#caethe the pict

[for-peace-war]

art by @idrawbuffgirls​

My third hour-writing exercise.  This one involves @scowlet​‘s Pictish borderer, Caethe, and @iamreinhardt​‘s Valenso.

I did this at the library so, may be a little wonky in places.  As always, Kelzack did an awesome job with the piece above!  And well, I tried a different writing style for reasons.

THE GREAT WINGED ONE.

Follows Part I.

Follows Part II.

Part III.

The Aquilonians moved like wolves.  She was the wolf.  For two days she had tracked them.  When they slept, she watched.  When they moved, she trailed.  When they ate, she waited.  Woodmanship was not in their blood—they did not know what it meant.  From papers, they had learned.  No, not papers—books, they were called books. The word was repeated in her mind as she padded after them.  Always upwind.  Always certain that she lived in their shadows.

They were aware she was nearby.  She wanted that.  Pictland’s trees were old and true.  They were thick, strong, sturdy—not at all like Aquilonian soldiers.  The woods were her allies.  She had known allies before as true and strong, but they were gone. Now she hunted.  Now she waited for the time to strike.  The longer she held off, the more uncomfortable they became. They were nervous, like boys that had not yet been blooded.  Yes, they had fought in wars—but they had never been in War.  The wolf knew the difference.

There were no battles to be won or lost.

There was only death.

In some ways, it was a game.  Pictish children did not learn to play empty games.  Not like dancing—no, not like singing, either.  Songs had to have meaning; so did dancing.  If a step was made, it was with another in mind. If a note was shared, then there had to be a reason for it to be called out.  To keep away their fears, the Aquilonians sang to themselves.  They were bad singers—but worse, they were bad wolves. Wolves called out for a reason.   Fear was never a reason to call out.

And she was a lone wolf now.  Who would answer her, if she did call?

Caethe could smell them. She had learned as a child which herbs would keep her sharp and which would make others sleep.  The Aquilonians, who sang when they were afraid and scratches at bites when they were nervous, did not know these things.  They thought they were hunting for wolves.

They did not know the jaws were already around their throats.

There were six of them.  Speculatores, they were called.  The Aquilonian Empire of Maxentius Supremus had fallen, but parts remained. This was a part—this was the part where they said his mother came from. Was it true? Could she, a Child of the Crow, have betrayed her people? Some said so, but what was the betrayal? A mother had her child.  She raised her child.  If he was bad, was that her fault? Caethe didn’t know.  She didn’t even care.  . Maxentius was dead.  His empire had fallen. The men that pretended to be wolves would soon be skinned and their pelts left out to the sun.

She turned her head and took in a sharp sniff.  The leaves overheard cast dark shadows, which danced over her eyes.  If she had used her eyes to see; if her ears were not sharp, or her nose was not as swift to catch scent, then she would have missed it.  But she could smell it.  One of the speculators had slipped away.  He was looking to catch her.  But his bladder was weak—weaker than the thews it had stained. Piss was the only scent more acrid than fear she could think of.

What was certain to be a trap, was now merely a feast.

A large tree loomed to her right, and further ahead she knew the Aquilonian awaited his supposed prey.  She could have run past it, turned and fired three arrows into him before his weapon was free.  Since leaving the Accursed Lands, she had learned that others—even other Picts—were slow. They were lazy.  Caethe knew that if it came down to it, she could kill three of the scouts before she was taken.  But there was only one of her, and the three would be replaced.

Killing the hunter would be enough, wouldn’t it?

She hungered for something—something that wasn’t the hunt.

Ahead, she heard the wind shift a few branches.  But those branches were not shifting in the way the wind should have.  The Aquilonian was preparing for her.  She could see him in her mind: tense, eager.  Ready to kill. Killing was something they were good at, she knew. She had found the remains of many villages.  These men killed whatever they could place their hands on.

It was time to take their hands.

 Caethe knelt before the water along the coast.  The Aquilonian had been taken as quickly as she spotted him.  He offered a bird’s call—a bird not from the forest.  His friend came and she killed him too.  A third would have meant she was captured.

So she was alright with two dead men.

She looked at herself in the water.  Did she recognize the person that looked at her? She did not know. The Accursed Lands had darkened her somewhat, but not as it would in other places.  Her eyes were different.  Her lips were different.  Neither could express joy as they once did.  She felt sad for who she was, but also for who she could not be.  Aquilonian blood clouded the water as she dipped her hands in once more.

Now, she saw only red.

A pebble, twenty paces away, shifted.

Caethe was up.  She stood so quickly that her arrow had trained on the target before it had fully presented itself.  The wind had not betrayed her, but her reflection had.  She smelled him and knew instantly why she had not been alerted.

“Caethe,” Valenso said as he held his palms up. “It has been too long, has it not?”

The Pictish woman took the Zingaran in as he approached.  He wore strange clothes.  They would not do well in woodmanship, even the Aquilonians knew that.  But he was on the coast.  He did not intend to venture into the wilds.

He was not a wolf.

She fought to remember which language they shared.  “Hi,” she said, in her best Shemitish.

The Zingaran came closer and she lowered her bow and arrow.  He wore thick silks that swayed as he moved, and smelled off girl’s perfume.  At least, she thought he did.  She knew his steps were meant for the sea by how he swayed.  She did not like ships.

“I take it that you are surprised to see me, old friend?” He was more comfortable speaking Shemitish.  

She nodded.  “Yes. Hi.”

“Always the conversationalist.”  He was joking.  He smiled.

She showed her teeth, too.  Not in the way of anger.  As with a friend. “Okay.”

“Do you mind if we speak?”

“No.”

He looked around.  Valenso did not like being in the open.  “Somewhere else?”

“Okay,” she said.  He opened his mouth to speak again, but she was moving.  She did not move as fast as she normally would.  He was not a woodsman.  But he could be quiet in step, so she stepped quietly too.  

When they had left the Accursed Lands, Valenso had shown her his ship. It was big—he was proud of it. She did not know what to make of it, but he liked it so she did too.  She knew she had no ship to show him; nothing big.  All she had was the Pictlands, and they were not hers.  Not really, anyway.  The Aquilonians had been fools to claim them as their own.  But there were other reasons for that than rebellions.

A person could not own land.

Land owned the person—and the wolves that hunted him.

She had set up camp upwind from her scouting party.  They were looking for their friends.  They would not find them for a night, she knew. Aquilonians were easy to distract. They did not fight well in forests. They never knew to look up.

There was a cluster of trees she liked.  She had marked it with her knife, like a bear.  Valenso did not notice, but she had been proud of that cut.

“You are quite the little homemaker, aren’t you?”

“This is not a home,” she said.  “This is forest.”

“Is not a forest your home?”

“Forest is not a home.  Forest is home.”

“Philosophically significant, my friend.”

“Okay.”

She set her arrows down.  She then set herself down.

He did not follow.  His silks would become damp, she knew.  Like the Aquilonian’s leg.  The one she had killed—the one that pissed himself.

“I suppose you are wondering why I am here.”

“No,” she said.

“Oh?”

“You want something.”

“You wound me!”

“Sorry.”  She paused. “What do you want?”

Valenso laughed.  She liked his laugh.  She did not laugh in return, but she swayed a little. Aesileif’s laugh was better, but she was gone.  She went to the mountains.

The Zingaran made a gesture she did not understand.  His hand tipped one way, it went the other. “Perhaps I do want a little something.”

“Okay.”

“You are so quick to agree, my friend!”

“Yes.”  Why he wasted so many words always confused her.  Maybe he liked his voice? She did too.  Not for woodmanship, no.  He would die if he hunted.  But she liked his voice.

“Well, do you want to know how I found you so quickly?”

“No,” she said.

The Zingaran opened his mouth.  He then closed it.  “Oh.”

“Do you want me to know?”

“Well, it would make things faster.”

“Okay,” she said. “Tell me.”

“Tsekani has been gathering people for an adventure.”

“Stygian,” she said.

“The darker of the two, yes.”

“No Zaliki?”

“Not since I left her.” He seemed sad.  She rose and moved over, then patted his arm.  It did not mean anything to her, but Aquilonians did it. When he smiled, she patted his forehead. When Aesileif did that to her, she felt better.

“I will go.”

“Eh—don’t you want to know where?”

“No.”

For a minute he was quiet.  Was he upset?  She touched his arm again.

“I don’t know what to say,” he said. “Why did they even send me?” He was upset.  Not in the way men were when they were sad.  He was upset like a city man. “They could have sent a parrot… had it say ‘Come with me,’ and you would have done it.  All this walking—all of this planning.  I had even thought to impress you with some swordplay.  Perhaps unman one of those scouts and then say—well, it doesn’t matter, does it?”

She waited to see if he was talking to her or himself.  He didn’t seem to know, either.  But then he looked at her, so she answered. “No,” she said. She showed him her teeth again. Her eyebrows lifted.

The Zingaran sighed.  “Is there anything that will make you reconsider?  Perhaps so that I can at least charm you into coming with us?”

“No.”

“Can I try?”

“Okay.”

The Zingaran puffed up.  Like a rooster, ready to crow.  He strutted a bit and waved his hand. “There is danger ahead of us.  Ymirish Lords—do you know what those are, my friend?”

“Yes.”

“Terrifying, no?”

“No.”

“What? Twenty arrows would not bring one down from the best marksman!”

Caethe looked down to her quiver.  She then looked back to Valenso.

“I have one-hundred.” She used her fingers to count as he stared at her. When she finished, she held up five fingers. “We can kill five.”

At last, the Zingaran gave up and threw his head back to laugh. Caethe waited and then did as well. He placed a hand on her shoulder. She let him.

“You truly are a marvel, my friend.”

His compliment was touching.  Her cheeks felt warm.  In that moment, she said the only thing that came to her mind—for it held all the thought she knew.

“Okay.”

[for-peace-war]

art by @idrawbuffgirls​

This is the fourth hour-writing exercise I’ve done.  It depicts @diermina‘s Tsekani the Stygian and @iamreinhardt‘s Valenso the Zingaran.  As always, many thanks to Kelzack for depicting one of the awesome scenes!

THE GREAT WINGED ONE.

Follows Part I.

Follows Part II.

Follows Part III

Part IV.

TSEKANI THE STYGIAN sat still within the shadows of the silent ship as it swayed.   The Zingaran sailors had determined that a storm was upon the horizon, though the news came as nothing new to her at all.  She had known of the Storm, and all the smaller ones that came with it, for some time. That the mortal world was challenged eternally by fragmented elements of dying gods and their derelict domains was to be expected. After all, had not she and her companions escaped from one such challenge—and were they not inevitably heading into another?  

In the shadows, she was at home.  The ship was not at all like distant Luxor, and yet she found in some ways that it was inextricably connected to the temples from which she had come.  She was confined within a hostile place, with naught but herself to guide her free of the treasonous tides that flowed about her.  Sand or water, a person could be drowned if they did not mind where they were and what was taking them there.  The Stygian knew very well where she was going. She would never be taken unaware ever again, she swore.

There were secrets to be appreciated about the Pictlands, she knew—about all lands, if a person were willing to look beyond the thin skein of cultural disparities. To the rest of the world the Picts may have been the most savage creatures to exist: ravenous fiends, with less honor than even the Cimmerians, who fed upon their own young and slew each other in the darkest parts of the night. Whether or not that was true, Tsekani believed, it mattered little—each kingdom was fond of slaughtering its young, be it in a fruitless military campaign or under the oppressive heel of the powers that guided it.  And betraying their own?  Well, if the Picts were known for it, then they were merely the masters of a craft that all others struggled to reconcile with their own flawed truths.  Zaliki had always been fond of telling her that: “Any animal will eat its own tail when it is hungry,” her beloved mongrel had once said, “but the snake is given the benefit of a lovely sight in doing so.”

No blood, no agony.  The snake that consumed itself slipped from existence into nothingness.  In the darkness of the room, Tsekani understood well what nothingness was—knew that the swaying of the ship, that shifted those eldricht shadows about her, was as organic as the woman that sank deeper into their umbral glow.  Shar Negrath, the Sire of Ten-Thousand Thousand Scions, had informed her of that truth.  Nothingness was not the impurity in the world—it was the entirety of it.  Existence was an ephemeral step within an eternally darkening dance. All light, even that of Derketo, would fade with time.

But in the end, because of her lord’s grace, she would remain.

She would always remain.

The Stygian brought the tips of her fingers together and rubbed them sharply. Friction caused a faint scraping, and from that scraping two sparks flared, which caught against a wick and set to life in the midst of her shadows another flame.  It danced, coyly, upon the tallowed remnants of a basilisk.  The great beast from whence that rendered fat had come had sacrificed a great many things: scales for armor, teeth for weapons, even its eyes for an amulet—but it was its fat, so fine and difficult to acquire, that had been the truest gift.  Even lingering shades were forced to obey a light that came from it. The putridity of its scent was such that her nostrils flared and yet, she did not falter before it.

Ancient words—dark words—forbidden words fell past her lips as she chanted lowly. To any other it might have appeared that she spoke to herself, but the reverberations that thrummed through the air, as charged as the dampening sky, were a chorus that preceded all men and would speak to their end.  Her song continued as she moved bones from a sack beside her and emptied them into the bowl prepared for her the night’s divination.  Then, with a curved blade of Setite worship defiled in the dark passions of a priest’s unfulfilled lust, she carved a line down her hand, to intersect with another that was nearly healed upon her palm.  She watched as her skin unfastened inch by inch, until the raw flesh within whispered a caliginous hue that blinked from red to the darkest black.  Before it could share a droplet, she moved it over the bowl and squeezed her hand.  

A faint, hissing sound filled the air as the bones met with her blood.

Outside, the storm had finally arrived.  It rocked the ship with enough force for objects to rattle, but she remained still.  After bleeding herself upon the bones, Tsekani moved that hand to the candle and squeezed upon it.  Searing pain met her mind, far hotter than any candle should have offered. This was the moment of testing every time she communed with the darkness—the moment that spoke not to the physical world, but the spiritual one that devoured it even then.

Seconds passed in silent agony before, with a mind cleared by the pain she knew, she moved her hand over the bowl and opened it.  No longer did her blood drip a fine, black syrup to coat the bones.  Now, it was molten flame, that dripped against the hissing coils within the bowl.  They screamed as they were bathed in her flames.  She placed her hand over the bowl. The heat rose; the spirits within the bones surged beneath her grasp.

Then all was still.

Thunder crashed overhead.

When the Stygian opened her eyes, she looked at nothing save for the space where her hand had been.  It was a fleeting thing—it was always fleeting, but for a moment she could see the threads Beyond the Great Darkness.  Minds greater than her own had been cast into madness when glimpsing into the charred pitch of the world, but she knew better than to challenge what she saw—to assess it, to understand it.  That which lurked Beyond the Great Darkness was to be experienced and nothing more.

She basked in that experience.   She heard the cries of the heavens—felt the chills from brumal lands and smelled sulfur within the air.  The clash of steel—the ripping of flesh, the sundering of bone and stone and men’s wills. In an instant she experienced it all. With euphoric relief she exhaled a sigh in submission to the triumphant surge within her.

And then it was over.

She was alone once more.

The vision had brought her more of what was to come; more of what awaited the adventurers when they challenged the mountain and confronted the Cult of the Great Winged One.  Derketo, who spoke to her from within the polysemic brume of Shar Negrath’s melody with clear favor, had told her of the struggles that were coming.  She had told her of the losses that were approaching.

But she had not told her where she was.

No, only one person seemed to know that answer, and try though she might not to take umbrage with that truth, Tsekani found herself resenting the fact that the ship that bore her to where she was to go, was also the one that had seen Zaliki away from them—away from her.  That was the cruelty of fate, she knew.

It was a cruelty she was learning to appreciate with each passing night.

After collecting her reagents, the Stygian made her way to the deck of the ship.   The storm was not yet beyond them, but the winds blew without ferocity and the rain fell to little effect.  She pitched the bundle forth with the wind, and watched as its contents blew forward and then took off in the opposite direction, a shadow that swam upon itself and flapped murky wings to take it into the darkness above.  She looked down to her hand, coated in droplets of rain, and watched as slowly the flesh she had rent open was already mending itself together with the careful, deliberate passing of needles against fabric.  In two days there would be nothing to remind her of the moment but for the experience she had known.

And by then, she would have seen something else to take her further away from the pain.

At the railing of the ship, a lean figure leaned in place where no man should have stood. Valenso the Zingaran, captain of the ship, was a singular man in many ways—finer in attire than most, swifter with his words than any she knew, and given to a confidence that denied even the jaws of a dragon should it seek his swarthy flesh.  But the man that stood against the railing in the midst of the storm wore no fine clothing, spoke not a word, and possessed eyes that held no vigor of their own.

“Valenso,” the Stygian sorceress said.  He did not look toward her.  “You are well?”

The Zingaran was quiet as he watched the dark waters over the side of the ship.  She touched him with her blessed hand—he had soaked through, and the sinew beneath his white blouse was clammy and cold.

“I had the dream again,” he said.  Off further in the distance, where the shadows met with land, Pictlands yet awaited them—hungering for blood, even if partially sated by that offering which had found them in Caethe’s wake. When he had come back aboard the ship with their companion, Valenso was every bit the man she believed him to be.

But now? He was something else—he was real.

“The dream of the mariner?”

“The Nordheimer witch,” he said.  The first time she had heard the tale, he had been wet from the sweat of his bed and inconsolable.  His skin, naturally duskened, had even taken on a pale hue for the effort of escaping whatever nightmares rode behind his eyes.  “I was powerless to stop him.  As ever.”

Could powerlessness truly be so frightening, she wondered?  They had all found themselves staked to a cross at one time—left to the winds and the wild animals that would feast on whatever remained of them. There had been no power then.  But they had survived it.

“Do you know this man’s face? His name?”

“No,” the Zingaran said, quietly.  The rain did not swallow his voice, though it did beat rapidly against the railing he leaned upon. “He is of the sea, that much I know.  When I cut him, he bleeds the darkness of the depths.  His skin is blue; his eyes are like foam.  Coral and kelp make up his bones; his flesh.  And his heart… his heart is not like any I have seen.”

To some extent, she wished that she could reassure him—offer him the assistance he needed to overcome the horrors that only a man of power could know.  But the chains that bound him were chains made of a man’s pride, and though he was someone that she trusted to die for her if needs must merit it—as she, perhaps might for him—there was no affection that swelled in her heart then.  He held the one secret she did not know, after all.

“Do you see Zaliki in your dreams?”

Her question surprised her as much as it did him.  When she asked it, he slowly rocked back and looked at her.  Electricity flashing overhead carved delicate peals of light that revealed the sunken nature of his eyes—the shallowness of his cheeks in that moment.  In so many ways, the man before her was a skeleton.  Did he knew that yet? Did any of them?

Tsekani held no mystery as to how men viewed her.  She was beautiful—crafted in Derketo’s image, with the figure of a temptress and the mind of a scholar.  Her body was a series of desirable curves, leaving her in any set of robes as a delicate, silken promise that but needed to be unwrapped—with hand or blade, to be enjoyed as only a man’s carnality might know.  The rain had seen those silken robes become translucent, casting the mystery of her figure to the same winds that she had thrown the shards of her divination.

But the hand that moved to her face; the hand that touched her cheek, was burdened with the warmth of a life lived and an absence of the desire for satiety that her body should have awakened in the man. He patted it tenderly and smiled.  “Not anymore, my friend.  Let us hope she has found a better place to be than that, yes?”

And so he left her—he left her, who commanded the Darkness that Birthed Darkness, and caused her to feel how powerless she was to stop him from doing so. She had the means to draw any word from him she wished to, but she could not.  To do so would have been to betray the secret that he had promised never to share—a secret, she realized, that was meant as much for her to keep as him.

“You should sleep,” Valenso called over his shoulder.  He lifted a hand and offered a parting wave as light flashed and caused the jewels upon it to glisten in its wake. “Tomorrow, our quest begins.”

The fine make of his shoes marked his escape from the deck.  Tsekani watched him fade into nothingness and then turned to look over the railing where he had been.  Deeper within the water; darker than he could have seen, were eyes that looked back up at her.  They were eyes that had seen into her eyes, when she gazed into that Beyond the Great Darkness.

“It truly is a lovely sight, Zaliki,” the Stygian said.

The ship swayed in the passing storm, but she did not.