You’re not sure why the Seer wanted you to come along on this one, and you say as much to The Storm-Ridden Flock Above Bare Branches as you fall in beside her as you pick your way over the rough ground.
“You’re perfectly competent,” you say, with mild bafflement. “You really don’t need me…”
“Are you complaining?” asks the Rider, grinning at you sideways. “You weren’t complaining last night.”
You huff, and, after a moment… shake your head. As much as not having much straightforward work to do makes you antsy, being in close quarters alone with her isn’t exactly a punishment. It’s hard to resist the urge to run your fingers through her jet-black hair, so instead you settle for running the pad of your thumb over the fresh scratches just below your collarbones.
This city’s small, and on the poorer side; apparently of some kind of historical significance, although your memory for that isn’t as good as it is for linguistics. The ruins of an old temple dating back to the first age still lay here, although the local inhabitants have forgotten that connection and passing Immaculate monks built their own temple halfway on top of it some time ago.
Seeing this place is... a little painful. Coming in on the road, you noticed the fields don’t have nearly as much yield as a city this small would need, and the buildings are in poor repair. Urchins and beggars in the streets, but no one has much to give to them. The Realm washed its hands of this place a long time ago, and no one else has bothered to do anything for it. Anyone who stays probably won't last the next few years, the way disease, drought, famine and war plague this region.
Still, you gave your bread to a gaggle of parentless children as you passed; you’ll manage, after all. Your sense of hunger isn’t nearly as strong anymore, and even if they’ll all starve soon enough, it pains you to see them like that in the meantime.
“Hey, take a look at this,” says the Rider, calling you over, as you pick through the ruins. The Seer hasn’t told you much about why you’re supposed to do what you’re doing here, or even what you’re doing—just that “it’ll make sense when you see it.” (You’re dubious. Sometimes she’s just too on her own level to explain things properly.)
But there’s supposed to be an old artifact here, somewhere. She just said “it needs to be activated.” Probably one of those things that’ll make sense later and it’s no bother asking why now, although it still troubles you a little bit as to why you need to be here.
What she’s found is... it’s a Hearthstone, actually, embedded in a stone vessel attached to a stone pillar. “Can you read this?” she asks. “I can't.”
You frown. “This is older dialect than I’m familiar with, and some of the writing’s worn... er... I can make out some of it, though, I think. Something about... recorded history? And to access it...”
Oh.
Well, the circumstances aren’t the worst, you suppose. The price to pay—well, it’ll help alleviate some of the suffering here. In fact, it gives you a little relief to think about it, with the voices of the Neverborn pressing in around you, calling for the blood of the world.
You’re not good at trickery but you really don’t need it anyway, to get one of the urchins to follow you with the promise of more food and a campfire. She’s painfully thin, and you make sure she has a decent meal and she’s warm and comfortable, and dozed off before you break her neck and spill her blood into the vessel buried under the ruins before placing your hand on the activation rune.
It sparks, and glows for a moment, and—then sputters, the essence circuits finally overloading and burning out after untold years idle. You just... stand there, for a moment, and look at the Rider, and she looks at you, and a hot spike of anger courses through you—you drive your unholy blade into the vessel with the Hearthstone to shatter it.
“Ah—Rain, we’re supposed to—the Seer’s gonna be pissed—“
You turn to her, eyes wide, but you... don’t know why you’re angry, you realize. It would make sense, to be sorry for wasted life, but...
No, something about the feeling is...
...alien. Not yours, in a way that’s unsettling.
“Sorry,” you say, and you’re not sure to who. Is it guilt, for that girl? Is it to yourself, or for the mission, or someone else? “Sorry.”
When you return and give your report, the Seer is thoughtful, listens, and says very little. And the next day you're informed by one of her ghostly servants that you're being reassigned to the Walker in Darkness effective immediately.
Notable:
White-haired Shrike this time.
The Rider calls her Rain, which is a fragment of her full title, "Sorrowful Blade of the Softly-Falling Rain."
The Rider also appeared in memory 14, and briefly in memory 16.
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softlyfalling) wrote2019-01-24 12:53 am
memory 024
“You’re perfectly competent,” you say, with mild bafflement. “You really don’t need me…”
“Are you complaining?” asks the Rider, grinning at you sideways. “You weren’t complaining last night.”
You huff, and, after a moment… shake your head. As much as not having much straightforward work to do makes you antsy, being in close quarters alone with her isn’t exactly a punishment. It’s hard to resist the urge to run your fingers through her jet-black hair, so instead you settle for running the pad of your thumb over the fresh scratches just below your collarbones.
This city’s small, and on the poorer side; apparently of some kind of historical significance, although your memory for that isn’t as good as it is for linguistics. The ruins of an old temple dating back to the first age still lay here, although the local inhabitants have forgotten that connection and passing Immaculate monks built their own temple halfway on top of it some time ago.
Seeing this place is... a little painful. Coming in on the road, you noticed the fields don’t have nearly as much yield as a city this small would need, and the buildings are in poor repair. Urchins and beggars in the streets, but no one has much to give to them. The Realm washed its hands of this place a long time ago, and no one else has bothered to do anything for it. Anyone who stays probably won't last the next few years, the way disease, drought, famine and war plague this region.
Still, you gave your bread to a gaggle of parentless children as you passed; you’ll manage, after all. Your sense of hunger isn’t nearly as strong anymore, and even if they’ll all starve soon enough, it pains you to see them like that in the meantime.
“Hey, take a look at this,” says the Rider, calling you over, as you pick through the ruins. The Seer hasn’t told you much about why you’re supposed to do what you’re doing here, or even what you’re doing—just that “it’ll make sense when you see it.” (You’re dubious. Sometimes she’s just too on her own level to explain things properly.)
But there’s supposed to be an old artifact here, somewhere. She just said “it needs to be activated.” Probably one of those things that’ll make sense later and it’s no bother asking why now, although it still troubles you a little bit as to why you need to be here.
What she’s found is... it’s a Hearthstone, actually, embedded in a stone vessel attached to a stone pillar. “Can you read this?” she asks. “I can't.”
You frown. “This is older dialect than I’m familiar with, and some of the writing’s worn... er... I can make out some of it, though, I think. Something about... recorded history? And to access it...”
Oh.
Well, the circumstances aren’t the worst, you suppose. The price to pay—well, it’ll help alleviate some of the suffering here. In fact, it gives you a little relief to think about it, with the voices of the Neverborn pressing in around you, calling for the blood of the world.
You’re not good at trickery but you really don’t need it anyway, to get one of the urchins to follow you with the promise of more food and a campfire. She’s painfully thin, and you make sure she has a decent meal and she’s warm and comfortable, and dozed off before you break her neck and spill her blood into the vessel buried under the ruins before placing your hand on the activation rune.
It sparks, and glows for a moment, and—then sputters, the essence circuits finally overloading and burning out after untold years idle. You just... stand there, for a moment, and look at the Rider, and she looks at you, and a hot spike of anger courses through you—you drive your unholy blade into the vessel with the Hearthstone to shatter it.
“Ah—Rain, we’re supposed to—the Seer’s gonna be pissed—“
You turn to her, eyes wide, but you... don’t know why you’re angry, you realize. It would make sense, to be sorry for wasted life, but...
No, something about the feeling is...
...alien. Not yours, in a way that’s unsettling.
“Sorry,” you say, and you’re not sure to who. Is it guilt, for that girl? Is it to yourself, or for the mission, or someone else? “Sorry.”
When you return and give your report, the Seer is thoughtful, listens, and says very little. And the next day you're informed by one of her ghostly servants that you're being reassigned to the Walker in Darkness effective immediately.
Notable: