Tablet IVShe was like Death.
Watching her precise strokes with the reed stylus on unfired clay; then again as she speaks haltingly in civilised speech, before reverting in frustration to her own garbled dialect. These things make her seem more real, more human. Teetering between the age of youth and adulthood, it was hard to mold someone who remembered a vastly different childhood to one brought up in their ways.
But place her in combat, and she no longer wavers.
Her tribal dialect flows freely as she sways, incomprehensible save for a few words common to their languages. Where others depend on runes and rituals, she etches symbols of element and nature as she moves, her very being a conduit of energy and power. She calls, and the earth itself moves to answer her.
Their own scholars feared her, calling her a devil incarnate. The nomadic tribes of the far North were not to be trusted, they warned. Who knew what dark pacts they had forged with demons unknown?
Worse, she learns. The blocky cuneiform writing of their ancestors, as well as the more stylised etchings they had adapted to. They teach her about the power of numbers, symbols, and the elements they represent. She learns, and she adapts them. She shortens lengthy rituals and merges them with her own tribal knowledge. Direction, meaning, symbolism; she takes the Trinity and enshrines them into forms of power.
So they thank her, even as they feared her. So young, yet a wild talent. Envy could have been a motivator. The ones who fought on the field had fewer qualms, seeing how her talents benefited them directly, those who had to bleed and die out in combat. But even they had moments of doubt, seeing how easily she took to killing, terminating with a ruthless efficiency that even hardened warriors took years to achieve.
Physical combat remained her one weakness in the early years, though her magical skill was beyond doubt. Quietly though, she trained with the one who picked her up in the first place. She never resisted the training, but never quite complied with their doctrine either. She did not question orders, but she never quite followed them exactly as they wanted her to, though if forced to question, no one could deny that she
had, in fact, followed instructions to the letter. It made for an interesting, if frustrating, quandary. They had grown to need her expert insight into speeding up the development of runes as a practical combat application, but doubted her loyalty to them.
After all, her clan was slaughtered during an all-out battle between their forces and the fiends they hunted. Caught in the crossfire, so to speak. It was a mystery as to how she even survived at all. It was not too difficult to imagine that she had witnessed the carnage from the beginning, and worse, that she
remembered.
But if she did, she did not seek revenge against those who had a hand in the destruction of everything she had held dear. Dark eyes held their secrets, watching impassively and soaking up new knowledge and experiences like a sponge.
The only flicker of anything resembling hate was at the moment of killing. The instant she ended the life of anything, fiend or human, it was there where her eyes became fiery and alive, a seething
rage that threatened to devour all that stood before her held barely in check.
And then the subject dies, and she is calm once more. Impassive, like a statue.
Like Death.
Or as they have come to call her, Raven. She still wears the dark feathers, taken fresh from the great scavengers that roam battlefields, her namesake. She seems amused by the irony, even as she braids them into her hair.
Over the years she learns to smile, laugh, and talk with greater facility. Equally, also, her prowess in battle grows as quickly, though she never did as well under the searing Anatolian sun, only coming truly alive in the night, bathed in the gentler light of the moon.
Ironic, perhaps, since their prey was only ever more active at night. Useful, too, since men tread fearfully in the cold and the dark. The chill never bothered her at night; the tundra she was born on had been colder, so much so that it almost never snowed; it was usually too cold and dry to.
In the end, Baram reflected, it was only so much easier for those who stood in shadows to fall into it. He believed that he was of Light, but Raven was unmistakably a child of the Night. He had seen her dance on nights of the new moon, a silent ritual of herself to herself.
Privately, he feared her. But the Light needed what she had to give, so very much. He only hoped he would not live to see her turn on them, as he suspected she eventually would. Those dark eyes held too many secrets, full lips hiding promises never to be whispered, only ever hinted at.
She was beautiful, he realized. But so very dangerous. A weapon he had shaped with his own hands, plucked from a ravaged battlefield. Shadows stirred at the edges of his memories, intangible hands blurring between reality and dreams.
Years have passed, the betrayal yet to come, but the Past never stayed where it was. It caught up one fine day, like a summer storm. Reckless, unstoppable, wrathful.
Raven returns at sunset to find yet another ravaged battlefield, and a stranger in the middle of it all. She does not understand, seeing only the end, and not the beginning.
This time she is no longer passive, but then again, she never was.
She holds her little brother in her arms, his throat slashed out with a blade. A part of her collapses in grief; another, darker side takes control, her fingers dipping into the lifeblood of her kin, weaving and murmuring.
She calls, and the earth answers.
Anyone who approached with killing intent was instantly obliterated, their minds destroyed, turning their weapons on themselves. She sits silently in that circle, surrounded by the dead.She acts, but is flung away with a single sweep, crashing against a broken wall. Her breath catches, something twisting deep within her. A crushing sensation, then suffocation.
She coughs, a deep, gurgling sound that sounds
wrong. Blood sputters from her lips, joining the mass of it on the floor. She falls, surrounded by the dead.
Blood pools all around her, most of it not hers. She does not remember the interval, just as she has blanked out what happened before. She only remembers the pain, and the stranger.
Intense red eyes, burned into her vision. One more thing she could not forget.
Should have died, should have died, should have died.But she didn't, and the nightmare begins anew.
First priority: hunt down the bitch that killed me. Yeah, would have died. Hell, should have died. Damn friend should have been less softhearted. Hell, I should have just killed the idiot the first time. Now I'm alive and...what? I'm hungry! Shut the hell up! They should all die, and I should have killed them myself. And damn, that tastes awful. Yeah, priority, kill the bitch that got to them before I could. Damn
her.====================================================
Perspective shifts might be a tad confusing. I quite like how it turned out though. Free writing has it uses, though I did have to edit a great deal towards the end.
No notes to make for now, since there aren't that many things of relevance, save for the reference to cuneiform writing. Think pictograms, or hieroglyphics. That would have been the ancient Sumerian script. Like I said though, not a big deal (for now).
What do you guys think of Raven though?
I'm curious.
Topic: Gegenschein: The First [22/10 - Tablet IX] (Read 16930 times)