Heart of Iron

[Pav]

I can still feel her blood running down my hand.

The first innocent life I have taken, or so I believe. I did not know her, and I did not care for her. I do not mourn her death, her death caused by my hand, and nor will I ever. Though her blood... her blood continues to flow. Not down, but up, burrowing itself into mine wrists, mine hands that worked the kill; into mine nostrils, that smelled her odor; into mine eyes that saw her, in her last moments of life, twitch, and crumble into a husk of flesh, and cease... cease her existence.

We are all hold the power to pluck and severe the little spark that is called life from each other. We do so continuously, with little care. We do so because we wish to, because those we kill are in our way. If we did not wish to kill, truly, we would not, for there is no reason to inflict death on each other. Even the most virtuous of men and women cannot forever abstain from this, and when they fall into this trap of the collective, could not deny that even if they regret the act of killing, they have done so for a reason... for they wished to do so. For they were compelled, to do so.

We are all bound by conflict, by difference of motive, by difference of mind. Our emotions flare, and what is right or wrong becomes nothing against what we believe to be truth. And those that come against us, will either kill, or be killed - as will we.

I know what I hold to be true, what I hold to be my belief and my hope. I am ready to do what is needed of me for what I wish, and if death is needed for what I wish, then death will follow.

I cannot wash away her blood.

[Pav]

The fields of crop and laborers have slowly been overtaken by the lush forests of the Tusmørke Skoven, her sight being overtaken by the density of dead leaves. Some had left to rest on the frozen earth, gathering pools of rain-water above them where such were available, some taken away by the billowing wind from their trees to swirl in the air. The constant pitter-patter did not do to deny her footsteps from carrying her further, just a few steps, for that was all that she felt her sagged, rain-filled dress could carry her. She collapsed under a tree's shelter, her face wrought with anguish and misery both.

Memories and images came rushing back. Of men and women in paltry clothing, kneeling in front of her in fear, but all seeming more the equivalent of cattle than people. They were all her people, her indentured kinsmen. Yet now, she wore a gown of marvellous quality and foreign make, looming over them as if their better; as if their superior. A flash of light and they were all dead in front of her, ravaged by claws and fire, gouged and pierced, eviscerated. Pools of blood and twitching limbs, as the echo of their screams finally subsided throughout the estate. Had she given the command? She must have. Funny, how the image of the mass of now-corpses she had never laid eyes upon seemed more lucid to her than her own words, her own directive for slaughter.

The forest returned into view, as dreary as it was as when she left it for her memories mere moments ago. The moisture on her face had been only strengthened, and she found herself weeping. Sobbing uncontrollably as a torrent of tears streamed down her cheeks. She would feel their blood, as she did the first's, digging and chipping at her skin, her wrists, her arteries, looking for a way in - looking for a way to break her.

Asides from her, all was quiet, and for a long time, her moaning was all that permeated her ears. Even the rain had ceased.

Time passed, and her tears had relented. Her eyes directed themselves at the sky, and struggling to stand up, she stringed together a myriad of swears and cusses in her native Vaasi, all too horrid, all contorting her visage into swirling rage.

Breathless, she spoke coherently for the first time in hours, though that too has been carried up in volume.
"...The Iron Lord, Ezra, whomever of you sordid, despicable cretins that sit above and watch our misery, know this; by the time I am through, this land will flood with the blood of the bald, painted deviants!"

Silence greeted the Rashemi's vow, and she had collapsed, exhausted, against the tree's bark, her sobbing growing weaker and meeker until she had passed away into sleep.

Asides from her, all was quiet.

[Pav]

Silence, and the promise of death.

[Pav]

Another restless night, one wrought by nightmares and visions, sights that she would give everything so that they would be erased. It was necessary, was what she told herself, time and again, as every image flicked through the eye of her mind, at every clumsy, distraught twist and roll she made in her extravagant bed, the sheets disturbed by her fitful, almost non-existent rest.

Starting the day was the most difficult part of it. Scattering the cobwebs that shrouded her mind and putting on the disguise that she wore as her new life, the disguise of Roxanne Moore, Mordentish traveller. Her hair has been dyed, her wardrobe changed, all to fit in an unfamiliar place. All to fit somewhere she did not belong, yet somewhere she desperately wished to belong to. Somewhere far away from everything that has happened, somewhere... somewhere Raushan does not exist.

As every day, she managed to shake it all away for just long enough to slip into her floral dress, her red velvet top, all the silk and silver jewelery she could muster; she straightened her hair, she painted her lips, but did not bother to even attempt and hide the dark rims that telegraphed to the world her distress.

She did not deserve to live, but she will make the best of what she is allowed, until her time is through.

Until her sins run her down.

[Pav]

The nearly crumbling, dusty estate roused to life in the early hours of the morn, servants abuzz in preparation for the new day. The kitchens were already rife with activity, and the smells of what the cooks were concocting intermingled, invading the senses. Quiet, hushed calls in Vaasi for a ladle; another for wine to be brought from the cellar. The servants worked, and worked, preparing for their masters to wake from their rest, keeping themselves quiet so as to not disturb their sleep, far above their heads.

It did not help when the floorboards creaked with each hurried step, or when a plate of porcelain was dropped to the ground by one of the servant's' daughter, smashing into a thousand tiny pieces. The entire kitchen cringed, but resumed their work at double speed, just in time for the mother to begin her quiet scolding. A light slap to the back of the head, a mutter, and a finger pointed down, for the girl - barely above five winters in age- to begin collecting the shards.

She felt their sharp pain, and blood seeping from her knees, her tiny hands. All the pieces that she could see must be recovered, and she will look again, and find those that eluded her. She must. Never you mind, that her hands went stiff and yet slippery with crimson; never you mind the tears that welled in her eyes when she was kicked by a passing bare foot that must have been stung by her simple folly. When all the pieces were nearly gathered in her hands, the screams came to her ears, from all around. Wide-eyed, her eyes shot up to look about the kitchen, her task left to scatter across the floor again - while her hands were covered in blood, it was not her own that littered the long room.

Eviscerated bodies of her kindred, people she knew her entire short life, lay all around. Slit throats, gutted corpses, some even erupting in flames after already being stilled by the stroke of a curved knife. A black-clad woman, lithe and tall, stood in the middle of the kitchen halls, her twin weapons and her leathers covered in splatters of crimson. A hood concealed her visage for the most part, though a wicked, nearly psychotic smile played at her lips, threatening to burst into laughter. She did not see the girl, or rather, did not bother with her or even care for her existence - but the tears of fear streamed down the young one's face, one unmarred yet stilled in horror. Why, was the question that echoed through the girl's mind, the question that brought her a throbbing, paralyzing pain and the threat of further tears, though none came.

The murderer craned her head, the wicked grin widening as she began slinking her way toward the kneeling child, knives brandished at ease and in lax confidence. Every step sloshed through streaming blood, the corpses piling up on one another behind and with her every step; the world seemed to change, holding only the red of their blood and the black of the figure's appearance. It took near an eternity, but eventually, the killer knelt down, to stare deep into the paralyzed youngling's eyes - deep eyes of olive both, the older woman's opened wide in ecstasy, the child's opened wide in fear. Dull charcoal hair cascaded down from either crown, the older woman's much longer, the child's just enough for her age, and the sun-kissed, dusky complexion they both had was equally unmarred.

The child's breath accelerated, the tears flowing freely and without reproach, as cold metal found her chest.

In a lavish room in Port-à-Lucine, Roxanne Moore woke from her short slumber with a scream, covered in cold sweat.

[Pav]

She was sat in a simply padded chair, her black hair settled to hide most of her visage from her speaking counterpart. He sat in an equal chair to her left, though the gesture of equality he wished to impart was lost upon words of command that followed shortly after, congested with mucus and phlegm. The room was small, almost chokingly so, and the tall chair behind the desk remained unoccupied. Her eyes, to him, seemed focused on nothing of import or even particularity, glazed over as they were. Near every single one of his words echoed and ricocheted off some sort of wall in her ears, there but not quite, distant and near indecipherable save for a few precious moments of loud and clear lucidity.

"...utmost trust..."

The two words near boomed in her mind, though she remained unflinching in her exterior. A viscous stream of blood started seeping from out of the gaps in the wooden walls, staining a map of The Core so securely fastened to the boards with crimson. Flashes of her nightmares occurred before her very eyes, the slice of a curved knife eviscerating the silhouette of a throat.

"...a friend..."

Again, the cacophony hit, the room taking shape as something else entirely. The metamorphosis happened instantaneously, the crisp office turned into an old, rundown study,
 with piles of parchment and even taller stacks of tomes and grimoires lay around in disarray, and up against the desk sat a robed, wiry figure, scribbling away. She stood, now,
 if in silence, simply watching the man as he labored away. She wondered, where she was, before the answer hit her as a galloping horse. The magi turned to face her, his expression set grim into the full yet graying beard decorating his jaw, his olive green eyes narrowed with contempt.

"I heard you the first time, Raushan." He said, every word dripping with venom.
"Yet you ignore me." She retorted, her mouth speaking the syllables by its own, involuntarily, tone flat yet intentionally not insulting.
"There is nothing for me to say that you do not already know. You are a disappointment, a liability I will not continue to support. My own position was put in jeopardy, is in jeopardy because of your selfish desires, ones which I answered with more than was necessary." He paused, then shook his head slightly before speaking. "You will serve me better in Sly-Var's brothels."

The room rang, intensely, the vision dissipating as the figure of her father spoke its last.

"What do you have to say in your defense...?"

She returned to the office, blinking her eyes quickly to recover her vision, dispelling the sight of bloodied walls and parchment. Her counterpart just finished asking a question, though she did not hear it, the echo of his words trying to pierce the veil in a foolhardy attempt to reach her before fading away. When her answer came, it was in the same blank, strained tone.

"Nothing."
"Then you are dismissed."

Standing up, she stepped stiffly to the door, its make shifting form before her very eyes. With the click of a lock, the door opened, and her legs carried her out and away, while her mind remained far, far behind...

[Pav]

The barrel of the flintlock pistol filled her mouth with the taste of iron and wood, her lips salted by the free flowing tears. Her room was soiled with shards of broken glass, stains of wine and other, harder liquors - nearly all that could be broken easily, was, and all that could be disturbed from a restful, organized position was. The sheets and pillows were torn and messy, a vase of flowers lay shattered on top of the drawers, its water dripping onto the already ruined carpet. A chair lay toppled, cast away in a fit of rage. The chittering of her teeth around the cylinder did little to stave off the discomfort drawn from its taste or from the disgust she felt for herself, and with her eyes sealed shut in fear of what's to come, her thoughts swirled around in her mind as an angered maelstrom, crying out against perceived slights and injustices, against all that she believed was wrong and all that she believed should not have happened. Trembling with labored, heaved breaths, her posture turned lax as her finger went for the trigger...

"What are you doing?" An unfamiliar voice rang in her ears, and her eyes opened to see the armored visage of a houseguard, wearing the colors of her first masters. The answer he sought did not come verbally, but with the jab of a knife she hid behind her back. His eyes went wide, and she twisted, then released - the blade finding flesh once, twice, thrice more before he crumpled in a gurgling heap. She stood in the outer courtyard of the manse, barefoot and in mismatching leathers. A moment passed, the gravity of what she had done slowly sinking in before she ran to the walls, climbing up as she had done so many times in the past, and landing squarely on her feet on the other side. Glancing over her shoulder, she shook her head and repeated in her mind the words her father etched into her memory without fail; Always forward.

When she was far enough away, she collapsed on the ground to catch her breath, settling against a tree's bark. Something caught in her throat as her eyes carried upward, to the stars of the night sky, only to have the vision dissipate before her eyes with a loud ringing sound. She returned to her room, and immediately pulled out the pistol and tossed it aside, stepping back to fall onto the ruined bed. She began sobbing, quietly, the words still echoing through her conscious.

She could not have all of what she wanted, not even if she tried her best, and that, to her, was a sealed deal. Though as much as she hated her father, she heeded the only good advice he ever imparted on her, for better or for worse.

Always forward.

[Pav]

She had fallen asleep in her office again, in the chair where her only friend sat before her, in the office that once belonged to him. It was now her chair, and her office. It did not help her back, though, falling asleep in that rough wooden chair, as extravagant as it was. Barely dispersing the cobwebs from her mind as she came to her senses, she already began regretting the ache to come for the next few hours, and then her mind drifted back to her dreams.

Those dreams that dulled her senses, had eventually dulled the pain. The pain that they in turn caused, had eventually turned numb. They were but mere reminders, so she does not forget. Distractions, things that kept her from focusing on what mattered.

And what did matter?

It was hard for her to tell. She once held high ambitions, but, the pain... even when it was dead and dying, it still affected her, and her mind. A part of her wished that none of it had happened. That she had escaped and found another way, another way to go forward, and toward her lot in life. Another part of her wished she had never been born into this world, into the bloody shell that she was.

The people around her had helped dull the pain. They were distractions, so her mind is not always fixated on the same. Reminders, that there are others in this world but her. Reminders, that she should think of others, and the realization that she now cared for more than just herself was a brutal reminder of who she was.

Her bitter grief ruled over her lonely thoughts, intensified by the familiar sight of the path she carved herself out of flesh and blood, and the pile of corpses that just appeared in her office.

The sudden streams of blood oozing from the gaps in the walls, even in her conscious moments.

Captain. Baroness. A Family. Those were her rewards.

They were not enough.

In the end, nothing will be enough to take away the pain.

[Pav]

She twisted the curved knife by the handle in her hand, toying with it as if practicing her grip. Having no use for weapons any longer has been surprisingly upsetting for her, though she did not realize why. Her mind was barraged by the sight of blood and cadavers, and the dull, grating ache that came from it was more torturous than any physical pains she had ever endured, yet the rush that came from a fight, from the cries of pain and the drawing of blood, was missing.

Her life of struggle was replaced by a life of incredible comfort, and while that was what she desired, there was a void. The dull, black iron of her weapon held a sheen of red, intensifying the longer she held it in her focus, along with the chasm that once was her ambition. She did not count, all that was lost so that she could get to where she was - which was, in the end, worse than where she started. An aimless, useless drone.

A bitter laugh escaped her, and for the brief moment, her grip on the weapon tightened.

She must think of a path forward.

[Pav]

The carriage rolled along the war-torn countryside at a leisurely pace. Its lone occupant sat leaning against the window, peeking out at the evening views that were Dementlieu's reality for the time being; folk loyal to the Council of Brilliance preparing themselves against any forthcoming attacks from the rebellious union of eastern lords. A farmstead somewhere to her west, perched on a hill, perhaps, billowed thin tendrils of smoke. Was it raided, or was it simply the fireplace? Not that it mattered.

She headed down toward what would become a war zone, her new home in Beauvieres. Her husband's home, in truth, though he has not been there since she met him. In a time of war, his people - her people - would need someone to direct them. That is an aim, she thought to herself... and with these people, she will make right what was made wrong before.

She set off south to wash her hands of blood.

And so the carriage rolled on, and on... south, then east... and when the door finally opened for her to step out...

...Fin?