One x One Primacy: Tales from the Past

[Lucyfer]

Small Tales Index

• Boreal Wind​
• Possession​
• The Red Whisper​

 

[Lucyfer]

Boreal Wind

Supplies were low. Spirits were low. The mages of the Ordo Sors knew their only chance of survival lay in surrender, but few were eager to do so. The Council of Light, with some of the mages apart of them, such as Malina, were also far stricter in what was allowed to be practiced, and what was allowed to be questioned. It was that latter which bothered most, none more than the infamous Kirsikka, who seemed to flit in and out of the Ordo Sors on a whim, ever volatile, ever willing to argue.

It was Kirsikka who fought alongside them, though, and Kirsikka who walked, arms folded in a huff, alongside Dravon as he walked to the gates, all smiles. For being in his 800s, he hardly looked it, but that was no surprise. Glamor was not uncommon when one aged so far. “This is a stupid idea.” Kirsikka said bluntly.

Dravon just laughed a little, “Now now, the surrender won’t be permanent, but we can’t win if we’re dead. We just surrender for now, agree to some petty little terms, and work to usurp it all later once we’re inside. Well, once I’m inside, I suppose they know your reputation a bit too well.”

“You realize I’m going to leave again if you do this.”

“Yes,” Dravon sighed, and paused at the gate as his horse was brought to his side. The smile that had been on his face faded, “I won’t let them find you. You know that,” he lifted his hand to touch her cheek, but she turned her head and batted his hand away, unwilling to look at him or let him touch her right then, frustrated and angry with the decision to surrender and agree to terms with these lunatics. “Kirsi….”

“Do what needs to be done,” she huffed, shaking her head, “Let these zealots have everything, I don’t care.” Except, obviously, she did. “I’ve always preferred working outside the Ordo Sors anyways, it won’t change anything. I’ll just go outside Trifflehem. It doesn’t matter. They always need a good mage somewhere.”

“It won’t be long.” Dravon said.

“I’m not coming back.”

His smile held a certain humor to it that Kirsikka refused to acknowledge. The taunt that she would be back. He lifted his hand again to touch her, and she stepped back. “You could have stayed in bed.”

“I’ll come back to bed after this.” Dravon said, impish smile coming to his lips that only earned him a glare.

“I told you, I won’t be back.”

“But you haven’t left yet. So you can leave later…and not come back.”

It drew just the hint of a smile to her lips, but she squashed it, and turned to the stairs that led up to the top of the wall. She wouldn’t look back, though Dravon watched her a few moments longer, until he mounted up on his horse, and rode out to meet the negotiating party in the midst of the field.

Kirsikka could see the army lined up to fight.

They had agreed to these talks, but wouldn’t show up without a show of force, considering Dravon had the fortifications at his back – mages at his back. Still, he rode out far, enough that it’d be hard to hit anyone with a fireball. Kirsikka crossed her arms over the stone wall and leaned forward, trying to watch. Wishing she could listen to Dravon sell away the Ordo Sors for gods only knew what small mercies he could squeeze out of these zealots to avoid more bloodshed.

To her – to everyone – they assumed it was over.

Surrender was eminent, and Dravon wasn’t asking anything ridiculous. Clemency for the combatants, ceding Logaweirs and putting their forbidden texts into a restricted library (the Council wanted them all destroyed), the Visionaries would allow themselves to be taken to Trifflehem and surrender over their knowledge (except Kirsikka, of course, although Dravon would never tell them that), and some other things Kirsikka considered completely unreasonable, but there was a reason she wasn’t a diplomat.

And she knew Dravon had plans to negotiate some items in favor of Trifflehem to show they were willing to compromise. No doubt, the books would be one thing, though they’d find a way to spirit away copies. Somehow, someway….

Kirsikka continued to watch as General Arias rode forward a bit, so he could grip Dravon’s hand in what must have been agreement to the terms. She let out a sigh, both relief and frustration, before her breath stopped mid-exhale.

Dravon’s head hit the grassy battlefield.

Kirsikka hadn’t even seen the blade that did it.

Dravon likely did not either.

Arias pushed Dravon off of his horse, and bellowed something that likely made plenty of sense and was in a human language, but all Kirsikka heard was the rush of blood as it all left her heart, and bestial roars.

That’s all Arias was in the moment – a beast.

That’s all his army was.

And Kirsikka responded in the only way animals understood. As her hands gripped the stone, she threw her head back, and shrieked – but it was too high pitched, too painful, that it cut off like a branch frozen in a winter’s storm. None would truly be certain it was a scream after the fact, either, the way a sudden wind blew out from the fort, carrying with it death.

The dew on the grass that morning froze. Flowers became heavy with frost and wilted. Branches snapped off in the sudden gust.

Breath crystallized on lips. Saliva froze in mouths, and choked airways. Tears pierced eyes. Blood congealed in veins.

General Arias fell from his horse, dead before he hit the ground, as the Boreal Wind came back around in an agonized scream as Kirsikka herself burned. Steam escaped her as sweat had no chance of surviving on her skin. Were she more aware, she might have pushed it out with flames, but she wasn’t. All she was aware of was the cold void left in her heart, and the need to make all of Trifflehem feel it.

And then it all went black as Kirsikka herself fell into that void, the overuse of power knocking her out.

 

[Lucyfer]

Possession

Possession was not something Varick had been prepared for, despite all his time hunting down curses that, occasionally, possessed people. He had warded off all sorts of fiends in his time, so he was surprised when he found himself cursed after helping a woman out with a cursed bracelet that wouldn’t release her son.

Apparently, the seal he broke released the bracelet…and also released an alu which bound itself to him.

Its incessant whispering in his mind was driving him mad, as he grinned and collected his coin from the grateful woman, trying not to let on things had gotten far more severe. ‘I can handle this. I just need to get back to Geot Draath and I can get this removed.’ He just had to survive the whispers.

“Oh no no, you poor Primal dear, don’t you know we’re of the same stuff? Once you sleep, your body will be mine. Ah, it’s been so long since I’ve been corporeal….”

The alu cackled as Varick put the bag of coins on his hip and wandered out, feeling the hissing pain of the alu on his own flesh as the sunlight touched him. Them.

Varick ignored it, but still made sure to grab a few stimulant herbs he could chew on as he went to his horse, who started and tried to back away from him, “Come on, Mousse,” he grumbled, reaching for the reins, “I’m not that smelly.” But the horse didn’t sense the smell and Varick knew it, as Mousse did relent and allow him to take the reins and ride out.

He stayed up one whole night, but in the day, the burning sun got to him, along with the exhaustion. He was forced to make camp, forced to sleep – and he drifted deep, deeper than he usually would.

He dreamt that he was released of being a Primal, that he was knighted for his deeds, and given land where he’d be left alone – but near people. He drank wine with a metallic tang to it. Wine that was warm.

Wine that wasn’t wine.

When Varick woke, it was with his own teeth in Mousse’s neck.

He wrenched himself away, but felt the heavy presence of the alu. His sight felt off – incomplete. Things lacked depth and he stumbled over his own feet as he tried to regroup and figure out what was going on with his vision, and what he’d just done to his poor horse.

“I told you, you’ll be mine. For now I’ll keep this eye. But bit by bit…or we could make another deal?”

“I didn’t make any deals with you,” Varick grunted.

“I’m afraid by releasing that seal, you agreed to be the new vessel. Or do you not remember the words?”

“I do.” He hadn’t gotten that interpretation from it, but then again, it was in another language. Some words had more than one meaning. It was quite possible he’d gotten the meaning wrong. “What deal do you want?”

“Another body.”

“No.” Varick said, and began to gather his things, occasionally misjudging the distance.

“Yours burns too easily. I want a human body.”

“No.” He said again, patting his now-dead horse, and leaving.

He wouldn’t make it to Geot Draath, but he knew where he could go instead. He wasn’t far from Tresse, and so he made his way there, to find Calliope. She had surprised him more than once with what she knew; he had to hope she knew something about this.

It took another two days on foot.

Varick didn’t sleep, and showed up quite a sight on Calliope’s doorstep as he stumbled in, still feeling the pain of the sun that the alu inflicted upon him, and the exhaustion of it all.

“Oh!” Calliope could just step aside and let him all but collapse into the nearest table, where he braced himself, exhaled, and sighed. “What is wrong with you, Varick?”

“Alu,” he said, turning to look at her, and pointing up towards his right eye, “Taken over my sight here. Trying to possess me.”

“Why did you make a deal with an alu?!” Apparently, she did know something, as she moved towards her kitchen, and proceeded to lecture him on making deals with alu, fae, and a host of other creatures he knew not to make deals with, not letting him get a word in until she had gathered a few things and approached. “What were the terms of the deal?”

“It was in another language. Don’t have the script with me,” he sighed, “but as far as I understood it, I just broke a seal on a bracelet.” He shut his good eye, and brought a hand to his temple. “I know there was something about home it. I took it to mean letting the curse go home to roost with whoever did it, but….”

“But no, you made yourself a home to the curse,” she sighed.

“I’ll take her body.”

“The alu wants to possess you.”

“Of course it does. Well. We never agreed to the size of the home, did we?” Calliope grinned, revealing her fangs as Varick opened his eye and looked up.

“What does she mean?”

Varick liked the fear he heard. He smiled to Calliope, “No, we didn’t.”

For the next little while, he had to endure Calliope trapping the alu in a part of his flesh on his face. He managed to save his eye, but there would be quite a bit of scarring on his face from her actions to remove the alu, as well as safeguard him against future – and current – possessions, by marking his body in ways that would force anything that possessed him into that small part, limiting them to only ever obtaining that eye if they tried to take him over.

 

[cleopat]

The Red Whisper

Beware! The Red Whisper arrives in Antalya! Isolate the sick, and burn the dead.

Tamsin ignored the posters that now littered the streets of her beautiful seaside port city. Death was slowly becoming the norm as more people succumbed to the illness brought into Antalya by way of a sick sailor from across the sea.

The only sign that one has caught the Red Whisper was a bloody cough, followed by falling into a deep sleep that they never come out of. Dozens had already fallen victim to its merciless grasp within days. The funeral pyres outside the city were constantly burning.

How many more were to die before the illness finally waned its power?

“Mama, papa, I’m home,” Tamsin announced as she stepped through the threshold of her home. Immediately the smell of spiced fish permeated the air, and she sighed in contentment.

“We’re both in here, Tams,” said her mother from their kitchen, where her father also sat at a table, looking a bit more haggard than Tamsin last remembered. “How was your day?”

“It was lovely. I ventured along the beach to get some fresh air, and I even wrote down a couple of more poems for my songs.” She joined her father at the table, just as her mother set down dinner for the three of them.

Her father smiled. “Well that sounds like a productive day.”

The rest of their dining and their evening dissolved into pleasant chatter and warm laughter.

~~~

A few days later, Tamsin’s father coughed up blood. He remained insistent that he was fine, that whatever he has will go away with some rest.

Her mother got sick the very next day, and by that evening, both of them were bed bound and too weak to move. Tamsin kept vigil by their side every evening, when she wasn’t out making coins or gathering food to cook for them. All their weak bodies could stomach was soup, so Tamsin made soup for them every night.

“Oh, I feel just bad you have to take care of us like this,” her father moaned.

“It’s alright, Papa. I don’t mind taking care of you guys. I just want you to get better.” Tamsin could see that they grew weaker by each passing day, and her heart knew what was coming. It came with every victim of the Red Whisper.

“Once I get better, we’ll go to the beach and pick out seashells together, like we used to when you were a little girl. Won’t that be fun?” her mother said in between coughs.

Tamsin smiled weakly. “Yeah, that’ll be perfect.”

Her mother smiled and fell asleep.

They would never get to pick seashells together again. Her mother died peacefully during the evening hours as she slept. Her father, although in a deep slumber, sensed the passing of his wife and died a few hours later. Tamsin was by their side as each one passed, not once shedding a tear.

She didn’t shed a tear when the Body Collector came to take their bodies away. She didn’t shed a tear when he loaded them up on the wagon full of others who had died that night. She didn’t shed a tear when she watched their funeral pyre go up in flames at a distance.

She just felt numb.

Returning to a cold, empty house was when reality hit her. ‘Mama will never sing with me again. Papa will never kiss my forehead again.’ Tears welled up in her eyes, and she let out a cry of anguish, dropping to her knees and clutching her chest in her heartbreak.

She didn’t notice the jar on the table cracking and falling apart, nor did she notice the flicker of all the candles in the room. Tamsin could only notice her own grief and the emptiness of her once lively home.