Ravenfeather

[Pav]

The story of what was heretofore unknown, and the journey of a lone man past his rebirth.

This is Valerian Joubert.

[Pav]

The Hotel room reeked of tobacco, cheap escorts and cheaper liquor. Even without ones sense of smell, sight alone would attest to the den of debauchery it became under its current resident - the bottles of whisky littered the rugs and drawers and bedside, the odd piece of torn fabric strewn about carelessly in throes of passion, and the residue of the Western Core's more popular habit clung to the skin and eyes and nostrils, permeating through their lungs like a cancer that has been festering for months. A woman crawled out from beneath the bedsheets and picked up her things from the nearly derelict chamber and skittered out like a rat, clinging to a small pouch of solars.

The man perched on the bedside seemed unbothered, perhaps relieved. He had kept himself more proper lately, she had said to him when she just arrived, a comment he let by with the first smile he let loose within the City of Lights in weeks, perhaps more. He did indeed trim his beard and gave himself a rudimentary wash, which was more than what he normally afforded himself; after all, he did just come back from abroad, visiting his sister. Some modicum of respect for her was kept, though he knew it would not last for long if he had stayed in the city.

It had clung to him, like the filth that wafted in his room. Unlike it, it was barely intelligible, but to those that bothered to be human (by his belief of the word), it was unbearable. More than a cancer, it had violated his sense of self, and only brought back memories of a place nearly as foul, a place he had called his home, and memories he'd wanted to forget. Of the gnawing of teeth, the raking of claws, and the blind, blank faces that passed him on the filthy, unwashed street, and of his old life's demise.

Snapping out of his daily routine of self pity, he reached toward the dresser slowly, still recovering from the adrenaline and ecstasy, he grasped a roll of parchment in his hand and flicked it a few times, straightening out in front of his eyes. His contract as a mercenary in service to the Republic, expiring within the week, and from there, he would have no purpose. He did not want to continue serving the city after he had been buried alive in its aftertaste, but he had responsibilities and duties to uphold. Taking up the quill and ink, he wrote his own work beside the contract on a separate parchment, one that took him not long at all, for his mind did not want to exude itself on empty words.

Valerian Joubert was never, truly, a poet or a philosopher, and so, he laughed. A bitter, empty laugh. Taking up his family sword, his myriad of armaments from their out of sight places, he prepared to do the one thing he did do, and the one thing that made his second coming feel alive in its used shell - and that is to breathe in the wild air, his sword wet with the lifeblood of the creatures that had taken him away the first time, with his heart racing for more.

[Pav]

A courier arrives drenched and beaten to the steps of an estate within the city of Pont-a-Museau, the seat of Richemulot's Grande Dame. To the doorman, he hands a simple enough envelope, bearing the raven wax seal of House Joubert; a missive promptly delivered to the seated lord of the manor. It reads, in the eloquent writing of a Mordentish nobleman...

Father,

It has been nearly half a year since I have left home to wander the Core at your behest, and I have learned enough, seen enough, and have done enough.

When you intend to call me home, I do not know. If such a day will come while you are healthy, keep it until you are on your deathbed.

I have no desire to wait in one place until it is my time to bear duties.

Valerian

Another letter arrives a few months after...

Father,

It has been some time since I wrote to you. My last letter, you may have noticed, was filled with angst, words toned with a keen distaste for all that transpired since that night.

I shed that away, I would like to think. I write to you from a tent in the encampment of the Company of the Fox, the mercenary group whose service I departed not too long ago.
 When they called again for Veterans, I decided to throw my lot with them once again, to see if my suspicions, and my disdains of some in their employ remained. They did, but that is beside the point. Where we set sail, was a place I only dreamed of being - in my darkest nightmares. Where our Family was first sparked into life, where all our legacy comes from; the battlefield. In defense of a Count's castle, we withstood the Falkovnians for two days, until we defeated their force within the walls, and beheaded their Commander, whose sword I now carry, alongside Pacificateur.

Twice the glory to our blood, twice the fear in the enemies' hearts when they hear our name.

I cannot yet come home, nor would you wish me back yet - but know that when, and if I return, I will do so happily, for you, for my sisters, for a better, merrier future to our house.

With all my pride,

Valerian

[Pav]

The woodsman's steps carried him to the bank of the Musarde, the largest city in all of Richemulot stretching far behind him. When word of the happenings reached his ears, he made haste to the seat of the Grande Dame to affirm the truth - and when he learned it to be so, he made away with an equal measure of urgency.

The bow and sword strapped to his back were of simple make, fit enough to ward off the wildlife of the country's many forests, and easily contend with those that would accost him and his. His garb, simple leathers reinforced with sturdily strapped chain links where he could afford them, was decorated with patterns that allowed him in his travels to meld with the autumn woods. His ash-colored beard hid all but entirely the strong jaw that hosted it, and nearly the entirety of his visage, marred by years in the outdoors, was covered by hair - from either the scrags of his chin, or the tangles of his crown. His eyes gave off the impression that the same iron that shed the blood of those he loathed lingered in his irises, in both color and manner. The only object of some high value on his body was a black, raven-shaped brooch that held his greatcloak in place.

To his right stretched one of the largest rivers in all the Core, and he knew its stretch within his home like the palm of his hand - which rocks where were, where did it curve and where did it narrow and turn shallow. Its murky waters in the twilight hour flowed along calmly, though the sound of it still permeated through the air, and he struggled to maintain it separate from his surrounds. To the river's own west were more forests, and to the east, the ranger and, not surprisingly, even more forest, from which emerged two men, equally garbed and armed, only to follow in his own footsteps from either side. The first - Armand his name - was a touch shorter, though his musculature was more compact. Round blue eyes and a round face made him look much younger than he was, and his black hair was cropped short and his jaw was clean shaven, somewhat inordinary in their band of vagrants, though that did not stop his astute mind and skill from making him second in command in the woodsmen's hierarchy. The second, Thierry, was a lanky man with small brown eyes and a dirty hay mane and goatee. The trio paced along the river for a small while before Armand broke the silence, speaking in their own sub-dialect of lower Mordentish.

"Gérard, is it true? The Hawks pushed past the border?" A question that, however simple, made the man in the lead grimace and his hardened features to contort.
"Yes, it's bleeding true. We'll have to rally the men before long and... well.", He left the rest go unsaid for a few moments as he paused in his steps suddenly, heaving a breath and turning on his heel to face his compatriots.
"...We'll have to go to war, mates. No two ways about it, if we're caught--", a sentence he could not finish at point of the interruption made by Thierry, who was now near seething.
"War?! You lost your mind, Ravenfeather, it's the Falks we're on about - they'll chew us up and spit us out. They're armed to the teeth and surrounded with metal..." He paused, and his anger diminished at the sight of the mounting rage coming from his leader, the man he followed for the last ten years through hell and other, worse places. Mustering some dignity, he breathed out quietly, and spoke again.
"...We have to run south, away from the points of conflict... maybe even migrate to Verbrek, and--" He could not finish his sentence before Gérard's braced fist found his face, much to the chagrin of his more polite counterpart Armand, who grimaced and passed a hand along his forehead as Thierry was lifted up by his collar, a snarl fitted close to his face that made the man holding him up seem about as frightening as if it had been a two-legged wolf doing the same.
"That is what... you would have us do, hm?" He spat out through grit teeth. "You would have us abandon all the innocents that are holed up north? Would you let lives go to waste because you are afraid of mortal men?"
"Gérard..." Thierry started out slowly, with obvious hesitation. His words were hushed. "...We left our homes because we did not want to live with them. This is our life because we did not want to be..." He silenced himself as he was let go down to the earth, roughly, rubbing at his neck and watching the man that was holding him pace away with his back turned and call out, "If you're afraid of dying, run and hide like a rat."

It was natural for the two men that were left behind to exchange looks, as they clearly saw that it was more than just the impending war that bothered the figure they respected above all else, the man known to most only as Ravenfeather. His and his peoples' exploits were somewhat of a myth, men that escaped the hidden yoke of paralysis held by the ruling class of the nation to lead a life of their own away from what was the Richemuloise norm - the norm of the daily horrors, unspoken and forgotten within the minute on pains of such happening to you. There had to be more, other than helping innocents and chiefly, those they hated above all else - but what it was, they did not know, and they continued on their path after their leader. That same evening in their camp, it as well situated along the Musarde between Saint Ronges and Pont-a-Museau, Ravenfeather spoke, and with such intensity declared, that no Hawk's talon would find the throat of a child, and that none of their human countrymen would go harmed, if they could help it. The Elite would not bother so far, but they would. Thirty men and women in count, they set off north with their meagre supplies, and woodsmen all, knowing the country as well as they knew themselves, set their bodies and minds to one objective - driving away the Falkovnians wherever they could, hamper their movements, thin their numbers. Northern Richemulot teemed with activity,

[Pav]

Valerian's mind had circled around itself, a hound trying to catch its own tail. He returned to the City of Lights, out of a desire to aid, but perhaps more importantly to him, to find a route to end what kept gnawing at him, or at least, the deed that he thought would do so. The paths intersected, quite heavily, and it was for that that he was grateful - not spilling his motive would only work for his favor and benefit. He had to keep considering, however, if it is the path that he wanted to take, knowing that all those he knew would deem it unwise, that he himself, would have deemed it as an action to set him on the wrong course, only leading to further suffering, with only blood waiting at the end.

No words had consoled him. Not since he had left home - not even a lover's touch could distract him for more than a few moments at a time. It was in drink and drug that he found solace, and then, in their deaths. All had dulled and stopped making sense to him, at some point. What was pleasurable became a necessary distraction, then into a well of pain in itself. Every sip, every drag, every swing of his sword, ached and stung at his soul. It reminded him of all that he had lost, over the last year - not only who he was. He had lost love, again and again. He had lost friendships, and he had lost his home, all because his mind could not stop in place and think, all because he had to keep going forward.

So forward is where he will go, his eyes bent and trained on one thing, and he will not stop, until he is stopped. No words will steer him away, and he will do what needs to be done, until he is free.

One way or another.

[Pav]

The clamor of chain and metal boomed at every step of the ranger's long-legged sprint. He was chasing this prey through the lower districts and sewers of the city for days, a wretched thing that came to his attention after a sailor went missing during an evening stroll. Not too common in the City of Lights, but he knew the story all too well. The creature was within his sights, now, and he put his sword, Pacificateur, the one thing that never failed him, into bare - angled forward, as if a spear.

His breaths turned ragged.

A streetlight shone over the thing's form. A black-furred, hind-legged rat, skittering and running away in fear - it had just seen the same man killing a fair few of its comrades, and did not wish to share in their fate. Its paces grew more panicked, more frantic, tail wagging here and there without control.

His steps accelerated, the grip on his sword tightened. Every breath came out a grunt. He came closer.

It could not die here! Not to a human, not - it fell limp, twitching. The greatblade caught it through the ribs, and its body was hoisted upward, further impaling it as it slunk down against the raven-winged guard, then tore in two pieces, just as it began turning back into the slim woman it charaded as in its third form. The shower of blood and gore gave the hunter a sudden sense of peace, though he quickly turned his attention to find the creature's head. He used his boot to turn it around, so it would face him.

Her hair was black, her features mousey, yet comely - though her eyes, her eyes that were open still in the final moments of her life, in terror... they were blue.

He kicked the head into an open sewer grate, then walked away.

[Pav]

Was it the same room he had left all those weeks before? It did not seem it. Clean and organized, it was a complete turn from what he was entrenched in for so many months. Yet, it was there - underneath the surface, it reeked.

He was not surprised. Everything in the city reeked to his nose. Everything native to it and its father realm, was wrong, and appalling. Such feelings that he could not shake off. From the naivety of continuous, inflated patriotism, to those that worked against it in their own misguided, convoluted design; he kept pretenses where appropriate, until he would find her.

It?

It.

He would not let it consume him, not while he could. For one thing, those he called his own were right; he needed to push away, even if a little, so his mind would not contain its focus on one thing. So he could live a life that would last beyond the burden.

That is what he needed to do... right?

[Pav]

The sights would not leave his mind.

After he drew the card, he sunk himself into a stupor of liquor, to shake away what had harrowed him - to no avail. The visions of fire and flame, of ransacked realms, of the weak and the strong all in utter, complete disarray - of collapsing civilizations, of him... showered in all he wanted, in all he deserved, broken off from what remained of a society that had never done him any justice, a society that he owed nothing to but bared steel and defiance.

The card was an epiphany, a call to his true self to wake from imprisonment within the confines of his own obsessions and false-made machinations.

He was finally free.

[Pav]

These sealed envelopes are sent throughout the Core, to their various recipients - some, however, do not leave the ranger's belongings, lying in wait...

Razvan,

We once spoke of the point of 'friendships'. I did not understand you, at the time - your adamant, unbreaking approach to the pointlessness of such connections, and to their inevitable, bitter ending, if ever they held any meaning at all.

These days, I feel myself agreeing. I would not bore you with what brought me to this conclusion, or with what I truly think of it all now, but for me, this letter is simply one of a few remaining, bitter endings.

I do not know if we will see each other again.

- Valerian

Tarius,

I have not heard from you in a long while. Four, five months - maybe half a year. Longer? I cannot remember for the life of me. I hope this letter finds you well. I do not know why I am writing to you, but I feel as if those times we spent barely clinging onto our lives in dingy caverns oblige me to at least write something.

I have been exceedingly better since last we spoke, for my own part, in every sense of the word. I feel as if I am close to being unstoppable, though I am not so stupid as to act on that feeling.

It will be a while, if at all, until next we meet.

- Valerian

Lis,

I am sorry for not writing, though I think this will be my last and only letter to you, until we next see each other. I am not sure what you thought of me, during the time we have known each other, and I am even more unsure of what you may think of me now. I think you were attentive enough to note my unhappiness, though if you were not, then now you know.

Dementlieu drained me. I do not wish to return, but I will, in the future, if fate guides me that way again. It is of yet uncertain, in my mind. The land is vile, toxic even. I could feel myself shrinking away further into obscurity within my own mind with all of the ills that plague it, and it makes me question why I ever fought for its benefit. I fought for men I did not know at the time, against men I will never know past the stroke of my own steel, and against fiends beyond the need of any mortal to ever witness.

For what? What good did it do to me? None. The recognition was minimal, for all that I have done - position again outshined merit, in all those ceremonies after, but perhaps it is just my pride being penned into parchment.

Perhaps it is simply the reality of the City of Lights, and its place in the land of the demented.

Say hello to everyone for me, if you would. Remind them I still breathe, and happier than ever.

- Valerian

The next few letters remained sealed in the same envelope, on the man's person wherever he goes...

Spoiler: Open these at your own peril • show

Regis, Carlotta, Lithaldoren,

It feels odd of me to write to ghosts. Are you dead? Gone, out travelling without notice? In either case, you disappeared, and I doubt I will see you again.

This last year I have been waiting, more or less, for you all to appear. We did not all share that much time in each others' company, though I would like to think the hardships of the land brought us all closer together. I still laugh, at some of the stupid things we pulled.

I hope to see you all again, but I will not hold my breath for it any longer.

- Valerian

-----------------------------------------------------------------

[A smear of ink stains this little folded note.]

Ravenna,

I lied.

The years of our youth, you ruined with an expert hand when you grew.

I hope I never have to face you, or yours, again.

- Valerian

[Pav]

Spoiler: show

(Listen to 49:36)

She left him alone to his thoughts, in that corner of the hall. Her uncertain smile, her dainty wave, the touch of her skin, all freshly marked with a hot iron into his mind. How many times has she left for such errands, leaving him to wonder what it is she was precisely doing out there.

He knew who she was, and what she would deny to have done. He knew - but it was fine.

In her debut, in a faraway land, in what seems like an age removed, she unnerved him. He could tell even then, she was no one ordinary. She was much more than the handful that already met the eye, and he admired her. He still does.

She moved just like Her.

She spoke just like Her.

She looked just like Her.

But there was no hate he could see. There was no plot beneath, only what they both spoke of. There was truth, and honesty, between two liars. Between two schemers, thieves, killers.

He once held obsessions, fixations, and ideas of what the world was like that could not be shaken. Of so many things that he then perceived as the sole things to matter, and the sole truths of their realm. Of what his actions should be, what they will be. Where his loyalties lie, and where he will make his grave, at the end of all that was done behind him. There could be no other way; it is why he had learned the sword.

It is why he was, who he was.

The pedestal in his mind was overburdened, and yet, empty of meaning. The Raunie's wind scattered it, but as the force of nature does, brought with it something foreign, yet familiar.

He stood atop the pedestal, his eyes locked onto those shining emeralds.

How long before they, too, are scattered?

How many times has she left him wondering precisely that?

[Pav]

The methodical strokes of the whetstone along the steel of his blade did little to quiet his mind. They all came together, finally, those doubts he had in his thoughts, the inexplicable feelings. They finally made sense, after tonight.

He stopped seeing anyone else as more than a means to an end, but She permeated through his conscience like the winter wind that tore through him to the bone as he prepared for his journey. The forest was surprisingly quiet for the morning hours, but he remembered the season only when he snapped out of his stupor.

He hoped it wouldn't get in the way of his fun.

When he was satisfied with the state of his sword, and he again held its hilt with his hands, he set off running through the forest, as a hunter would - though he was not quiet. He claimed himself as the apex predator of those woods, his stride only halted by the swipe of his zweihänder. Wolves, werewolves, wolfweres, highwaymen mundane and otherwise;
 he traveled across Barovia, avoiding sight of civilization, killing everything that tried to oust him from his self-built throne - and he ran, and fought, until his lungs and his limbs both felt as if they were on fire.

As always before, it was the rush that brought a grin to his face.

When did he become full of bloodlust? Was it the moor, or the hamlet? Somewhere in between, or perhaps, before?

He could not say, though he cherished these moments of solitude, and the distractions they provided. He stopped only in brief, but after a day has passed, he could run no more.
 Somewhere in the woods of eastern Barovia, he collapsed onto his back, his sword lying on the earth next to him, covered in dry blood.

It was only then She came back.

In truth, She never left. She was the reason he had to exert all his energy, so he could think.

A tempest was brewing over the pedestal, when last they spoke, but it had calmed, since. He realized, along the way, that none of it mattered.

If She were to fool him as She has before, he will be ready.

It was with those thoughts echoing in his mind that Valerian stood, and began making his way back toward the centre of the realm, and toward the one thing that mattered above all else.

[Pav]

He stared down at the eyes of the devil.

The unbearable heat scorched through him like it has so many times before, and his mind turned to a blur - his thoughts, memories, unreachable. Hidden behind a moving mural, where the devil's green, almond-shaped eyes flicked open and shut. It batted its eyelashes, innocently, then the eyes materialized fully into the raven-rimmed visage of a woman, perhaps in her middle twenties.
Her skin was like fine porcelain, her lips painted crimson, and her long raven black hair rimmed around that which he had longed for, and that which had tormented him, for so long.

It was an inviting gaze, one that he saw and felt many times before. The rage was now a throbbing, searing pain at his temples, and he struggled against the urge to lash out at the illusion - though his hands already reached for her throat.

Something was wrong.

He felt it keenly, and if his heart could scream for him to stop, it would have. He was only partially in control of his mind and his limbs, when the muscles of his arms drew taut and his grip...

It was dulled, then. The blur that came with the uncontrollable rage, and instead, he slipped out and away. All he could hear were distant thuds of flesh against flesh.

Before he knew it, his own eyes as if opened for the first time since the sensations loomed over him. The well-lit room spun around him, and his first instinct was to search for his swords - they were there, somewhere. When he had picked them off the floor, one in each hand, his eyes glazed over her. Standing there, in some manner of fancy dress - he could not see clearly, yet, but he could sense it, and before he allowed himself another moment to register exactly what it was that made him feel so wrong, he turned away and burst out of the room. The world spun and blurred around him - there was a flight of stairs? Another door... questioning voices from either side, all of which he ignored. A freezing mountain rain greeted him, if only to disorient him further, though his path was clear.

Haggard and feral-looking as he was, none asked anything of him. He made his way out of the stone village, out through the thousands of tents, then through treacherous ridges and paths, for hours, until he was surrounded by the dying trees of the season, in the forest he knew best of all in the entire realm. His eyes had cleared, by now, though the rain kept on pounding, soaking him to the bone, relentless in pursuit.

He collapsed against a stump of what must have been once a great oak tree, and so he sat, for a few hours more, until the rain cleared. Thoughts, situations, reasons, all raced together in his mind, to no foreseen end or solution. The chirping of birds and the nearby skittering of squirrels across dead autumn leaves did little to ease his spirit. Being at home, did little to put him at ease.

All they did was carve out a gaping hole in his chest.

The sounds of the woods did not die down as the hour approached dusk, and the Bastard had sat stewing in his conceptions of reality, contemplating his regrets, his obsessions, his denials.

"I like killing." He spoke, to himself, his voice inflected with grog. "Monsters, animals, men, women... all the same to me. It is... a strange satisfaction. I could not be a good... a good man, like I had imagined to be... no, I must be better than everyone else. And what better way to prove it?" A sharp pain flashed and went through his skull, and he groaned, holding a hand up to his forehead. "...You made me into this..." He pointed out at the gray sky, the clouds drifting westward lazily. He looked up as he did so, his jaw clenching and his eyes smoldering - now in control, and with grief. "You ruined me! Do you think I don't know you sent her, too?! It was all... to lure me in... to make me a plaything..."

The Ranger hung his head again, and gave up. It was no use to speak up against what he knew to be his master, until the end of days - something he realized far too late. He survived thanks to the connection he made, in his early days out of his home, and he owed much, if not all of his accomplishments - if they could even be called that, now - to it.
But in the last few weeks... no, months, it dug its claws into his spirit and wrenched him free of the few things he still held dear.

Soaked, humiliated, delirious and holding back tears, he could not help but think himself pathetic. All that came to mind now were those green eyes, and what he did... he had to hold himself together, but he couldn't muster it - not now.

Though, if he could not mend himself soon, he would lose her. The part of the whole he yet loved.

[Pav]

The sight of the man, grieving over his love's mangled corpse sent a chill through his spine.

It was more than a chill - he could nearly feel himself convulse, though he stopped himself just in time. The man's sobbing grated against his ears, though he paid him and what unfolded after little mind. All he could think of was himself, and he knew, that one day, he is liable to be doing the same. Wailing at the misfortune of having someone especially dear to him stolen away...

...Though, he could not shake the feeling that it would be his fault. With the poor villager, it was the cats that stole his wife. With him, it may be his sword.

He desperately needed to find reprieve from himself, from all the gloom, anger and ill-will that surrounded him. Helping that man was only a brief escape, but it did not, for a moment, brush his fear and pain away.

What bothered him most was the woman. Would she do the same?

...Just what, exactly, was he doing?

[Pav]

Light. Dark.

Good, or evil.

What did it matter?

Why did it matter to him?

He could ignore it.

He could let it all run its course.

He could live life.

Love his wife.

Have children.

Grow old.

Why had he chosen, that moment, right there, right then?

No one else was walking out of that room, but him, or the other, anyway.

The fortune teller was right, after all.

When he finally chose...

When he finally made his mind...

That would be the moment he would find peace.

And what better peace is there than death?



Valerian Joubert
744-772 B.C.
Fin