Since the Butchering of Westend, all citizens of the realm have sworn to never let it happen again. At any cost.
Ciaran Xanderson is my OC.
Tags: sfw, fight, action
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was a dark morning along the realms today. Clouds hung over every
road, city and town, yet no rain fell. However, that meant it wasn't hot
or sweaty. Many people, adventurers and otherwise, were grateful, as
there had been a hot spell recently.
A lone
figure walked along a beaten dirt track. Dust-covered simple shoes and
dark-grey trousers led up to a grey tunic and bracers. The figure's left
hand shot up to shield a pair of light blue eyes from a beam of
sunlight sneaking through a gap in a cloud. A wooden holster holding a
wand was fixed to his left bicep. The purple "C.X." on his tunic's left
side shone slightly.
"Help! Help me!
Please!" A cry sounded from behind him and he turned, reaching for his
wand just in case. He quickly noticed that he didn't need it. The woman
running towards him had pale skin, bright blonde hair falling onto her
shoulders, and wore a black dress that had certainly seen better days.
She had small cuts all over her body, too. "Please-please help me!" The
woman begged him.
"What's wrong?" Ciaran Xanderson asked.
"I-I'm
on the run from a bunch of puritans who killed my husband I thought it
was such a good idea to stay the night there at first but now he's dead
and I-"
"Slow down." the wizard told her.
She was talking too fast for him. "A bunch of assholes killed your
husband and you're running away from them. I got that part, and I'm
sorry to hear it."
She swallowed and spoke
slower. "Thank you... We were heading for his homeland to the East. We
stopped for a night in this city called Pureza. It was only when the
guards burst into the room that we learned interspecies relationships
are punishable by death." The woman explained. "He didn't
hesitate-charged into them like the minotaur he was and started swinging
fists. I wanted to help him, but he reminded me of our child, so I
ran..."
"What makes you so sure he's gone?"
"I felt it... Like a spear through my heart... I knew he was gone... so I just... kept running..." She began to sob.
"What do you need from me?"
"I...
just need an escort... while I keep moving East... I can't offer
anything in return but my-ah! They're here!" She ducked behind Ciaran.
Ciaran
wheeled around, drawing his wand, but placing it behind his back
instead of raising it. He'd rather this not degenerate into a fight. 2
dozen guards, all clad in steel armour, were walking towards him.
"Sir,
I regret to inform that a fugitive of justice is hiding behind you."
One of them told the wizard. He was clearly the leader-he wore a golden
strip of cloth on his waist.
Ciaran answered politely "Yes, she just told me that you killed her minotaur husband and she ran to save her child."
"Then you understand why we're here?" The leader sounded hopeful that Ciaran would turn the woman over.
"Not
one bit. She's away from your city and outside of your jurisdiction."
Ciaran simply said. Behind his back, he fingered the handle of his wand.
"Our laws have no jurisdiction. There can be no sanctuary for women like her."
"'Women like her'?" Ciaran repeated.
"Race
traitors. Interbreeders. Only a savage would seek the company of
beasts." The leader stated matter-of-factly "Now, step aside so we can
bring this woman to justice and-"
Ciaran had heard enough. His wand swished through the air followed by his cry of "Glacies Sagitta!"
The
spike of ice shot from his wand and hit the leader's bare forehead,
embedding itself inside.The leader toppled backwards and hit the ground
with a thud. The other soldiers gasped in shock. One of the men cried
"You-you killed him!"
"Good to know your
eyes work." Ciaran answered coldly, pointing his wand at the rest of
them. "I give the rest of you a single chance to surrender and run. Your
city is making the same bigoted, morally depraved mistake that caused
the Butchering of Westend."
"What the hell was the Butchering of Westend?" A woman asked, stepping forwards.
"It was a massive civil war between humans and non-humans. Millions were killed." One of the men answered.
"Since
the Butchering, every citizen of Westend has had to take an oath once
they hit adulthood: Never again." Ciaran added "If I have to kill you
all to uphold that oath, so be it. If I have to burn your city until it
is nothing but glass to uphold that oath, so be it."
"Are you threatening our city?!" The woman shouted.
"Are YOU continuing to threaten this innocent woman?!" Ciaran spat back. He felt nothing but rage coursing through him.
"You call her innocent?! She lay with a minotaur!"
"Oh,
dear Gods! A woman lay with a man that she was in love with!" Ciaran
sarcastically shouted "She's clearly unfit to be a mother, or even to
exist at all!" Ciaran's tone became a lot darker "Going by that logic,
you probably execute homosexual people for absolutely nothing but being
homosexual too."
A few of the guards were
visibly taken aback by this. One man spoke up "We used to... long before
any of our times... But it was described as inhumane and stricken from
the laws..."
"Enough of this talk! This wizard just killed
a guard of our city! KILL HIM!" The woman ordered. Most of the guards
charged at him, but he noticed 6 or so of them stayed put.
Ciaran
jumped backwards while pointing his wand forwards, shouting "Fluvius
Ignis!" A jet of fire burst from his wand's tip and drove the guards
backwards. He quickly followed up with a cry of "Fulgur fluunt" and the
stream of lightning connected between 5 of them, but the spell channeled
around their armour and into the ground.
Internally padded armour. So they weren't as stupid as they were bigoted.
The
guards kept charging at him, and while he was able to deflect their
blows with shorts blasts of force, he had no chance to counterattack.
One of them tried to get behind him and was rewarded with another icicle
to the head, but this only infuriated the rest of them further. Their
blows came faster and harder, and Ciaran had to drive them back from him
somehow-
"Fluvius ignis!" Ciaran's second
stream of fire pushed them back a fraction, but it was a temporary
relief. They recovered quickly.
One of the 6
guards who didn't attack Ciaran charged into the fray with a shout and
her one-handed axe met the head of one of the other guards. She wrenched
it out of his head with a spin that placed her by Ciaran's side. She
looked the other guards in the eyes, placing herself in front of him.
"The wizard's right. Love isn't a crime." she told them simply.
"Treachery is! Kill h-GLRK!" The guardwoman's shout was silenced by a greatsword stabbing through her armour from behind.
"That's
enough out of you!" The male guard behind her snarled before wrenching
out his sword and turning to the other 4. "For once, let's fight for
something we -know- is right!" With no more hesitation, the 5 of them
all jumped into the ensuing battle, assisting Ciaran. They had also
removed their helmets so they could tell who was ally and foe in their
otherwise identical armour.
With only 5 or
so guards attacking him now, Ciaran was able to focus a lot better. He
was able to blast one of them backwards with another Repulsa spell and
duck another's sword swing. He swished his wand upwards and the sword
was flung into the air.
In the brief
opening, the female ex-guard next to him rushed forwards and tackled a
burly guard wielding a warhammer. The wizard caught a glimpse of another
ex-guard plunge a dagger into the eyeslit of a helmet. The wearer
screamed out loud until the other dagger slipped under his helmet and he
was silenced.
Ciaran's next ice spike hit a
nearby guard in the arm. He recoiled and shouted in pain, giving one of
the rouges the chance to run him through the neck from behind. The
soldiers were clearly shaken by their loss of momentum; they'd become
slightly sloppier. Good. That made this easier.
Ciaran's
next spell came with a shout of "Glacies Conlectus" with his wand
pointing downwards. The ice spike hit the ground at his feet, and it was
frozen as the wizard jumped backwards. One of the guards, who'd lunged
forward in an attempt to attack, was stuck in place by the spell.
Another ice spike under the helmet finished them off.
The
last guard fighting him swung her mace but it was met with a blast of
force from Ciaran's wand. The mace flew from her grasp and Ciaran gave
her no reprieve-shooting another stream of fire that cooked her alive in
her armour as she screamed in agony. A similar agony to the pain she
was allowing and enforcing against others, Ciaran hoped.
He
turned around and froze in shock; one burly guard using a warhammer
managed to knock two of the rogues off balance at once with a single
swing that left a streak of red embers in it's wake. Ciaran recognized
the enchantment used; Melting Point. The guard advanced to one of them
as they both lay prone, weakened by the attack. The guard raised the
warhammer, about to kill the rogue soldier.
"Arcane
Iecit!" Ciaran shouted. He flashed purple for a second as he pointed
his wand at the guard, who'd turned to him in shock. His purple streak
of light pierced through the chestplate and the guard toppled, falling
to the side.
Only one guard was left now;
he dropped his mace in defeat. The others walked forwards but Ciaran
threw his arms wide, stopping them. He walked forwards himself.
"I've
spared you to deliver a message." Ciaran warned, his tone as venomous
as the deadliest snake. "Tell your city that if even one more person
comes for this woman, or her child, I will come to your city and burn it
to the ground, lest it's corrupt views spread and infect the rest of
the world. Nobody will survive. More importantly, nobody will notice
until it's too late."
The guard nodded,
grabbed their mace and ran back the way the guards came. There was a
definite pause, broken by a sword dropping to the ground. "We just
killed our comrades..." One of the male guards was shocked.
"This
is what the Butchering was. But it was an entire realm turning on
itself." Ciaran told him, sadly. "The humans who took the non-human's
side were decried as race-traitors too. All of that happened because a
Queen wished it so."
"Is this Pureza's fate?" The pregnant woman asked him.
"It
will be, unless they make some very big changes to their corrupt,
biased and pointless laws. I won't hold my breath." The wizard replied
"Still, we've made sure they won't be coming after you."
"Yeah... Is this the part where I offer myself to you as thanks?" The woman joked, but still sounding serious about it.
"If
you do, I'll decline. I'm not into pregnant women." Ciaran politely
answered. "I'll still escort you East though. You may attract bandits or
worse by yourself."
"What about us? We can't go back." One of the guards asked.
"That's
up to you. Personally, I'd throw away the armour and get as far away
from your city as possible." Ciaran told them before turning to the
woman and gesturing forwards. "By the way, Ciaran Xanderson."
"Oh, um, Nessia Blazhenok. Formerly Taura."
Saving a woman called Nessia? Ciaran got the feeling that fate was taunting him now.
It
wasn't much further East. Ciaran expected him and Nessia to be on the
go for two or three days, but thanks to a passing horse carriage, they
arrived at the village just as night was beginning to fall. Well, Nessia
told him it was the village but he couldn't tell due to the huge wall
made of logs. It looked more like a fort.
Two
guards, one holding an greataxe and the other a spear and shield,
stopped them as they approached. "Identify yourself and state your
business here." The greataxe one commanded.
Nessia spoke "I am Harold Blazhenok's pregnant wife. I must speak with the Chief."
The guard was taken aback, but recovered and turned to Ciaran "And you?"
"Ciaran Xanderson." The wizard answered "Nessia asked me to escort her here."
"Very
well. Follow me." The spear and shield one told them, opening the gate.
"You too, Mr Xanderson-the Chief will want to speak with you."
The
village was primarily made of wooden shacks and huts, each as high as
two of the wizard. Mere curtains of cloth covered the entrances. There
was various words painted over each doorway: "Alchemist", "Blacksmith",
"Leatherworker", "Fletcher" and-
Wait,
Fletcher? There were people who still used bows and arrows? In most
places, it was a dying practice due to the limited supplies of wood and
the higher effectiveness of magic. Ciaran supposed that in a land full
of trees, the first one wouldn't be so much of a problem as back West.
They
were led into a building made of a lighter-coloured wood than the
others. The word above the door said "Chief's House". There was a huge
table in the centre at which many minotaurs sat.
The
chief of the village was a hulking behemoth. At least three heads
taller than Ciaran, and a fair share wider. He had light brown skin and a
body like a brick house. Just by looking at him, Ciaran understood how
he'd become chief.
Next to his throne sat a
female centaur who was obviously heavily pregnant: her lower half was
swollen and you could make out spots on her tunic where milk from her
breasts was leaking. She smiled at Ciaran and Nessia as they approached.
"Chief
William." Nessia stepped forwards "I am Nessia Blazhenok, and I have
come bearing Harry Blazhenok's child, as well as news of his fate."
"What news of him?" He voice was gentler than Ciaran expected.
"Gone from this life." She answered stoically. "You know of Pureza?"
"Yes."
"Me
and Harold stopped for a night there. The guards tried to execute us,
but he charged in and started fighting to give me time to run. I ran
until late morning, pursued by guards. However, this wizard-" she
gestured to Ciaran "-fought off the guards and saved me, then escorted
me here."
"I see. You shall be looked after
by a handmaiden until the child is born. We shall honour Harry's memory
tomorrow. Now, get yourself cleaned up, fed and rested." Nessia bowed
herself out, muttering a last thank you to Ciaran. The chief now
addressed him "As thanks for bringing his wife and unborn child safely
to us, I offer you a place to rest with wine, women and song." He added
with a slight smile "Or wine, man and song."
"I'll
just take the wine and song, thank you. It's been too long of a day for
a woman." Ciaran replied. "Pink wine, if you have it. Or rum."
"Rum
it is." The chief answered, smirking before turning to a female
minotaur. "Darla, if you could escort our new friend here to your house
and play him something?"
The minotaur nodded and approached Ciaran. "Please follow me, sir."
The
chief's next words reached Ciaran's ears as he turned around and
followed her out of the building: "Thomas, fetch a bottle of rum and
take it to Darla's place. Then check on Nessia and see if she needs
anything."
Darla led him through the
village to the left side. She hummed a tune as they walked, but Ciaran
didn't recognize it. He hadn't expected to; he was a long, long way from
either Westend or Asmana, and they were entirely different cultures on
their own. He decided to just take in some of the sights, but it didn't
seem that different to any other town or village. That said, why should
it be?
He followed her into a shack with
green vines twisted around the doorframe. "Darla" was painted over the
frame. There wasn't much inside-just two straw beds and a small fire pit
that was unlit. Once inside, she produced what looked like a wooden egg
with holes carved into it. A tube extended from the side.
Ciaran's eyes went a little wider. "Is that an ocarina?" He asked.
"Yes, sir." Darla told him, smiling "Flutes are too unwieldy for me."
"I haven't seen or heard one of those since I left Westend."
"You're from Westend?"
"Born and raised, but I left and headed to Asmana. Don't ask how I ended up here-I just drift around." Ciaran smirked.
"I understand. I've never been interested in the adventuring life, myself."
"Well,
I won't try to convince you otherwise. Settling down is certainly a
safer option. And it comes with much less risks." Ciaran's voice broke
very slightly on the last three words.
Before
Darla could ask, another minotaur came through the curtain, holding a
bottle of rum and a wooden cup. "Your rum, sir. Just so you know, it's
likely stronger than what you're used to."
"Thank you... Thomas, wasn't it?" Ciaran asked.
The minotaur nodded "Yes, sir. Do you need anything else?"
"No thanks." The wizard answered "But please tell Nessia that she doesn't owe me anything for helping her."
As
Thomas bowed himself out, Ciaran poured himself a cup and drank deeply.
The rum was sweet as honey, and had more bite behind it than the usual
drink. That was okay though. He lay down on the bed and nodded at Darla.
Darla
raised the ocarina to her lips and began to play. Her chosen tune was
deep, slow and paced. A memory drifted into the forefront of Ciaran's
mind: his mother lulling him to sleep with a similar sounding song. He
could practically hear the words...
"Oh, dear child of mine,
worry not as you close your eyes.
Hear my song of peace and love,
know it's for you, my sweet little dove.
Fall into sleep, do not be afraid.
Mommy is here, so into dreams fade."
No comments:
Post a Comment