Post by Siobhan Sith on Nov 14, 2008 16:02:37 GMT -5
Silvered eyes rise skyward, metallic pools bathed in red as the roiling thunderheads burst into flame.
Blasphemers....
Arrows seared the sky, black shafts licked with crimson tongues. The burning brands fell among the retreating figures like lightning shot to earth, the weight of impact drumming the ground like the rolling thunder, flames sputtering and hissing against the slick, wet grass. Some fell and were swallowed by the horde. Others lay prostrate on the ground, fastened to the rocky soil by arrows, condemned by their own valor and displayed in gruesome defeat before their opposition.
Thieves....
The halfbreed had not devoted herself to the cause with such vanity. Her efforts were not wastefully administered for things intangible such as principle, honor, pride, glory, and moral ethic. No, her interests lay, naturally, in her own interest, such as it was. In the city beneath the city, her tainted blood had dictated her life, scrawling it all out before her right out to her death, as concrete and certain as the rise and fall of the sun. The others would have seen her drug down in the long march towards oblivion, obscure and obsolete as the cobblestones beneath their feet. Her only hope for escape lay in the rebellion.
So it was not with a sinking sense of hopelessness that she now sprinted for the woods with her co-conspirators. Unlike the fleeing, black-cloaked figures around her, her sanctuary lay not behind her in ruins, ashes of feebly constructed plans, but before her. The darkened boughs reached out like long, bony fingers, searching with shadows to pull her into an embrace of darkness. Refuge... the forest would be her shelter, her protection against the others.
Pale skin lay beneath the age-worn cloak she clutched about her shoulders as she ran. Upon the rare occasion she would change direction or nearly lose her balance, the turned heel or the round of a shoulder would catch a stray beam of moonlight and make her a prime target. Narrowing her eyes and wincing as arrows whined through the air around her, she tried to will herself invisible. No such luck... A black-fletched arrow found the hem of her cloak, the fabric ripping as it anchored to the ground. Preoccupied with the near miss, the halfbreed stumbled over a body that lay rooted to the ground in front of her. Her foot made contact with it, still warm, before she lunged over the obstacle. The forest was within reach, now. That haunting, darkened patch on the horizon had suddenly become the most real thing she knew. Stories of her past were instantly discarded. They were probably lies. Like everything else.
Those that enter the forest never return...
Even if the stories had a basis in truth, she didn't care to return, anyway. Wherever the woods would take her would be better than a lifetime in hell.
The closer she got, the more she noticed the mist rising off of the damp ground, the bodies under foot almost swallowed in pale fog. She was nearly there.... nearly....
The clashing of metal began to soften as she plunged into the rising mist, muted by the thumping of her own heartbeat in her ears. Just as she threw herself into the treeline, something struck her in the shoulder. She barely registered a sudden searing jolt of pain before she was lost to the crushing darkness, and the consuming mist.
---------------
How long had she spent in the absence of space and time?
Murderer....
Neither she, nor any other soul could tell.
---------------
Release from the darkness came in the form of a sudden impact with the ground.
In one fell whoosh of what felt like sudden decompression, she found herself being borne to earth. The arrow shaft that had passed through the meat of her shoulder found a direct path to the ground, barbed head connecting with the loamy terra and causing the shaft of the arrow to slide backwards through the hole as her torso pressed her weight down upon it. Recognition of the sudden pain came in a sharp gasp and a shrill, wordless exclamation of agony. Teeth clench together after the outburst. She wished in vain she had not made such a noise, but as she whirled around to look behind her, she saw nothing of the scene she remembered fleeing from. No one had followed her into the darkness. She, alone, had plummeted into this other place, for better or worse. As she gazed into the forest, appeared that the trees and dense, brooding undergrowth traveled on for miles in that direction, the roiling mist seeping back into the tangle of briers and ferns.
Night was pressing in around her, the forest issuing a typical variety of nocturnal noises, none of which being the hissing of arrows, nor the screams of battle. This, at least, she could take comfort in.
Where the hell was she?
Her opposite hand clutched the skewered shoulder tenderly and she rose to her feet. A thin tremble began deep in her bones. Adrenaline made her wound seem somewhat less, her cloak hung tattered and drenched around her shoulders. This particular part of the woods cast a certain foreboding in her heart. She had no desire to stay here long. Quickly, she began to move in the direction she had stumbled into this new strange world. The trees seemed thinner that way, less claustrophobic...
Blood, dark and almost black in the shadows of the trees coursed around her fingers and down her injured arm, staining the already filthy clothes she had been accustomed to. She would stop to tend to it as soon as she found a safe place in which to do so, but that was not here, not now. Progress through the trees was slowly becoming easier as she traveled, her feet picking an easy path beneath the increasingly open canopy. As if the desire for a haven alone had conjured such a place, a meadow unfolded before her as the trees thinned. Stopping in the shadow of large oak, she peered across the clearing to see the dark shadow of a fortress, a black ribbon of a river cutting across the grasslands before it.
She took a step into the softly cascading moonlight, casting one last rueful glance back at the trees before picking her way carefully down to the stream. Crouching down on the bank, she produced a thin knife from the leather belt that cinched the rags of what used to be an oversized linen tunic around her waist and cut the leather that bound the arrow head to the shaft. Casting one desperate hope to the gods (if there were any) that no one was around to see her, she carefully began to prize the arrow from the wound, working it backwards through her shoulder. Sweat beaded on her forehead, the darkness around her beginning to seep into her vision as the blood from her shoulder bubbled out around the shaft.
How much blood had she lost?
The thought was fuzzy and somehow unimportant as her fingers began to lose their dexterity. She barely had time to damn her sudden inability to function before she found herself leaning into the bank on her uninjured side, the world slipping in and out of focus.
((Sorry for the novel... this will also be a part of my character's history as it begins to form. Anyone feel free to respond.))
Blasphemers....
Arrows seared the sky, black shafts licked with crimson tongues. The burning brands fell among the retreating figures like lightning shot to earth, the weight of impact drumming the ground like the rolling thunder, flames sputtering and hissing against the slick, wet grass. Some fell and were swallowed by the horde. Others lay prostrate on the ground, fastened to the rocky soil by arrows, condemned by their own valor and displayed in gruesome defeat before their opposition.
Thieves....
The halfbreed had not devoted herself to the cause with such vanity. Her efforts were not wastefully administered for things intangible such as principle, honor, pride, glory, and moral ethic. No, her interests lay, naturally, in her own interest, such as it was. In the city beneath the city, her tainted blood had dictated her life, scrawling it all out before her right out to her death, as concrete and certain as the rise and fall of the sun. The others would have seen her drug down in the long march towards oblivion, obscure and obsolete as the cobblestones beneath their feet. Her only hope for escape lay in the rebellion.
So it was not with a sinking sense of hopelessness that she now sprinted for the woods with her co-conspirators. Unlike the fleeing, black-cloaked figures around her, her sanctuary lay not behind her in ruins, ashes of feebly constructed plans, but before her. The darkened boughs reached out like long, bony fingers, searching with shadows to pull her into an embrace of darkness. Refuge... the forest would be her shelter, her protection against the others.
Pale skin lay beneath the age-worn cloak she clutched about her shoulders as she ran. Upon the rare occasion she would change direction or nearly lose her balance, the turned heel or the round of a shoulder would catch a stray beam of moonlight and make her a prime target. Narrowing her eyes and wincing as arrows whined through the air around her, she tried to will herself invisible. No such luck... A black-fletched arrow found the hem of her cloak, the fabric ripping as it anchored to the ground. Preoccupied with the near miss, the halfbreed stumbled over a body that lay rooted to the ground in front of her. Her foot made contact with it, still warm, before she lunged over the obstacle. The forest was within reach, now. That haunting, darkened patch on the horizon had suddenly become the most real thing she knew. Stories of her past were instantly discarded. They were probably lies. Like everything else.
Those that enter the forest never return...
Even if the stories had a basis in truth, she didn't care to return, anyway. Wherever the woods would take her would be better than a lifetime in hell.
The closer she got, the more she noticed the mist rising off of the damp ground, the bodies under foot almost swallowed in pale fog. She was nearly there.... nearly....
The clashing of metal began to soften as she plunged into the rising mist, muted by the thumping of her own heartbeat in her ears. Just as she threw herself into the treeline, something struck her in the shoulder. She barely registered a sudden searing jolt of pain before she was lost to the crushing darkness, and the consuming mist.
---------------
How long had she spent in the absence of space and time?
Murderer....
Neither she, nor any other soul could tell.
---------------
Release from the darkness came in the form of a sudden impact with the ground.
In one fell whoosh of what felt like sudden decompression, she found herself being borne to earth. The arrow shaft that had passed through the meat of her shoulder found a direct path to the ground, barbed head connecting with the loamy terra and causing the shaft of the arrow to slide backwards through the hole as her torso pressed her weight down upon it. Recognition of the sudden pain came in a sharp gasp and a shrill, wordless exclamation of agony. Teeth clench together after the outburst. She wished in vain she had not made such a noise, but as she whirled around to look behind her, she saw nothing of the scene she remembered fleeing from. No one had followed her into the darkness. She, alone, had plummeted into this other place, for better or worse. As she gazed into the forest, appeared that the trees and dense, brooding undergrowth traveled on for miles in that direction, the roiling mist seeping back into the tangle of briers and ferns.
Night was pressing in around her, the forest issuing a typical variety of nocturnal noises, none of which being the hissing of arrows, nor the screams of battle. This, at least, she could take comfort in.
Where the hell was she?
Her opposite hand clutched the skewered shoulder tenderly and she rose to her feet. A thin tremble began deep in her bones. Adrenaline made her wound seem somewhat less, her cloak hung tattered and drenched around her shoulders. This particular part of the woods cast a certain foreboding in her heart. She had no desire to stay here long. Quickly, she began to move in the direction she had stumbled into this new strange world. The trees seemed thinner that way, less claustrophobic...
Blood, dark and almost black in the shadows of the trees coursed around her fingers and down her injured arm, staining the already filthy clothes she had been accustomed to. She would stop to tend to it as soon as she found a safe place in which to do so, but that was not here, not now. Progress through the trees was slowly becoming easier as she traveled, her feet picking an easy path beneath the increasingly open canopy. As if the desire for a haven alone had conjured such a place, a meadow unfolded before her as the trees thinned. Stopping in the shadow of large oak, she peered across the clearing to see the dark shadow of a fortress, a black ribbon of a river cutting across the grasslands before it.
She took a step into the softly cascading moonlight, casting one last rueful glance back at the trees before picking her way carefully down to the stream. Crouching down on the bank, she produced a thin knife from the leather belt that cinched the rags of what used to be an oversized linen tunic around her waist and cut the leather that bound the arrow head to the shaft. Casting one desperate hope to the gods (if there were any) that no one was around to see her, she carefully began to prize the arrow from the wound, working it backwards through her shoulder. Sweat beaded on her forehead, the darkness around her beginning to seep into her vision as the blood from her shoulder bubbled out around the shaft.
How much blood had she lost?
The thought was fuzzy and somehow unimportant as her fingers began to lose their dexterity. She barely had time to damn her sudden inability to function before she found herself leaning into the bank on her uninjured side, the world slipping in and out of focus.
((Sorry for the novel... this will also be a part of my character's history as it begins to form. Anyone feel free to respond.))