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 Posted: Sun Jan 09, 2011 5:35 am
To continue with the trend somebody set, I'm swiping Alias and Insanity's idea and using theme music. Why?
Because I'm one fiftieth French. And also because I like music.
On to the story!
(Oi, I don't know who did the music thing first - I give up. And the French comment is from a Robin Williams stand-up bit I watched. ^^)Ali-edit. When the guild was new, and I was young [aprx. 1 year ago], I used theme music for each part of my story, did anyone care? Nope. San-san and I team up for our new story and I continue with the music, does anyone care? Yes! Everyone does!
And Wicked Broken-it um id like you to note i stole it first not Wicked get your facts straight Alias ^.^ Broken was the first to steal it. <3
Also, the Ali-edit was so that I wouldn't be posting in your lovely story. XDA wild Alias appeared! Where the hell's my damn Siniball?!
-hides Siniball in my bag, right next to the cinnibon-
It's kay if you can't catch me.
You've already caught my friendship
[Friendship has been transfered to Bill's PC]
HOLY POOP, THERE'S A WILD BROKEN! Alias, gimme that Siniball, quick!
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Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2011 2:01 am
P-a-r-t- -O-n-eX XE-n-t-e-r- -G-r-i-e-v-a-n-c-e
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Posted: Fri Jan 14, 2011 5:53 pm
I awoke face-down in a room that smelled so thickly of fear and blood and death that it made me ill. My cheek was submerged in a pool of liquid, and my hands felt sticky and distant somehow from the surface they rested on.
Slowly, I pushed myself up, suppressing a yelp when my back unexpectedly hit a chair or table or something. Through sleep-blurred eyes I could see that the room had probably once been a very nice room in a cozy little shack of a house. Now it was trashed; vases and pictures had been completely destroyed, and broken, pale bodies littered the floor, torn in the wake of some great beast's fury. When I looked down at my hands, I could see they were covered - as the vast majority of my clothes were covered - in a rust-red slick that had dried with a sickly sheen.
What had happened? I tried to remember anything before my awakening, but my mind was devoid of any recollection at all; I couldn't even remember anything of myself, other than the obvious things like my gender and approximate age. I wasn't sure of my hair color; it was too blood soaked for me to be sure of its true color.
I knew one thing for certain, though: whatever had happened, whatever I had or hadn't done, I needed to get away from this place. I didn't know - or remember, most like - what would happen if I stayed, but the instinct to run away from it was almost smothering. I rose to my feet and danced around the bodies as I rushed to the nearest door I could see, not bothering to even see if I remembered their faces now that the instinct to flee had been set in motion.
Once I was outside in the cleaner air, my head cleared a little. It was near dawn, that much I could tell by the grayish streaks in the otherwise dark sky. There was a scattering of other small houses all around the decimated one I had just left. The windows of the houses were all dark, and the dusty streets were empty. No one was awake yet - or so I hoped. But hope didn't do much good; without another thought, I turned and bolted away from the tiny village, veering far from the only path and eventually running deep into a barren grassland.
It was midday when I finally stopped to catch my breath, though more because the blood was beginning to annoy me than because I actually had to. I had only stopped two other times for breath, something I knew couldn't be normal - or could it? I wasn't even sure of that anymore.
There was a tiny creek nearby, likely one that only ever flowed with the rainy season. I knelt at the edge of that creek and splashed the cold water on my hands, rubbing until the only redness was from the friction of skin against skin. My clothes I could do nothing for at the moment, but my hair I had to at least try to fix. I rolled onto my back and laid my head back until the creek lapped at my hairline, then ran my fingers through the clots and tangles in my hair until it felt silky in the water. I sat forward and shook my hair out, clenching my teeth when my jaw threatened to quiver. With all of this out of the way, I turned back and waited for the water to settle back into its normal pattern before I looked at my reflection.
It wasn't quite the sight I'd expected - but what had I expected, and why had I expected anything at all? My hair wasn't any conventional color at all; instead, it was a now-glistening gray, and would probably dry silver or even white. My eyes were a blue color, though it was hard to tell their true shade in the water's reflection, especially since the creek bed was filled with colored stones more than gray. I could tell my skin - what parts of it weren't smeared with blood - was pale and ashen, although that may have been a result of all the running I'd done without any food or water.
As if my assessment had roused it from some kind of dormancy, my stomach snarled, startling me so that my hands slipped on the wet gravel and I almost fell forward into the stream. I rolled my eyes and got to my feet; it was time I moved on again anyway. By now that family I had evidently either slaughtered or failed to defend would have been discovered by their fellow villagers, and some might be trying to track down whoever was responsible for their deaths. I needed to keep and make greater my lead on them, and doing so would hopefully bring me near food of some sort.
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Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2011 4:09 am
This time I stopped out in the open, finally out of breath and too hungry to carry on. Thirst was also becoming a problem; I was beginning to wish I'd taken a few more moments to drink from the tiny creek before charging off again. I was far enough now that I was sure the villagers wouldn't come after me now, even if they spotted me. I had the feeling such a distance as I had run would be incredibly tiring for them, though I wasn't really sure what the difference would be. Maybe some part of my mind remembered that they were slower, or maybe it was just a deeply-rooted hope stirred by the decision to flee.
The grass here was a little higher than it had been near the creek, reaching now up to about my knees. I hoped that meant there were greener pastures ahead, so to speak. At the very least, maybe there would be some small animal of sorts sneaking around in the cover of the tall grasses; I wasn't nearly so picky that I would pass up even a few lizards at this point, if I could catch them (and something - a voice in my mind that grew steadily clearer - told me that I could, if I tried). This in mind, I started moving again, much slower this time, keeping my eyes peeled for any tiny movement, any flash of color that didn't belong in the pale yellow grass and sun-bleached dirt.
I walked until the sun had visibly descended in the sky before I came upon another small creek, where I decided I should at least get some water before it got any warmer. As I knelt at the edge of the little creek, there was the tiny sound of grass rustling, followed shortly by the sound of a tiny sneeze. I froze and looked up from the water, scanning the area around me for anything that might go with what I had heard. For a moment I could see nothing, and I started to wonder if perhaps I had imagined the sound.
Then - there! Grass stalks moved separately from the others, and a minute later out tumbled a steel-gray bundle of fur. The kitten squeaked, then tripped over its own feet and fell into a headfirst tumble that landed it belly-up in the water. It squeaked again, then hissed and clamored out of the creek on my side, where it promptly shook itself off on me. To top off the whole thing, the impudent little fuzzball then sat down, fur fluffed up, and looked at me with big eyes and let out a mewl so happy it could have been greeting its birth mother. It even batted at my leg, as if it was trying to get me to play with it or something."Now look here," I said, picking the tiny kitten up, "I don't know what you think I have for you, but I don't even have anything for myself. You'd be better off going home to your mother, if you've got one." Of course it - no, she; the way I was holding her under the forelegs let me see that much - didn't listen to me. Instead she just reached out and batted my nose, then mewled again and started wiggling her back legs in playful little kicks. All the while, she held my eyes with hers, an odd thing for any animal, much less so small a creature as she was. The color of those little eyes was almost entrancing: a piercing shade of sky blue. And now that I looked at her, the little thing wasn't entirely gray. She had a blotch of white next to her nose, and one fore paw was colored white up to the wrist.
The kitten wriggled around and opened her mouth in a huge yawn, revealing tiny white teeth no bigger than the thorns on a rose. Gently, I placed her back on the ground, and she immediately curled up next to me and wrapped her tail over her little pink nose, and for all intents and purposes she seemed to fall asleep in a matter of seconds. I should have taken that opportunity to leave before she could wake up; I didn't need two mouths to worry about when I hadn't even managed to feed one. But something pulled at me at the very notion of walking away and leaving this little scrap of fur behind, where she might die of hunger or get swept off by the first - well, second - hungry scavenger to come along.
Finally, cursing my apparent soft-heartedness, I scooped the little thing up and cradled her close to my chest as I moved away from the little creek, thinking all the while that this was turning out to be a very long day.
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Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2011 5:16 pm
For three days we traveled with little rest and even less food or drink. After the creek where I found the little kitten, we had an abnormally difficult time finding any source of water at all. I managed to find a mouse and a lizard the first day, and was lucky enough to catch a bird on the second, but on the third day we were out of luck and went to sleep that night with painfully empty stomachs. The only bright side to the whole situation was that the grasses were beginning to grow dotted with small shrubs and rock piles. I hoped that meant there were be a readier supply of food by the time we ended our fourth day.
Our resting area was a bare patch of dirt with a large stone at one end. The kitten, who I had decided to name Tsukiyomi, immediately crawled on top of the rock and fell asleep. I grimaced; something that hard wasn't exactly what I would call comfortable, but if I slept in the dirt I'd just end up feeling itchy when the loose stuff on the surface of the ground ended up getting into my hair and clothes. And it was ungodly warm, even though the sun had gone down maybe an hour ago. The rock would have cooled faster than the sun-scorched dirt, and if it didn't, I would be able to at least hang my legs over the side and get a little air flow between them and the rock. At least, that's what I was hoping.
The night passed sleeplessly for me. Under the light of the crescent moon, I felt visible, vulnerable, even though the lack of moonlight should have been comforting after the blazing bright sunlight that left us visible for miles in any direction. I wondered idly if I had always been like this - if back when I remembered who I was, I had still felt safer with the moon bright and full rather than withered and dying. But of course I had no way of ever knowing that; whatever had killed that family had destroyed any memory I had of myself or my past. I doubted I would ever get those memories back, and a part of me wondered if maybe those memories were better left in whatever part of my mind they had been locked away in. I might end up remembering things I'd rather not if I probed too far.
At some point deep in the night, Tsukiyomi stirred and suddenly sat up, her blue eyes glittering as she looked at something I hadn't detected yet (though I had learned by now that my senses were about as good as hers, for all she was barely old enough to eat solid food.) Following her lead, I sat up and looked in the same direction as she did, trying to see what had so suddenly caught her attention. For a moment, all I could see were the dancing shadows of the bone-pale grasses. Then, as I focused, I saw a cold pair of eyes glaring out at me from deep in the tall shadows. I froze, then slowly shifted so that I was situated in an all-fours crouch, one hand back as a reflex, though of course I knew I wouldn't be able to swat at a wolf and have that be enough to make it run off.
And it was a wolf; it stepped closer and growled low and long, its light gray pelt bristling along the sharp edges of its too-visible bones. I swore under my breath. This animal was just as starved as I was, which meant there was no way I would be able to scare it off. But despite the desperate situation, I didn't afraid or even nervous; instead, I almost felt excited, as if I were getting ready to play tag with someone I knew was faster than me. It was an irrational response - wasn't it? Shouldn't it be? I didn't know, and right now I didn't care. All I needed to know was that the wolf was threatening me, challenging me, and I wasn't about to back down from that challenge. I heard Tsukiyomi squeak and scramble behind the stone as I shifted again, this time positioning myself so that I would be able to jump up or forward off the rock if I had to.
And I did. That wolf charged at me with the speed of starvation, its teeth glinting like daggers in the moonlight as it let out a hideous snarl that sounded more like a roar. I let out a feral scream of my own and lept, without thinking, straight at the beast. Somehow I got my arms around around its neck at the same time it bit down into my shoulder. But the pain only made me mad, and with what had to be inhuman strength I threw the thing down with a powerful twist of my entire body. We both hit the ground, and for a long time we wrestled in the loose dirt, yelling and snarling, kicking and biting in a whirlwind of hunger-driven madness. The thing released my shoulder and got its teeth around my leg, which it then shook so viciously I thought for a moment the appendage might be dislocated or even ripped off. The thought gave me the boost I needed to hit the wolf's face with a well-aimed kick that sent the thing staggering back and shaking that bloodied muzzle angrily.
It was now or never; ignoring the pain in my leg, I scrambled up and threw myself awkwardly at the brute, landing on top of its head and biting into the back of its neck in an act of desperation. It howled and shook, then rolled on top of me and tried to crush me under what weight it had. I tried not to panic as I began to choke on the matted fur in my mouth, and instead bit down as hard as I could and punched as hard as I could at the wolf's sides. Finally, it stopped squirming long enough for me to push it off me before I dove on top of it again. This time it was too tired to react before I could deliver several blows to its soft underbelly. After the third or fourth kick, it snarled and lunged up to bite at my shoulder again. Its teeth scraped against my should and down my arm until they caught on my elbow. The damn thing started to shake again, and this time managed to throw me off before it dragged itself to its feet.
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Posted: Sun Jan 16, 2011 8:05 am
"Well, come on then, you sonuvabitch," I snarled as the beast stared at me with cold yellow eyes. I rolled to my feet and panted, "What's the matter, mutt? Too tired to finish the job?" When the thing still didn't come at me, I felt my blood start too boil. Here this stupid furball had just attacked me, and now it wasn't even going to bother trying to finish me off? Did it expect me to roll over and die just because it had torn up my leg and arm so badly? "Then I'll come at you!" I shouted. I threw myself one more time at the wolf, roaring as my hands caught it around its jaws. It snarled and shook its head, trying to get me off as I pried its jaws open and forced it to roll over onto its back. It kicked and let out one more snarl as I brought my foot down as hard as I could on its throat. The roar broke off into a snap and a gurgled yelp, and then the wolf went still, its eyes glazed in shock.
I stumbled away from the corpse, then tripped over my own feet and fell onto my butt. With the danger gone, the shakes set in, and I fell back and curled onto my side, trying to keep myself from shaking to pieces. What the hell was I, that I was able to take on a wolf with my bare hands and win? Sure, the thing had been starved and likely weaker because of it, and okay, it got some painfully good hits in on me, but it should be eating me right now, not lying limp in the dust with a dent in its throat the size of my foot!
Something fuzzy batted at my arm, and I looked up to see Tsukiyomi staring at me as though she had absolutely no clue why I was so shaken. Looking into her blue eyes helped me calm down, and as I did, I became aware of my body again, of the pain that lanced through my left leg, my right arm and shoulder, my fingers where those vicious teeth had torn at me one final time. There was a long gash in my chest and stomach, too, though I couldn't remember where I'd gotten it. It must have been when I was on top of the wolf that last time before I'd bull rushed it. I'd been focused on the wolf's teeth as they had flashed towards my shoulder; it would have been easy to miss a well-placed claw or two while the monster was trying to rip my arm off.
Dawn was approaching; I could see one trace of royal blue in a sky colored like ink. I knew I should get up and try to move or get what little meat I could off that wolf, but I was getting cold and tired at an alarming rate. I growled under my breath; clearly I was going to have to see what could be done about my injuries before I even considered doing anything else. Still grumbling, I sat up after a few failed attempts and looked closely at myself, wincing at the damage I could see. The scrape on my torso was just that: a shallow cut that was already beginning to clot up. If I was careful about how I moved for the first few days or so, it should be able to heal on its own. The leg was worse, much worse; deep lacerations sliced at everything from my knee down, and two of those cuts were still actively bleeding and would need to be bound up tightly until I could get a hold of a needle and some thread to stitch them up. My pants were already barely more than tattered rags, so I stripped them off and tore strips of cloth off to tie around my leg. It hurt and it was ugly as hell, but it would have to hold for now.
My arm was in the worst shape; my shoulder was gushing, and my entire arm was colored in my own blood. My elbow had gone numb - I hoped that wasn't a bad sign. With a sigh, I took my shirt off and tore it up into strips like my pants. After binding my shoulder and arm as well as I could, I took what was left of my pants and shirt and fashioned a sling. "Well," I grumbled as I glared down at myself, "Now that I look like a damn fool, let's see about the mangy mutt that put me in this mess to begin with." I rose unsteadily to my feet and stalked over to the wolf carcass, and by the time the sun had risen Tsukiyomi and I were feasting like rogue royalty on what was probably the biggest meal either of us could ever remember eating._____________________________________________________________ The song for this post is the same as the last post because it's the same scene and has about the same feel to it. There will be a new song next post, 'kay? 4laugh
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Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2011 9:24 am
Ignore the picture on the video. crying Of course there wasn’t much meat on the wolf, not for a pair of starving bellies. Vaguely I wondered how a kitten as young as Tsukiyomi seemed to be could chew and keep any amount of meat in her stomach, but then the fact that there was no meat left distracted me from the subject entirely. Now all we were left with of the mangy wolf was ratty fur and half-rotted bones – I really hoped they were in such poor shape because it had been starving, and not because we’d just eaten infected meat. The teeth and claws would have made nice jewelry, if I had cord and a way to bore holes through the only hard bones on the wolf. And what good would the hide be? I had no knife to skin the carcass with, no string or needle to sew up even a rough bag or skirt. The bones certainly wouldn’t withstand being sharpened against a rock. As much as it pained me to do so, I decided I would just have to leave the leftovers behind.
By noon we set out again, and we didn’t walk for more than an hour or so before I began to see encouraging signs that we were near civilization again. My first clue was the way the ground suddenly flattened out and ceased to yield any plant life, as though the path I was following was worn by many feet traveling on it for many years. A little while later I began to hear what I hoped were cattle and sheep. Before long I could see the outline of a farm on the horizon, and it was all I could do to keep from running headlong towards it, shredded leg or no (although now that I was paying attention to it, I realized the damn thing hurt a lot worse than it had that morning). I hoisted Tsukiyomi from my arms onto my uninjured shoulder and said, ”Do you think they’ll be the type that are nice to a sorry sight like me?” Tsukiyomi only batted at my hair and mewed, although why I had expected anything more was beyond me.
For a minute I stood there chewing my lower lip as I tried to figure out what I should do next. If I went up to the little house next to the farm and asked for help, I might find food and clothes and water fit to bathe myself in. I also might find folk who would see my survival against the wolf as a sign of witchcraft and would try to burn me or drown me in my sleep, and who knows what might happen to Tsukiyomi then. But something told me it wouldn’t be as easy as that for the farmers; whether it was overconfidence bred from the wolf attack or another of those moments where I remembered vague bits and pieces of myself, I was certain the farm people would be in bigger trouble than I would if they tried to kill me. At the very least, I told myself, I should try to find someone to help me take care of that mutt's handiwork. This stupid leg is–
My leg buckled as the thought flashed through my mind, sending me to my knees with a growl. Tsukiyomi mewed, stuck her claws into my shoulder, then slid and fell butt-first into the dirt next to me with an indignant squeak. She scrambled back to her tiny little feet and shook herself off before looking up at me as if to ask, "What did you do that for?" I picked her up and brushed some more dust off the top of her head, then somehow managed to drag myself back to my feet – for a moment. Then the same leg tried to go out from under me again, and I only stayed up by shifting all of my weight on my good leg. "Great," I snarled after a few muttered curses slid through my teeth, "So I'm going to have to hop all the way to that piece of garbage house. Brilliant." Still cradling Tsukiyomi with my good arm, I started the undignified hop to the tiny little cottage, which was even farther away from me than the stupid barn was.
We were still several yards from the little flower garden outside the house when the door opened to reveal a stout old woman who looked as tough as she did well-fed. Her stern, chubby face softened almost immediately when she took in my sorry appearance, and with more speed than I would have expected she came to me and hooked one waist-sized arm under my shoulders to help me into her home. "What on earth happened to you, girlie?" I ground my teeth at the girlie comment, but kept my tone as polite as I could manage when I answered, "I was attacked by a wolf. It was starved, but I managed to scare it off." I wasn't about to tell her I'd actually killed the thing, not when she was already proving to be so unquestioningly helpful. Besides, as we entered the house, I could smell food – eggs and bacon and steak. How could I make this woman think me a witch when she had so much glorious food?
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Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2011 9:23 am
For seven days I stayed with the old woman, who’s name turned out to be Milaina. While I stayed with her she taught me several things — including how to sew, a skill which I apparently lacked. The first time I tried to stitch something, my finger ended up with a loop of thread through it. I didn’t feel any pain lance through that finger, though, and it was only when Milaina stopped me halfway through my next stitch that I even noticed the blood. Milaina seemed somewhat concerned when I told her I hadn’t realized what I’d done, but the fact that I looked just as worried seemed to put her at ease again, and she wrote it off as “plain tiredness.” After this, she made me sew with thimbles on each of the fingers on my left hand until I could stitch faster and more accurately than she could.
I also learned more about myself under Milaina’s roof. For instance, I found that it was very important to me to be better than Milaina at everything we did; if she could milk a cow faster than I could, I found a way to increase my speed without hurting the animal or losing any of the milk. If Milaina could stitch neater vine-and-leaf patterns than I could, I stayed up at night to practice until I could stitch even more elaborate designs of birds and mythical creatures like gryphons (which I had only heard described in stories Milaina sometimes told me). All of my time was spent improving myself so that I was more talented than the woman who gave me food and shelter — not to mention cloth enough in black and silver to make myself well-made clothes. Out of the same vanity that drove me to perfect my sewing and milking skills, I even used the leftover fabric to make myself a black cloak trimmed in silver. Milaina, at least, was impressed with my end products, but the sadness in her eyes told me she had already guessed that I wouldn’t be staying.
On the morning of what might have been my eighth day with Milaina, I woke before the sky even turned grey, long before the old woman herself would rise. I didn’t care much for goodbyes, and I wondered if Milaina would try to convince me to stay. As quietly as I could, I packed my traveling pack with my needle and string, then roused Tsukiyomi and bundled the now-fat kitten in my arms, shifting so that my cloak fell to conceal her. As silently as I could, I started for the door. I was three steps away from it when I heard the soft, quiet thumps of another set of feet against the hard floor, and turned to see Milaina standing several paces behind me, a knife in one hand. Her eyes were watery, but she did not cry — she was too stern for that.
”Did you think you could leave without my knowing?” she asked me quietly. The hand clutching the knife trembled slightly. ”Is that how little I mean to you, girlie? I do not even warrant a last farewell?” I cringed; I really didn’t want to put up with this, not when I had tried so hard to avoid it. ”I thought it would be easier for you if I left before you woke,” I told her. That was a lie, and by the look on her face she knew it. She shook her head and sighed, ”Where will you go, then, girlie? Here you have food, shelter… And what do you think waits for you out there?” “I don’t know,” I told her. ”Only that I don’t belong here. I wish I did, but… but there’s still a lot I need to learn about myself, first. I can’t do that here, not anymore.” Inside I was gagging at the sappiness of the whole situation; this entire conversation was beginning to sound like lyrics ripped right out of some minstrel’s cheesy romance song. And that knife was starting to worry me; what did she plan to do with it? I really didn't want to hurt her...
Milaina saw my glance shift to her hand and shook her hand before deftly flipping the knife until she held it by the blade. Then she stepped forward and presented me with the hilt, saying, "Then take this with you. You'll need it if you come across anymore wolves." I stepped forward gingerly and lifted the knife from her bony old hand, then turned with one eye on her to slide the weapon into my pack. It had a handle wrapped in blackened leather, with strands of the wrap that hung off at the border between the blade and handle and tipped with little pieces of grey stone. "Thanks," I murmured. "And this,." She went into the kichten and came back with plate-sized packs in either hand. "This way you don't have to scavenge." Then, as I took the food from her hands, she stepped forward and threw her arms around me in a surprisingly tight hug. "May angels guide you," she whispered.
I didn't know how to respond to that, so I nodded, hugged her back, and turned away. I didn't look back again until I was outside and well away from the house, and by then she had already begun to hobble towards the barn to see to her cows._____________________________________________________________ END of PART ONE
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Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2011 12:42 pm
P a r t _ T w o
X
X
S i s t e r _G r i e v a n c e
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Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2011 10:07 am
\ The food pack lasted us for several days after we left Milaina's house, but pretty soon we were out again, and this time there weren't any handy points of civilization nearby. Milaina's farm hadn't been anywhere near a village, as I'd originally expected. In fact, if anyone other than I had traveled close to her farm, it had been only recently enough to trample down the grass. Oddly enough, though, the hunger that came after the food supply ran out didn't bother me. There was something else, something I couldn't really describe. At first it was nothing - just a twinge that I only noticed when I lay perfectly still, closed my eyes, and focused on clearing my mind. The better I became at meditating, the clearer and more insistent the twinge became, until it wasn't a twinge so much as a buzzing, humming voice that rang in my head whenever moonlight touched my skin. When we finally came upon a skinny deer about three days into our food shortage, that hum turned into a pounding in my head and my chest; I was lucky to catch that deer, because I acted swiftly out of fear that the animal would hear the drumming in my head and run away.
Tsukiyomi started acting strangely, too. Once our food supply ran short, she started getting more and more aggressive towards me, often hissing when I startled her and pricking at my legs or arms to get my attention. After I took that deer down and started cutting its hide away, she dove into the meat and tore into it raw, growling and even taking a swipe at me when I tried to pull her away from the carcass. She ate almost her weight in meat before she finally yawned and padded away to sleep, her face and front paws streaked with blood. I frowned, wondering what had gotten into the normally docile kitten... and that's when my own stomach snarled impatiently at me, and for a moment I lost control of my own body as three days without food took over. When I could pull myself off the deer, there was little left other than bones and the meat on the head - though I noted with a twinge of nausea that both the eyes were suddenly missing. I pulled my blood-stained kitten into my arms, grateful that for once she wasn't snarling at me even despite the twitch that told me I had once again surprised her, and we left the deer carcass behind as we continued northward.
That night the moon was at its fullest, so naturally I kept traveling long after the sun had fallen below the horizon line. But the humming and pounding came back again, more forcefully this time, until it felt to me like I was running away from some unseen danger. Tsukiyomi stirred, and then she was growling again, not at me this time, though, but at something directly in front of her nose - something I couldn't see, but that she was intent on scaring off. I stopped and knelt where I was, letting Tsukiyomi climb out of my arms as I tried to steady my absurdly fast breaths. What was out here to be afraid of? I had taken that wolf down single-handedly, hadn't I? And I'd outrun that deer, too, and grown pretty good at using Milaina's knife.
Tsukiyomi snarled, and when I turned to look at her, I finally saw what she'd been after. In the distance - the not-very-great distance, I noted anxiously - where little dots of orange-yellow light, like the lights of many houses. That wasn't a problem; if there was a village nearby, that would mean food, shelter, and a place to sleep for a few nights before moving on again. What worried me was how familiar this place looked, as though I had been here before. Say, the day that I woke up for the first time. My teeth clicked together; just when we really needed food and shelter again, we had to come right back to the one village I was trying to avoid. As much as I hated to admit it, those people would remember my face if I had lived there for any length of time, and would be wondering where I'd gone.
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Posted: Sat May 28, 2011 2:29 pm
\ I walked back to Tsukiyomi and picked her up, cradling her close to my shoulder as I turned my back on the village with the intent to walk away from it and never, ever come back again. Tsukiyomi growled in indignation and stuck her little claws hard into my shoulder; I yelled and dropped her with a low curse. She landed on her feet with a surprised mrrt, then looked up at me with her big blue eyes, her head tilted in curiosity. The claw marks weren't anything major, but her claws had gone straight into one of the still-healing gashes in my shoulder; the nearly-forgotten blows the wolf had dealt me began to ache like fire, only adding to the stress I was under. I knew I had to get up and keep moving — the village was close enough that if I yelled too often, someone would be bound to hear me and come out to investigate — but the pain in my arm wasn't dulling like it should be. It was growing... as was the odd, humming voice that had antagonized me since I'd left Milaina's home.
No, I thought as I tried to stay on my feet. It wasn't humming anymore — it was talking to me, murmuring in my head in such a quiet voice that I could only just hear what was being said. My knees gave out on me suddenly; Tsukiyomi let out a little hiss as I hit the ground on my knees and nearly slammed my forehead on the ground when I doubled over. The voice grew louder, clearer, until the words were the only thing I could hear at all. Chills raced up and down my spine as I listened to what the voice had to tell me.
You're pathetic, it chuckled. The voice was a whisper that was neither female nor male, colder than blackness and rough like the grating of stones... and filled with an authority I didn't doubt. Why are you on the ground, little girl? There are people in the village over there, lots of people. Lots of blood. That's why you're so jittery. Why not go have some fun?" My body moved on its own; in my mind, I was still clutching my head, curled in a shivering heap on the ground. In reality, my body rose to its feet and turned back to the village as my hand gripped the dagger Milaina had given me... all without my commanding them to do so. Beside me, Tsukiyomi hissed again, this time sounding... triumphant, almost. Pleased. Had she been waiting for this to happen to me? Why?
And then Tsukiyomi let out an unearthly screech that was like the grating of metal shard against glass, and in a flash of brilliant white light, she wasn't a kitten anymore. Little Tsukiyomi was a lean, fully-grown house cat that seemed bigger than she should be, even despite the sudden maturity. "We're going to hunt now, yes?" The new voice was light, clearly female... and, I realized with a start, it belonged to my cat, who was looking expectantly at me with those same big, blue eyes. Her tail flicked casually behind her as my mouth answered on its own, "Yes... Yes we are, Tsukiyomi." As my body moved toward the bundle of lights at a sprint, I tried to snatch control of my body back from the whispering voice; the only thing I accomplished with this exercise, however, was in drawing the whisper's attention to me.
"This is who you are," it told me - and I heard three notes in the whisper that made it sound far too familiar for my liking. "You wanted to remember yourself, didn't you? I'm helping you learn who you are meant to be, dear one." The voice... the invisible woman in my mind went quiet then, and I realized, as I turned my mental self's attention back to the outside world, that we had come upon the village. I had been right; this was the village I had fled from before. People were still turning the lights out - I could see them moving inside their homes, heedless of the danger they were in, like cattle led to slaughter...
I stopped. Cattle? When had I lost my respect for the sanctity of human life? Almost before I finished the thought, the woman in my mind laughed blithely. "Sanctity?" she demanded, her voice turning suddenly harsh. "Do not speak of sanctity. There is none in this world - least of all among the humans. You weren't meant to know sanctity; do not concern yourself with the creatures that do and do not possess it. All you need to know is that these people are here to be killed - they are hunting you, after all. You cannot allow them to spread your description and the crime you are accused of to neighboring villages." My body turned to Tsukiyomi, and my voice said to her, "Come, Tsukiyomi. Let's have some fun." Tsukiyomi let out another unholy shriek and leapt into the closest house through an open window; human screams echoed through the house as my body turned to face another house and walked towards it, stopping right outside the front door as one hand reached out and touched the rough wood...
As I watched on in silent wonder, black, phantasmal streaks of... something... shot out at the house, tearing into the wood and stone like the wolf's fangs had ripped into my leg and arm. Inside, there were screams of agony and the sound of a child's horrified cries for mother and papa... and then the screams were silenced simultaneously, the black, gossamer-like streaks fading into nothingness as a salty taste suddenly entered my mouth. I blinked, surprised at the flavor... and then I yelped to realize I had control of at least my mouth and eyes again. "Of course you have control again," the voice told me with a giggle. "This is your body, after all. Now, listen close and I will show you how to repeat that move..."
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Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2011 2:17 am
By the second household I slaughtered, the villagers had gathered outside with their little knives and torches. I smiled, unbothered by their "threat". The blood of the woman I had just killed dripped from my hands as I rose and faced them; the voice - my inner thoughts, I now knew - was right. These puny little creatures were human, weak, and little better than cattle; not only that, but they had dared to hunt me. Their presence had driven me from food, from water, from shelter... yet even so many as these would not be enough to cause me any great damage. Tsukiyomi, her pelt stained red with blood, trotted over to stand at my side and eyed the humans speculatively, as though she were sizing up a potential meal. "They will be easy prey," she mewed, speaking in a voice only I could hear and translate. "Which ones do you want to kill, Master? The men or the women?"
"Take whichever ones you want," I told her as I held my hand out to the gathered humans. "Perhaps the ones who are left when I am finished." The wispy darkness seeped from my hand again, drawing power from every nearby shadow as it swept like a scythe through the gathered people, slicing bodies cleanly in half or severing extremities from bodies as screams cut off into gurgles and a horrified few tried to seek shelter from the killing shadow. I frowned as I watched those twenty or so escape into their homes; evidently my power had a distance limit, which meant of course I would have to chase some of the lamblings down to kill them. How tedious. I sighed and told Tsukiyomi, "You may take the ones on the right, Tsukiyomi; I will deal with those on the left. We may need to finish before dawn."
Tsukiyomi nodded, then ran to the nearest house and howled; the door buckled as if bowing to her command, and then the lithe gray shape slipped inside and began the killing. I turned to the first house on my left and stalked to the door; the flimsy barrier fell off its hinges under the force of my kick, and I entered the tiny hut to the sounds of terrified whimpers and sharp, shallow breaths. A maniac grin spread across my face at the sounds; they were right to be afraid. I was going to have fun with this first lot. The first victim I found was the man who had escaped my shadow wave and led me inside; the fool was curled in the fetal position behind some sort of low table, whimpering like the coward he was and watching the doorway where I stood with wide eyes blank with terror.
I watched him for a moment, then realized that, while I could see him perfectly, he was as blind in the darkness of the night as a newborn kitten. I laughed - it was a cold, merciless laugh - and asked him in a low voice, "Poor man. You can't see me very well, can you?" He didn't have time to whimper again before I had rushed forward and buried one shadow-clothed hand deep into his chest. I felt my own eyes widen in an animalistic delight as I watched the man's eyes bulge with pain and terror. Feebly, he reached up to scrabble at my still-embedded hand; a low, gurgling moan escaped his lips as blood spilled down his chin and onto his shirt and my arm.
My nose wrinkled in disgust. In one quick move, I stood and kicked the dead man away, yanking my hand out and stepping away from his body as I spat, "Filthy creature! How dare you cough up your blood on me? Your blood and your spittle... foul, ugly thing! Fortunate for you that wound alone should kill you soon, and I have others to hunt." I turned away, still hissing disgustedly under my breath as I followed the sounds a of woman's muffled weeping to the next bit of prey...
~*~
"Master? Are you well?" A small paw poked me gently on one shoulder, stirring me from my well-earned sleep. I grumbled something under my breath and rolled over, putting my back to Tsukiyomi. "Just five more minutes..." I mumbled tiredly. It had been a long night of slaughtering and becoming befouled by the blood and spit and vomit of my victims (the child responsible for puking on me had died perhaps the most painless death of all, mostly because it was an infant - well, that, and I had snapped its neck in my fury), and now all I wanted was another hour or two of sleep before I had to wake up and decide what to do next. Couldn't my idiot talking furball understand that?
Still, Tsukiyomi persisted. She leapt nimbly over my body and started licking my face - or rather, cleaning the blood smears off it. "Master, you should get up soon," she told me. "We need to find food and supplies here so we can move on better-prepared." Leave? My sleepy mind stirred a bit at that. Yes, we would have to leave soon, wouldn't we? There was still the risk that merchants or travelers or relatives from other villages may come through here, and while last night had been... instructional, I wasn't entirely certain I wanted a repeat quite yet. Perhaps a few days, at least, to clean the vomit- and blood smells off my skin and out of my hair... As I thought this, I noticed that it felt as though I were wrapped in something... silky. Cooler than moonlight, too... what was that? I sat up with my eyes still half-closed - and gasped, my eyes snapping open entirely as I realized I was wrapped in white, incredibly long hair. Hair that felt as though it grew from my own scalp.
With careful, trembling fingers, I unwove the long strands from body and let them pool like water in my lap. My hair was no longer all white; the last foot or so of it faded quickly to black, as the the tips had been stained by the shadows I'd wielded the night before. For several long moments, I simply sat in the bloodied dust of the village's once-bustling street, stroking and running my fingers through my hair, reveling in the unfading coolness of it, the unmarred silkiness it possessed, the way it seemed to glisten in the sunlight. There was no sight more perfect, I thought to myself - this was such an absolutely gorgeous gift that had been bestowed upon me..."Master?" Tsukiyomi asked again. I looked to the right and saw her sitting patiently, watching me with those blue eyes that so entranced me whenever I looked into them. Her tail, wrapped neatly over her front paws, twitched at its tip as she mewed, "Shouldn't we start looking for food, or perhaps fresh clothes...?" She let the sentence hang as she stood and shook her pelt free of dust - I raised an eyebrow as I noted her silvery fur was free of bloodstains. Clearly, she'd see to her own personal hygiene before waking me. I sighed, then took my hair and carefully settled it around my shoulders, looping the mass around my neck in two loose wraps and giggling delightedly when I found there was still a good two feet of hair dangling off my right shoulder. Still stroking that dangling portion, I followed Tsukiyomi as she led me through the bodies-cluttered streets to find whatever necessities we required._____________________________________________________________ END of SISTER GRIEVANCE'S HISTORY
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