Argent
09-17-2006, 10:35 AM
Part 1 of a four part series. Someday, I hope to write the other parts. Anywho, feel free to comment. ^_^
Chapter 1: Rebirth
The clouds rolled in dirty and brown that day in Bastok, echoing the turmoil in one girl's heart. An ache trembled deep within her soul, like an uncomfortable, never-coming sneeze. Most days she would console her rumblings with a new adventure, or interesting company perhaps, or, even better still, with the new and exotic foods of faraway countries. But here, in the city of steel and rock, the only adventures were menial chores (not to mention boring as hell), the people brow-beaten and grumbling over their lowly wages or the difficulty of their jobs, and the only insipid food: water-logged soup, stale popatos and hardened bread. Bastok simply was not the city to be in when feeling depressed.
Worse yet, today was her birthday . . .
Not that she didn't try to find a way to celebrate it, of course. Yet, her current mood, the fact that she was so far away from her home country of Windurst, and the barren desolation of Gustaberg where few luxuries could easily be found, made celebration a challenge, at best. Fortunately, she did manage to find and purchased a cheap (albeit a bit crumbly) apple pie and a handful of ouka ranmans, a cheap firework, to try to make herself feel a little better. She guarded both theses things as she walked, hiding them away in a decrepit wooden box she had found in a trash pile, and wrapped within a cheap robe intended for mages rather then food. Her listless eyes fell to the ground blankly.
As she walked out of the archway into the main streets of the Bastok mine district, she was quickly seen by one of the locals, a young Galka child. With a lax jaw, he stared at her for a minutes before scurrying away into a hole or a hovel or some sort of hiding spot; the girl wasn't in much mind to guess where exactly he ran off too. Perhaps he thought her beautiful or perhaps he had never seen a Mithra before. After all, most races of Vana d'iel seem to have some degree of admiration, if not lust, for Mithras for their beautiful grace, cute cat-like ears and tail, and their playful personalities. But no, he seemed more frightened then astonished . . . she really failed to see why. Her Eisen-armor, though once smartly polished as bright gilded silver, had dulled and greyed, the once intricate faceting laced in the armor disappearing from repeated abuse. The most imposing thing about her was the long great sword on her back, and the girl quickly concluded that her gigantic weapon was the object of fear.
As she made her way past the Southern Auction House, two figures rushed the girl, dragging her into the alleyway. She did not expect an attack and was caught completely unawares. They quickly bound her from behind and took the package from her. Her mouth went slack readied to scream when one of the men extended his arms above her head and shoved a tough piece of leather into her mouth and press his hand down over her lips. The leather tasted disgusting, and rubbed painfully on the sides of her lips. Before she could get a possible kick in, she felt the stinging coolness of a knife across her neck. The had her, she was trapped. Her only choice now but wait this out and see what would happen. Hopefully all they wanted was her gil pouch.
“'Ey Moisha, she's a real beaut, ain' she?” One of her attackers, to her left, jeered in a voice similar to a donkey’s
“Aye, that she be, Garlan, that she be.” Another voice responded, this one from the man that held a knife to her throat. “I could def'nately use some pleasure before lunch, if'n yah get mah drift." Fear pitted in the girl's stomach and she grabbed the knife arm tightly. Clutching the man's arm, she could throw him and get away if she had a bit more room . . . but in an alley . . .
Her fear further exacerbated as she felt her great sword being lifted out of her back holster. A third voice, deep and low like a rock, boomed from behind the knife-wielding man. “You two aught to be more careful, there is more to her then bein' a pretty face; she's an adventurer." The girl couldn't see him either, but felt a big hand reach and grabbed her helmet from her head. "And a Mithra too, she won't go down easy.”
The man on her left, as feverish as an Opo-opo, retaliated harshly, “What'n yah sayin' muscle-head, dat we won't get tah do her?”
The deep voice responded, “I don't care what you do to her, I'm jus' here for the armor and weapons. But if you intend to screw her, you should probably do that in a place that isn't behind the south Bastok Auction House.”
The knife wielder, though desperate and agitated, nodded. The knife pressed painfully to her trachea, the girl moved somberly through the dusty alleys of Bastok, looking for somebody to help or a chance to escape. Neither came. Every few minutes, the huge man, which she found to be a Galka with greedy eyes and a flat hair, lumbered to her side and peeled off another piece of armor from her body. Soon, she was down to her cloth undergarments. Completely vulnerable , she could feel the other two men's probing eyes upon her body. Just a little room, she thought, running through her mind through exactly what to do when the time came. Every muscle in her body tensed in anticipation, ready for that ever so valuable moment.
Finally it seemed the moment approached. They approached the alley end, which fed into a larger main road. A glimmer of hope within the hanging clotheslines. The Galka seemed satisfied with his reward and ran off into the street, the girl’s armor and sword in hand.
Meanwhile, a revelation struck one of the men. “Moisha mate, we can' go out dere 'olding 'er like dis.” The donkey-man commented.
She felt the man behind her nodded. “Aye, people would get to thinking, eh?”
“Whot do yah say we go back the alley an' finish 'er up, eh?”
No! That’s not what should happen! She needed to go to the main street and so she could throw this jerk off her! Panic seized her as she felt her body move away from liberation. No! She would not allow these creeps to take away from her the one thing she had left! She did not live for sixteen years -- practicing, fighting, struggling for this degradation! She did not suffer and toil through the strife of loneliness and shame… did not… could not…
A sudden surge of animal bestiality roared through her. Enraged, she levered the thief onto her back, ran screaming into the main street and threw him into the corner of the building. His body layed limp on the road, and she saw for the first time just how young the man was. Perhaps a few years older then her, but his shocked expression made him seem so helpless . . . his dull blue eyes barely flickering any life in them. His death did not satisfy her, no, not yet. Her attention turned to the other young boy, Garlan, who she could see shakily holding a knife in front of him. She crept down on her hands, an animal waiting to pounce. The light gleamed through her eye and reflected back to the boy a frightening blue.
Realizing that he could not fight her, Garlan dropped the weapon and began running back into the alley. As he did, a deep, almost primitive, instinct told the girl to chase her prey, to kill. She willingly accepted this instinct and began chasing him down, relishing the thrill of the stale wind in her face and the stench of fear dripping from his sweat. Hume speed quickly lost to the Mithra’s, and when he was close enough she pounced on top of his back, falling him instantly. He scrambled quickly, trying desperately get back on his feet, but she had already grabbed hold of his face from behind, her fingers digging into his cheeks.
“You picked the wrong day to mess with me.” She hissed, her breath low and rhythmic.
“No! Stop! Please!” Garlan pleaded, his hand clawing into the ground.
The girl smiled. “Do you think that you would do the same to me while ‘screwing' me? I think not. Men like you make me sick . . .” Slowly, she forced his head to look to the left, preparing to snap it off.
“Demon! You bitch! I curse you with the Bogy curse! You…” But before he was able to complete his sentence, the hall echoed with a loud crack, and the tension in Garlan’s body slackened.
With Garlan dead, the animal mentality waned away, leaving the girl sitting upon the back of a corpse. What had she done? Sure she didn’t want them to do terrible things to her, but she also didn’t want this. She just wanted to get away, away from this hate. Her eyes looked down on her hands, horrified. If only this situation never happened, if only she had not been in Bastok… If only she saw those thieves. If only she weren’t a girl to be preyed upon and picked on like a weakling! If only she could just live her life like any normal adventurer! If only she could be looked up to as a person and not as a sexual object or a lesser creature! If only she weren’t alone… If only… if only…
She screamed in pain and anguish for everything that left her lacking. For the loss of herself . . . no, for never having found what she truly was to begin with. Perhaps she truly was a demon. Perhaps she had no opportunity to learn be anything else . . . The rain began to fall harshly. Though it had been raining since the last of her armor had been stripped from her, she didn’t really notice it until now.
She heard a noise, which at first she thought to be the thunder, but eventually heard a words. “Hey.” The voice repeated from right side, enormous and powerful. “Get up.”
“I killed without thought and purpose… I am a demon…I have no right to get up… ” she muttered.
“Your concern would be flattering, were these not men overcome by lust. They had no concern for you., feel no pity for them Now stand.” The voice boomed. Had the girl not been held down by her depressed mood she would have stood at attention immediately.
“For what?” The girl screamed at nothing. “Its all the same, it will always be the same, nothing ever changes and nothing ever will. And like I am . . . what I am . . .” She stared down at her petite frame and small breasts. “Nothing I do will ever change what I am.”
The man growled, “We are our actions, not our bodies.”
Cheri turned her head at this response and saw a mountain of a Galka looking down on her. His armor was glorious and dull, like what she used to be wearing, but seemed to glimmer with pride for being worn by this man. Everything else about him seemed normal enough, with the exception of his head. A mask covered his face, a mask that made him seem more like an animal then a sentient creature. His eyes seethed with primal rage. Whoever… whatever this man was, he certainly was the master of it.
The Galka’s eyes looked down at her, unemotional and unconcerned. “Gumbah tells me that you are a lost soul.” He motioned to the young Galka, peaking out from behind. “And he is never wrong. He may not seem like much, but in distinguishing lost souls he has… a gift.”
The girl grinned a bit, returning her eyes to the ground. “I’m a lost soul, huh…”
“As am I. We are a ones born of no destiny other then to be. We live, we fight and we die. But through fighting we find our destiny. We become strong when evil falls. And fate has no binding on us; we are able to fight without hesitation and concern. Our strength lies in our emptiness. And seeing as you too are suffering, I wish to show you this path; the only path that we are capable of living.”
The girl looked down at her hands, and remembered all that she tried to do and fail: a whole life of failures, of not fitting in. Though she would normally think that somebody saying what this Galka did would be full of crap, something deep within herself knew he spoke the truth. “So you are promising me… purpose?” She asked, her eyes set on his.
“I promise you nothing. Just a path.” The Galka said.
“What is your name, master?” The girl asked.
“Zeid, the Dark Knight. And what is your name, student?”
“Cheri, the… apprentice Dark Knight.”
“So be it.”
At that moment, Cheri, the Windurstian warrior, having no weapon, no armor, and no future, picked up her body off the man he killed and followed the Galka named Zeid onto a path she never knew existed.
Chapter 1: Rebirth
The clouds rolled in dirty and brown that day in Bastok, echoing the turmoil in one girl's heart. An ache trembled deep within her soul, like an uncomfortable, never-coming sneeze. Most days she would console her rumblings with a new adventure, or interesting company perhaps, or, even better still, with the new and exotic foods of faraway countries. But here, in the city of steel and rock, the only adventures were menial chores (not to mention boring as hell), the people brow-beaten and grumbling over their lowly wages or the difficulty of their jobs, and the only insipid food: water-logged soup, stale popatos and hardened bread. Bastok simply was not the city to be in when feeling depressed.
Worse yet, today was her birthday . . .
Not that she didn't try to find a way to celebrate it, of course. Yet, her current mood, the fact that she was so far away from her home country of Windurst, and the barren desolation of Gustaberg where few luxuries could easily be found, made celebration a challenge, at best. Fortunately, she did manage to find and purchased a cheap (albeit a bit crumbly) apple pie and a handful of ouka ranmans, a cheap firework, to try to make herself feel a little better. She guarded both theses things as she walked, hiding them away in a decrepit wooden box she had found in a trash pile, and wrapped within a cheap robe intended for mages rather then food. Her listless eyes fell to the ground blankly.
As she walked out of the archway into the main streets of the Bastok mine district, she was quickly seen by one of the locals, a young Galka child. With a lax jaw, he stared at her for a minutes before scurrying away into a hole or a hovel or some sort of hiding spot; the girl wasn't in much mind to guess where exactly he ran off too. Perhaps he thought her beautiful or perhaps he had never seen a Mithra before. After all, most races of Vana d'iel seem to have some degree of admiration, if not lust, for Mithras for their beautiful grace, cute cat-like ears and tail, and their playful personalities. But no, he seemed more frightened then astonished . . . she really failed to see why. Her Eisen-armor, though once smartly polished as bright gilded silver, had dulled and greyed, the once intricate faceting laced in the armor disappearing from repeated abuse. The most imposing thing about her was the long great sword on her back, and the girl quickly concluded that her gigantic weapon was the object of fear.
As she made her way past the Southern Auction House, two figures rushed the girl, dragging her into the alleyway. She did not expect an attack and was caught completely unawares. They quickly bound her from behind and took the package from her. Her mouth went slack readied to scream when one of the men extended his arms above her head and shoved a tough piece of leather into her mouth and press his hand down over her lips. The leather tasted disgusting, and rubbed painfully on the sides of her lips. Before she could get a possible kick in, she felt the stinging coolness of a knife across her neck. The had her, she was trapped. Her only choice now but wait this out and see what would happen. Hopefully all they wanted was her gil pouch.
“'Ey Moisha, she's a real beaut, ain' she?” One of her attackers, to her left, jeered in a voice similar to a donkey’s
“Aye, that she be, Garlan, that she be.” Another voice responded, this one from the man that held a knife to her throat. “I could def'nately use some pleasure before lunch, if'n yah get mah drift." Fear pitted in the girl's stomach and she grabbed the knife arm tightly. Clutching the man's arm, she could throw him and get away if she had a bit more room . . . but in an alley . . .
Her fear further exacerbated as she felt her great sword being lifted out of her back holster. A third voice, deep and low like a rock, boomed from behind the knife-wielding man. “You two aught to be more careful, there is more to her then bein' a pretty face; she's an adventurer." The girl couldn't see him either, but felt a big hand reach and grabbed her helmet from her head. "And a Mithra too, she won't go down easy.”
The man on her left, as feverish as an Opo-opo, retaliated harshly, “What'n yah sayin' muscle-head, dat we won't get tah do her?”
The deep voice responded, “I don't care what you do to her, I'm jus' here for the armor and weapons. But if you intend to screw her, you should probably do that in a place that isn't behind the south Bastok Auction House.”
The knife wielder, though desperate and agitated, nodded. The knife pressed painfully to her trachea, the girl moved somberly through the dusty alleys of Bastok, looking for somebody to help or a chance to escape. Neither came. Every few minutes, the huge man, which she found to be a Galka with greedy eyes and a flat hair, lumbered to her side and peeled off another piece of armor from her body. Soon, she was down to her cloth undergarments. Completely vulnerable , she could feel the other two men's probing eyes upon her body. Just a little room, she thought, running through her mind through exactly what to do when the time came. Every muscle in her body tensed in anticipation, ready for that ever so valuable moment.
Finally it seemed the moment approached. They approached the alley end, which fed into a larger main road. A glimmer of hope within the hanging clotheslines. The Galka seemed satisfied with his reward and ran off into the street, the girl’s armor and sword in hand.
Meanwhile, a revelation struck one of the men. “Moisha mate, we can' go out dere 'olding 'er like dis.” The donkey-man commented.
She felt the man behind her nodded. “Aye, people would get to thinking, eh?”
“Whot do yah say we go back the alley an' finish 'er up, eh?”
No! That’s not what should happen! She needed to go to the main street and so she could throw this jerk off her! Panic seized her as she felt her body move away from liberation. No! She would not allow these creeps to take away from her the one thing she had left! She did not live for sixteen years -- practicing, fighting, struggling for this degradation! She did not suffer and toil through the strife of loneliness and shame… did not… could not…
A sudden surge of animal bestiality roared through her. Enraged, she levered the thief onto her back, ran screaming into the main street and threw him into the corner of the building. His body layed limp on the road, and she saw for the first time just how young the man was. Perhaps a few years older then her, but his shocked expression made him seem so helpless . . . his dull blue eyes barely flickering any life in them. His death did not satisfy her, no, not yet. Her attention turned to the other young boy, Garlan, who she could see shakily holding a knife in front of him. She crept down on her hands, an animal waiting to pounce. The light gleamed through her eye and reflected back to the boy a frightening blue.
Realizing that he could not fight her, Garlan dropped the weapon and began running back into the alley. As he did, a deep, almost primitive, instinct told the girl to chase her prey, to kill. She willingly accepted this instinct and began chasing him down, relishing the thrill of the stale wind in her face and the stench of fear dripping from his sweat. Hume speed quickly lost to the Mithra’s, and when he was close enough she pounced on top of his back, falling him instantly. He scrambled quickly, trying desperately get back on his feet, but she had already grabbed hold of his face from behind, her fingers digging into his cheeks.
“You picked the wrong day to mess with me.” She hissed, her breath low and rhythmic.
“No! Stop! Please!” Garlan pleaded, his hand clawing into the ground.
The girl smiled. “Do you think that you would do the same to me while ‘screwing' me? I think not. Men like you make me sick . . .” Slowly, she forced his head to look to the left, preparing to snap it off.
“Demon! You bitch! I curse you with the Bogy curse! You…” But before he was able to complete his sentence, the hall echoed with a loud crack, and the tension in Garlan’s body slackened.
With Garlan dead, the animal mentality waned away, leaving the girl sitting upon the back of a corpse. What had she done? Sure she didn’t want them to do terrible things to her, but she also didn’t want this. She just wanted to get away, away from this hate. Her eyes looked down on her hands, horrified. If only this situation never happened, if only she had not been in Bastok… If only she saw those thieves. If only she weren’t a girl to be preyed upon and picked on like a weakling! If only she could just live her life like any normal adventurer! If only she could be looked up to as a person and not as a sexual object or a lesser creature! If only she weren’t alone… If only… if only…
She screamed in pain and anguish for everything that left her lacking. For the loss of herself . . . no, for never having found what she truly was to begin with. Perhaps she truly was a demon. Perhaps she had no opportunity to learn be anything else . . . The rain began to fall harshly. Though it had been raining since the last of her armor had been stripped from her, she didn’t really notice it until now.
She heard a noise, which at first she thought to be the thunder, but eventually heard a words. “Hey.” The voice repeated from right side, enormous and powerful. “Get up.”
“I killed without thought and purpose… I am a demon…I have no right to get up… ” she muttered.
“Your concern would be flattering, were these not men overcome by lust. They had no concern for you., feel no pity for them Now stand.” The voice boomed. Had the girl not been held down by her depressed mood she would have stood at attention immediately.
“For what?” The girl screamed at nothing. “Its all the same, it will always be the same, nothing ever changes and nothing ever will. And like I am . . . what I am . . .” She stared down at her petite frame and small breasts. “Nothing I do will ever change what I am.”
The man growled, “We are our actions, not our bodies.”
Cheri turned her head at this response and saw a mountain of a Galka looking down on her. His armor was glorious and dull, like what she used to be wearing, but seemed to glimmer with pride for being worn by this man. Everything else about him seemed normal enough, with the exception of his head. A mask covered his face, a mask that made him seem more like an animal then a sentient creature. His eyes seethed with primal rage. Whoever… whatever this man was, he certainly was the master of it.
The Galka’s eyes looked down at her, unemotional and unconcerned. “Gumbah tells me that you are a lost soul.” He motioned to the young Galka, peaking out from behind. “And he is never wrong. He may not seem like much, but in distinguishing lost souls he has… a gift.”
The girl grinned a bit, returning her eyes to the ground. “I’m a lost soul, huh…”
“As am I. We are a ones born of no destiny other then to be. We live, we fight and we die. But through fighting we find our destiny. We become strong when evil falls. And fate has no binding on us; we are able to fight without hesitation and concern. Our strength lies in our emptiness. And seeing as you too are suffering, I wish to show you this path; the only path that we are capable of living.”
The girl looked down at her hands, and remembered all that she tried to do and fail: a whole life of failures, of not fitting in. Though she would normally think that somebody saying what this Galka did would be full of crap, something deep within herself knew he spoke the truth. “So you are promising me… purpose?” She asked, her eyes set on his.
“I promise you nothing. Just a path.” The Galka said.
“What is your name, master?” The girl asked.
“Zeid, the Dark Knight. And what is your name, student?”
“Cheri, the… apprentice Dark Knight.”
“So be it.”
At that moment, Cheri, the Windurstian warrior, having no weapon, no armor, and no future, picked up her body off the man he killed and followed the Galka named Zeid onto a path she never knew existed.