#what's up i'm back OUTTA FUCKIN NOWHERE!!!!!! EYYY!!!!

[nonamedrk]

The Exile's Blaze pt. 1

::Summary:: Ysolie has spent months in exile from the clan and finally someone has come to retrieve them. News about their grandmother's impending death follows. ::Content Warning:: Family drama, Violence, blood, horror, bad parents, sadness... Thanks for reading!!! 💙 [<- Previous: Writing Prompt - Fulsome]

He shivered in the midst of another lovely Coerthas day, “Can we at th’ least speak inside?”

“No. Sawbones needs beauty sleep,” responded Ysolie dryly. They started walking and expected him to follow, not sparing a glance over their shoulder to check. His boots crunched over the snow after the briefest hesitation as he, no doubt, practically drug his feet with reluctance, a thought that made Ysolie’s blood boil.

How dare he be the reluctant one when Ysolie was the one who didn’t want to talk in the first place? A sharp hiss of disgust left Ysolie as, around the corner of the building and to the back, the two walked. Forgotten for decades but somewhat restored by Ysolie, there stood the back deck of the Inn, constructed from sturdy stone and metal, coated in layers of ice and snow.

At their gesture, the man moved toward one of two benches positioned around a fire pit, which was covered with a sturdy metal cover to keep the snow out. A dejected sigh escaped him as he settled down loudly enough for Ysolie to hear.

“Y’ain’t gotta be ‘ere. Matterfact y’can leave-”

“Little bean, please,” sighed Derrisenois, “No need t’be so…”

When his voice trailed off, Ysolie shot him a look that threatened a bloodletting, before turning away from him. Whipping a tarp up and over a protected stash of firewood, Ysolie decided to redirect their irritated energy toward tossing said wood toward the fire pit.

“Cranky,” finished their father finally, as he watched the first quarter log split from the force of its landing. “Sleep well? Ya always get like this without sleep, eh?”

An inability to speak was inherent in just how hard Ysolie was grinding their teeth at that moment. While they wanted to get right down to business— to demand an explanation for why Derrisenois was here, now, of all times— certain practices needed to be observed.

Tradition and duty kept Ysolie from screaming as they chucked more wood and a mild bit of tension was resolved as they heard the scrape of metal across stone— the sure sign that Derrisenois had removed the cover from the fire pit. At least he was helping prior to irrevocably harming— as Ysolie assumed he was here to do.

Together in silence they built the fire, with Derrisenois having come prepared with dried aromatic mushrooms for it. As was customary he added them to the tinder— the blaze burned blue and became sweetly scented as a result of their burning. Ysolie sat next to their father with as much space as they could make between them on the bench.

In their shared native tongue, carried over glaciers tall and tunnels deep, the likes of which where once lively, dark and warm, with a people now displaced, Derrisenois spoke the words carried by the hands of generations of tradition, “Let shine thy eyes ‘afore the Exile’s blaze— we meet as those blessed by the Dark God, united in her Clan.”

“Fight/Survive, Battle/Be Tested,” Ysolie spoke in return.

Returning to the common tongue, Derrisenois spoke before Ysolie could take a breath, “Y’never returned m’letters— I ain’t here t’chastise. But if y’read’em it’s clear—”

“—Etienne’s dyin’. But ‘s false I say,” Ysolie growled, “She wants me f’somethin’ sles. I read that one at th' least.”

“False? Y’ain’t seen’er,” Derrisenois replied with a weight to his tone Ysolie was unfamiliar with, “Her eyes’ve gone black now. Skin’s cold past few months. She picks’er sword up one day past week n’demands t’see ya— tryna speak it, even. Scream it.”

Ysolie kept silent. Etienne was well into her late eighties and she had managed to heft a sword up— which in her prime was heavy still— and demand to see them? While trying to speak? Ysolie’s grandmother had been mute since her late teens, due to an illness common in the Homeland, so if it were true she was trying to speak then—

“Simple— ‘er mind’s gone. Ain’t unusual f’cursed eighties,” Ysolie grumbled.

“No. Ogrette’s say she’s been this way f’some time past a dream— one ‘bout Blessed Eight Gaze turned ‘pon ya,” Derrisenois informed them, looking around the fire pit briefly.

Without a word, Ysolie tilted their head at an ancient crooked rusted dulled sword, and Derrisenois took it up to prod at the burning logs. One split, sending a moment of blazing blue and competing red sparks into the silence between them.

With a certain quivering hesitancy, Derrisenois asked, “Were it true, that dream?”

Ysolie turned their eyes away from the flame then held his gaze. Mortality stared back at Ysolie, or so they saw. It was in the new wrinkles in his brow— the aged bite at his temples, that had turned even more of his hair pale since last they’d saw him. More than age, Ysolie saw worry, and a somberness that had eased its way into his typically jovial features, before those wrinkles twisted with confusion.

He leaned closer, inquiring softly, “Did ya do somethin’ t’ya eyes?”

Breaking his gaze at this point would be disrespectful, so Ysolie avoided the question, by posing another, “What more’s Ogrette say f’Etienne?”

“Methinks ya want ask f’Lafayiera's condition instead,” Derrisenois struck back in their subtle but definitely brewing argument.

Baring their teeth, Ysolie swallowed then spat back, “M’concern’s not f’her— th’Elders must’ve convened ‘bout Etienne, no?”

“Y’broke ‘er right femur, lil bean,” Derrisenois replied, “Fractured, eh? Not full break, mind. Lafayiera couldn't walk f'near two moons n' drags still."

Ysolie held their chin up a fraction and responded, as lowly and controlled as they could, “N’who’s voice were absent in th’argument leadin’ to that? Ya saw’er— she tried for m’godsdamned sword arm— ya saw’s it n’said nothin’— I meant what I said ‘bout ya then, damn it— repeat it y’self.”

Derrisenois visibly recoiled and let his eyes fall. A heavy moment of fire crackling silence was broken as he replied in a small voice, “How’s it feel t’be so right?”

Not expecting such a response, Ysolie stared at him wide eyed, as Derrisenois continued, “Ya branded me right. M’cowardice, eh? It were th’whole reason— well— why I’m ‘ere t’meet with ya and able, huh? Whole reason I were exiled t’below in m’youth but, aye, pay’s off now. Shame f'me, I hold th' bottom alone. No one else could be’ere t’talk otherwise— I’m th’weakest n’meekest o’all the clan now, seems.”

Those words hovered briefly in the cold air before he continued, voice breaking ever so slightly, “Always's have been, eh? N'ya were right. We should all be grateful t'have Blademaster like ya t'keep us well.”

He smiled despairingly as he gazed toward the fire, which was spitting red, as the last of the blue began to burn out, “Too weak t’speak when counts, I am— easy t’brush aside— ignore n’such— it’s why she wanted me, see? They says marks o’Redeemed make ya good candidate f’Bond but. No. I never believed that. Folk back then seek ya not f’any sort o’equal— no. Woman like Lafayiera had plenty equals— bonded with two before me, aye.”

Ysolie maintained their silence. Partially stunned to hear her father talk about her mother in such a manner— an honest and raw manner. He was usually honest, but never quite so deeply as he was now. The question of why didn’t quite come to Ysolie’s mind because that answer was easy— guilt.

It was written upon his face during Lafayiera’s accusations of Ysolie’s defiance of her will— and it was the same expression he was wearing now. What did come to mind was an answer to what Ysolie kept asking over and over within as she and her mother crossed blades before the elders— had Derrisenois tried to stop her?

A better and more correct turn of phrase, Ysolie realized, was could he have stopped her.

His eyes gleamed in the firelight with the welling of tears as he continued, “She needed someone that would— someone like me—well… Well… I ain’t ‘ere t’air all that out f’ya, little bean. I’m t’bring y’back t’Clan. Doin’ m’role as th’last Exile Redeemed.”

Derrisenois finally returned his gaze to Ysolie as he concluded, “Funny we’re related. Eh, kid? Me n’ you?” His eyes fell to the fire as he wiped his nose, “And m’glad ya take more after her than y’do me.”

[Next -> The Exile's Blaze pt. 2]