What we allow the mark of our suffering to become is in our own hands."--Bell Hooks
Alderon had paused in his strange circling again and was eying her with that peculiar flat stare Alora was already well familiar with. Against her better judgement, she approached the big horse again. The methodical circling was getting on her nerves, not to mention being exceptionally creepy. She'd planned on waiting to saddle him up for the day but if his master plan was to eventually kick her in the head, then no time was any better than another. Might as well do it now.
She grabbed him by the forelock, something she always did with Loki, and the familiar gesture caused her eyes to brim with tears.
I should have watched out for you better. You never knew, you trusted me to take care of you and I failed.
Nothing could bring him back. He was simply gone. She refused to let her mind drift any farther down that path.
Islinn
I should have watched out for her better too but...that can be fixed.
She smiled a sick-dog smile and was suddenly aware that Alderon had decided to placidly follow her over to where she had dumped his saddle and blanket. Hardly daring to breathe, she saddled him as quickly as she could and closed her eyes as she tightened the cinch, already feeling his lightning quick teeth sinking into her shoulder as the cinch grew snug.
Nothing.
"Maybe you're just as eager to leave as I am, huh?" She said, quietly and gave him a gingerly pat on his muscular neck. He swung his head around and studied her for a moment then turned and gazed off across the grasslands with barely concealed boredom. Alora eyed him. The saddle suddenly looked extremely far away.
"Don't worry; you'll get your chance to kick my head in." She remarked, glancing sidelong at his platter-sized hooves. If this had been Loki, she would have checked for bruises, stones, or packed mud.
I'll just...let him be...for now.
She had a horrible premonition she'd be seeing those hooves up close and personal very soon anyway. Her mouth twisted.
Blixen was still draped across the rabbit entrails, arms and legs splayed outward, with his head thrown back and gummy little tongue flopped off to the side. If Alora hadn't known better, she'd think he was faking since it was such a dramatic pose but his enormous penis was sadly drooped and still, so she knew he was truly out.
She walked over and nudged him with her boot. A few gnats and flies that had burrowed into his sticky fur rose and lazily circled before settling back in again. Good. Once she was done with what she needed to do, she'd dump some water over him and bring him around. Right now though,she didn't need to hear his incessant squeaky chatter or watch him hang on to his penis with his eager little hands.
Like I'll be so much more ready for that later on...
The morning was turning off cold but the sun was climbing and, hopefully,it would warm up a bit. Alora walked a little ways from her meager camp and seated herself, cross-legged on the ground. She tilted her face to the cool breeze. The Hawkish moon had been low in the sky the night before, and soon it would be Reap, everything cut down and gathered up as it started to die, time for things to be...collected. She closed her eyes.
Time to collect...yes...collect what's mine...
She began to breathe, deep painful breaths, the iced air hurting her lungs and frail chest, moving over the black lacework of her new scars, and filling each small indentation and crevice.
Blixen...Alderon...Abigor...her wild impatience...all of it dampened itself below her slow, steady breaths.
Reap...and ending...and where everything ends...
she would begin...
Behind her closed eyes, she saw large circles, drawings in dirt, on walls, in sand, in stone. Lines drawn with sticks, and fingers, some filled in by wind and others filled in by blood.
And what is blood? Always hungry, needing to be fed, yet its true desire was to run and run and run...
And circles...
They were nothing but symbols...of what starts...but comes back around...
Her mind soared outward...through the brisk air...the crystal sheen of sun...
Her hands tightened into fists, tendons roping her forearms, as she struggled for control.
So much to see...
Trees and grasslands...hawk and rabbit...air and sky...
The collective breath of the world seized then stalled.
She was earth, filled with rich loam, and touching the harsh scale of the trees. Racing through the woods, feeling the green, fading to red and gold...
The air was blue...quick-crisp, and alive with beings, storing and preparing for when the rains turned solid and white, but her mind moved on, ignoring their frantic preparations.
Time to reap...time to reap...
She traveled fast, all sights and sounds blurring into nothing but a smeared cloth of color and emotion.
Her breath caught...and hitched...
A stench...sweet sick...something dying...something wanting to die but not being able to...
The smell slammed into and over her, driving away the deep richness of the earth...and she saw them.
The black-bearded man with bewildered eyes, fear yellowing around him and she saw the rawboned raggedy boy, steeped in madness. There was nothing there but hag-dog mentality, and the other wasn't even a man anymore, he was nothing but a receptacle for ale but in his clotted mind, she easily picked out their destination. And then she saw Islinn.
Saw her.
And saw what they had done.
Alora scrabbled backwards, intangible against the invisible, and her lip curled like a wild thing brought to heel. A guttural whine broke through her lips and her hands reached and grabbed her leathered legs, and convulsed, fingernails snapping off from the pressure.
She fell back into herself, and felt a wave of nausea as her sight and body slammed one against the other and somewhere in her head, she heard an odd cracking sound and had just enough time to wonder if it was in her mind or something else breaking in her side.
What had they done?
What had they done??
She knew the answer as she lay lack against the cold ground, her eyes unfocused, and mouth slack.
The anger she felt was its own animal, snarling and snapping as it twisted in its cage, looking for freedom, looking for the smallest crack to slip through...
What kind of animal are you?
Long-dead voices whispering on the wind...
No longer a broken one on display...
I am...
A flawless apparition,
a killing thing...
an insane mirror reflecting horror and hate,
and blood...
red fire...
Time for you to burn...
The strange thoughts pinwheeling through her mind were connected somehow to...something...but she wasn't sure what. Feverish thoughts, words just moving through but the last one, her mind caught and held.
"I'll set you to burn." She whispered to herself, not understanding the words or the need to say them.
Slowly she focused and watched morning clouds move lazily across the sky. She sat up and studied the tips of her bloodied fingers. One nail had broken off down to the quick and another was jagged and raw. Putting her finger to her mouth, she peeled it off with her teeth, tasting blood and earth.
Reap...time to reap...
Collect...
She shifted her weight and her side groaned and stretched with pain. Her hand automatically pressed against the barely healed wound, a move so instinctual, it was barely noticed. She had changed. And she wasn't sure she liked...or even knew...what she was now. She felt...Alora struggled to find the words...
Ill-used
From everyone...Abigor, Yzebel...even herself. And the power she had now...she knew everyone was scheming to somehow use it for their own advantage, even Blixen, with his sticky little hands and constant babbling, and his high hopes of moving up the odd little caste system of the UnderRealms and using her to do it.
Ill-used
And yes, she'd had her finger in that pie too. Riding around, collecting coin for cheap tricks and...for what? Nothing, really. Killing time. And in the end of it all, here she was, with a shit horse, a whiny little goblin she could barely stand, and Loki and Islinn paying the price for her smoke and mirrors and Abigor's impossible demand and time limit that only he knew hanging over her head. And feeling...ill-used...because of the power she now had.
Alora smiled a humorless smile and reached out and picked up a small clod of dirt. The ground had not yet gone hard, but soon...soon everything would be white and still. She slowly rolled the dirt between her hands, until a small spark blazed. Black fire coughed, spluttered, then caught. She tossed the dirt clod from hand to hand, mesmerized by the black glow. It hissed and crackled in the chilled air, and she watched it, her eyes slow and dreamy.
There was a word that all the Brede trucklers used and one that Islinn was probably quite familiar with as well. What was it?
Redemption
A delivering from sin, whether it was donating the last of your coin needed to feed your family or having all the skin peeled off your back, it was saving you from the horrors of yourself, all the dark and dirty little things you simply could no longer live with. Redemption. She decided she liked the word.
"Redemption" She said, aloud. It felt good in her mouth. Because in spite of what all everyone had planned...Abigor and his high-stakes dice game concerning her and Islinn...Yzebel, and her scheming and plotting to rule a grain of sand in the Blood Desert, and even Blixen, and his need to no longer be a pusbag through his association with her...none of that mattered.
This power she had...it was hers.
What all could she do?
She didn't know. But she was going to find out...and revel in it. She stood up and crushed the dirt in her fist and watched the black flames play between her fingertips before going out.
Redemption.
Redemption from puling about and feeling ill-used. She felt drawn to the word in a dark and secret way. Redemption from who she was. Yes. And on to embracing everything she was now. Yes. The road between the two lay in shadow but she had managed to come out the other side. Unscathed? Probably not. But here, all the same.
"I'll set you to burn." She muttered to herself, wiping her hands on her leathers. "You will fucking blaze before I'm done."
She turned and walked over to the still non-moving Blixen. Now though, a soupy little snore erupted from between his lips and one hand had moved down and wrapped itself protectively around his penis. Alora picked up one of the waterskins and unceremoniously dumped it on him. He quickly sat up,both hands dropping down and grasping himself as he looked wildly about, his tiny eyes bulging.
"I'm drownded! You've drownded me!" He squalled as he leapt up and began shaking himself like a wet dog. The screech cut through her head like a finely honed blade and she immediately regretted her decision. She silently waited for him to be done with his theatrics. Blixen finished shaking himself then began to preen his oily fur. Alora noticed, with distaste, he wasn't even wet, the water had merely slid off of his oily pelt. Finally, he stopped and eyed her, then leaned over and blew a huge wad of water and snot out of his bumpy nose.
"Come on," Alora turned away, and strode towards Alderon. "We're leaving."
Blixen caught up and threaded himself between her legs.
"Where to?"
Alora was silent. She reached up and snugged the outside rein on Alderon, ignoring his eerie stare, and swung into the saddle. His trick of dancing away as she tried to mount was ruined by the tight rein and, instead, he was forced to move towards her. Alora used the momentum to her advantage and settled in, grimly delighted with her ruse. Blixen,with a wild leap, grabbed the bottom of her stirrup, and scrambled up. She looked at him,brow raised. Her nose wrinkled.
"You smell like rotten eggs and dirt."
"I do??" He squealed, delighted." "I've been working on that for quite some time!"
He settled his pudgy butt down on her knee and switched what was left of his tail back and forth.
"Usually,I go for more of a meat-left-out-in-the-sun aroma, Yzebel likes that one a lot, but this one is hard to come by. I've found that if I run across stag shit that's kind of old, not really old to where its gotten hard,but just old to where its hard on the outside and still soft in the middle, if I find that, and roll in it then lay out in the sun for a few..."
Alderon pinned his ears and stomped a back hoof. Alora patted his neck.
"I know how you feel, big guy." She soothed then glared at Blixen.
"What? Not climbing up by his tail?"
"No.I'm saving that for later."
He hopped off of her knee and moved to Alderon's wide rump where he began to circle before laying down.
"Don't get comfortable," Alora said. "Get down and get the waterskins and my saddlebags. And don't take all day about it."
Blixen moved back to her knee and glared at her. He slowly looked at the ground, then back at her.
"I haven't eaten yet, Alora. I'm hungry. And its cold. I can re-start the fire and we can warm up a bit, what's the hurry anyway?
"Rogue's Refuge; ever heard of it?"
Blixen yawned, revealing yellowed incisors, and reached a hand around to scratch at a spot right below his ratty tail.
"Heard of it. Lots of fun. Religious zealots and murderers. You know how well those mix."
One swipe of Alora's hand sent him tumbling to the ground. Blixen rolled and bounced to his feet with an angry squeak.
"First you try to drownded me, and now you knock me off of your horse, I TOLD you I can't fall from heights, I TOLD you this, it could break off, and you keep doing it, why do you keep doing it, Alora the Twiceborn? Why? Why,why why??"
He began to stamp one tiny hoof to emphasize each word. Alora watched him, feeling a slow,simmering rage work its way across her senses. She simply didn't have the patience for this right now. But as quickly as the rage appeared, it disappeared, leaving her feeling tired and a little ashamed. Of course Blixen was acting just like this because what else could be expected? He spent his days lolling about, eating, fucking and looking for mischief. She'd known he was a horrible little puck from the very beginning and now she was expecting him to be different so she could feel better about her childish feud with Yzebel and her choice to bring him along.
You decided to take him along, so he's your responsibility.
And even though she knew it had been a huge blunder on her part to bring him along, that didn't lessen her responsibility to take care of him.
"All right Blixen...just...hand me my things. We'll ride a little bit and then stop and find some food."
Her voice had an undertone of regret, even she heard it, but Blixen's little ear flaps honed in like a bee on honey. His wet little eyes rounded, glistening, and he sniffed so hard, his bulbous little nose shuttered with wrinkles.
"I'm soooo hungry, Alora...I eat at the SAME time every day, I will forgive you for not knowing this but now that I've told you...I expect you to remember that as we go along because I need my strength, it takes a lot to carry all of this around and while you don't seem interested in it right now, I'm figuring a little ways down the road you will be..."
"Okay,I'm done being nice. Get my shit and bring it up here to me or the switchings that Yzebel gave you will seem like a tickle if I get down off my crazy horse, do you understand me?"
So much for regret. Alora watched him, her eyes hostile, as he made a show of dragging her packs to her, grunting and heaving with the effort. At one point,he stepped on the tip of his penis as it dragged through the dirt and did a spectacular flip, landing on his back and then laying prone, while tears dripped out of the corner of his eyes.
She waited.
Finally her gear was slung securely across Alderon's rump and a disgruntled Blixen was curled up in a tight ball in the small of her back and refusing to speak to her. Alora ignored him. Knowing how little patience she had, she figured it was probably best if she simply didn't speak to him at all for a while. Besides, she now had other matters to attend to, mainly staying mounted as she asked her crazy horse to head out in the direction of Rogue's Refuge.
She hesitantly clucked her tongue, a sound that had always caused Loki to roll into his rocking horse canter. Surprisingly, Alderon moved out, his head tucked obediently to her rein. She'd expected him to blow out from under her, and Blixen's sudden frantic grabbing of his tiny hands on the back of her tunic told her he'd thought the same.
"What's wrong with him?" Alora's words caught on the wind as Alderon moved along, blowing a jet of frosted air from his nostrils.
"Don't know," Blixen yelled back, still clinging to her tunic. "Doesn't seem right though; him just moving along like this."
Alora allowed a tiny smile to creep across her face as she relaxed. He was powerful, so collected that the motion of his movement was contained with himself and she had the feeling she was perched upon a giant, still rock as the ground moved beneath her. His hooves drove down, churning, slinging grass and dirt and her smile widened, each step taking her closer to Rogue's Refuge.