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sigil-stone · 1 year

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Her heart had ceased its beating. There was no glory in this. There was no honor. There was only suffering, endless, hopeless, increasing with every moment – how dare life continue on? How dare the heart of Creation still cling to its life? Why must they all suffer for Nirn’s insistence to be?

Forced out of the Imperial City, a mage reflects on the Soulburst. (feat. @mothermara's Varyn!)

It was not an easy thing to be confronted with the full measure of one’s inadequacy.

Lythras stood, unfeeling, made small by the towering walls of the guildhall. Her fists were tightly clenched in the long fabric of her robes, white-knuckled and trembling, but she made no effort to move from her spot in front of the cot that barely supported her height. What was the point? There was nothing left. All there was in this gods-damned realm was destruction. It was here: the end of Tamriel, awash in blood and power. Lorkhan made no sign of appearing from the liminal; no hero emerged from the tides of crimson that stormed down cobbled streets. Tamriel was ending, and there was nothing Lythras could do beyond bear witness to dominion’s cruelty. When she was a child, she had prayed to the ancestors that she may know strife so that she may be better for it; how naive she had been. Her heart had ceased its beating. There was no glory in this. There was no honor. There was only suffering, endless, hopeless, increasing with every moment – how dare life continue on? How dare the heart of Creation still cling to its life? Why must they all suffer for Nirn’s insistence to be?

Varyn would hate to hear you say all this.

Varyn. Her chest throbbed painfully, and the image of her lover's face cut like a dagger through the thick air of unreality that had gathered around Lythras, and she blinked, as if waking for the first time.

She did not remember how she came to be in Devon’s Watch, if she were to be truthful with herself. It was as if there was a blurred space where the past month of her life had been; what time did she have to sit and think on what happened when the City had fallen into chaos? What time was there for anything, but to run?

What will be left, she wondered, now that she has been granted reprieve?

It was not uncommon for those who have undergone some sort of trauma to find themselves … ‘stuck’, until their minds caught up to their survival instincts. Was that this, then? That strange feeling of emerging from a deep sleep as she stood, wide awake, knowing where she was and how she got there but not quite comprehending?

She jolted at the sudden sound of something rumbling, the image of a flash of the purplest purple she had ever witnessed coming unbidden to her mind - gone just as soon as it had arrived, fading back into general blurriness as she found the source of the noise: her own stomach.

Ah. It would seem ‘proper nutrition’ had been off the table during her exodus. Breathing very slowly, she relaxed each of her fingers; they ached in protest, stuck as one may expect of an automata. She smoothed down the wrinkled fabric of her robes. Each movement took as much effort as a complex ritual; Lythras found if she did not think about and consciously choose every movement, she would simply not move.

Perhaps it would be easier, in time. As it stood for now … her stomach growled lowly again, grasping around a painful sort of emptiness from within her core.

The settlement of Devon’s Watch was … well, humble would be the gentlest term, she thought, pulling a tattered teal-blue cloak over her shoulders and stepping into Magnus’s warmth. The day was a beautiful, sunny one, though the wind had a certain biting chill to it that had Lythras wondering with a quiet sort of dread if she had been in Morrowind for longer than she had initially estimated.

No time to dwell. Pushing the thoughts to the very back of her mind, Lythras crossed the circular path, heading towards the more southern district of the town. She held the vague memory of a market that way; one of the younger mages had shown it to her on a sort of grand tour a few days after her initial arrival. She would have to thank them, when she found the will to do so.

It was easier to think outside of the Hall’s suffocating presence. Indeed, as she moved, she even found her mind quieting, too focused on each stone step she descended on the stairway. She felt the air brushing against her skin, the wind jostling her clothes ever-so-slightly; she could taste and smell something cooking, no doubt from the Watch House - the tavern that sat mightily, left-handed, at the top of the stairway. As she reached the bottom, she was overtaken by the sounds of the marketplace; boots against cobble as adventurers passed through, a distant horse’s whinny, the gentle plucking of a lute’s string and Lythras was, suddenly and without warning, paralyzed.

Varyn’s face once again made its home in the center of Lythras’s mind. What … had come of her, Lythras wondered? Where had she been when Tamriel had begun its slow death?

She cannot afford to think of such things. She cannot.

… but comfort is not an evil thing, she reasoned. Was it not the thought of Varyn that had given her the strength to run? Was it not her voice Lythras imagined when she thought she could go no further? Was it not the hope of Varyn’s survival that had enabled her own?

Slowly, she restarted the process she had undertaken earlier. One by one, she relaxed her limbs and breathed, gathering her wits and turning towards the sound of the lute. She could not see its luthier, but they were nearby, she was sure of it.

Her ears did not deceive her; it did not take long to work through the stream of commerce until she sighted the back of the luthier. Their head ducked low, Lythras could not see much beyond their shape and the silhouette of both the lute they carried and a spear strapped across their back.

Lythras’s heart jumped to her throat as she moved towards them. “Excuse me, serjo -”

Her voice was naught above a whisper, and she frowned at the strange stickiness that clumped in her throat. The luthier could not have heard her, not at this distance, but she saw them tense. She saw them raise their head, and with it she saw --

“- you look like a lion,” Lythras had giggled, her face half-hidden in the downy pillow. She had never quite seen this level of luxury - had never felt silk against her naked skin, or had soaps that left the smell of lavender clinging to her hair for days after. “Like a red star, in all its glory.”

“I’m supposed to be the poet here,” came the sleepy mumble in response, and Lythras fought the urge to hide her face completely as Varyn’s eyes watched her, half-lidded and loving. Oh, Mara’s mercy, Lythras couldn’t think when Varyn sounded like this, half-sleeping and rasping. Her thoughts only scattered more as the gladiator’s warm hands found the small of her back and pulled her closer.

Varyn’s hair was a mess, sticking up in this-way-and-that. Dark marks were lined down her throat, marks that disappeared under the darkness of the comforter; marks that Lythras knew mirrored the ones etched onto her own skin.

Varyn noticed her staring - she was perceptive like that, Lythras mused to herself, melting all the more for it - and smiled. Lythras reached up to run a hand through Varyn’s rose-gold halo; when her palm went to rest on her jaw, Varyn turned her head and pressed a kiss to its center -

“Do you need someth - oh. Hm.” Something passed in the luthier's eyes; not quite 'recognition', but something close to it.

Lythras could not move, could not think. Distantly, she thought she might have felt something warm and wet rolling down her cheeks, but she didn't feel ... anything.

Varyn stared back, though she was deep in thought from the looks of it. The lute she held was - was different, Lythras realized. Had hers been lost in all the chaos? Had she lost anything else? Was she alright? Did anything hurt her? The questions began again and Lythras could not ask a single one of them.

“There once was a man from Balmora,” said the gladiator, strumming a chord of her lute. And she smiled. “Who sought out all manners of wild flora. Though he went very far, he got stuck in some tar, and found his last hope in the tail-end of a guar. He pulled with all his might - victory within his sight! - but the guar would not go without a fight. In the tar he did flail, though his strength did not fail, but with a mighty yank off came the guar’s tail!”

Varyn beamed at her then, and Lythras - oh, gods, who was she kidding?

Lythras laughed.

#lythras (oc)#varyn (oc)#my writing #the elder scrolls #tes #< more tags than i usually use on my silly little posts but it took longer than i'd like to admit to write this

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littleblackgoldfish · 3 years

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Sunfall Ch. 3

Previous Part

Chapter 3

Soli stared at the point of metal pointed at him. Over and over he drew a line between the vicious tip and his heart as it beat, thundering in his ears, against his ribs so violently he was surprised he couldn't see them bending.

Around him he heard voices mixing with the shing! of drawing blades and the whistle of spears swinging through the air.

There was an eternity that stretched itself through him between heartbeats. His feet were frozen to the broken paving stones and his thoughts wrapped around the point of an arrow like the flickering light of fire and lamp glinting off its blade. If he'd had anything to drink in the last… however many hours, he might have wet himself.

After a moment Soli slowly came back to himself.

In the seconds — had it been seconds, and not minutes or hours? — between all the initial shouting and now, not a single one of the people in the group had taken more than a step back in movement. Shock and fear washed in equal measures across their faces as they stared back at the line of rangers drawn tight as their bowstrings behind the wall of overturned tables and doors. All of them stood still and silent, waiting.

Until finally the shorter of the two boys of the group gathered his courage and called out to the rangers, "We're just- " he stopped, uncertain. What were they just; kids? Scared? Looking for answers?

"We're unarmed..."

He held out his hands, palms, palms up, nodding for the others to do the same. Put a spear or bow in Soli's hands and he would have been more of a threat to himself than any one of those rangers. And he didn't think any of the others would have been much more of a danger to the soldiers before them.

But, the rangers disagreed obviously. They wouldn't be pointing arrows at them otherwise. He still couldn't quite manage to tear his eyes from the closest arrow, not even to see who was holding it. When he tried the glinting point dragged them back.

He couldn't help wondering what it would feel like. To be shot with an arrow. Would it hurt? Would he feel it at all? Or would it be like in the stories where the Captain's friends didn't even notice they'd been hit until it seemed like they were safe again.

Kids never died inthe Captain Thellere stories. Not kids like Soli. Frontier villages kids, without names or personalities beyond hero worship, sure. And it was always tragedy.

But this wasn't a story and Soli knew he could die. Just like his mom. And dad. Probably his sisters and- no, he swallowed that though and tried to force his gaze up the shaft of the arrow.

Slowly, agonizingly, his eyes followed the arrowhead back thin shaft up past the fletching — black feathers, shining in the flickering light — to the hand holding the string of the bow — sun kissed, a shade or two darker than the girl in the sundress — and then up to the face behind the hand. He was surprised at how young the ranger looked, they probably weren't even as old as Ostra, and how naked the fear he saw in their eyes was. A twitch of the fingers and it would go flying. Soli watched the ranger's hand, white at the knuckle, grib the bow

And… a second later he watched it drop away, tracing an arc away from his heart and towards the ground. Soli watched as the ranger's face slackened, tiny crinkles around their eyes moothing out, and the lump of their throat bob slightly. Distantly he heard a voice grow clear.

" —about that. It- we're all a little on edge," a new ranger was saying, a fringe of auburn hair just peeking out from beneath the bottom of her helmet,"Especially with them out there still- doing, Lythra knows what."

Them? Did she- was she talking about the people in the black armor, Soli wondered.

While the other rangers had relaxed and started drifting back to whatever posts they had occupied before, they're eyes kept drifting in her direction before flickering away. She didn't seem to notice. Or at least was deliberately making an effort not to 'notice' if she had.

The taller boy in the group, the one with the glasses, frowned. His own thoughts running along the same lines

"Are you talking about those people in the black ships?"

For a second her expression and gaze sharpened, falling heavily on him before sweeping across the rest of the group. But only for a second, then she forcibly relaxed herself again and simply nodded.

After that Soli wouldn't have had the courage to ask anymore questions, or even open his mouth again. Of course he hadn't been to muster more than a hum or grunt in response to anything said to him in hours anyways, so maybe his own instincts weren't exactly a good measure. Whatever the truth, the other boy had seemingly no compunction.

"Do you know who they are?"

With a brittle grin that did not reach her eyes at all the ranger said, "Bad guys. But, don't worry about them, you'll be safe inside with the Company of Seven Claws standing guards," then, her gaze turning to the men and women beside her and her voice rising to reach out to all of those not, "Isn't that right!?"

As one, the rangers' voices rose to match hers. Soli noticed a flash of metal at her collar, a little silver leaf on its side.

"Catch 'em seven times! Bleed 'em seven times! We know what we're for!"

"Go on," she said to them as she smiled again and made the sign of Cieliel (Eldest Daughter, Patron of Glory), fist over her heart with the thumb out, and thrust her head to the side in the direction of the camp.

With that they were allowed in behind the barricade, a couple of rangers had been busy clearing a way in while they talked, and through the ranger's section into the camp beyond. Some of the group relaxed immediately on getting behind the wooden palisade, others took until they reached the rest of the camp. All except Soli. Being around so many people didn't make him feel safe, it did the opposite. His skin itched, like something crawled beneath its surface.

What could those rangers do if those big black ships came? Throw spears and shoot arrows at it? He doubted they would even scratch it. Maybe some of the Rangers knew a spell or two. But was it something powerful enough to break through the black metal of their shells and burn out whatever was inside?

He didn't think so. But… they would be so confident without reason, right? Two thousand years of keeping the Homelands safe from monsters and division and schismatics, helping to end the strife with the Temples, pacifying the Underdark, they knew what they were doing. Rangers had seen worse than this. Whatever or whoever those people were couldn't possibly win against the Rangers. Not once they got their feet under them and could fight back.

They just couldn't.

Leaving behind the rangers the group finally saw the camp proper; set in what had been an open air market place, what would have been full of crowds and stalls and the shouts of people buying and elling was still full of crowds, but of a different sort. Ragged, exhausted people in torn, bloodstained, and dirt caked clothes. They sat by flickering campfires overwhich nondescript stews bubbled. They walked, listlessly and without direction, between tents for all shapes and sizes and colors. Children, old men, young women, families, lonely beggars, the injured and the healthy, the camp was full of people of all sorts. It was impossible to glimpse the edges of the camp from within, all there was was the endless sea of faces and tents.

Moving single file the group crawled slowly deeper and deeper into the press of bodies. No one met their eyes or so much as acknowledged them. Though there was a constant noise it was not from interaction, it was just the sounds of people breathing all together (and talking in low, slow voices) to those they already knew. Sometimes through the ebb and flow of the crowd and the uneven terrain of the tents a gap would open up for a second through which Soli could see a glimpse of the market's edge and when it did he saw open doors leading into the adjoining buildings and within more people pressed, if anything, closer together.

Soli followed the group because what else was he going to do. Go off on his own and get lost? Whoever these people were, they were safe.

Part of him wanted his sisters (and, he added, his brother. Though the latter was so young he hardly counted) but even thinking about them brought him close to thinking about what had happened to him. That he was not ready to do.

When they finally stop, some minutes later, Soli finds they've reached a clearing of sorts in the crowd of tents and people. It wasn't the edge of the camp itself, that was still off a distance guarded by yet more rangers in another isolated camp like the one they'd come through. At least ahead and to the right. To the left and ahead were mostly buildings, low single story ones that would have been either warehouses or rented shops. There were figures walking along their roots carrying bows and spears. Off to the right hand of this section a series of taller warehouses took up much of the space and behind that was the park which had been entirely taken over by tents (and presumably more rangers guarding the flank). Another smaller camp of strangely dressed rangers had formed around the entrance of the warehouses.

Some scattered tents had built up along the edges of the clearing and there were people wandering around, some of them carrying baskets full of...stuff. Food and wood and cloth and all sorts of other things Soli couldn;'t make out. The group was brought up short by the sight. For several long seconds they just stood there dumbly staring out at the space in front of them, not saying anything.

"I guess we can set up here," said the girl who'd first helped Soli.

No one argued. But no one made any move to do anything either. None of them knew what to do. They looked around, searching for some sign or clue.

There'd been no instruction of guidance from anyone the entire time they'd walked through the camp. None of the wandering rangers or residents had so much as looked at them, much less taken the time to greet them and walk them through what they were supposed to do now.

That didn't look to be changing either.

Finally after another long few moments the boy with the piercings and the long black hair sighed and said, "Miriel, Kieran, you should go see if you can find a tent or something for us."

He pointed to Soli's rescuer and the other boy, who both nodded and after a moment of uncertain and helpless glancing around picked directions and started walking. She headed for the edge of the camp, where the entrances to the buildings were and he went back into the mess of tents behind them.

"Uh, I- I'll look for some food or something," said the other blond with all the piercings. Pierced boy or, as Soil had started thinking of him, 'leader,' nodded.

Which only left Soli himself, leader, and two of the other girls.

"We'll look for the best place to set up."

Leader said it like it made sense, like it was the logical thing to do.

One spot seemed as good as any other in the market to Soli. They'd get wet all the same if it rained and when Kiestre rose in a few hours (or maybe it would be Caithr, though he shudder to imagine the darkness lasting so long) there was little hope of staying out fo the sun. Only one spot would provide shade for more than a few minutes and that was already occupied by that small camp of strangely dressed rangers.

But the other girls were already nodding along with him and Soli didn't actually have a better idea of what to do and so he simply followed along as they wandered around.

All the markets Soli had been to were those covered ones, the ones that sometimes had two or three stories, with lots of water features and spaced out courtyards where you could sit down. This was nothing like those. Away from the crowd and up close he could see more clearly that it had been built like a big, long plaza butting up against warehouses and storefronts on three sides (except for connections to the street) and a strip of park on the last. Soli saw what might have been fountains, though small ones, scattered about. Empty. Dry.

There were also occasional stone posts sticking up, forming rough rectangles. About half his height, they had small holes in their center. The few overhangs that stuck out from the empty storefronts had already been snatched up by other groups. Not that they would give much cover anyways, even standing directly under them Soli didn't think they would stop anyone from getting wet in the rain.

He even caught a few glimpses inside the buildings bordering the market-plaza as they made their circuit around it and it didn't seem any better inside to Soli. Except that they would be dry if it rained. But then they'd also be crammed in with all the sad, lifeless people sitting inside. Also it stunk.

Just passing by Soli could smell it.

They passed close to the rangers for a little while and Soli eagerly took that opportunity to spy on them. He was less circumspect than he imagined. Though, it was not as if anyone else in the refugee camp had disguised their curiosity any better over the hours it had come to exist, so the rangers guarding it did not react or even particularly note Soli's examinations. Unlike the other rangers scattered around the rest of the camp, most of those within this one went about without any armor. Dressed in robes of bright turquoise or soft navy-blue or vibrant purple run through with long swooping, whirling, twisting, designs in glittering thread woven along the arms and backs there seemed to only be a few of them. Or maybe, many of them only occasionally coming out in small groups.

He only caught glimpses of them with their heads bent together whispering over little chalkboards or muttering to themselves as they paced, with their hoods up obscuring their heads and faces. Mostly they remained inside their tents or hidden within the warehouse. Appearing briefly before disappearing again.

At first he'd just assumed they were rangers because… well what else would they be? Now that he was looking at them more closely though he did see the same bits of leather armor peeking out from beneath their robes and one or two even had the same little metal leaves at their collars that the ranger lady out front had had. Soli assumed that had something to do with being in charge.

Clearly they were mages. Pretty important too from the way they were being guarded, and maybe even secret; like the Children of the Thorns that Captain Thellere worked with sometimes.They must be working on some sort of spell or ritual to bring down the black shell ships, or maybe enchanting weapons and armor for the other rangers.

While Soli contemplated the secrets of magic going on behind cloth and walls, Kieran and Miriel came back, having met up again after splitting up at first, with their arms full of bundles of fabric and rope. They'd just found the 'best' spot, as decided by Leader, a little ways down from the magic ranger camp along the southern facing wall of the warehouse structure. While the guards had given them some looks as they'd wandered by, they didn't stirr from their posts even after the other two returned and they started setting up. Or at least as much setting up as they could do.

Mostly it was clearing away what dirt and trash had accumulated in the area.

"It was just sitting in a big pile," frowned Miriel as she dropped her load on the ground in front of them. Kieran nodded and set down his own burden on top of hers.

"Some guards standin' over it all, glaring at everyone who came near. Don't think they were rangers."

Soli stared at the collection of fabric, some sort of thick stiff looking stuff the same dark green as the leaves and needles of the trees in the forest around grandfather's estate. He'd hated the place for the first few days.

Grandfather didn't have any good books, just ones about history and war; but not the fun sort where heroes stabbed monsters. And they'd been all alone except for his family (minus his younger brother at the time, who was still a couple years away) and the staff who were just as old as his grandfather and twice as boring because they didn't even have his grandfather's hunting stories to tell him. Not that those were much better, he always focused on the most boring parts of everything. Soli and his sisters had to invent all sorts of games to keep from dying of boredom.

One of them had involve- Soli cut that thought off behind a steel vault door and then threw it into the dark Beyond.

Everyone stared at the collection of fabric and rope laying on the ground.

"So," the other girl, who'd stayed with Soli and Leader, started, "How do we, uh, put it together?"

A beat.

"I- I don't know," admitted the dark haired boy.

He glanced back at the mass of tents back the way they'd come, looking maybe for some hint. After a moment he shrugged to himself and turned back.

"Let's uh, spread it out first."

So they did that.

Which left them with a large square of thick, scratchy dark green fabric and three coils of rope to stare at.

Thankfully in the midst of their staring at the collection of materials the last girl returned with three canteens slung over one shoulder and a cauldron stuffed with a small basket half-full of potatoes and wilting vegetables. She ignored the spread out cloth and set her spoils down by the wall.

Shaking out her arms she looked at the rest of the group, "This is all I could carry by myself but there's more; sausages and flour and wood for fires, so if we go..."

That was when she noticed them staring at the disassembled tent laid out on the ground and her voice trailed off for a moment. She looked between the other five of her friends and asked, "Is that supposed to be a tent?"

"Parts of it, yeah. We're trying to figure out how to set it up," said Leader.

"Oh."

He sighed and frowned at the uncooperative pile fo stuff for a few seconds longer before turning back to the others.

"Look why don't you — " he looked to the blond girl with the shaved sides of her head " — take Miriel and Duna and Ava go back and grab more stuff while we," he gestured between himself and the other boy, Kieran, and Soli, "Figure out… this."

All four girls exchanged a look that Soli had no idea how to interpret for a second and a hot little flush rose in Leader's cheeks for a moment, but they didn't object. Seconds later they were heading back in the direct the shaved-head girl had gone.

Truthfully Soli would have liked to go to get the food, but… even thinking about opening his mouth made his throat tighten down to a thin straw that made it painful to breathe for a second.So he let them go without comment.

What followed was several minutes of fruitless attempts to tie the ropes to some small wooden beams jutting out of the warehouse wall involving Soli climbing up on Kieran's shoulders and looping it through the convenient slats in said beams. Fruitless not because they didn't produce something that might, generously, have been called a tent, but because it would never fit all of them. Also because it would definitely collapse at the slightest breeze.

As they stepped back to admire the frustrating results of their work, Soli once again down solidly on his own two feet, a voice interrupted any coming disappointment.

"You need poles."

They turned and saw an older woman in a plain white robe that seemed at least a size or two too large for her with a frizzy mane of soot stained pale-blond hair pulled back into a long tail behind her thin swoopingly pointed ears by five battered bronze rings. Something about her didn't fit with the rest of the camp. Not her dress which felt about right for the rest of the camp, though the robe was recognizably white it was far from clean; patches of dirt and grass stains littered the hem while streaks of dried blood trailed up the arms. And though she had fewer bruises than many of the people, she had still clearly been through something in the previous hours and had the bumps to prove it. No, there was a sort of weight to her.

Everything seemed quieter around her. Like the air was weighted. She felt old. Not old like his grandfather, always complaining about how people were doing things 'these days' or wishing for how things had been when he was young. But more like… like the forest around his grandfather's estate, as if she had seen things.

"What?" asked Kieran dumbly.

"Poles. Wooden ones, to go into the sides of the canvas," she pointed at the sagging vee of fabric hanging desultory from the sloppily hung rope, "See where it loops at the edges? In those. Didn't you wonder why they were made like that?"

Soli hadn't. He'd been distracted by trying to slap together rope and fabric to make a tent. But now he did.

And so did the other two.

"Oh," breathed the dark haired boy with the piercings.

He stood stockstill for a moment staring at the 'tent' in front of them and then started laughing. Crouching low he buried his head in his hands.

"Daughters char my— we're such idiots."

"Nnn," the woman shook her head, "You're city boys."

To that the boy snorted and countered, "Everyone else figured it out," He flung his hand out towards the rest of the camp. Kieran frowned and shook his head as he came to stand beside his friend.

"Everyone else got here when there was light."

"Maybe," he said, then to the woman, "Where do we get these poles?"

She raised one of her finely sculpted eyebrows at him, "Same place you claimed the canvas and the rope."

"Right, figures. We'll wait for the others to get back and you and me— " he nodded to Kieran " —can go and get them," then he looked at the woman again, "Thanks for your help. Some of our friends are getting food, if you want to join us for a meal?"

Glancing over her shoulder at the camp the woman hesitated for a moment. She probably had things she needed to get back to doing. Or maybe just a family somewhere back in there, people she needed to get back to.

Soli swallowed against the lump in his throat and blinked back the sting in his eyes. Something itched against his chest. Again the vault and the tumble into the dark Beyond.

"Not that- you don't have to. We totally understand— "

She turned quickly back around, her hair swinging at the sudden movement.

"No, no. I- everything that- I was just," she cut herself off and mustered a weak smile, "I would love to join you all. My name is Au'Liestra, but you can call me Lise."

"Right, I'm Dax- I mean, Anad'du'raxiel, that— " he pointed to the other boy, who gave a shy wave " —is Kieran and the kid is, um… actually we don't know his name."

The dark haired boy, Dax, frowned at Soli. Not angrily, or like he was upset, but as if he was seeing something familiar for the first time in a long while and not quite recognizing it. Soli opened his mouth.

Maybe to give his name or just to say hi. Nothing came out. Still the words died in his throat as if bore down on them like a hungry dog after a meal. He sighed and smiled tightly at the woman.

Dax opened his own mouth, his brow scrunching hard over his frown, but he could not find the right words and so he sighed and shrugged, looking at Soli contemplatively.

"We have to call you something, can't just go running around saying 'boy' over and over, now that it's safe to talk," he paused, "Safer. How about Delyn?"

It wasn't his name. But it wasn't a bad one either, so he shrugged.

What did it matter what they called him anyways. They might as well call him 'Boy' or 'Kid.' But apparently it mattered to Dax, because he was shaking his head even before Soli had responded.

"Nah. Haldin? Ferion?"

He discarded each name as quickly as he chose them.

"Adun?" offered Kieran, then, "Etholas? Logir?"

None seemed to satisfy, as Dax and Kieran both shook their heads in unison. They began to go back and forth in turn, paying more attention to each other's reactions than to Soli's, with the taller boy going first.

"How about Lindon… or, Estir? You know, from tun-Bar Thalaharn's play; the one about the orphans?"

Lise watched their exchange with her brow raised in amusement as she moved to stand beside Soli himself, though not so close that he got nervous. Just close enough that it felt like they were almost standing together watching the two play off one another.

"Bit morose don't you think?"

Kieran shrugged, "Morose feels a bit right, with… you know things," he flung his hand into the air and swung it wide

"Legomir, maybe," but then Dax looked at Soli and shook his head yet again, "No. Feels like it should be shorter. Quicker. Snappy."

"What has to be snappy?" Miriel asked as she and the other three girls strode over.

Arms laden with even more baskets full of food and wood for the fire. Two of them, the blond that wasn't Miriel and the dark haired girl with the jacket, looked at the slowly collapsing disaster of a 'tent' with concern but kept quiet for the moment. Soli saw mushrooms and onions and jerky and sausage in the baskets. His mouth immediately started watering.

"Name for the kid... and don't worry about that," he gestured to the 'tent,' "We need poles apparently."

"Oh. Meni."

Dax blinked and Miriel thrust her chin at Soli.

"For his name."

There was a beat and then all five of them looked to Soli, eyebrows raised. He shrugged. Again, it wasn't his name, but it would work as well as anything else.

With that the other blond girl stepped forward and fixed Lise with a steely gaze, "And, you are?"

Kieran jumped in, "Right, everyone this is Lise. She's joining us for dinner."

Bouncing up from where she'd been settling down her pair of baskets, the red haired girl in the sundressed bounded over to Lise and thrust out her hand, "Hi, Lise! I'm Duna." While behind her the other three looked between Lise and Kieran and Dax, raising their eyebrows in unison.

The taller boy simply shrugged and answered their questioning looks with one of his own. Dax colored faintly. After a long moment the two girls finally relented, sighing and turning to Lise, who had been ignoring the exchange and greeting Duna, with strained expressions.

"Avu'llya."

That was the girl with the jacket, her arms crossed self-consciously for a moment before she forcibly relaxed them to her side.

Miriel stuck out her hand, "Miriel. A pleasure."

"Caria," said the last girl, the blond with the shaved head and the impressive number of earrings, and following her friend's lead held out her own hand. Stiffly though.

After that Kieran and Avu'llya went off together to get the aforementioned poles for the tent while the rest of them went about setting up the fire. Or at least tried to.

None of them knew how to start a fire.

It took only a few minutes of Dunal and Miriel fumbling around blindly with the wood for Liseto to snort loudly and step in, "Here," she held out a hand for the firestarter in the former's own.

Kneeling down beside the red haired girl, the older woman simply waited out Duna's subsequent pout. Relenting after only a few moments. Lise took the loop of metal at the same time as she reached over her lap and into the small metal box beside her to pull out a piece of sooty, black something. It was almost cloth-like.

"Unless you know a spell, start with some kindling. Kits like this come with char cloth, but dry grasses and twigs and all that will work if you out in the wilds," again reaching over her audience Lise dug around in the basket and pulled out some straw and sticks from the bottom.

Arranging it into a small mound, she continued, "It'll just take longer— "

Soli had just thought that was like padding. A thought shared by the others given their startled looks.

" —then you take a bit of char cloth," she tore off a piece, laying it next to the mound, before reaching back into the small tin and pulling out a little black rock, "And use your flint and steel to light it."

With the metal loop held close to the mound she raised the rock over and brought it down quickly, striking them together. A tiny shower of sparks showered down over the grass and cloth. Most of the group, Soli included, squawked in surprise.

"Sometimes," Lise said, striking the metal again, "It can take," again, more sparks, "A few tries-"

Finally a few landed directly on the char cloth and caught, burning slowly out in a glowing irregular ring, turning the black of the cloth gray-white slowly. It went out after a moment. Duna's shoulder sagged.

But Lise leant down and blew gently on the patches of ashy gray and they flared momentarily into orange-white brightness. Carefully pushing the char cloth into the grass and sticks, Lise kept on blowing and soon enough there were tiny little curls of white-gray smoke curling out from the mound. After a few seconds actual wisps of flame poked through the debris. Lise prodded at the blackening bits of kindling, revealing unburnt portions underneath to the growing flames, before she started laying some of the larger sticks from the bottom of the basket overtop. All the while continuing to blow occasionally, causing the flames to flicker and jump, until it had grown into an actual (small) fire.

"There you go. Fire."

Everyone stared at it for several long seconds, taking in the licking flames and the warm glow.

"And when do we- when should we add the logs?" asked Dax.

Lise added a few more sticks on top and shrugged, "Once you're sure the smaller stuff is burning good and well. Just be sure not to smother the fire."

Lise and Duna continued to build up the fire. Meanwhile the rest of them started preparing food under Miriel's watchful eyes, tearing up vegetables and throwing it into the pot with some of the water from the canteens. A little bit later Kieran and Avu'llya came back with the poles and Lise started helping them figure out how to set up the tent. Soli helped.

They worked slowly; watching the pot boil and joining in the brief, occasional spot of conversations that sprang up. Mostly involving asking Lise questions about innocuous subjects; What the tent fabric was called (canvas), if the fire was burning alright, did she think the soup/stew needed more salt or maybe more meat or potatoes?

Nothing that invited deeper conversation. Or that ranged too close to acknowledging that Lystra had set hours ago and Kiestre still had not risen or that the rangers looked scared and that no one was sure they would live to see tomorrow. It was stilted, but it filled the silence.

Soli found the soup bland when it was done. He ate it ravenously of course. But as he scooped out the chunks of meat and potatoes, and slurped down the broth he found himself longing for home all the harder. The warmth of his fathers arms and his mothers smile. Ostra's quiet musings on whatever she was learning and Euma's grumbling about not being allowed to go to whatever party was going on next weekend or Idith's exciting chattering about her friends. Even Timik's nonsense babbling. He missed it all.

He swallowed down those thoughts and shoved them behind another vault in his head. But he didn't send it tumbling over in the metaphorical dark Beyond. He didn't know what happened next. If the black shell people—

Suddenly the air was split by a wailing roar that shook their half assembled tents and wrenched everyone's attention into the sky. Which remained black and silent as it had been for hours.

A second went by. Two. Then a third.

There was a funny whistle in the air.

From across the camp Soli heard shouts and cries go up, and felt more than heard a huge surge of people moving all at once through the dense press of tents. Lise was on her feet, staring back into the crowd of tents intently. So were the others.

Something bright shot out of the darkness, a tiny little ember, and fell to land in the midst of the camp. Half a second later there was a loud whump and the spot where the ember had landed exploded into a roiling ball of fire and scattered burning scraps of canvas and wood and… other things in all directions. Dirt and smoke filled the air. And a rush of hot stinking wind rolled over them. Soli blinked up at the group from where he'd fallen.

More people were screaming and running. Pushing their way past and through and over tents and people as the crowd pushed in every direction simultaneously. Many of them heading straight for the back of the camp (and thus them).

But a second later, after another loud whump had lit up the rear of the camp in a burning cloud of dirt and debris, the part of the crowd heading their way broke up into a dozen smaller waves. Figures danced in the cloud; rangers cried out in agony as flames licked at them. But Soli hardly had time to take in the horror as another explosion lit up the camp behind him and sent the crowd into even further panic as they tried desperately to get into the surrounding buildings.

"Run!" yelled Lise and Miriel and Duna all at once, though none of them said where to run too.

Not that it mattered, in an instant their group was caught up in the pell mell of the crowd, their fire trampled underfoot, pot overturned, and the remnants of their meal dashed to the ground with a clang. Soli managed to stay close to someone familiar for a few seconds. But the crowd was too dense and chaotic, the press of people too panicked, and he was carried quickly away.

He thought he glimpsed either Miriel or Caria through a break in the crowd but it closed almost as soon as it appeared. It was as he was casting around desperately for any sign of a familiar face that Soli saw them, the people in the black shells, dropping down from the rooftops (hadn't there been rangers up there? Where were they?) all around the camp, wielding spears with gleaming points or swords with sweeping serrated edges. People screamed, angry, pained cries and he smelled a hot tangy something in the wind.

Then Lise was beside him, pulling on his arm, shouting, "This way!"

Towards the warehouse, towards the camp of strange magicky Rangers. Through the crowd he saw some of them shove their way out from behind their guards and the tents of their camp, hands full of fire and lightning and the cold light of death.

With a crackle and a flash something hot and wet peppered his back. He almost turned back but Lise kept pulling and Soli's legs pumped, keeping pace with her.

Something whipped past his head with a whistle and Lise grunted, her steps faltering for a second, but she pushed him on.

Now the strange Ranger's guards were pulling down their tents and the other doors of the warehouse opening, letting out more rangers with spells on their hands and lips to toss at the black shell people, who were still dropping over the lips of the buildings. And beyond the rangers, inside the warehouse, Soli saw… he didn't really know what; a dark empty space littered with empty arches of metal. Like doorways. Except they weren't empty but filled with glass- no water.

Not, not water.

A field. A forest. A river.

Clear blue skies, wispy clouds drifting along lazily and songbirds flitting through the air. Rangers in heavy armor — like out of the stories of the Integration, when elf fought elf to bring the light of the Daughters to all the Summerlands — yelled at them from the warehouse entrances, waving their hands even as they hefted fearsome spears and nocked arrows to enormous bows.

"Go! Go! For the gates!"

Lise shoved him ahead of her, past the line of mages. Soli stumbled but caught himself and got his feet under him. He picked one of the doorways, one that looked calm and friendly and safe (sunlight peeked through the trees of a forest of pale trees, their bark; black dappled on white) and pumped his legs as hard as he could for it. Soli glanced to his left, out of one door of the warehouse, he saw a trio of rangers locked in combat with twice that of the people in black shells. Blood running down their sides.

The ground shook and a whole wall of the warehouse ripped open in a shower of shattered stone and splintered wood. He looked over his shoulder and saw Lise standing beside the mages at the front, surrounded by the glow of a clear, dry spring day.

" —andra! Set your eyes to me! Heed my prayers! Make of me— "

And then she was swallowed up by a void of pure black, darker even than the sky outside, that grew and grew and grew until it had eaten the whole front of the warehouse and left nothing but itself.

Soli was just opening his mouth to shout… something, when he felt a cool pressure engulf his arm and a tugging drag him backwards. Then he was falling back, back, back, but instead of meeting hard dirt he just kept falling into nothingness and the world shrank down into first a pinprick of light and sound and then into nothingness.

Next Part (Coming Soon)

#fic #story #mine #Sunfall #Chapter 3 #apocalypse #fantasy #original fiction #original story #original characters #Soli #comments and critique are greatly appreciated #long post #6.6k #running becomes something of a 'running' theme #heh

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