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Each character nominated has up to three sample posts. Happy voting!
Comments are MOST welcome.
Merrin - Star Crystal (Meldawen)
3 posts
[Post #1]
She couldn't see, couldn't breathe, couldn't move. The paralyzing tentacles of night froze her limbs and choked in her throat, caressed her fragile existence with horrible patience as though they would tear apart her being fragment by fragment over eons of agony, and whispered her own helplessness in her ears - Merrin could feel her soundless scream as she lashed out with only her own pitiful strength -
I am the Chosen of the Gods! screamed the thought frozen in her mind, immobilized in fear like a fly in amber. Over and over, with the heartbeat that beat and fluttered frantically and threatened to stop for eternity. Like an accusation, a plea flung to whatever black heavens still existed, an entreaty whose answer determined the fate of her very soul - I AM THE CHOSEN OF THE GODS!
For a moment, there was nothing except roiling, multiplying waves upon waves of spirit-rending terror. Alone. So alone.
Their answer descended to shake the foundations of the netherworld.
Merrin lashed out once more. This time, the eruption of the gods' rage stretched the confines of her being. She stood, the last beacon against the night, as dark coiled about her soul and light beat its unending ranks back. Heaven and hell did battle, there in the darkest hole of oblivion.
The pain of all the world's struggle made her stagger. Somehow, Merrin found the darkest piece of night, found the eternal hole of that cowl where arcane syllables rasped from a mouth unseen, and fixed her gaze on night's emissary. The Lich, poised to swallow her light as she was to sear away his darkness. Her throat was raw and her voice like a feather when she needed a sword.
"My gods are stronger than you," Merrin gasped. Even the air felt tainted. "My gods are stronger!"
[Post #2]
"You didn't say anything about this!" Merrin indicated the gathered audience with one gesture, expression dismayed.
"Come on, you don't want to disappoint them, do you?" T'mor raised an eyebrow. "I hope you're not scared."
"I'm not - T'mor - fine, let's start, then!" Merrin pulled out her saber, and eyed the greatsword with something akin to dismay. She stepped back, blade at the ready, and happened to catch sight of Kendath somewhere in the semicircle of people. You're not scared, are you?
"I'm not scared," she said, aloud.
"Good," said T'mor. "Neither am I. " He brought up his sword. They circled each other, Merrin staying just out of range, balanced so as to dance away if he moved. A flash of silver - gods, that sun was bright - and she darted sideways, bringing her saber up to ring briefly against the greatsword. There was a split second of crushing weight on her wrists and then Merrin slid it free, speedily backpedaling. There was attentive silence from the gathered viewers. Two more seconds of eying each other.
"Does Vryngard mostly teach defense, then?" inquired T'mor, soberly but for the twitch at the corner of his mouth. "Come on, Merrin! Come and get me!" The last words were half a taunt. "Bet you can't give me a black eye anymore."
"Bet I can!" Merrin whirled, twisted down and under, and managed to nearly touch him before swiftly dancing out of reach of the greatsword. "You're scared," she tossed at him, saber a flicker in midair, half a grin touching her lips.
Up - down - she turned halfway and their blades met with a ring - block high, block low, twist away so their hilts didn't lock - Merrin found herself laughing, breathless, facing him with a taunting grin on her lips. "I'm not little Merrin any more! Is that the best you can do, or are you afraid Jayen'll be angry if you hurt me?"
"Jayen's unfairly biased," T'mor retorted indignantly. "Why, he'd be positively horrified to find I hurt you, but if you brought him my head in a bag he'd ask you if you're all right!" He lunged, she parried, dancing on her toes.
"Better watch, or I will!" Merrin feinted left and ducked in under his guard, saber a flash of silver in the blinding sun. She intended to nimbly flick her swordpoint up to rest at his throat but he blocked, flashing his greatsword up to press down, forcing her to bend backwards. "Don't think Kendath would be very happy either if I managed to do anything," he whispered, mischief rife in his expression. Merrin desperately hoped nobody could hear but her. "Shall I tell him? Oh, but perhaps it's a secret...Merrin who said she'd never fall in love..."
"Never said anything of the sort!" flashed Merrin, bristling with indignance. Out of sheer audacity she brought up her other fist with a brilliantly aimed left hook that would have connected flawlessly - and given him a black eye he richly deserved - had he not jerked sideways to avoid it, thus giving her the opportunity she needed. Merrin whirled away, light on her feet, expression a picture of quivering indignation and ire."T'mor Tanner," she gasped, frantic with the possibility, "I will - I will - decapitate you if you so much as -"
His expression, gleefully amused, reminded her she was shouting, and Merrin leapt forward to trade blows furiously - left, right, high - finally utilizing every scrap of training Vryngard had ever given her.
"There it is!" he bellowed, half laughing. "Very good, very good! Do you always need your opponents to get you mad before you'll really fight them?"
"No!" Merrin was flushed, poised to dodge his next blow. "I'm entirely - capable - of beating you -" every phrase was a dart in to attack "- you great ox!"
Her hair was loose and getting in her eyes, tinted almost auburn in the brilliant sunlight. Merrin gulped a breath, tossing it over her shoulder and meeting his next lunge with a parry. They traded blows for a few breathless moments. Suddenly he was very close - Merrin twisted away, making to slip out of the trap, and found her way blocked. "Oh, I don't think so!" she gasped, swiveling, and in the next flurry of confused blows - he swept his gargantuan blade down to force hers back - Merrin wrenched it free - whirled halfway, ducked, and whipped forward and in under his guard to -
- stand there, heaving for breath, saber point poised at his throat. Several members of the crowd were cheering wildly; shouts of "Vryngard!", "The lass got you one, Master T'mor!" abounded.
T'mor grinned down at her. "Very good," he said. "I suppose I'm obligated to keep quiet now."
"You had just better," said Merrin.
The next few minutes were made up of hearty slaps on the back, some of which knocked the breath out of Merrin all over again; congratulations, which made her blush; and several good-natured jibes in T'mor's direction, which he bore with equanimity.
Merrin sheathed her saber, smiling and hardly knowing why. She managed to wriggle her way toward Kendath in the small melee of people, and stopped in front of him, still panting a little for breath, eyes alight with victory and cheeks flushed. "Well - how'd I do?"
[Post #3]
Steel brushed her skin with the barest of deadly caresses - Kendath's heart was thudding wildly in her ear where she'd pressed against him - Merrin didn't understand, didn't understand -
He shouted, the sound an agony that could have been ripped from his very soul, and with blind instinct she was halfway across the clearing and stumbling through snow, whirling, still not understanding, then suffocating as the truth smothered her, stopped breath in her lungs. The dagger was a shard of ice in the moonlight. Her eyes flew, spinning from the blade to his face.
His face made the knowledge complete. Comprehension drove the icy knife home better than his hand could have done it. Her mind, cruel as the weapon itself, pounded all the conclusions home like stinging nails. Merrin, I need to tell you something. Don't be frightened. I have faith in you, Merrin. The place his fingers had brushed her cheek seared like a burn, hot against her cold skin. The knife twisted. All the time. While gazing into her eyes, while whispering the words she desperately needed to hear, while holding her close in the protection she wanted so badly from him - all the time he'd been waiting, murmuring lies in her ears.
When she could finally breathe - after endless eons contained in mere seconds - the sound that broke from her lips was half a gasp and half a sob. Still her limbs would not obey, still her eyes would not move from his face. What was she looking for? The knife might as well have been in her heart. The dagger in the snow might as well have been stained red.
"Kendath," she choked, as though his name might call back the Kendath she knew - the Kendath she thought she'd known? They were the same. The same. Whose arms had drawn her close, and whose hand had held the dagger in the snow.
Betrayal blinded her with tears. The knife twisted one last time.
Merrin turned and fled.
Raignheidra Terhin - Sacred Realm & What Night Brings (Meldawen)
2 posts
[Post #1]
"Raign!"
The sound of Lucan's boots on the stairs indicated he was displeased about something. Raign, fairly sure she knew what, calmly sprinkled sand over her writing and blew gently to dry the ink.
The moment he appeared she looked up. "Eryn told you where I'm going."
"Aye, she told me! And - "
"And I'm going alone." Raign's level tone hung in the air between them for a moment. She stood, meeting his eyes. He was taller by a good couple of handspans, but their gazes could match in cold determination. Family resemblance was fleeting beyond that similarity. Both had dark hair, but where Raign's eyes were hazel Lucan's were steely grey, and he had always taken more after their father than she had. The King had been ruggedly handsome, which followed in Lucan, but Raign was under no illusions that she was a great beauty.
"No, you're not."
"Yes, Lucan, I am." This time her voice brooked absolutely no argument.
"Even you can't pretend you're immune to an arrow from a rooftop, Raign, or three men in an alley, or a dart tipped with - "
"And yet you seem determined to pretend that I would be the object of any of those." Generally Lucan did not argue when Raign's voice took on this underlay of steel, but he still stood there, eyes flashing as she spoke. "Stop living in the past, Lucan. I have no money, no power, no fame. Aye, I had them. So did you. Show me the assassin who's interested in Lady Raignheidra Terhin, leader of thirty-three mercenaries and an idiot who persists in thinking he's a prince."
She could tell he meant to contest their reputation - how he hated the word mercenary - but it didn't stop her from sweeping out, rapier belted on her hip and forest green cloak hiding it from view.
Raign did not smile upon descending the gangplank, or walking down the dock, or indeed when she joined the throngs that frequented Thoronus's streets. What was there to smile about? Everything she'd told Lucan was true. No exaggeration, no emphasis. The cold, hard truth of it. Perhaps that was why she led, and he followed. She didn't deny the hard knot of anxiety coupled with anger in her stomach. The label of mercenary rankled within her no less than it did within him, but at least she had the common sense to accept the future and stop living in the past.
There was no point, as she'd told him, in maintaining a particular level of secrecy, so Raign let her hood fall back as she moved through the crowds. Her dark crown of braids - the only crown she ever wore, now - was no more elaborate than the next woman's, and her features had never been heartstoppingly beautiful. Granted, she would prefer to leave as little impression as possible on anyone who might see her, so when Raign reached the designated meeting place, she lounged outside the deserted doorway until the street cleared, before vanishing inside.
[Post #2]
"We agreed I could make my own decisions." Raign was sitting at her desk still, quill in hand. The speed at which it spun relentlessly indicated her current state of agitation. Currently it was a blur in the air.
"Aye," Lucan paused, arms folded and jaw set. "Decisions for yourself. Not decisions for the rest of us."
"And yet," Raign returned, deceptively quiet, "if I were crown princess now, Lucan, I would make decisions for more than the thirty of us who remain. I would rule a nation. But -"
"You're not. All right," he snarled, turning. "Do you think I don't know? Do you think I'm under some illusion that the Jewel Isles remain in their former splendor, for us to return whenever we wish? We are all that is left."
Raign blinked. She felt a sudden and very strange rush of something like deja vu - but with the perspective altered completely. "I'm not pretending I am a princess," she clarified, "only that aye, we are all there is left. And we need to make decisions that will...decisions that will keep us that way."
"So venturing onto an island reported to have been the site of grisly murders is going to do that."
"No," Raign snapped. "It's going to get us the money we need to keep from starving on this hulk of a ship. Have you looked at our funds lately?"
He ignored her. "And if you die?"
Raign stopped twirling the quill - it had begun to whizz faintly with her intensity. "I'll take that risk," she returned.
"And leave us leaderless if the risk goes awry."
She was forced to nod. He stopped to rest his fists on the desk. "Right."
Suddenly she felt ominously small and young. He was older by a good four years, and when he decided to make it known...
Roughly half an hour later she exited, slamming the door so hard her fingers went numb, and went abovedeck tight-lipped and dry-eyed. The boat was being readied to go ashore. For a moment she stared down into it. Oh, stars, stars above..."Choose, Raign. Do you want to command, or do you want to take risks?"
Oddly, she wondered how long the words would haunt her. Raign climbed down into the boat. If this failed, she was left powerless and penniless. Lucan would not be relinquishing what he'd fought to gain from her. And now he had it. The command he'd wanted, in return for agreement that she embark with the rest of their impromptu group, in a single last-ditch attempt to claw the remainder of the Jewel Isles out of disaster.
Aware of her stony expression, Raign turned her eyes to the foggy edges of the land and forced herself not to contemplate whether it was worth it or not.
Because the truth was - it had to be.
Alanna Yeh – Sacred Realm & Rift in Time (Valera Elenhathel)
3 posts
[Post #1]
Get this thing primed? Yes, it was that simple, wasn't it? Alanna bit her lip, not lifting her head from her hands.
How the heck was she going to cool it? The lab was shot to bits; they didn't have anything designed for that anyway ... good grief, was she a magician or something?
She raised her head to meet Cortez's gaze. "It'll take time," she snapped, and lifted her hand to forstall the question of "How long?" that he would inevitably ask. Half an hour to conceptualize a solution for cooling; another half hour for implementation. She doubled the estimation out of habit. "Two hours at the very least." It was a standard engineering trick. If you really needed the extra time, you had plenty of leeway without anyone blaming you; if you met your true estimate, you were automatically a genius and talking salary raises. Unfortunately, the usual reaction to the double estimate was one of impatience, and Cortez didn't look like he was going to disappoint her.
Alanna dropped her head into her hands again. The easiest thing to do would be to run a liquid over the crystal to facilitate the heat transfer process. They probably had more coolant than they could ever want in the lab storeroom - but how to pump it? Well, not too many things here had a pump ... but the decorative fountain in Yenkovich's adjacent office did. The tricky part would be having the computers correct for the refractive index of the coolant, but it could be done. Carefully.
[Post #2]
Well, a sword was definitely better than a rock, regardless of how purportedly enchanted it was supposed to be. Alanna bent, catching the swept Eastern blade by its hilt before it could hit the ground. Now if only the man weren't so frakking patronizing.
As the dragon... thing... streaked back for round two, the engineer got a better look at it. If she had ever seen a more vicious, focused predator, then she certainly couldn't remember it. This thing meant business. And soon.
Flames erupted from the man's activated device, singeing an explosion in false red across Alanna's retinas. And it was hot. She reeled backwards, turning to protect her opened back from the heat, when it stopped and a wall blossomed smoothly between them and the attacker. Still dealing with the aftereffects of the flame, she was barely able to see, but it looked like he had some sort of ... shield projector? .... around his wrist. Definitely science fiction. Or the future. There were no force shields in Alanna's time.
She wasn't quite sure what happened next, but somehow, as the shield dropped and he picked up his stick and pointed it at the attacking beast, she was bringing her scimitar up. The thing crashed to the ground, its momentum still carrying it forward, its head skidding right past her - into him.
And in a move that she had ingrained into her muscles by a thousand repeats, Alanna Yeh spun, whipping the blade over her head and diagonally down into the thick, scaled neck.
Black blood sizzled out of the gaping wound, steaming as it hit the earth, and the creature's lower body began convulsing. Tearing the framelock knife from her belt, she snapped it open, one-handed, and plunged it into one of the beast's eyes, with the full weight of her body behind it. She must have penetrated the brain, because the thing jerked once more, then was still.
Alanna must have stood there for a full minute, just breathing and trying, unsuccessfully, to stop her muscles from trembling. She might have faced bigger creatures before, but always with a team of four or five.
The faintest moan, sounding like it was trying to be stifled, broke into her thoughts. Seven sisters, it was the man - who, having argued with her, saved her, and then almost scorched her, was now lying at the base of the considerably abused tree. She loosed the sword from the dragon's neck and walked over to him, kneeling at his side.
"Hey." Alanna stopped, awkwardly. It wasn't any good asking if he was all right. He wasn't. "Hey," she tried again, waiting for his eyes, glassy with pain, to focus on her. When they did, she wished they hadn't - they were far too penetrating for her liking. She fumbled for a slim pouch in her pocket. "I'm Alanna," she told him, and slapped a sedation patch on his neck. Within seconds, his eyes had rolled up in his head, and he was out cold.
His problem was fairly obvious. One of his legs was bent in a way that legs normally were not, and she was willing to bet whatever you liked that most of his ribs and at least one of his clavicles were broken. Getting up, she set the leg straight, then pulled another patch from her pouch and stuck it on the opposite side of his neck. It shrunk slightly as it released its nanobots into his bloodstream. He'd wake up when they'd finished their work of rebuilding his bones.
A shadow passed over the sun. Alanna looked up into wings and grabbed for the sword.
"Frak."
[Post #3]
The black water was still, glassily reflecting the torch flames, but Alanna had no qualms about walking directly in. There wasn't much to do in the way of preparation; her footwear had been lost on the island, and there wasn't much left of her shirt to take off. Her pants had escaped the abuse, fortunately, but they'd also been fermenting in sewer slime, and needed a wash just as much as the rest of her.
The water, spring-fed and ice-cold, stopped her dead after that first step; she gritted her teeth and plunged in whole. Probably limestone, the bottom of the subterranean pool deepened like a bowl. Alanna stood up at the center, water streaming from her hair, then realized that it felt warmer to be completely immersed.
So. She started to rub the grime off of her ankles. The little group was under guard. She was under guard. Again.
She could really make a career out of needing to be watched. It had been a few years ago; she'd been twenty-two, fresh out of grad school, waving a master's degree and hired by the government to work on the Freya program: the much-publicized maglev mass transit system that would finally make expensive travel a thing of the past. Freya, like its Norse goddess namesake, was a beautiful concept, but the bureaucracy that oversaw it was ponderous and unreceptive to innovation. It didn't take too kindly to the several hundred program engineers who, on their own time, developed their own version. Mischievously, they called it Loki. It was cheaper, faster, and could be implemented more rapidly.
Her manager had been the first to introduce it to Alanna, but the decision to take it to heart had been all hers. She became one of 'the underground', as they were half-seriously termed, working on Freya during the day, on Loki through the night, and then coming in, red-eyed and clutching a coffee mug, to work to do it all over again.
No action could be taken against them. It was their project, on their time, with their tools. The government released study after study of Loki's impracticality, though, until the only thing left to do was to actually build a portion of the system. It would be extremely difficult to argue with an actual maglev track declaring steely victory.
They chose Siberia for its remoteness and harshness. If Loki could be built there, it could be built anywhere. Alanna took her accumulated vacation time and spent weeks laboring, in wool and furs, on 'Project Underground Railroad'. It was freezing and utterly inhospitable, but the camaraderie was unparalleled, and spirits were kept high as kilometer after kilometer of guiderail was laid.
And then the raid happened. In the wee hours of the extended Arctic night, they were roused from their cots, already handcuffed, and flown back to civilization, charged with mishandling of public property.
And within a month, they had also offered Alanna a job.
The logic was easy to follow.They wanted to keep an eye on her, yet keep her overactive mind occupied. They wanted to make sure she wouldn't cause 'trouble' again. What better way to do it than to offer her a job that, technically, didn't exist, in a place that, officially, didn't exist?
Which was how Alanna Yeh ended up in the lunar CSEA (Chronometric Systems Engineering and Analysis) lab, the control chief of an honest-to-goodness wormhole generator. Which was amazingly, gloriously, fun.
And which, incidentally, was how she had ended up here. Being watched. Again.
Ryairon – Sacred Realm (Lady Dark Moon)
2 posts
[Post #1]
Crunch. What the - ?
Ryairon had no idea what had just happened, and nor was she about to ask. She only knew that sky - blessed clear sky - was above her again. Oh, and she wasn't dead. That was always a plus. She leaped to her feet in time to see Devarion darting away from her, right into the path of - Was the man bloody mad?
Apparently not. Into his hands winked two spheres of darkness, which he hurled at both wyverns' mouths. The reptilian creatures tossed back their heads with identical screeches of pain as they choked on their own fire. Their riders barely managed to hang on. Neither of them continued pursuit, even after they'd finished coughing up smoke. They'd learned to stay away from Devarion. Unfortunately... Their slitted gazes roamed the beach. Roamed, roamed, roamed. Ah-hah. As one, their wings shot out. As one, they streaked toward her.
Fortunately for her, Ryairon already had an arrow nocked and the string pulled back. Target? Not a problem - even a blind man couldn't miss. Effective target? Curse it. She had two seconds to aim. Two seconds to raise her bow against the half-flying, half-bounding monstrosities and hope against hope... Well, guess what, genius? Hoping won't get you anywhere.
She let fly. The arrow whistled through the air to embed itself, shaft quivering, into the neck of the right-hand wyvern. The creature hissed. It lurched. It stumbled.
And it kept coming.
Time to panic. Throwing down her bow, she launched herself into a roll underneath the charging wyvern. Flames roared behind her, searing her back. She tucked her head in and came up behind it, sword in hand. She pivoted to face the second one. Not fast enough. An impact both painfully sharp and wearily familiar slammed into the spot between her shoulder blades. She toppled face-first onto the sand. Third *beep* time. She closed her eyes and waited for the second impact - the one that would kill her.
It didn't come.
Eyes flying open, she flipped herself over just in time to see a flurry of feathers - an eagle? - drop from the sky, talons raking across the wyvern's scaled face. It veered away too slowly. An ebony spike caught it in the wing, and it spiraled to the ground, unmoving. And then she remembered. That same eagle had once been something else - a panther, maybe - and before that... a man? Kith? The wyvern reared back its spiked head like a cobra coiled to strike.
That was when Ryairon did something very, very stupid. Ignoring the pain stabbing down her spine, she jumped back up. And jumped again. And threw her arms around the wyvern's arched neck. Predictably, awkwardly, it threw up its head just as she let go. She turned in midair and landed on top of the armored rider. Literally. It hurt. She snapped out her dagger and drove it into his left armpit. Then she yanked it back out and plunged the blade into the wyvern's neck, beside where her first arrow had pierced. The creature screamed and lurched forward. At that moment, nothing sounded sweeter than the thud of its body hitting the ground. It didn't get back up.
Ryairon slid off the dead wyvern's back, caught her leg on a spike midway down, and landed gracefully on her buttocks. She picked herself up with a grimace and cast about for her weapons. Her sword was lying five feet away. Her bow was lying twice that distance in the opposite direction. Great. As she staggered over to retrieve them, she shot a glance over her shoulder, at the eagle. "Are you all right?"
[Post #2]
"Enough!" Commander Telune seized her shoulder, but released it at another glare. He stepped back. A muscle bulged in his jaw. "Your sword."
"Their crossbows." Ryairon had retrieved her weapon. She didn't lower it. Neither did the elven soldiers slacken their crossbows. They had fanned out along the walls of the warehouse, their bolts leveled. She threw a glance at them, then locked her own gaze with Telune's. "You don't like us. It's mutual. But we have something that you need, else you would have spared yourself the trouble." She hesitated. Commander Telune was a warrior, a leader of men. Desperate and hardened, perhaps, but still she had to believe... "Your word. I want your word that we will not be harmed."
The gaze was returned. Unblinkingly. Unflinchingly. "Very well. You have my word." And he vanished into the shadows of the tunnel.
Ryairon sheathed her sword and rested it upon the lid of the nearest barrel. Her fingers lingered on the jeweled hilt. A single step away from her weapon, like the rolling over of a dog at its master's feet, and she had placed herself utterly at their mercy. What if the elves - She stopped herself. Unbidden, her father's voice raked her mind. Disappointment - he was disappointed in her. Her hesitation. Her apprehension. Fear makes fools of us all. Someday, the world will be watching. What will they see? A woman, or a queen?
Watching. The cloaked warriors. The she-elf. Her companions themselves. All watching. Observing her impotence. Judging her helplessness, her perfect nakedness without sword or command. Human filth, indeed. She clenched her teeth and strode into the tunnel.
Silvryn – Phantom Grey (pirateoftherings)
3 posts
[Post #1]
Silvryn, by relying on every ounce of diplomatic training that she had ever received, managed to keep her expression coolly impassive as they were led through the stone corridors. If her heart was beating a bit faster than she would have liked to admit, well, then at least it was not readily evident.
Contrary to what the exterior suggested, the interior of the castle was actually quite well-maintained. The white stone used in much of the construction was scrubbed clean, and everything appeared to be regularly dusted. Fresh candles were set in polished fixtures along the walls, compensating in areas where the natural light from windows was not sufficient. All in all, it was a far cry from what Silvryn would have anticipated in a dark stronghold.
They ultimately came to a halt in front of two tall, dark, wooden doors, where a servant awaited them. Aderit conversed briefly with the elf, who proceeded to open one of the doors and usher the two prisoners inside as if they were expected guests come for tea. "Lord Raen will be with you shortly," he announced in lightly accented Common before closing them in the room. A faint but unmistakable click confirmed Silvryn's suspicion that all of this informality was little more than an act, and that they were still very much captives.
When this 'Lord Raen' did not appear after several minutes, Silvryn began to allow her gaze to wander curiously around the room. It was clearly a conference room, of sorts, simply furnished but still quite formal. The only true furniture was a long table of the same dark wood as the doors and its matching chairs. On the table rested a silver tray with several matching silver goblets and a crystal decanter filled with a dark red fluid. Tentatively, she took a step forward to more carefully examine the detailing on the goblets and tray, which were inlaid with intricate swirls and delicate flowers around the rim. She frowned slightly and picked one up. They almost resembled....
"Quite beautiful, aren't they?" a voice inquired mildly from across the room. Silvryn looked up in surprise to see a tall man - no, elf, he was far too graceful to be a mere mortal - approaching her. He had a simple elegance about him, from his clean-cut robes to the sensible manner in which his black hair was held back. He wore no finery aside from a thin silver circlet and a single elegant ring. But he bore authority like a garment in and of itself. "I received them as a gift from a dear friend, not too terribly long ago. I do not understand how he could have parted with such finery, but then, perhaps he did not recognize their significance."
He paused to pour the wine into two of the goblets and offered one to Silvryn, only to be met with an icy stare. She would not strike him. She would not. She would not give him the pleasure of the reaction that he so clearly desired, as gratifying as it would have been. That he would dare even enter the palace, much less help himself to its contents-! It took all of her willpower and then some to not sneer as she stiffly inclined her head. "Lord Raen, I presume." She did not even acknowledge the proffered drink.
Raen merely arched an eyebrow returned the goblet to its place. "I trust you have been treated well, thus far?"
"With all due respect," Silvryn replied icily, "I would prefer that we dispel obligatory pleasantries and perhaps discuss why you have brought us here."
If Raen was bothered, then he did not show it. "They were not exaggerating in their accounts of you, then," he said musingly, not bothering to explicate upon who 'they' were. His dark blue gaze met Silvryn's momentarily, unnerving in its intensity. "Very well. I had hoped that we might maintain some level of decorum, but we shall be more direct, if that is your wish. You are here as my guest and as my bargaining piece, Your Highness. Your sole purpose is to stay alive for as long as I see fit. I care not what you do in the meantime."
[Post #2]
Silvryn, for her part, was faring comparatively well. It helped, of course, that she was the only one whom Raen wanted alive, but she sincerely doubted that these elves would have any qualms about bringing back damaged goods, if it came to that.
Lashing out with one foot, she was able to incapacitate her opponent long enough to spare a glance at the others. Tomith, who had taken on Aderit herself, was holding his own, but he also as nowhere near gaining the upper hand. The rebels also seemed to be doing well enough, all things considered, but the elves hardly seemed to be putting forward any sincere effort. They seemed to be more interested in simply wearing the humans down, and it would only be a matter of time before they succeeded. Before there was no Phantom Grey, no rebellion, no hope for Kytana...because of her.
Silvryn was left with only one choice. As her fully-recovered opponent advanced once more, Silvryn drew her dagger and placed it at her own throat in one fluid motion. "Stop it!" she demanded over the din of fighting.
Remarkably, everyone did just as she said, pausing mid-battle to stare in surprise. It was Commander Aderit who broke the silence with a quiet scoff. "And what, may I ask, do you intend to accomplish by this particular stunt?" she inquired, taking a step forward.
Silvryn stood her ground. "Whether these rebels are alive or not has absolutely no bearing on your ability to fulfill your orders. Whether I am alive or not, however, most certainly does. I cannot allow you to kill them so needlessly, and so you are presented with a choice. Let all of the others go free and never again do them harm, and I will go with you of my own free will. So much as lay another hand of any of them, and I swear to you that I will kill myself where I stand."
"And what is to stop me from simply disarming you and doing with the others as I please?"
"Do you truly wish to explain to Lord Raen why he has lost the prisoner whom he so clearly requires?" Silvryn countered evenly.
The elven commander appraised her narrowly for a moment. "You are bluffing," she declared at last. "Tecar, begin with the heavy one, I think, and work your way up to the illustrious 'Phantom.' It is always so entertaining to let the leader watch just how-"
Silvryn fractionally increased the pressure on the dagger, just enough to draw a thin line of blood. "I am entirely earnest, commander."
Aderit considered once more, seeming to weigh the possibilities in her mind. At length she merely nodded to the other elves, who released their grasps on the captives. Turning back to Silvryn, she smiled coldly. "We have an agreement, Your Highness."
[Post #3]
Anyone less familiar with the intricacies of politics might have laughed at the notion of a queen needing permission from her subjects to do anything, but Silvryn knew better. Any monarch - any good monarch, at least - was ruled by the people nearly as much as the people were ruled by the monarch. There were matters that required executive decisions, of course, but a ruler who ignored the will of the people - especially in matters of decorum - was a ruler without respect. And a ruler without respect would never lead effectively.
"I hope to restore relations between the two kingdoms," she said slowly, still staring out at the dark woods. "Adaniar tells me that Raen does not speak for the majority - quite a few elves are openly opposed to his policies, and even more secretly. Elves and humans lived quite peaceably in community with one another in the past, and it was not unheard-of even as recently as a century ago. That is why so many humans display elven traits. It was only when Raen began working his way into power that the conflict began. Without his presence to intimidate them...." She evinced a small shrug and said nothing further.
Sighing quietly, Silvryn looked up at the plethora of stars above them. It sounded so simple, talking about it. Only a small matter of overthrowing an immensely powerful elven lord, then convincing everyone to take orders from (in their minds) a mere child. Twenty-four had not seemed so terribly young when it was a matter of ruling humans, but surrounded by elves, some of whom exceeded a millennium in age...
Abruptly, it occurred to her that she had never truly answered the Phantom's query. "I am not...entirely certain where I will go. The elven kingdom actually overlaps both Kytana and Vidyr; I've not yet figured out the specifics. I know nothing of where the capital is, where most people live, how most people live...." She paused, struggling to keep her tone even. "I know nothing about these people, Phantom. I am willing to lead them, of course, but...they are not my people. Not in the ways that matter, at least. I...I scarcely even speak the language! I can converse well enough, but any native speaker can tell that it is not my first language. I don't know how I'll-"
Silvryn cut off abruptly, allowing her gaze to fall to her hands in her lap. "Forgive me," she said quietly. "I have been rather...preoccupied, of late. You have enough concerns of your own without my contribution. Perhaps I should retire and leave you to your thoughts."
Kira Marshall – Aldridge Academy & Sacred Realm (smeagollum)
3 posts
[Post #1]
Kira had continued to film the camera all through the conversation. She was just about to turn it off when Jacen was looking at her, however, the rousing arguement seemed to start up again when Don started yelling.
Smirking, Kira was enjoying every moment of this. Not only was she going to do absolutely fabulously on her project, but she was able to be entertained in the process.
In wasn't until when Kira saw Jacen fall to the floor that she finally turned the camera off and lay it on the bench by her side. She half-wittedly smiled and joked, grabbing the notebook and breezing through the pages where she finally found the list.
"Mr. Yorkshrine's Video Capture Project"
Someone crying.
An embarrasing moment.
A second embarrasing moment of the same person.
Fighting.
Dying
All of the other boring stuff.
Kira was absolutely overflowing with joy in the fact that she was able to cross off "Dying" from her list, and proceeded to stand up from the bench, grab all of her belongs, and leave when the most unfortunate of all unfortunate occurances that could have happened happened. Kira had glanced over at the fallen boy.
Not only had she glanced, but she found some dispicable trait that she actually cared in some remote area of her heart about this video project manican. To her, Jacen was solely the need to finish the last part of her project, but, to her dismay, her mother's side was coming out slightly.
Kira finally turned around and walked over to Don, Jacen, and Kathryn and explained her terms, "Now look," she abruptly began, "I don't do this that often, but for some obscure reason I feel that maybe, since I practically am using this boy to get a good grade I should, probably, help him. So, to make a freakingly long explanation short, is there anything I can do to help?"
[Post #2]
"Yes," Kira told the lunch lady as she held of the tray for the lady to drop a nice helping of veggies on the plate next to the grilled chicken. Kira smiled everytime she walked into the lunchroom, and she, in addition laughed at all of the ignorant people that meerly believe the school system thought of something good. It is to be stated as true that the school did not serve food when Kira first started, but, after a rousing debate on the condition of nurishment and overall students Kira had with the principal, a couple random administration members, and some guy that no one really cared about but popped in the room anyway, the system decided that it would possibly be a good idea to give their students actual food (in Kira's terminology). Now, to be said, the administration was already speaking of the problem with the caferteria before Kira even began attending, but, in Kira's mind, she solved the problem, and that was fact.
In took about half a minute longer than Kira's patience could handle for her to finish getting through the lunchline, paying, and sitting down at a seat. Immediately she began to eat because she believed she had lost so much time with a quality of service that was below par and should be given a timer and wage cut. However, seeing that math was in less than an hour, she decided to postpone her complaint until the next day.
"Hey Kira!" a voice yelled from behind Kira's right shoulder. To her regret, Kira decided to look back and see who it was. It was Daniel Flems, to her dislike. She had known him for a good two weeks, but it only took her a good two seconds to realize that Daniel was not going to be on her unlimited-calling of ten family and friends list.
"Hey Daniel," Kira muttered back, desperately trying to finish and much as she possibly could in as little time as she could manage.
"I didn't see you in Phys. Ed. today. What happened? Are you alright?"
Always trying to make things into bad situations Kira thought to herself before responding, "Yes, everything is fine, I just overslept and was not in the best mood to see Mr. Bray face to face."
"Oh yeah," Daniel laughed, "after you did that I am.."
"Shut up," Kira objected to Daniel continuing his blabbering and took up her tray in efforts to get Daniel to leave. All of these efforts failed. Daniel was still sulking behind Kira asking her this and that even after she had thrown away her trash and left and cafeteria.
Just great. Kira thought, I can't get rid of this guy. Well.. desperate times call for desperate measures.
"Hey Daniel," Kira finally spoke with a hint of artifical compassion in her voice, "You know that I am in Calculus class right?"
"Yeah.." Daniel answered, not sure what Kira was hinting at.
"Well, I have a big test next period. Meaning, in like... 40 minutes, and I really have to go to the library to study...alone.. because that is how I work best."
It took Daniel a few moments to catch on, but, once he did, his voice raised with understanding, "I see. I guess I'll see you tommorrow then."
"See ya then," Kira smiled and said good-bye, heading over to the library to find sanctuary.
[Post #3]
Kira waited a moment to see which direction Matt walked off in before she strolled over in the exact opposite.
Wandering down each hallway, Kira could feel the dust in the air line up on the back of her throat, but, as she coughed, she ran into an entire section on Physics with a hint of Newton's explanation to Calculus lining the shelf behind her. Quickly glancing around to make sure no one was watching, Kira grabbed hold of the book nearest to her and hastenly opened it like a little child on Christmas. Skimming through each page, Kira's eyes were as bright as a summer's day, and her mind was working through each explanation as the text presented.
It was on page 124 that Kira's life nearly ended. She was skimming over the theory of nuclear binding when he felt something hit her foot. Being that it was barely noticeable, Kira simply continued to read, but, once she began to feel something crawl up her leg, Kira's heart stopped. Her breathing started to get heavier as she looked down, jumped up and squealed, "Spider!"
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