open. So swiftly, the pang of guilt. She hates seeing this woman so abused, a woman so kind and pure of heart, who deserves nothing of what she is wrought.

Mara wants to be her, innocent, kind, gentle, with words of comfort and an expression of bravery. But Mara is scum. She has always been scum. The ore in her ear says this. The scars of the lash at her back confirm this. Her muteness speaks volumes of it. And this is her punishment, for the crime of being. She sees a woman enter, notes a box of tools by the door. The man in black gestures to her.

"This one."

She is brought down from the place where she hangs, her wrists raw and her shoulders stiff from long suspension, and is carried over to a mat, laid down. Her legs, still skewered with several spikes, spasm. Like the rat dissected on the table top, its innards displayed for the sake of knowledge, so too is Mara treated, skin pulled from muscle, her exposed heart beating weaker, weaker.

Still, the angelic Aviana cries, weeping for the woman long-despised. Mara is scrutinised, blood taken, only the glimmer of vitality, fading, in her dark eyes, and the soft rise and fall of her chest distinguishing her from the cadaver. And yet, despite her myriad agonies, her all-consuming shame, she regards Aviana with a smile. She holds her no ill-will. No, this woman treated her more wonderfully than any had ever before, never demeaned her, treating her as a friend, not a means by which she could appear to be gentle. She simply was.

The woman next to her touches her skin, murmuring, and Mara glows with a disquieting luminescence, appearing like a ghost. She is restitched, like a little doll too well-loved.

Her thoughts turn to other faces, blurred slightly with the pain. She recalls Thorn, the native who christened her anew. She remembers Zivon, faithful friend and educator. Her mind turns to Martel, the man who gleamed gold and treated her with kindness. She had often wondered if he concealed snowy wings beneath that plate. The Halan witches who had wanted to restore her voice, Leonar, the Ezrite who once scorned, but came to understand.

Other faces come - the man who had driven the ore through her ear as she was caught in his home, jewels clutched between dirty fingers. She can hold no hatred for him either, murmuring her inward forgiveness as his visage fades. She sees the woman who she killed in fearful panic, her exposed heart aching. Mara is a thief. Mara is a murderer.  But unlike the man bent over her now, she took no pleasure in taking life.

It may be foolish to find redemption in deeming oneself a lesser evil, but in that moment, Mara forgave herself. For why had she ventured into that slumbering city, the city that loathed her and still wished her dead for the crimes she had committed? Why had she stared down those twisted creatures in the dark?

In her heart of hearts, Mara had always wanted to be good. But it is difficult to be a hero when you are rarely seen as a person. She is neither human, nor elf, but is both, and neither. She is ore, the scum that has to turn to crime to survive, denied honest work by the circumstances of their birth.

Aviana’s voice, distant now, speaks of the peace of death, the unending meadows, gentle warmth, sweet waters… yes, it is a good place. She wonders if her little Guttersnipes play there together, apart from the toil and agony of the world. And as she looks, eyes-half closed, into the face of the man that has killed her, beneath the dark cowl, she does not see him. She looks up into Death’s visage, and a final thought fills her head.

“I am ready.”

Death cradles her cheeks, and a soft breath escapes her. And with a final jerk, her neck is snapped. The fragile light is gone from her eyes. She breathes no more. Her agonies are at an end, at long last. Stones are tied to lifeless limbs.

She is carried from the mat that served as her death-bed, as the grate is torn up from the sewage it covers. Death kisses her cold lips, and promises that she will not be forgotten. She is lowered into the filth and muck that is to be her grave, unmarked, to be like the refuse she has long been deemed to be.

Mara, the street rat, born in filth and muck, and destined to rot within it, sinks as the stones tug her down, deeper, deeper. The grate is replaced.

Mara is no more.
« Last Edit: December 04, 2015, 04:47:54 AM by emptyanima »

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Re: ♣ Mara: The Street Rat's Tale [Complete] ♣
« Reply #8 on: August 26, 2016, 11:37:52 AM »
((Bump for safeguard.))