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Author Topic: No justice, Just us: The tale of Relthas Ve  (Read 652 times)

Volcarthe

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No justice, Just us: The tale of Relthas Ve
« on: September 11, 2019, 09:07:39 PM »

Then:
The blaze quickly closed in on her, lapping at her arms as the heavy wooden beam seared the flesh of her neck.  The smoke filling her lungs as she weakly called to her father.  He came bursting into the cabin, heaving burning planks as if they were nothing.  She could see he was already hurt.  Three bolts stuck out of his shoulder.  He hefted her into his arms and carried her to the window as she fought to breathe.  He helped her out, but the wall collapsed in.  Through smoke and tears, she reached but the fire was too hot and consuming too quickly.
"Run!"  he said.  "Don't forget I lo.." and then the roof gave up, leaving nothing but death and fire.  As she scurried away into the night, she turned back to see them.  Their torches in hand, the leader with a crossbow.  She ran until she could not.  The next day, she ran more.

Now:
The corpulent man lay before her, bloody and terrified, the flames of the buildings surrounding them cast odd shadows this way and that.  She stood, book in hand.  Older, wiser, ready to finish this.  He lunged for the crossbow nearby, but a blast of chill air struck his hand and he recoiled, hissing at her through broken teeth.
"Who are you?  Why have you attacked my village?"

Then:
She sat quietly in the academy library, poring over tome day and night.  While they respected her dedication, they did not interact with her unless necessary.  She worked alone, paying her way by assisting the local undertaker with the dirty work no one else would do.  One book she found detailed very particular things on the nature of life and death.  An old book with a weathered picture of an open hand with a heart shape cut out of the palm.  Nobody had known what it was.  The teacher had dismissed it as a bunch of mad poetry.  Late at night, she read the ancient words, and watched the dead rat before her as it began to move.

Now:
"Do you not remember?"  She rasped.  Cold.  Calculating.  "It was you who first brought fire to the houses.  You all hated me for being born, for causing my mother's death.  Even then you plotted to kill me."
The man narrowed his eyes,  the blaze made it hard to see her face.  Harder yet to see:  the creature lurking ever closer behind the man.
"If you do not remember the daughter of Callem Ve, perhaps... you remember him instead?"
"Callem?  He died years ago in a fire!  You cannot be that little witch-spawn.  There's no way you survived!"
She stepped closer, the burn scars on her arms and chest quite visible.  He drew a dagger from his boot and shifted to stand, but a sudden weight was on his shoulders.
A deathlike grip dug into his flesh and then he felt the teeth upon his neck, slowly biting down.
"It took me a while to master the spell, and longer still to find where you hid him."  Her harsh-whispered words stabbed like daggers.  The bite had paralyzed him, but the dead hands turned his face to meet their owner's.
"Father."  She said to the creature.  It looked at her then back to the man.  The village elder could not plead nor scream as he was slowly ripped apart and devoured by the ghul.
She looked back  at the other dead villagers.  Children who were too young to have called her names.  Did they turn out like their parents?  None could say now.

In the hazy dawn, the two walked down the road away from the burned remains of the village.  The smoke clung to them as she held her book close to her chest.  The pages were slightly bloodied, as were her hands from the night's deeds.
"Now it is just us, Father." She calmly reached for his hand.  The thing that was once Callem Ve stared with dead eyes and reached for the hand of its master, but the smoke began to swirl up between them, obscuring her from sight.
"We can be a family again.  I lo..."
The winds cleared the haze from the road. 
A ghul stood alone, a small book at its feet.
The rustle of creatures in the underbrush caught its attention and it bounded into the woods towards fresh meat.