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| The Farmboy & the Metal Monster; for silas! | |
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| Topic Started: Jun 18 2014, 08:58 PM (794 Views) | |
| Glede | Jan 16 2015, 08:21 PM Post #26 |
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And with his sword my breast he cleft, / My quaking heart thereout he reft, / And in the yawning of my breast / A coal of living fire he pressed.
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Glede had seen the young woman approach from afar, his posture grown more stiff and his embrace loosening, as if he readied himself to flee -- to slip into the darkness of the house -- or to thrust Silas aside and reach for his blade; he could see nothing hostile in the melancholy of the woman’s countenance, nothing volatile in the sweeping gray scene of swaying crops and sagging shoulders, but something wearing the guise of a young woman would not be the strangest thing to roam carrion-smelling vastnesses. The slim woman, raging in the desert -- the thing that unfolded and fell apart, bone bursting from -- To be ready, indeed, never hurt. Protect Silas at all costs-- ‘I’m sorry.’ He let Silas go, staring dumbly ahead, a great armored scarecrow. She was not here to do harm to either of them. Why would she be? She seemed grimy and hollow of energy, but not in a way that announced skin-stealers or worse. Her next words cast aside all his misplaced caution, confirmed his suspicions: Dead? Dead indeed. And from plague, a word that pounded in the Scriptures like lakes turned to blood. “Divine cruelty,” he said, but he’d not meant to speak, and the grating of his voice in the air silenced him with a wretched creak. He fumbled at his belt for his mask -- where was it? there, there, why hadn’t he put it on, what had he been thinking, gaping open, a nothing-thing? -- but realized that this woman had already seen him. She already knew. He winced internally as the boy threw his spear aside, averting his gaze. Some old tradition, half-remembered, niggled at his mind. An eye upon the grieving is an eye upon the tomb. Days ago, the boy had hefted that spear with pride. The woman had validated those very dreams, but to what end? It was too late. He knew, now, what they had both feared. Whether from illness or whatever other cause they had dared to imagine, Silas’ family had departed for Ma’at’s hall of judgment, and whatever lay thereafter. “Silas--” He half-turned, lifted a hand to reach after the boy, but he’d already disappeared into the house. The construct looked to the spear on the ground, then to woman who had just approached. I tried, she’d said. A healer? He no longer cared what she thought of him. “Are they there?” he asked, a note of desperation in his voice. “Lady healer, they are not in the house? There was -- a pyre, or a burial, as is the custom here? Please. He must not see them like... this.” |
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| Nevneni | Jan 21 2015, 09:44 AM Post #27 |
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Asperges me hysopo, et mundabor: lavabis me, et super nivem dealbabor.
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Silas was struck by the hammer of tragedy. Nevneni had seen this happen so many times, for she was the one who so often delivered the blow. Though it was Death's scythe that swept away their lives, she could not help feeling the guilt of the messenger, the one who wished it could be better but could do nothing to change it. She turned her eyes away from him, unable to bear the sight of another young future marred by such a blow. Instead she looked to his companion, that hulking mass of metal, and noticed, with great distance, that where a human would have a face, he had nothing but emptiness. She stared for a moment, thinking almost nothing of it, and then watch Silas make his way towards the house, to say goodbye. She was glad, at least, that she'd taken the pains to clean the place once she'd known that the father was doomed; though he would find it empty, it would at least be untainted, smelling of herbs that covered up the faintest hint of miasma. When she performed the rituals of cleansing, it would smell of sage, and then as the years past, it would smell of age and rotting and a forgotten history. There was a voice; Nevneni looked again to the construct of metal. The voice that came from it was as human as could be, tinged with pity and concern. She could not be afraid of it; she'd seen greater horrors in simple humans, evils that they concealed with their flesh and cloaked in words. This voice was honest, it came from a naked spot of emptiness, and she could not distrust it. "No, I took them over yonder." She gestured to the direction whence she'd come. "I...couldn't bury them." Her voice caught on the confession. She glanced at the door of the farmhouse and stepped closer to the monster, "They died one by one, there wasn't time. I put dirt upon them, so their souls could at least rest, but if there is more that can be done...But some Morrimians, at least here, do not hate the pyre. We must ask the boy...when he is ready." |
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| Silas | Mar 31 2015, 10:20 AM Post #28 |
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Silas stepped inside his family home, silent and still. The wood creaked beneath his feet, a familiar sound; but things seemed so unfamiliar. So quiet, and lifeless. He looked upon the simple wooden furniture that he'd had all his life. He saw the bed that had once warmed him, and yet now it seemed so.... cold. But inside he felt no sadness, only a hard lump in his stomach like a rock, weighing him down. He sat down on the worn bed, wood creaking more as he did. It was still in that house now. he didn't like it. Even though there was nothing he could have done, for it was sickness that took his family, he felt responsible. He felt as though either way, he should have been here. He maybe even should have died with them. He hated how even now, his memories of home were blurry and faded. And he knew he'd never be able to make new ones. Everyone he loved, everyone he'd cared for. They were gone As tranquil despair filled him, he stared at his calloused hands, as if searching for meaning behind it all. In that very moment, a breeze came in through the window, a strong wind that rattled the frame and knocked down a bucket with a dull clang. He sighed and walked over, picking up the dented metal bucket; he had used it as a helmet when he used to play knight. A slip of paper fell from it, and he picked that up as well, unfolding the paper. It was crude drawing of a childs, of a sword weilding figure standing in a field. He'd drawn it to be that at least. But it was just a crude scribble in reality. He had even wrote his name next to the figure. He slipped the paper in his pocket with a sigh, walking around. He decided he needed to collect something to remember home. He tied a strip of brown cloth around his forehead, a cloth his father had used when working out in the fields to collect his sweat. He picked up a tiny brush his sister had used for his hair. His older brother's favorite hand spade. His mothers necklace. And he walked out of the shack, without a word as he stood on the steps. He cleared his throat and croaked, his voice tired. "There's nothing left for me here. The only thing I can do now, is keep moving." He stepped down and picked up his spear from the ground, staring at his face in the freshly polished blade. "To give up now, and let it all go to nothing.... it wouldn't be right." |
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| Glede | Apr 1 2015, 04:17 PM Post #29 |
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And with his sword my breast he cleft, / My quaking heart thereout he reft, / And in the yawning of my breast / A coal of living fire he pressed.
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“I see,” he replied, regarding the stranger with a stalwart dip of the head. “Thank you. Seeing such a terrible thing would only... hurt him more. You have done a good thing indeed.” As Glede looked 'over yonder', mail rustling, the emptiness of the sky and the flatness of the land stole his attention. The circling of the crows looked all the more sinister, their screeching beaks like those of vultures; the withered crops swayed as if hiding fugitive corpses. Though the healer had performed her rites, the bodies had not been buried properly, precisely, and it itched at the Ashokan banisher's worries. He could envision the family as stock for necromancers' profane arts, and so they must ask Silas soon, he resolved. The construct was no scholar of Soaran funeral rites, but even to bury them seemed flimsy – he hoped that Silas was among those who saw the virtue of the pyre, as the healer said, for there was no other way unfailingly to ensure rest. As she neared him, he scanned her haggard face with some concern. That she had borne a share of this grief was doubtless; her eyes were rimmed and raw so as to tell a story of weeping. And she approached him, not afraid, not as one approaches a fearsome Thing in the desert, but as one approaches a man. Her soul seemed much older than her youthful face, and she was in such a state that he imagined she had not cared for herself while she was caring for others. He was on point of speaking – to comfort her, perhaps? Assure her of what she already knew, that it was not her fault? – and how he knew that strange aimless guilt, a healer and messenger himself, and had been its bedfellow countless times. He had lain with that guilt and moved the next morning through halls of silence. Ma'at did not speak in those oubliettes. He moved closer in lieu of speaking what could not be expressed, great dark shape ambling ponderously through the grey. At that moment, Silas emerged from the stagnant house. Glede regarded the boy from the emptiness of his helm. “You are brave to say so,” he remarked. “If you need time to recover, we cannot blame you. Giving yourself a moment to breathe does not indicate failure. This is... a great change.” A change had occurred in the young mercenary; some of the idealistic hope had gone out of his face, replaced by brusque resolve. Be kind to yourself. He saw the memories the boy carried with him, the precious scraps of his family and his old life, and felt a pang. “When you are... ready to make – decisions about your family, you need only say.” The 'we' he had used reminded him once again of the healer-stranger, and he turned to her. “Who are you? The gods smile upon your help.” Edited by Glede, Apr 1 2015, 04:18 PM.
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| Silas | Apr 2 2015, 10:17 AM Post #30 |
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Silas nods, before sliding the spear over his shoulder into it's leather sheath. He went to sit on the steps of his house, sighing as he looked at Nevneni as well. "Yeah..." he said, his voice coming back to normal, but still with a rather noticeable monotone that betrayed the despair he felt. ".... what's your name? I'm Silas... as you know already, I suppose.... and... and that's Glede" He points to his friend, his voice getting just a little higher. He at least had the comfort of a friend, which was something very valuable to him at the moment. He had something to cling too now, at least, for a little while. He then looked to the ground, the dry dirt beneath his feet. "... did.... did you bury them, or.... or what...?" |
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| Nevneni | Apr 4 2015, 12:32 PM Post #31 |
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Asperges me hysopo, et mundabor: lavabis me, et super nivem dealbabor.
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Nevneni heard such words often: " You have done a good thing indeed.” They bounced off her as if thrown at a hard metal shell, as if she were this armour-monster creation herself, concealing a screaming, desperate void within iron flesh. She blinked and looked away and could not give an assent or a thank you; could she not have done more good? Not just this time but every time, in every little thing: could she not have done and been more? She thought she would tumble down with exhaustion. She too looked at the birds black against the sky, until she heard footsteps by the door. Silas had come back out. He looked dull, too crushed to even cry. "There's nothing left for me here," he told them, as if hollowly stating his intent would make it stronger, "The only thing I can do now is keep moving." The construct came forth with soothing words, speaking of breath even though it had none. Nevneni stared distantly away at those birds. She thought of the years that had trodden after she left her family, when there was "nothing more" for her at home because it had been so bloodied and brutalised by the appetites of that man, and she imagined how they now stretched out before this youth like a dark road. A dark, dark road, she thought, her mind flung back to dreams so frequent, so vague, that they were close to memories, And at the end, the white tower. A deep shiver ran through her: a shudder at the primal fear of existence, of life itself and the endless drudgery that spread itself out like the tumble of so many rough-hewn rocks before the welcome cliffs of death. She heard that dread like the mourning wails of women in Ashoka; those weeping songs bubbled up around her ears. "Don't go on," she wanted to say with a tongue spitting out bitterness, "Once you've left youth and family there's nothing left really." But no, no, she was silent, and she had known it once, in a radiant burst of lightning, somewhere in Ashoka, in a silent farmhouse, with a freckled and scarred woman who lived despite it all, who barked away all badness and kept the shadows at bay...Perhaps, perhaps...Suck in air, breathe, a mood passes like a cloud... The construct's echoing voice came slowly, tugged her out of the dim glories of her reverie. She turned slowly, feeling so syrupy that she almost could not speak her name: "Nevneni. I am Nevneni. I heal, that is all. Or I try." Silas introduced himself and the monster. Nevneni managed to incline her head, and then was asked of what she had done with the family. She swallowed dryness and explained it again: "There was no time, no strength to bury them...I brought them out to the fields, put some dirt on them so that they might rest. It was all I could do." She cast a wary eye on Silas, proceeding further with caution: "But given that this is some strong illness, that it could spread to the village...if there is time, if you do not protest, then a pyre might be best, if we can manage it." |
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