Search Posts
"GAH!" Elarya cries out as she's cut in a dozen different places and has the wind knocked from her lungs. She takes a moment to catch her breath, then stands up slowly and carefully, not wanting to add another stinging cut to the "lovely" assortment she was already sporting. "Did we ever manage to find rope. I'm not looking forward to trying to jump out."
Elarya stumbles too much to jump back, and her fingers are inches shy of catching the lip of the pit. Damn.
Elarya stands beside Garrett and pushes. Hard.
Sorry I had forgotten about that.
Elarya moves as far as she can while still being able to see. She turns around and asks Havak, "Do we have any torches. I can't see much down here."
Third!
Still here, and I don't know. I'm starting to think the game's either dead or dying. Shame, it really had some interesting things going on.
Once out of the way of the trap, Elarya begins inspecting the floor for signs of goblins moving forward.
Elarya follows Havak down after he's safely away from the first trap.
Elarya looks at the stone with the crystal in it and scratches her head. "Think it's a trap?"
"Like human bodies or animal bodies?"
"A tower. One that stood vigil until the elements and time took its toll." Elarya looks off into the distance. Her eyes not quite focused on anything.
"It seems the sky is clearing, best make use of daylight while we have it, right?"
"I only knew the area around my home well. When I left with my uncle was the first time that I had gone further than a few miles from there." Elarya packed away any tools still in good enough repair into a bag for carrying. She checked the dagger and axe in her belt. The sword crossed her back, hilt above her right shoulder. Funny, I still think of the keep as home. "And who's to say, there may not be a town for many miles after that horde came through. We'll probably need to hunt for food and cure as much as we can."
Elarya spends most of the morning looking over the armor that Havak had recovered, seeing if she could resize it for him.
She can be heard humming to herself as she works.
I'll take the spear.
Elarya slept leaned against one of the walls of the old hall. The nightmares she expected to come never did. Instead, she found herself in a void facing a great silver dragon. Elarya's Dream:
This was not the nightmare she expected. She was prepared for the night of her uncle's death, or the last fight where the horde over ran the town. She was clothed and armored, but she felt as naked as if she were wearing nothing. Sheer terror gripped her heart and her legs felt like lead. She couldn't move, she couldn't scream. All she could do was stare into eyes that had seen thousands upon thousands of winters.
Why do you despair, Little Whitescale? She couldn't answer. Why do you wallow in self-pity? Anger welled up in her heart and burned in her throat. "I don't!" Yet you seem content to do nothing. You are blinded by selfishness. Others are suffering as you have. "And what can I tell them? That it will be okay? That their families are in a better place? They lost their families and friends because I wasn't strong enough! I wasn't good enough to keep them from getting cut down. I didn't fight when my uncle died. I fought and they all still died! What good is shield if it can't protect anything?! What good is an oath you can't keep?" Tears flowed down her cheeks. Tears as cold as ice. Ice so cold it burned like fire. The dragon simply looked on. Then it's voice echoed in her mind, but whispered quietly in her ear. Who says that you failed? Who says that your oath is broken? You are the only one Little Whitescale. No one could live up to the expectations you set for yourself. You are not alone, even if you act as such. The dragon touched its nose to her forehead. Calmness flowed into her mind. You have grieved enough Elarya. It is time for you to move on. I t is time for you to put off the mask and let your true self show. I was the one that your clan first swore that oath to. You have not broken it. You only need look at those you managed to protect to see that.
Elarya woke in the grey twilight of the predawn hours. The light from the embers was dim, but it was enough. She cleaned the soot and the grime from scabbard and hilt of her uncle's blade. Her blade. The sun was still several minutes from rising, but something within her blazed with a fire she hadn't felt since that faithful night. The whistle of steel sounded in the lightening predawn. She swept from stance to stance, move flowed into move. The steps came as easily as breathing. Her movements were like a dance. For the first time in over a year, Elarya was finally free.
Elarya doesn't seem to hear Amara. Even if she did, she doesn't look like she'd care. She follows the group to wherever they camp for the night, but more out of having nothing else to do than any sense of camaraderie.
Elarya sits. taking the sword and holding it like she was when Amara found her. Emptiness filled her eyes as she looked at a patch of ground just a few feet in front of her. "Almost everyone in town knew I showed up in the middle of the night covered in blood. I only told Wallace what happened that night. My family, my clan, have a tradition. Everyone on their fifteenth birthday swears an oath. Not to kings, or even to the gods. It is an oath to all we may meet. We vow to be shields to those who need protection, and swords to those who cannot fight." She pauses for a moment. Her voice then continues on in the same dispassionate and level tone she had been using since Amara had found her. "I had an uncle that traveled with the caravans south. He left the day after I took my oath, and I went with him. A little ways from here, on the main road, the caravan was ambushed by bandits while we camped. They slaughtered everyone. Everyone but me. While they fought and died, I hide. I hide and watched." She stops. The silence stretches on for a long while, but she finally looks up and says, "There you have it. The reason I showed up, covered in blood, without a scratch on me."
"Come back with me and share it with all of us, the only ones any of us have left." Elarya slowly gets up and straps the sword over her shoulder. "Lead on." Her voice sounds dead, flat, lifeless. It seems that all of the famed emotions of the northern people had been sucked out of the young woman.
Elarya shoots Amara and icy glare, but it dies as quickly as a spark in the cold. Her gaze returns to the patch of dirt she'd been looking at when Amara showed up. "Do you have time for a story? My story?"
"What's the point? Even when I try it turns out the same as if I did nothing." Defeat, edged with bitterness, colors her voice. Her eyes don't move from the patch of dirt where they had been fixed for the past few hours.
Wall of Text Explanation:
Elarya tries her best to clean up the soot and ash, but the numbness returns and she makes her way to the anvil. The missing tools and the clear area around the anvil are lost on her. She had failed again. That is the one thought in her head, that she had fought, she had tried her best, and she had been found wanting. Sansa's call might have been a hundred leagues away for all Elarya did to acknowledge it. she sits and leans against the anvil, clutching the sword with all she had. Despair settled over her and joined the all too familiar guilt in dousing the young warrior's spirit, for the second time in her life, she felt as if she was alone in a deep, dark pit, and the demons were gathering around.
Yeesh. That sucks. Hope you feel better soon.
Elarya slows to a stop just a couple of dozen feet from the only home she'd known in Solace. She stands there, not knowing whether to cry or just curl up some place. Nothing... There's nothing. Then she remembers the sword. Her uncle's sword that she had left in the room she had been staying at. She rushed to where she remembered the room was and began to digging frantically, hoping that at least that last little connection was still there.
Also on another note. It's not that she has a death wish, it's that she, and the rest of the clan, have a bit of a hero complex. They don't like seeing others hurt and tend to view themselves as indebted to those that show them kindness. If things do go south, I expect that she'll learn caution rather quickly. ;)
Elarya jolts awake, and is one her feet before Sansa's words register. She relaxes for a moment, then her memories, still fresh in her mind finally sort themselves out. "Wallace!" Is all she blurts out before taking off at a dead run for the smithy.
I'll try to have it up tomorrow. I've been holding off since my HDD is getting replaced and I didn't want to have go through the trouble of grabbing an image of it again.
Happy Easter! The problem with my machine isn't as bad as I feared. Just going to have to get everything re-installed >_<.
Hey guys, I've got a bit of bad news. My computer is having issues and it's going to take some time to sort it out. My posting over the next week or so is going to be stunted since I will only have access at work, and I've got a good bit of stuff to slog through. I'm still committed to the game, but I won't be able to post nearly as much.
Elarya looks at Corvina, then Sansa. She looks almost dead. Her face is pale, her clothes soaked in blood. She can't feel anything, she's just numb. She reaches out for the red hand and touches it before she realizes what she's doing.
Some color comes back into Elarya's cheeks, but her muscles still shake from fatigue. "Th-thanks."
Jerem was dying, that much was obvious, but Elarya didn't see that. She saw the man that was causing so much pain, and she wanted nothing more at that moment than to put her axe in his skull.
Her rage spent, the young warrior struggles to stay on her feet.
"Only if you can kill me first." Elarya doesn't hesitate; she goes for the face.
I'm in. I still want to see where this goes.
Elarya doesn't quail, she's too deep in her rage for that. She snarls, and something about her seems more than human. The air seems colder around her. Perhaps it is nothing more than some imagined effect of the young barbarian's anger. The ice in her voice, though, is very real. "Then come get me false-priest."
Something pricked through the rage-fueled haze that Elarya was in the full embrace of. She looks around, ignoring the strangeness that was enveloping Corvina. Her eyes fall on Havak, then Amara, before fixing her ice-cold gaze on Jerem. "You brought this." Her steps begin slowly, first one, then a second, before suddenly erupting into a thunderous charge that was heedless of the foe that had struck her arm. Pain and fear were drowned by a bellow that was inhuman, that echoed with the full fury and power of a winter storm. Every scrap of anger, self-loathing, and impotent rage from the past year was put into her wild wing that was intended for the false priest's neck.
"Come coward! Face the fury of a Whitescale if you wish a fight!" Gray eyes burn in a face contorted by fury as she stands defiantly against Jerem's advance.
Yick. Sorry you're feeling sick, that's never fun. Hope you get well soon, 'cause we've got some mayhem to sort out.
|