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peopleofthedas2010-12-28 04:19 pm
valiasedai) wrote in peopleofthedas2010-12-28 04:19 pm
Entry tags:
Where We Stand - 10.5
Short, drabble-length half-chapter. Played a bit with the tense for this section. Full update will still come on Sunday.
Chapter: 10.5 Bound
Words: 350ish
Characters: Erise Caron
Summary: The City stands, but what of her people and the Wardens?
Over at FF.net
The night has long passed and the sky burns red through the haze of smoke, but Amaranthine stands. People make their way out of homes and warehouses and tightly-closed shops until the streets are nearly full.
They cheer her.
Their voices break the eerie stillness of the stunned stupor most had been shocked into with the attack. But the darkspawn are dead and the people are alive and they give voice to their joy. Anders nudges her and tells her to smile and wave, but she can only lift her hand and nod.
That night a third of them die. They die by her hand, by Nathaniel's, by Anders', as the corpse watches in disapproval. The people are many things: silent, begging, pleading, screaming, struggling, resigned, accepting. However they meet their fate, each of them dies and adds to the pile of bodies. The blood she and the men spill is irrevocably binding. The mage and the archer finally understand her loss, and she finally begins to see them as brothers. They watch the dead burn through the night and when the sun once again peeks over the distant hills, they are gone.
They head east along the road and each step weighs heavy. Each time they stop for a few hours of sleep, her head fills with the dead and dying, the blood covering her hands and shirt and boots until each dream-step is wet and warm with spilled life. It is not just the people of Amarathine – it is those left at the Vigil, and one above all: silver hair and golden eyes staring up at her as steel cuts his flesh in her mind.
Erise does not sleep until they reach the fields of bones, and even then it is her body's refusal to go further that stops her. The others set watches and the mage deepens her sleep with magic.
She struggles and screams and rends her flesh inside the tightly-locked red hell inside her head. All the while, Justice watches her still, sleeping form and envies her apparent peace.
Chapter: 10.5 Bound
Words: 350ish
Characters: Erise Caron
Summary: The City stands, but what of her people and the Wardens?
Over at FF.net
The night has long passed and the sky burns red through the haze of smoke, but Amaranthine stands. People make their way out of homes and warehouses and tightly-closed shops until the streets are nearly full.
They cheer her.
Their voices break the eerie stillness of the stunned stupor most had been shocked into with the attack. But the darkspawn are dead and the people are alive and they give voice to their joy. Anders nudges her and tells her to smile and wave, but she can only lift her hand and nod.
That night a third of them die. They die by her hand, by Nathaniel's, by Anders', as the corpse watches in disapproval. The people are many things: silent, begging, pleading, screaming, struggling, resigned, accepting. However they meet their fate, each of them dies and adds to the pile of bodies. The blood she and the men spill is irrevocably binding. The mage and the archer finally understand her loss, and she finally begins to see them as brothers. They watch the dead burn through the night and when the sun once again peeks over the distant hills, they are gone.
They head east along the road and each step weighs heavy. Each time they stop for a few hours of sleep, her head fills with the dead and dying, the blood covering her hands and shirt and boots until each dream-step is wet and warm with spilled life. It is not just the people of Amarathine – it is those left at the Vigil, and one above all: silver hair and golden eyes staring up at her as steel cuts his flesh in her mind.
Erise does not sleep until they reach the fields of bones, and even then it is her body's refusal to go further that stops her. The others set watches and the mage deepens her sleep with magic.
She struggles and screams and rends her flesh inside the tightly-locked red hell inside her head. All the while, Justice watches her still, sleeping form and envies her apparent peace.