Post by Seek on Jan 1, 2015 7:00:37 GMT 10
Title: Four Fragments
Rating: PG-13
For: wordy
Prompt: 2. Dark!Emelan - any characters
Summary: Four fragmented futures.
Notes: Hope you enjoy it! Happy Wishing Tree!
-
i.
In distant Namorn, the Empress of Namorn and (of late) Emelan sits on her throne and weaves her plots.
The early and untimely death of the late Empress Berenene was…unexpected. Shortly after, Ishabal Ladyhammer retired gracefully from the court and went into seclusion. It was surprising, concluded the nobles, but not entirely unexpected that Lady Sandrilene fa Toren should ascend to the throne.
Berenene had daughters, but Maedryan dor Ocmore has been kept from the skeins of power for too long, and Clehamat Landreg is powerful and under Lady Sandrilene, its grip on the Namornese economy is tight.
Really, Sandry thinks, as she sits on her throne and studies her nobles, there was no other option, no other natural candidate to fill the power vacuum that her unmourned cousin’s death had left behind.
She exchanges a short, tight smile with Quenaill Shieldsman.
“Take a detachment of guardsmen and execute fer Hurich,” she says, simply.
Some of the other nobles make to protest—Sandry silences them with a sharp gesture. She snaps one or two fraying threads from the hem of her silk gown, absently. “This kidnapping tradition is barbaric,” she says, “Simply barbaric. And so I will regard all prepatrators with the exact barbarism they intend to show women. Am I understood?”
Silence.
Playing with the loose threads, Sandry smiles. “Execute fer Hurich,” she repeats. “And Quenaill, use the Jar of Ghosts spell on his uncle. He won’t come quietly.”
ii.
The King of Sotat, it is said, has his own assassin: a man whose sole task it is to execute his enemies. Quietly.
The Lord of Briar Hall lives in a spacious manor, some distance from the palace. Few have seen the young Lord’s face. His holdings have another name; one long forgotten. Now, Briar Hall is named for the rose briars that grow thick on the wrought iron of its fences.
These briars curl and twine about the fence, and sometimes, the street urchins who creep close enough to Briar Hall will swear, they are alive in ways that just ain’t natural, writhing blindly as though they can sense intruders and are determined to protect the manor grounds from them.
“No one goes into Briar Hall and comes out alive,” or so they say. The briars, the creeping vines and the spiny hedges are exceptionally vigorous and lively and healthy.
The King’s enemies disappear, and are never seen from again. Sometimes, lights are seen in Briar Hall, a distant cry is heard on the breeze.
And the street rats know that it’s not worth their lives to creep into that place and burgle it.
iii.
There are three names that strike fear in all the Blue Traders who ply the Pebbled Sea. There’s Queen Pauha of the Battle Islands, and her brother Enahar—two names joined together as one. There’s Red Darag the Bloody, who burned three trading ships and had the crew staked to the mast before the last ship was set ablaze and burned them alive.
And then there’s the last: the Steelsmith, they call her, because she’s a steelworker’s muscles and because she wields a smith’s hammer in battle, with which she breaks the knees of those who oppose her.
“I see sails on the horizon,” the lookout cries, and Daja ascends the crow’s nest to see for herself. She grew up on a ship, and it’s child’s play to her now; the sea is her home, when her own people left her for dead and the Blackwind first rescued her.
She breaks out her spyglass and smiles a wolfish smile.
She recognises Tenth Ship Karam.
“We have a target,” she tells her men, and they cheer, raucously. They’ve spent fruitless weeks at sea without being able to run down a vessel and attack it: a pirate ship without plunder is one that soon mutters of mutiny, for all her men first unanimously voted for her as the captain after the death of Silverbraids. “Gentlemen, hoist the colours!”
The flag is run, and the helmsman yells the orders as they change course. They’re on full sail, now, riding the wind, and men check their swords and their new black powder weapons.
There’s plunder to be had, and a ship to set ablaze.
iv.
The first time she kills is an accident.
Lightning, out of a clear blue sky, shattering her life, and striking down the persistent boy, and all she can think is, good riddance and that she wanted him dead.
The second time, she doesn’t know what she’s doing but she has some idea. The earth shudders and opens up and swallows him whole, and Tris breathes a sigh of relief—she can’t bring herself to feel sympathy. There is only one kind of man who’d follow a young woman down a dark alley, and as far as she’s concerned, that kind of scum deserves what he got.
But then it escalates. The mage-trackers come, because they’ve sniffed out what’s happened, somehow, even if they don’t seem to be able to trace it to her and she smiles and offers them tea and sees herself reflected in their eyes: a plump, bookish young woman, not a threat, and the voices whisper all the while, concerned, speaking of the Summersea Killer on the loose.
The tea is laced with rat poison. The two mage-trackers die, and she digs them a grave, painstakingly, until her hands are raw and bloody because she can’t coax the earth to accept the bodies this time. She doesn’t know how she did it back then, except that her need was great enough.
The deaths matter to someone, somehow. Tris can’t fathom why: inside, she’s cool and collected and hollowed out. She puts balm on her hands, washes them, and puts the kettle on the fire, humming a tuneless song.
Time for a new cup of tea.
Rating: PG-13
For: wordy
Prompt: 2. Dark!Emelan - any characters
Summary: Four fragmented futures.
Notes: Hope you enjoy it! Happy Wishing Tree!
-
i.
In distant Namorn, the Empress of Namorn and (of late) Emelan sits on her throne and weaves her plots.
The early and untimely death of the late Empress Berenene was…unexpected. Shortly after, Ishabal Ladyhammer retired gracefully from the court and went into seclusion. It was surprising, concluded the nobles, but not entirely unexpected that Lady Sandrilene fa Toren should ascend to the throne.
Berenene had daughters, but Maedryan dor Ocmore has been kept from the skeins of power for too long, and Clehamat Landreg is powerful and under Lady Sandrilene, its grip on the Namornese economy is tight.
Really, Sandry thinks, as she sits on her throne and studies her nobles, there was no other option, no other natural candidate to fill the power vacuum that her unmourned cousin’s death had left behind.
She exchanges a short, tight smile with Quenaill Shieldsman.
“Take a detachment of guardsmen and execute fer Hurich,” she says, simply.
Some of the other nobles make to protest—Sandry silences them with a sharp gesture. She snaps one or two fraying threads from the hem of her silk gown, absently. “This kidnapping tradition is barbaric,” she says, “Simply barbaric. And so I will regard all prepatrators with the exact barbarism they intend to show women. Am I understood?”
Silence.
Playing with the loose threads, Sandry smiles. “Execute fer Hurich,” she repeats. “And Quenaill, use the Jar of Ghosts spell on his uncle. He won’t come quietly.”
ii.
The King of Sotat, it is said, has his own assassin: a man whose sole task it is to execute his enemies. Quietly.
The Lord of Briar Hall lives in a spacious manor, some distance from the palace. Few have seen the young Lord’s face. His holdings have another name; one long forgotten. Now, Briar Hall is named for the rose briars that grow thick on the wrought iron of its fences.
These briars curl and twine about the fence, and sometimes, the street urchins who creep close enough to Briar Hall will swear, they are alive in ways that just ain’t natural, writhing blindly as though they can sense intruders and are determined to protect the manor grounds from them.
“No one goes into Briar Hall and comes out alive,” or so they say. The briars, the creeping vines and the spiny hedges are exceptionally vigorous and lively and healthy.
The King’s enemies disappear, and are never seen from again. Sometimes, lights are seen in Briar Hall, a distant cry is heard on the breeze.
And the street rats know that it’s not worth their lives to creep into that place and burgle it.
iii.
There are three names that strike fear in all the Blue Traders who ply the Pebbled Sea. There’s Queen Pauha of the Battle Islands, and her brother Enahar—two names joined together as one. There’s Red Darag the Bloody, who burned three trading ships and had the crew staked to the mast before the last ship was set ablaze and burned them alive.
And then there’s the last: the Steelsmith, they call her, because she’s a steelworker’s muscles and because she wields a smith’s hammer in battle, with which she breaks the knees of those who oppose her.
“I see sails on the horizon,” the lookout cries, and Daja ascends the crow’s nest to see for herself. She grew up on a ship, and it’s child’s play to her now; the sea is her home, when her own people left her for dead and the Blackwind first rescued her.
She breaks out her spyglass and smiles a wolfish smile.
She recognises Tenth Ship Karam.
“We have a target,” she tells her men, and they cheer, raucously. They’ve spent fruitless weeks at sea without being able to run down a vessel and attack it: a pirate ship without plunder is one that soon mutters of mutiny, for all her men first unanimously voted for her as the captain after the death of Silverbraids. “Gentlemen, hoist the colours!”
The flag is run, and the helmsman yells the orders as they change course. They’re on full sail, now, riding the wind, and men check their swords and their new black powder weapons.
There’s plunder to be had, and a ship to set ablaze.
iv.
The first time she kills is an accident.
Lightning, out of a clear blue sky, shattering her life, and striking down the persistent boy, and all she can think is, good riddance and that she wanted him dead.
The second time, she doesn’t know what she’s doing but she has some idea. The earth shudders and opens up and swallows him whole, and Tris breathes a sigh of relief—she can’t bring herself to feel sympathy. There is only one kind of man who’d follow a young woman down a dark alley, and as far as she’s concerned, that kind of scum deserves what he got.
But then it escalates. The mage-trackers come, because they’ve sniffed out what’s happened, somehow, even if they don’t seem to be able to trace it to her and she smiles and offers them tea and sees herself reflected in their eyes: a plump, bookish young woman, not a threat, and the voices whisper all the while, concerned, speaking of the Summersea Killer on the loose.
The tea is laced with rat poison. The two mage-trackers die, and she digs them a grave, painstakingly, until her hands are raw and bloody because she can’t coax the earth to accept the bodies this time. She doesn’t know how she did it back then, except that her need was great enough.
The deaths matter to someone, somehow. Tris can’t fathom why: inside, she’s cool and collected and hollowed out. She puts balm on her hands, washes them, and puts the kettle on the fire, humming a tuneless song.
Time for a new cup of tea.