Ascension of Blood

CHAPTER ONE The Visitor

CHAPTER ONE

The Visitor

There was three things that Mijora Harrow was on completely, whole heartedly certain about the day she found her mother's cold, bloodied body. 1) that for as long as she lived, blood -- the warm, red sticky stuff that ran through every living human, animal and beast -- was the only reason she lived. Not in a biological sense in which all life must have some sort of energy or life force, as natural as gravity or oxygen, but in a way that drove her forwards with some great purpose or desire. 2) her mother was the only person in the whole world who understood her, both in a psychological standpoint of her core needs and abilities, but also as a person beyond the Arcana that was a constant drum to her life. Her mother had simply loved her. And 3) that Mijora's ability to sit down and do nothing was about was about as good as a Oni -- especially when there was a murderer on the loose.

The thing was, when she found the body -- knife still stuck in her slit throat -- Mijora could not even bury her mother. Not with the Annihilation raging through her farm and the nearby town. The sky was red with it as though even the storm was taunting her, and out of the two moons, it was Midos, the red moon, that dominated the sky, further bathing them in red.

As the annihilation raged outside, Mijora did so inside as well. She threw most of silver at the walls. Cloths, rags, and towels were ripped apart as though they had personally defied her. She took the same knife that was stuck in her mothers body and cut into the flesh of her own hand. The blood felt warm and thick and familiar. Knowing that her mothers last breaths were bathed in the very red that she sought her life to control was comforting.

After the fact, she thought about there being some holy reason for her own personal storm, some psychological reaction to every action. That her rage was justified in a way that was measurable or quantifiable. But emotions really were so simple. Storms were chaotic in nature, that was one of their most defining characteristics, and by nature so too was she.

Crying as she was, she found it in herself to drain the blood. Most of the blood had bled onto the wooden floor of their basement and was already contaminated, mingled in with her own now, but she salvaged what she could using her Offering, pulling the blood from her mothers throat in a steady stream, collecting it in a glass jar no bigger than the jars of jam upstairs in the kitchen. All that was left of her mother contained in the palm of her hand. Some would call that Vessel-talk, superstitions of an Arcana barely understood, that a person could be boiled down to just their bones or blood. Some even call it evil and dammed. Mijora called it tradition.

She sat by the body for three days and three nights before the Annihilation moved on, a short storm all things considered, before she went outside to the graveyard.

This had been good timing because the body was really starting to stink up the house, and Mijora loathed to be known as the Vessel that smelled of death.

Mijora was a farmer, but not of the typical kind of fruits and grains. The Harrow family had always been Vessels, and had always been Arcanic farmers, the kind to boil the blood and burn the bones and bury the bodies. Esadora Harrow was no religious woman, as far as she cared Divinity was poppydeath, made up by those unable to trust in their own actions and accept the the world was a terrible place ran by terrible, mortal men, and as such there were no rituals to be carried out and no prayers spoken before Mijora placed her in a hole in the ground. There was rage. It burned through Mijora,s chest ferociously like a fire swirling into an Inferno. She dreamed of revenge and hunting them down, she wished for the answers to the questions that spiraled through her head.

Who did this? Why would someone do this? How did they do this? They got into the basement and slit her throat, did Esadora know them? There were few explanations that Esadora would allow someone that deep into their house.

But Mijora was a farmer, and her affinity with blood did not make her any better equip to go chasing shadows. And so although restlessly, she stayed at the farm and worked alone. When her clients came looking to buy blood and bone dust and poppydeath, Mijora negotiated by herself. And when the questions came asking where Esadora was, Mijora simply told them the truth, that she died.

No less than a month later, a beautiful unmarked horse-drawn carriage turned down the lane to her farm outside of Millpeak and started down the long dirt path. Mijora had been harvesting the poppydeath when she saw it, and watched it cautiously as it approached. She's had rich men visit the farm on a few occasions needing supplies for their Vessel guards, but solemnly few have horses in such perfect condition. Whoever it was wasn't just rich, they were richy-rich-rich. Rich enough maybe to pay her in gold rather than coppers.

Approaching slowly, Mijora eyed the carriage and watched as a tall, and well built man stepped out. His hair was white as snow with a gray and white stubble. He eyes were a deep brown and his nose upturned at the small farm before him. Upon seeing the familiar figure, Mijora dropped all politeness and properness and shouted several choice curse words that most well mannered farm girls would never have even heard of, never mind use so creatively. When that did not deture the man, she made a very unprofessional hand gesture with her hand -- with her palm facing towards her, she tucked in her middle three fingers leaving out her thumb and pinky, and rested the knuckles upon her forehead. A gesture that resembled that of horns.

"Really, Mijora? Is that necessary?" He asked in that patronising way that most adults always do regarding anyone younger than them who challenge their authority.

She swore a few more times for good measure. If there was one thing mijora was, mature was not one of them. "It took you long enough you loyaless leach!" She snarled. "Here for the farm now she's gone? You can't have it! Its mine you ugly, foul mannered baku!"

The unliked man stepped up to meet Mijora, and pressed three fingers to his forehead - a gesture of peace and sorrow. Then he said, "did you drain the blood?" He asked. Mijoras nostrils flailed, but she nodded, and then so did he. "Good, good. You always were good at doing what's right."

"I hope Midos burns you alive, and Edia condemns you for what you have done."

"I'm sure that it what you think I deserve." He said.

"You deserve to rot in Midos for eternity." Mijora knew that she should probably not be so hot tempered with him, but this man deserved none of her niceties even if she was capable of such things.

He shrugged, hands clasped behind his back. "Are you even going to listen to what I have to say?"

"Is what you have to say worth listening to, or is it more poppydeath?" She snarling looking him up and down

The man sighed in a way that suggested he was holding his tongue. "Mijora Seleen Harrow, I am not here to take away your pathetic little farm of death and solitude. Now will you shut your twisted tongue and allow me to speak?" Allow was a generous choice of words, given that he did not wait for her to respond before he continued on, "I think I know who killed your mother, and where they will be, I just need to ask a few questions to confirm my suspicion."

That, if nothing else, got Mijora's attention and Mijora welcomed her father into the house.