Rats - om nom nom nom

There they were, chittering in the darkenss. Waiting for him to sleep so they could come and gnaw on his vulnerable flesh. His one good eye scanned the darkness franticly as he huddled in on himself, fearful and frantic. First Shoda was taken from him and now, mouldering in a human dungeon he would be devoured by rats. This WASN'T what was supposed to happen.
He growled, a feral, animalistic sound. Miraculously, the chittering stopped. He didn't dare ease his cramping muscles out of his tightly curled fetal position though. One sign of weakness and they would come. He could feel them. Their tiny rodent brains pressing in on him, wanting, yearning for him to falter so they could feast. Anything for the next meal.
He was loosing his fight with consciousness. He'd have to sleep sometime, he knew. His strength was running out and the dark lady was coming to claim him. One of the rats suddenly grew bold and scurried out from one of their hiding holes. His lips stretched his haggard face in a taut grin and he lunged forward. There! His fingers managed to snag at the end of the bald tail, his cracked and bleeding fingertips brushing against its greasy and matted fur.
The creature screamed in terror, its frantic cry sending its breathren away, off to greaner pastures and a more assured dinner. But Laok wasn't done. He clutched the tiny bulbous body with one emanciated hand and held the still-screaming head tight with the other.
His breath came ragged and halting in his excitement as he sunk, slowly, frustratingly slowly into trance. He didn't even need to stretch out his energies to take the rat. It was already clutched helplessly in his hands. All he needed to do was squeeze and twist. Slowly, eliciting more screams and cries from the hapless creature he twisted, and twisted. He could feel the tiny tendons straining to keep the thing whole until finally, with a barely audiable -snap-, the head twisted all the way around.
He dropped its now lifeless body and leaned over, groaning and coughing. That was Self. Ooooh that was what he needed. If he couldn't have food, he could subside on the Self of lesser creatures. That was the Key. When he'd grabbed the rat he had only meant to twist it and watch its death. Possibly scare the rest off so he could get some sleep. He'd had no idea that the death of the creature, when he was linked with it, would rebound to him, strengthening him, giving his soul nourishment.
His smile streatched even wider as he realised exactly what this meant. He wasn't hungry anymore, he couldn't be starved into submission. They would think that with each passing day he was growing weaker and weaker, and then... and then when their guard was down and the time was right...
His lavender eye slid sideways to regard the tiny, lifeless body laying on the floor of his cell. He wasn't so much different from the rat, when it came down to it. Aaah, but he was different, he was smarter, and he was patient. He could bide his time. He'd lasted this long already, he could surely stand to wait longer, to wait until the very perfect moment.
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The guards were complaining about the smell. Laok could hear them outside his cell door. He didn't even notice the scent of the decaying rats. He actually, truth be told, couldn't understand how they could notice it either. The privies down here were never emptied and he was sure that prisoners died all the time and were allowed to begin to rot before they were removed. The poor sap in the cell across from him had been silent for more than a week.
He supressed a shudder when he realised it could have easily been him that had been silent for more than a week. At least, it would have been him if it weren't for the rats. His eye slid once again to the privy hole were he'd disposed of the rats once he was done with them. Three hundred and twenty five rats so far. He didn't know why he could remember exactly how many he had killed. He had teken the SElf energies from them each, one by one, slowly filling himself, making him whole again. It was like having his thirst quenched by sips over the course of weeks. It was excruciatingly slow but oddly satisfying.
With each fresh death he could feel the rest waiting in the walls, quivering and quaking in terror at what he'd become. He laughed, a cold heartless and chilling sound. It echoed dully off the slimy walls dripping with weeping moss.
He reached out a hand, still gaunt and skeletal despite the enegerzing nourishment he'd absorbed. He extended his Self, searched, and soon found, caught, and pulled. Another fat-bodied, scaly-tailed rat staggered out from the wall. It squealed in terror but came, inexorably forward. Laok smiled, and chuckled deep in the back of his throat.
Seizing the struggling rodent he sank into trance and twisted.
He didn't realise something was different until it was too late. As his hands gripped the soggy fur the rat's eyes flickered and stared AT him. His own Self was tightly wound around the tiny creature, like an octopus wraps around its victim. A small voice in the back of his head screamed in terror as his hands seemed to move with their own volition and the rat's neck snapped.
The tiny noize seemed to echo on, and on, and on. Instead of fading away into nothing it increased in volume, lowering and expanding. It sounded like the ominous ticking of some great clockwork horror thudding on the biggest drumbs of Ebheda.
Laok gasped and fell to the ground, coughing. His heart felt like it would thud out of his chest, but he was powerless to stop it. His hands scraped futilely against the clammy floor of the cell as the thudding grew louder and louder, threatening to engulf the cowering Jothani.
He retched, heaving up the dregs of his stomach, the harsh acid burning all the way up and then all the way back down. His throat throbbed in time with the insufferable thudding. He seized, bucking up and contorting. Hands grasping for some unseen ally.
"Shoda! Help me!" He cried out to the dark, reaching for his one last shining memory. With a sickening crack the bones of his back writhed and he was thrown to the ground again. What was happening? He'd never experienced this much pain befor, not even when they took his eye. He screamed, a gutteral roar that went on and on, but even that was engulfed by the bass thudding.
He roared again, and again, tearing his throat and rending it raw.
-------------------------------------------------
Up the hall the guard on duty had been slowly edging away from the cell at the end of the hall. He didn't know what was in there, it was a cell that was never to be opened, and it didn't have a window. The roaring, gutteral scream came again and the hapless guard lost what was left of his already meager courage, turned, and fled.
Behind him he heard a crash and the whining scream of twisting metal. What was going on? His eyes were wild as he pelted up the stairway. He slipped on the damp treads and fell with a crunch. He had enough time to look behind him and see the monster bearing down on him. He didn't have enough time to register more than its thickly matted fur and one, franticly wrathful lavender eye.

Of Walker

Laok looked up and to the west, his nose held high, sniffing the air. There was the faint hint of smoke on the breeze. A campfire. He squinted, looking off into the distance. Yes, there was the faint plume of smoke in the sky. He smiled, a subtle and malicious expression creeping across his face. Gripping the stone he climbed down carefully. It wouldn’t do to break a bone so soon after he had eluded captivity, oh my no. He wanted to stay mobile, silent, quiet, and deadly.

Finally he reached the bottom of the stone outcropping upon which he had been perched and took off at a ground-devouring lope. The trees flashed by in his peripheral vision, barely noted except as obstacles to be avoided. His powerful legs bunched and he hurtled a fallen log, landing with a cringe on the other side. He was week, terribly week, he had to remember this, proceed with caution, the days of swaggering about and taking what he wanted were over for now, but would come again, he knew, oh my yes they would come again. He’d find his sister; find where that filthy human prince had taken her. If he had hurt her, there would be hells to pay. He would make the man rue the day he was born, take him apart piece by precious piece and savor every last scream, every whisper of agony until he begged for mercy. He would visit upon him vengeance for ALL he and his sister had to go through. He would find Shoda, he HAD to, she needed him, he was sure.

The crack of a stick brought him up short. He stopped, listening, his long ears pricked for any sound. His forestry skills were unmatched, weren’t they? It wasn’t him that made that tiniest of telltale sounds, was it? No! There, another rustle in the underbrush. He sprinted towards it and suddenly, a hare broke cover and he hurled himself forward, snagging a leg with one hand. He didn’t even bother to twist the creature; instead he simply took it by the neck and pulled, killing the terrified beast instantly.

“Who’s there?” A voice called out from the gathering darkness.

Laok cursed himself silently for his eagerness, his carelessness. But then, an idea struck and he drew himself up carefully, keeping low. “Who asks? Be you friend or foe to Carolin?” He called softly, ready to bolt should the strange voice belong to a soldier. He was in no position to fight.

“Who would ask? Be you Human, Jothani, or other?”

Laok sighed, relaxing instantly. Only a Jothani, other, or human sympathizer would ask if he was other. Carolin faithful only cared if you were Human or other. Their racist hate blinded them to everything else. “Jothani! And a fugitive! Sanctuary, please!” He called, standing up, doing his best to look the poor wretch he was.

A form parted the bushes and immediately Laok’s deep-seated, primal anger was awoken again and he hurled himself at the hapless man. Virgil screamed and fell back beneath the larger Jothani’s assault, “No! Stop, you can’t stop I won’t hurt you!” He cried, terrified for his life.

Laok straightened up, a feral growl escaping his lips, his face a mask of fury, “What did you do to her!” He yelled, holding the man up by the neck, pressed up against a tree.

“I freed her! I was coming back for you, I swear!” His throat worked painfully under Laok’s tight grip as his hands scrabbled futilely for purchase on the Jothani’s arms.

“Then WHERE IS SHE!” Laok thundered, his lavender eyes blazing with unbridled fury.

“She- she left, she didn’t want me, she left, towards Asumptee…” Virgil gasped. His legs were working, scraping desperately against the bark of the tree.

For having been imprisoned as long as he was, starved, and beaten, Laok was still a force to be reckoned with. He growled again and began to glow. He pulled Virgil down from the tree and started dragging him by the collar. He dragged him back to where he knew the campsite was. With an unnecessary force, born of pure viciousness, Laok threw the hapless man down, cracking his skull on the edge of the fire pit. Virgil struggled for a moment to maintain consciousness then, lost the battle, and all went black.


When he woke up again it was proper night, but the ground in front of his face was illuminated by an angry red glow. Where was he? He could hear the sound of someone working nearby, a fire, and he could smell roasting meat. He rolled over with a groan, but Laok was on top of him in an instant. The giant Jothan straddled his hips, his dark green hands clutching vice like at the front of his tunic. His face was frighteningly impassive as he just sat there, staring for a moment, his face eerily illuminated by the dancing flames. He looked like a demon. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he spoke, “Where’s my sister?”

Virgil tried to answer, but his throat was on fire. He coughed and spluttered and finally managed to croak, “I don’t know…”

That was the wrong answer. Laok’s impassive expression flashed to one of anger and he lifted Virgil’s chest up off the ground and slammed him back down again. He saw stars for a moment, “What did you do with her!”

“I- I freed her, but she didn’t want me-“

“Didn’t want you?” Laok’s tone was a dangerous whisper as understanding dawned on his face. He slammed the man on the ground again, “You perverted bastard! How DARE you force yourself on my sister!”

“I- it wasn’t like that! I didn’t force anything! She didn’t want me! She ran off, towards Asumptee, I… I never saw her again… I don’t know what happened to her.”

Laok’s lips thinned to an angry line in his face, “And you’re not going to.” He growled then punched Virgil in the jaw. It was like being hit with a sledgehammer. His head exploded in pain and tears sprang to his eyes. He was hauled roughly to his feet and dragged a short distance. Then, the ground beneath his feet disappeared. Laok was holding him out over a cliff. He couldn’t help it, he screamed, the long plummet to the bottom terrifying him.

Laok brought his face close to Virgil’s, stared into his eyes, and whispered, “I don’t EVER want to see you again.” And he tossed him off the cliff.

Virgil screamed again as the ground rushed up at him, faster than he would have thought. A ledge caught him, he rolled off, caught another, barely held. His hands were sweating, blood pouring from somewhere, pain everywhere. He slipped and dropped again, cracked the back of his head but held fast. Before he slipped into darkness again he stared upward and saw Laok, fury burning in his mockingly soft lavender eyes, the angry red glow of the volcano burning behind him.

Laok is a dick

Rain was sheeting out of the heavens with the endless abandon of a sky that was crying her heart out. Thick blackish green clouds roiled overhead, shifting endlessly and growling with what sounded to Shoda like a primal, malicious intent. But that could just be her mood. She sat with her back pressed up against a cold and clammy wall, slippery with years of mossy slime that had accumulated. A trickle of rainwater traced its icy path down her back, between her shoulder blades, but she was beyond the ability to care. Her arm throbbed with a dull red heat as sticky yellow ichor seeped from the week-old wound. Trying desperately to heal the loss of her limb.
“Psst.” A voice drifted into her cell, sounding like the barest dream, something out of her fever-induced nightmares. But it came again, “Psst.”
She cracked open her swollen and red-rimmed eyes, crusty from blood and sweat, “Whut?” she croaked around her freshly swollen lip.
“S-Shoda? A-are you there?” It was Laok.
“Yea… are you OK?”
Her brother grunted, scraping noises from the adjacent cell sounded like he was shifting position, “I can’t think Shoda, I c-can’t see… I… I think they took my eye…”
It came back in a flash, the swords glinting in the firelight, the rows upon rows of tents. Shoda groaned, “The arm…” Eyes already raw from the beating she had received began to well with tears once again as she thought of her village, and the burning shambles it must be by now. Her rivers clogged with bodies and the little earth and thatch huts burning. She thought of Roburt and couldn’t stand the memory anymore. She began to howl, a hollow, desperate, and hopeless sound. She howled with rage and sorrow. She howled until her throat was raw and she could only lean over on the dirty floor, her chest shaking with wracking sobs she was too spent to utter.
It didn’t help matters that Laok was so silent in the adjacent cell, only uttering an occasional whimper when he bumped into something.
She didn’t know what time it was, it was impossible to tell. The only window that she could tell was very far up and it looked like the path to it was crooked, so only the barest hint of light filtered down. She got more light through the tiny barred window in her cell door, through which she could just discern the light of a torch far down the hall.
She didn’t know how long she laid there, passing in and out of consciousness. The back of her head was throbbing and whenever she tried to sit up it exploded with pain. If she could just get to Laok they could help each other.
Eventually someone came and slipped a narrow tray of food under the door. It was thin porridge with a tough hunk of bread and a small tin cup of water. They were going to starve her! She wrestled with burning anger for a moment before it collapsed back in on itself and gave way to despair again.
“Why am I here? I didn’t do anything to deserve this!” She yelled at her door. Only her echoes were there to answer her. “Laok? Are you awake? Laok? Laok!” She couldn’t hear his breathing from the other cell; would she even be able to? But he wasn’t answering, had he fallen unconscious? Was he… was he dead? She threw herself against the thick iron-bound wooden door, trying to make enough noise to wake her brother up if he had fallen asleep. But the doors were thick, and didn’t echo. She fell back when the pain in her left arm wouldn’t let her continue. She kept calling his name. She called until her throat was raw with effort, until she collapsed into tears again.
She woke with a start. The tray of food was gone, and there was a scratching on the other side of her cell wall. “Shoda? Shoda please don’t leave me…”
“Laok!” She scrambled to the other side of her cell, pressing close to the wall, trying to get as close to her brother as she could, “Laok…” she sobbed, “I thought you had passed out… or died…”
He managed to laugh feebly, “I thought… I thought you had…” It was a feeble joke, but some combination of stress, pain and exhaustion made them laugh. The two Jothani sat side-by-side in adjacent cells laughing, releasing pent-up frustrations. It helped, it didn’t make the pain or hunger any better, but it went a long way to dispelling some of the despair the both of them felt.
“Laok, we have to get together somehow maybe…” She paused, uncertain.
“What Shoda? Spit it out!”
“Well, maybe, do you remember what you used to do to the fish?” Her tone was cautious, like she was probing the edge of an idea that didn’t bear thinking about.
“Yeah, what are you on to?”
“Maybe, could you do it to a- a person?”
“I can try.” He said simply, in a dead-sounding voice.
Shoda sat back, leaning against the wall and thought about what she had asked her brother to do. Finally, she voiced her thoughts again, “You’re actually scaring me a little Laok.”
“Why?”
“Roburt made us promise only to use our ability to help people I do-“
“We are, we’re helping ourselves.” Laok’s tone was unexpectedly sharp.
“That’s not what I meant” Shoda began reasonably.
“I know what you meant,” he snapped, “They put my eye out Shoda! Took your arm! What makes you think they’re planning on being any kinder now that we’re stuck in here huh? I don’t know about you but I’ll gladly do to them what they did to us and more to get out of here.” He lapsed into an angry silence while Shoda sat, stunned.
“I- I don’t want to fight” She whispered.
“Then don’t.”
Shoda sat, staring at the wall for a long moment before she crawled to a pile of moldy straw and curled up. Shivering, it was many hours before she managed to find sleep.

Of Emily

There it was sitting in front of him, just for the taking, his opportunity, his freedom. A guard stood with his hand on the cell door, lit from behind by the fitfully burning torches.

"The king wants you."

"Oh does he now? Fancy that."

"None of your lip beast, or I'll put your other eye out."

Laok chuckled as his head hung between his knees, "Do that and I'll be no use to anyone."
The guard just bent forward and grabbed the Jothani's arm and hauled him roughly to his feet. Laok had been imprisoned so long there wasn't much he could do to fight back... yet.

The tiny girl, almost skeletally thin, lay on a bed of finest linen and down, looking like some horribly starved effigy enshrined as a god. Laok looked down at the young princess in disgust. The guard had deposited him in the royal bedchamber where she waited, along with her nervous and fretting parents. He slid them a sidelong glance and smiled inwardly. Oh how far the mighty had fallen, to finally turn to /his/ aid.

Well, he had better get to work. He clicked in his mind and looked at the girl. He was momentarily taken aback by the amount of infection that laced through her, he had a moment of pure panic where he thought he would barely have enough energy to heal the girl, let alone enact his plan. Then he smiled inside again and turned to the king, his expression rearranged into one of worry, "She is very, very sick. I don't think I have the strength to heal her, at least not all at once..." He turned his gaze back to the girl, "Though maybe, over the course of a moon, if I was given more to eat..."

The guard grunted unhappily, obviously loath to give his prisoner any better treatment than he was already getting. The king, however, was almost ready to fall all over himself in his eagerness to supply Laok with what he needed. "Yes, double rations, and meat too, not just bread and water, see to it!"

The young Jothani extended his hand over the sleeping girl's chest, closed his eyes, and dove. He really wasn't very good at this. He did his best to ease her illness but expended much more energy than he should have. His healing was clumsy and poorly wielded, but when he finally pulled out and opened his eyes he saw that he had been able to do some visible good. She had a little bit of color back in her. She was still pale but no longer bordering on the transparent, and her breaths came easier without the rattling sobs she had before.

"Emily!" The king lurched forward and flung his arms around his daughter, tears welling up in his eyes. He parted her hair with shaking hands and kissed her forehead. "Why won't she wake?" He asked, his voice shaking.

"I told you, I'm not strong enough to heal her outright, it might take up to a moon." Laok was visibly wilting, leaning on a table for support. He was also quickly loosing patience and just wanted to go lay down.

"You can go then, and you'll get double-rations from now on, with meat thrown in." The king nodded to the guard who grabbed Laok roughly by his atrophied bicep and guided him back to his cell.

When the door clanged shut Laok had his head once again hanging between his knees. This time, however, his shoulders were shaking in silent laughter as he realized, the key to his freedom had finally presented itself.

Wow

This isn't a regular story installment, no, this blog is to let anyone who cares know about the best $6 I ever spent! I comissioned an artist on DA to draw me a sketch of Shoda and Laok fighting and the result has got me bouncing off the walls in excitement. Here is the sketch, I plan on coloring it up in the near future :)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v442/WICKED_ZOEYGIRL/ZG-_Sketch.jpg

A Gift of Self

(( for an added experience, you might want to listen to 'Voodoo' by Godsmack while reading this ))

The beat of the drums and the flicker of the bonfire off the faces clustered around all conspired to give the small village an air of mystery and allure
Shoda stepped into the firelight, her face impassive. She was dressed sparsely, sporting only a loincloth to cover her nether regions. All her other adornments were ceremonial. Around her neck she wore her age-tabard, with twenty rows of beads to represent the number of years she had lived. On her arms was a pair of cuffs plated in gold and inscribed with the sacred symbols for Self and set with red stones. ON her head was a headband adorned with the skull of the red-winged blackbird along with beads and feathers.
She stepped forward again, fully entering the firelight, her feet standing firm on the hard packed earth. The assemblage quieted as she stared around her. There was Roburt, sitting cross-legged on a platform erected just for him, next to the aged shaman was her brother, looking excited and just a little jealous. To her right sat the train from Kish, the curious yellow-skinned Jothani named Aoris, his head still bandaged where Shoda had been unable to fully heal his wounds. He smiled at her, and she blushed.
Someone started up with a drum and she closed her eyes, feeling the pulse of the beat as a larger, bass-type drum joined in. She leaned back slowly, letting the rhythm throb through her, electrifying all of her senses. One step forward, two to the side, lean forward, tap your toes on the ground, listen. A tinkling from the direction of the platform told her Laok had joined in with his tambourine. She hopped in a circle in time with her brother’s music, letting him lead her, he in turn being led by the drummers. It was an amazing feeling, letting her be led by the music of her village, bowing below their wisdom, serving them and them serving her in return.
When someone started in on a small, piping flute she leapt into the air, spinning her legs around and cavorted in the firelight. The flute trilled and danced and she danced in return, stepping lightly, leaping with grace, falling hard to the beat of the drums that coursed through her.
She paused, lifted her head, and took a moment to watch the sparks from the fire spiraling upward among the trees to fade away as they danced with the stars. She opened her mouth and started to sing, high, yelling, soulful. She stamped her feet and came down, skipped around the bonfire and followed the music again. Rising when it did, and falling when it failed. She kept her eyes to the bonfire, feeling its primal heat lick against her cool green skin. Breathing in, she finally understood. She opened her soul to her village, took her Self and gave it to them.
She started to glow, with a soft white light. Tendrils of her Self licked at the ends of her fingers, played at the ends of her toes. As she leapt and cavorted she left shining tracks of her passage hanging, quivering in the night air. She could feel it. She felt her Self leaving her, felt the rest of the villagers taking it in, taking her for their own. It was exhausting, but wonderful, it felt like sex and she luxuriated in it. Loving every moment of giving herself to those she would be serving.
Finally the rest of the villagers began to sing. She could pick out her brother’s strong tenor, could hear Roburt’s shaking baritone all intertwined with voices she had grown to know and love, and even voices she didn’t recognize. The travelers from Kish must be singing too.
She spun to a stop and slowly opened her eyes. She had landed before the yellow-skinned Jothani from Kish, Aoris. His face was flushed and sweaty, his eyes shining. She smiled again as he applauded. The rest of the village soon followed and she straightened up and walked to the platform to kneel before Roburt.
“That was well done daughter! Well done indeed!”
She found she couldn’t reply, she was panting and spent, but he seemed to understand. He rested a hand on her head as Laok struck up another tattoo on the tambourine. She felt coming back to her a little of what she had given out, not all of it, no. She would never get that back, but it was given freely and she would never ask for it back. But this tiny bit was enough for now, enough that she could stand again, and face the village, her village now, and join in the festivities.

Let's start this again

“Unnh…” Shoda groaned as she shifted herself in the hammock for what felt like the hundredth time that night. It was hot, hotter than it had been all summer, and this summer was hotter than any she could ever remember. The rest of the village felt it too. Roburt said it was a good sign; that the world was returning to the way it had been before the Great War over one thousand years ago.
But none of these thoughts helped Shoda feel any cooler. To make matters worse, not only was it hot, but the miles upon miles of swamp outside her door made it muggy too. So Shoda lay in her softly swinging hammock, trying her best not to touch herself or anything else, and praying for a breeze.
“Laok, are you awake?” She whispered into the darkness.
“Am now,” groaned her brother from the other side of the stifling hut, “And thanks a lot too, I’d only just gotten to sleep.” He added grumpily before shifting himself into a more comfortable position.
“Oh… sorry,” Shoda mumbled, but she needn’t have bothered. The soft snores emanating from the far side of the hut made it clear that Laok did not have the same trouble falling asleep that she did.
She sighed again and screwed her eyes shut, determined to ignore the sweat pouring off her brow and force herself to sleep. She was only partially successful. She fell into a restless sleep, tossing and turning, waking frequently then dropping off again. It was the farthest thing from restful that could be had, so when she woke up in the morning to find a fish dancing on her chest she was significantly less than amused.
The tiny, yellow river fish jerked to and fro, its useless gills straining as it suffocated. Shoda grabbed the fish and tumbled out of her hammock. She was out the door and down the ramp, into the swampy water faster than it took to cough three times. Carefully, she dipped the tiny fish into the slowly moving water, her own lungs burning in sympathy.
The fish didn’t swim away; it just lay there, bobbing on her fingertips, twitching feebly. She cringed as she realized what she was going to have to do. If her lungs seemed to burn now it was nothing compared with how they were about to feel. She closed her eyes and concentrated. She concentrated her entire being on the limp fish that bobbed at the ends of her fingertips and slowly, painfully slowly she felt bits of herself seeping away from her. Conversely, the fish’s twitching became stronger, its thrashes held more purpose until, with a final flick of its tail it sped off Shoda’s fingertips and disappeared into the murky water.
She opened her eyes again and turned around. There in the doorway stood her brother, arms crossed with a smug grin plastered across his face. “Ye liked ye little wake-up dance eh sis?”
“I’m going to kill you Laok!” and Shoda raced up the ramp and flung herself through the door, tackling Laok to the ground. “How DARE you twist one of those fish! You were torturing it couldn’t you see?” Every other word or so was punctuated by a slap.
Laok grunted and swung his weight around until he had his older sister well and truly pinned. During the last year he had finally gotten his growth spurt and was using the advantage of his added inches to full effect. “Oy Shoda! It’s just a fish. I don’t see why you’re getting all up in arms about it! Besides, Roburt told us to practice.”
Shoda squirmed in Laok’s viselike grip, unwilling to give up, “You should be practicing by healing small hurts like normal people, not torturing small animals!”
“Psh, you know I’m no good at that namby-pamby healing junk.”
“That ‘namby-pamby healing junk’, as you call it, is one of the most powerful forces known to Human and Jothani-kind alike!”
Laok just rolled his eyes and snorted as he levered himself up off of Shoda.
His sister, however, wasn’t finished, “No, listen to me Laok! Roburt said he hadn’t seen talents like ours in his whole life!”
Laok rounded on her, his lavender eyes blazing, “Roburt’s lived in a tiny village in a backwater swamp, what the crack does he kn-“
“He was court leech to the Carolin crown! Roburt said so!”
“Roburt said so, Roburt said so.” Laok glared, his tone dangerous, “You know what your problem is Shoda? You’re too ready to believe anything that old man says. I say we find a good Jothani teacher and leave the humans to themselves.”
“You are the absolute worst!” and without another word Shoda turned on her heel and stormed out of the small hut she and her brother called home.
The tepid water of the swamp sloshed around her calves as her toes sank into the muck of the swollen river-bed up to her knuckles. But that was why Jothani did so well in the swamp. They didn’t need any kind of special shoes to stay above ground in this muck. Their large, splay-toed feet did just fine.

Virgil sees Shoda

His first glance of her was as she was drug into the castle, quite publicly, and through the front gates. She was bloody and purple with bruising through her olive-toned skin, but all he could do was stare into her vivid orange eyes and become lost in the amount of will he found there, her fierce determination and undying spirit to fight.
Her left arm was in a tourniquet just above the elbow, the bloody stump weeping fitfully, but she didn’t seem to notice. She fought her captors like a caged animal as, indeed, his older brother, the King of Carolin, would have everyone believe she was. Her claws made the most horrendous squealing on the stones of the courtyard as the burly guards dragged her forward. Her eyes stared around in ager, daring anyone to stare her way. Well Virgil dared, and when her eyes met his he was frozen in place, a chill going down his spine, and an electricity jarring a part of his brain awake. She was what he had been missing in his life, that fierce determination, that lust for life, he’d been lost in a sea of apathy and he hadn’t even realized it until that one electrifying moment when her eyes had met his.
Finally one of the guards had the sense to club her over the back of the head and she dropped like a stone, hanging limp from the grasps of the guards who now struggled briefly to hold her up. He hadn’t realized how big she was either; she must be easily six and a half feet tall! The off=duty guards were saying that her brother was even larger, and muscled well at that. But they had put his eye out after they had drugged him, otherwise, Virgil guessed, the tall Jothani would have been next to impossible to control, as it was he was ensconced safely in his cell and only his sister needed to be deposited.
Suddenly a thought struck Virgil like a thunderbolt and the prince held up his hand and yelled, “Stop!” He performed that familiar twist in his mind and blinked his eyes. “Holy!” He staggered back a pace, two. The girl was GLOWING. Even unconscious she was radiant with ability. The white halo that surrounded her told him not only was she a Self user, but she had the most astonishingly strong Self ability he had ever seen.
“Place them in separate cells, she uses Self.” The guards looked shocked, one of them even dropped the girl’s arm and her weight dragged the other guard to the ground. With a mumbled apology he picked his burden back up and the two resumed dragging her limp and unconscious body back into the castle.
A Self user, he would have to go down to the dungeons and read her brother too, such things tended to run in families and if they both could heal, well the two unfortunate Jothani might find themselves a stay of execution after all. The army always needed healers and Virgil knew his brother wouldn’t hesitate to use them to their fullest potential.
However, as the prince followed the guards down into the dungeons he couldn’t help but experience a twinge of regret. Regret at what he had condemned this poor girl to, this girl who had such a fierce and penetrating gaze.

Bar scene setting

Virgil held the door open for a second longer as Shoda stepped in. She was swathed head to toe in a charcoal grey robe to protect her from the prying eyes in Carolin City. This bar, howerver, was at the end of a long and dark alley and the barkeep and patrons didn't give a shake if she was human, Jothani, or other. As the pair stepped in and allowed the door to close behind them they were enveloped in the familiar and oddly comforting coccoon of bar smells. Beer, sweat, and a hint of stale urine warred for dominance but they paid it no heed, instead taking a table in an out of the way corner, lit fitfully by smoking tallow dips.

(( Setup for a bar scene, I think we're still in Carolin City ))

The foggy future

Writing Lamentation has become a very interesting process. Whenever I sit down to write it my characters fly out of my hands, it's like trying to clutch at a fistful of sand in a whipping gale. They are ephemeral, difficult, yet refuse to be left alone. For the past year I've been exploring Shoda as a young woman and completely lost sight of who she is and why her story is called Lamentation.

Then today I listened to a song and she stepped out and reminded me. Her song has changed, or was stolen. Either way, her old song no longer has any of her in it, it's a desperate and grasping song. Her new one is very contemplative, suicidal, still a bit desperate, but somehow unafraid. She sees her future, the way the world is revolving about her, about the things she does. She mourns the past as one removed, distant, but living just the same.

"Hold me now
I'm six feet from the edge and I'm thinking
maybe six feet
Ain't so far down"

I've lost track of where I'm going, the story is there, but it's become wooden, stilted, without depth and posessing some very serious holes. The next couple pages for the comic are already written, but between doing that I'll be spending my time sketching, trying to find what I've lost. She's such a deep and soulful character, she deserves more and I feel like I owe it to her.

A bit of history

Once there was a great race of people. They lived very very far from here and knew much of magic and were masters at using it in the five forms. Their Self Masters saw the links the planets made in their galactic dance, saw that those supporting life formed a rapport, and reached out to one another across the vastness of space. They learned to track these linkages, to learn the grandly subtle language of the planets and worked with the other Elemental users to create great ships to quickly traverse the distances to other inhabited planets.

The first peoples they came upon where the Dohlkele. If you've never seen one it's very difficult for me to describe them. They are small, winged, and resemble a cross between a deer and a crow. They have long tails for steering and claws on their legs for gripping trees. The oddest thing about the Dohlkele, however, isn't their appearance, but their memory. They have none. When this space-faring people came upon the Dohlkele they were greeted by a chorus of voices, all speaking in unison. They have a hive-like mentality and a collective memory. They took one of the Dohlkele with them on their ship and soon found he was unable to remember from day to day. The space-farers saw how vulnerable the Dohlkele would be to outside invasion and made a deal with them to always protect them from harm in exchange for the use of their planet.

The space-faring people, which you by now might have guessed to be your Jothani ancestors, prospered and became numerous. They explored many different planets, but no creatures they encountered they enjoyed spending time with quite as much as the Dohlkele. When the Dohlkele's sun was dying, the Jothani worked to make a home for them on one of the moons in their own system. This was done, and both races prospered.

But this time of prosperity couldn't last forever. A great Cataclysim occured. Some say the Elemental users used too much, some say a hostile race was discovered and attacked before any could give warning, some say it was the Jothani's pride itself that brought the once great nation to its knees. Either way, the Jothani were forced to evacuate. They took the Dohlkele and as many native creatures as they could and fled the system. We know there was an explosion, it rocked the bonds of the living planets and shot the Jothani farther and faster than they had ever ventured before. They became trapped around a system that held one small yellow sun and nine planets, the third of which called to their navigators. It was teeming with life.

-Excerpt from The Exodus, as recorded by Raoute Le, Jothani Archivist.

Fete reassurances

The whole village was buzzing with activity today, indeed had been for the past few days.

"Roburt... when do you think they'll get here?" Shoda eyed the preparations going on down the road. It looked like the pavilion was being raised and the bonfire mound was being piled with kindling and logs. She bit her lip nervously. She and Laok had never been to one of the famous fetes. They only happened every five to ten years or so, an opportunity for all the tiny outlying mixed villages to come together, trade goods and services, and equally important, provide young Humans and Jothani chances to meet other youngsters their age. Shoda herself was quite past the age when young Jothani women normally married, but because of recent raids it just wasn't safe for large numbers of Jothani to travel openly anymore.

Roburt seemed to sense what she was thinking and circled her shoulders with a long bony arm and smiled, "Lassie, I don't think ye needin' to be worryin'. I've been keepin' the worry hounds busy enough chasin' me own mind about these years since ye parents be trottin' off this earth, dah? I do be seein' great things for you and Laok, and be keepin' in mind, Ye be not the only older young'un comin' lookin for companionship."

She smiled shyly. She was 26 this year, but Jothani usually married ten or more years earlier. Now that she thought of it, Laok was getting a little up there too. It wasn't like she should really be worrying anyway, pure Self users were pretty rare, so they would both be welcome wherever they went.

Use of Self

There was a sloshing and a squelching slowly making its way closer. Shoda didn't bother to raise her head, there were only two it could be, and she'd find out in a second. Her clever fingers worked the tiny paring knife around a particularly knobbly eye in the potato when a soft 'clack' told her exactly who was walking up to her. Now she raised her head, brushed her hair out of her eyes and smiled. A face more lined with age than the delta was with streams smiled back at her. His dark eyes sparkled and his wooden wading shoes clacked softly against each other as he levered himself up onto the ramp to the house and joined Shoda on the porch.

"Hullo dah." Shoda greeted warmly, putting the now peeled potato in the bucket with the other ones as the tiny fish made off with the last of the peelings.

The old man chuckled as he watched their antics. "Ye bein' ready for tonight? Ye bruther's been makin' fish to walk practicin' dah."

Shoda shook her head and sighed. Laok liked to impose his Self on the weaker creatures, he said it helped him practice, made him stronger. She didn't like it. More often than not she'd come along after he was done and get enough practice herself by putting to right what he had messed up. The fish, for example, would be left gasping for air, their gills burned and rasping. It wouldn't take but a little application of her own Self to heal the wounds and make it right again, and they were only fish, but she still didn't like it. "Why do you let him do that Roburt? It hurts 'em and it's just plain mean."

Roburt just chuckled and laid a knobbly hand on Shoda's shoulder, "Dah, he's just bein' a young lad, he be seven years ye junior missy, 'tis a phase. In time he'll turn his Self to the healin', as is right."

An Introduction

All along the treetop the cacaphony of birds was just a background lullaby to the young Jothani woman who sat on the porch, swinging her legs and peeling potatoes. She wasn't normal, by any stretch of the imagination, something alien once, now just hated and shunned.

But not here.

Something odd had happened here, in this small village out in the great back of beyond marshlands that swallowed up any suggestion that the great river was anything more than a trickle. Here for miles and miles around the great river had widened to a delta, split into rivulets during the floods, but mostly just made everything soggy. Out here where horses couldn't travel, cattle's feet would rot, and Human law dared not penetrate. In these once poisoned deltas something amazing had happened for those willing to brave the dangerous, mutated beasties that still roamed around. Human and Jothani lived side-by-side peacefully.

And so, Shoda Mayeki just sat on the porch, swinging her legs, tickling the fish that were brave enough to try to nibble on her yellowed claws, and peeling potatoes.