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 Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 7:58 pm
Quote: The Witch & the Soldier
I.
Imagine to yourself a soldier.
He is tall and broad-shouldered, with a spine so straight it could be a pike. His hands are large and calloused. His eyes are a clear grey-blue, sharp like his vision. His jaw is strong. His lips are thin and closed. He does not often speak. He is a soldier.
He loves his Emperor, his country, his company. He is talented with a sword and disciplined in his actions, kind to those who would look up to him and brutal to those who would threaten those symbols he cherishes. From an early age, he has been taught to revere his Emperor and the position of Imperial Guard. His views have never wavered.
He is a good soldier.
II.
Here we must not linger.
It is too painful for the soldier to remember these scenes, even now, even after he has accepted them as truth.
Without his consent, the world changes around the soldier. The soldier is not afraid. He knows that the world is safe while his Emperor lives. And so as the world tilts, the soldier waits for his Emperor to right it again.
Many of his company die. Some of the growing plague, that tide which would not ebb. Some perish in pushing back raids. Some fall silencing voices who begin to cry out against the soldier’s beloved Emperor.
And all the while the Emperor is silent.
One day the soldier’s mind opens; again, without his consent. He wonders: who is the Emperor for whom they all die? What does he look like? What is the sound of his voice?
The soldier thinks: if only he could see, just once, he knows his mind would be quiet again. He makes up his mind to find out: just once, just to see, just to see…
But here we must not linger. We must not say that the soldier found a frightened boy, crippled by selfish worry and indecision.
III.
It is difficult to be a soldier without zeal.
The soldier no longer knows himself. He wants to be who he has always been, but once the thinking started, it refuses to leave him. His head hums with grim thought. He cannot find hope. He looks for it and finds disgust, and horror, and anger. And when he has no more of these, he finds only emptiness.
He still follows orders. He is, in the deepest part of himself, a soldier! To the outside, he seems very much the same. His back is still straight. His sword is still swift. He looks for hope, but at least he never finds fear.
He cannot abide fear.
When his company is called upon to quell a riot, he is ready. He goes where he is ordered. And he does not give ground even when his company is overwhelmed.
You see, he cannot abide fear.
IV.
Perhaps the soldier is distracted.
He cannot focus well, even as he and his company charge into the riot, beating back the crazed and desperate and unworthy. But the soldier does not pay attention the way he always does. He is stabbed in the crowd, stuck by a sick man who is angry at his sickness and sloppy with his weapon.
The soldier scoffs at the wound silently. It is deep. He will die. But it gives him time.
“You might have killed me much more cleanly,” he says to his murderer. And then he shows the man how, sticking him in the throat with his dagger.
The man dies, and the soldier falls upon him soon after. They will die together. The riot rages around them.
The soldier has never thought about what to do as he dies. He pulls his dagger from the man’s throat. It is his dagger. It will stay with him.
V.
It is night, and the soldier is not dead.
He is weak, and barely conscious, but he knows that he is not dead. Someone is touching his face. Someone is tugging at his collar.
I have nothing worth stealing, he thinks and tries to say. Just let me go in peace.
He groans instead.
In the darkness, through his squinted eyes, he can see the faint edges of a smile.
VI.
The soldier’s eyes open.
He is somewhere warm. He can hear a fire. He wonders if he has been asleep. He tries to rise, but his insides protest. He lays and watches the ceiling and tries to remember, but his brain is uncomfortable and slow and sore. He remembers the riot. The sick man he killed. His fingers flex for his dagger.
He breathes in a ragged breath as he tries to turn. The room is dressed in garlands of herbs, hung upside down to dry. The dagger is beside him, waiting, faithful, but he cannot muster the strength to reach it. There is a smell of something boiling in the cauldron, but it does not cover up the scent on his dagger itself. And there is a woman, hunched and ancient, her skin as dry and cracked as the walls around the hearth.
“Did you wake?” she says. Her voice is thin and high like rising steam.
“How did you bring me here?” the soldier asks. His own voice is still a groan. The question he means to ask is: Why did you bring me here?
The woman draws toward the soldier’s bed. She does not comfort him. She kneels over his face, touching him with her gnarled fingers, and then touches his wound, covered in linen. He groans again, writhing.
“You are still not well, then,” she says, her voice interested.
“Witch,” the soldier hisses.
VII.
“What is your name, boy?” the witch asks him one day, the day after he stands again for the first time. She asks him to keep his mind off the fact that he is winded just from standing. She can tell that this bothers him, makes his brows draw low over his eyes.
“How did you bring me here, witch?” The soldier snaps in return. His hands hover over his wound. He knows by now that she is a mage, that she has been healing him slowly, but he refuses to change her given name.
“I dragged you,” she answers with a smile. “Like a sack of manure. By your shoulders.”
She is fond of him without reason: if she were young, she would have fallen in love with him just to stave off the boredom of her loneliness. But as an old woman she merely enjoys his face, his too-long mouth that rarely opens.
The soldier grimaces. “Why?”
The witch lifts her shoulders and tends to her herbs, taking down the ones she deems ready and putting them into little bunches together. The soldier’s clear eyes stab into her and will not let her be. At last, she says: “I am fond of the Guard, and you were still alive.”
“I cannot pay you,” he says. “I am not going back to the Guard.”
“You should be right in some little time. We will find some way for you to be useful,” the witch says, lifting her eyes up to the soldier. He is no longer looking at her. His eyes are on his dagger, still waiting beside the bed. It looks as though it has rusted, but she knows the black stains are not rust.
She pauses, and pokes a gnarled twig of a finger at the soldier’s dagger. “You would do well not to touch that.”
The soldier smiles for the first time that she has seen. He picks up the dagger with both of his hands.
“Don’t worry,” he says. “It will be fine with me.”
VIII.
The soldier is taller than the witch expected, his gait surer and his hands steadier than she would have thought. He becomes more pleasant as his pain subsides, and she sees that he is industrious. He helps her gather herbs. He chops and piles wood for the fire. He tends to the garden.
“Do you not want to go home, Darius?” She has given him a name when he would not concede to give her his own. “You are well enough now.”
The soldier shakes his head. He never speaks of home, or of the Guard, or of anything else outright. The only thing he is unwilling to part with is his dagger, which stays at his belt, the unclean thing, everywhere he goes.
“I am leaving soon, you know,” the witch continues. “You cannot stay with me. I am going to Shyregoed, to my Fellowship.”
The soldier only nods.
In the coming days, he helps her to pack. There is not much, but put all together it seems like more – so much more to carry than she has ever had to before. The witch begins to pluck through her things to decide what is necessary for her trip.
“You cannot come with me, you know,” she says often. She reminds him even when it is not necessary. She says it every time she thinks he has forgotten that she will leave.
“I have not asked to,” the soldier replies with a snort, sitting on the floor with his knees raised and his hands atop them. The old witch turns from him, her head bowed.
Finally, the day arrives for the witch to go. She looks at her few parcels and hesitates.
“Witch,” the soldier says, pulling up a satchel around his shoulders. “You cannot carry these things alone.”
She says nothing. She knows he has a soldier’s heart. He must serve someone.
IX.
And so they go, the witch and the soldier, into the North.
X.
And all the while, the dagger sleeps, reassured by the beating of his soldier’s heart.
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Posted: Tue Jul 02, 2013 9:19 am
 ✤ p a i n t i n g sxx o fxx b l a d e s ✤
cyril, darius, jin ho, blaithe, hero
in progress
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Posted: Tue Jul 02, 2013 9:21 am
✤ b l a d e dxx r e n d e z v o u s ✤
cyril, darius, mary, sage, sloane
in progress 
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Posted: Tue Jul 02, 2013 9:49 am
✤ w i n t e rxx r o a d ✤ exploring anica.
There was nothing for it. The wind was unholy in its strength. Cyril dug into Darius’ shoulder for as long as he could, but it wasn't long before the wind made its desires known, tearing the clover from his hat – and the hat would have gone after it, if he had not managed to grasp it at the last moment. But soon it became obvious that his entire being was threatened at his usual perch, that the wind would not be sated by the theft of the clover and would take him, next, if it could.
So Cyril bundled himself in the pocket, drawing the fur closer around his head, stroking his cap for its loss. He could not speak for the wind, and peeking his head out of Darius’ pocket only stung his face. Through the flapping of Darius’ cloak, he could now and then see his Grimm, his master’s unshaven jawline, his eyes squinted, or the clump of frozen snow that was accumulating on his lashes and brows. He moved at a steady clip, the squint of his eyes sharp even through the storm.
A few times he tried to yell, to reach Darius’ ears, provide him with companionship in the only way he knew how. But there was no struggling against the wind; it bore his words away horizontally, hidden in the snow. There was barely the crunch of Darius’ footfall over the gathering snow. His hair streaked behind him. His cloak floated and clapped like a sail.
They walked.
When he managed a look forward, Cyril could barely see any destination in front of them for the white.
But all the while, Darius’ pace remained steady and strong. He seemed to know where he was going. He never stopped to check his way – what would he check? – but continued forward as if driven.
We cannot stop, thought Cyril. Or the snow will cover us.
The sun began to go down, and Cyril began to let fear find him in the pocket. What would they do at sundown? Darius could not keep walking forever. He turned in that small quarter and shut his eyes and opened them. He could imagine his Grimm faltering in the snow, falling to one knee. He could imagine him breathing, looking ahead, falling to his shoulder, breathing, breathing, then closing his eyes. He could see the expression. He could imagine the cold snaking into his Darius’s joints, his veins, his heart. The breathing stopping. The cold overtaking them both.
He was not used to letting his smile fade completely. He was even less used to turning it downward. He clutched the seam of the pocket, clasping and unclasping his hands. He had been quiet for so long – too long – and they had been walking for much of it. What would they do?
“Cyril.”
Darius’s voice was strangely loud.
It wasn’t until then that Cyril noticed the absence of the wind’s howl, the empty lack of Darius’ footfall on snow. He righted himself quickly, stepping forward and poking his head out from the pocket.
He saw the inside of a cave, well protected from snow, dark but warmer than what they had just endured.
Joy blossomed over his face. He looked up, incredulous, silent for the emotion thrumming through him. They would not die. The light in his master’s eyes would not extinguish.
“Is this silence?” Darius said in his gravel voice, low as thunder rolling. “Bless it.”
Cyril did not answer for a moment, smoothing his garments and putting his hat back on his head. His smile grew.
“Did you worry?” It came out as less of a question than it might have. Darius was moving again, making camp. The motion jostled Cyril from his reverie, and the plague climbed from the pocket to the cloak and back onto Darius’ shoulder.
“Are you not impressed?” Cyril said at last, his voice wavering before finding its usual confident lilt. “It is a trick I have worked on for quite some time. I can stay silent for even longer, should you wish – but of course I know you mustn’t wish it – for why on earth would a man such as yourself….”
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Posted: Sat Aug 31, 2013 8:09 pm
✤ w i n t e rxx r o a d ✤ exploring anica: ii
Cyril spoke until the fire crackled in the cave and the world disappeared into blackness beyond it. How strange it seemed to the Caedos, that the whole world should be engulfed in blackness except for the area around their fire, like the entirety of the universe condensed at night to only the space around them -- how strange, and yet, how correct.
Darius unrolled a pelt for a bed in the cave but did not lay down upon it. He reclined against the cave wall and watched the fire, his eyes distant. He had not spoken for a long while.
Cyril sat on his knee, cross-legged, his elbows on his thighs and his chin in his hands. He stared hard at Darius' face, at the shadows burrowed in the lines around his eyes. At the flickering of the flame reflected in his irises.
The wind howled but seemed very far away.
He liked his Grimm's face, Cyril thought. The eyes were strong and the contours pleasing. It was difficult to imagine a face he would like more, a line that he would change -- but then, he found that he liked faces: human faces and plague faces and the faces of buildings and trees and stones. Their lines that gave them age, and character, and spirit.
"You lost your clover," Darius said at length. His eyes focused momentarily on the plague.
"Oh!" Cyril started from his reverie. It was not often that Darius began a conversation. "What -- yes? How terribly uncivil of me, to have made you my study. Did I make you uncomfortable, my good man?"
Darius shook his head. He did not speak again.
Cyril's serrated mouth opened slightly as his hand went unbidden to his hat, touching the golden detailing -- and the ghostly lack of his favored clover. A grimace touched his expression, a rather rare sight. "My clover, the poor and delicate thing, he is a sculpture of ice now -- is it such an accessory as would be missed? I feel that sometimes I am not quite myself without it."
A corner of Darius' mouth lifted very slightly. "Hm?"
The plague tilted his head. "Indeed, that I have lost a bit of myself in it. Do you not think that way of anything? Perhaps if you were without your --"
He paused then, looking at his Grimm again, trying to imagine what, when removed, would rid Darius of his ... Darius-ness.
"... your..."
Cyril let out a hum, drumming his fingers on his leg, a frown slanting his light eyes. The beard? Inconsequential! He had seen Darius often without one. His hair? No -- tied up or let loose, it was the same, and would be the same if it were clipped short or allowed to grow. The pelts, his boots, the sword, they were all expendable in making his Grimm himself.
"My sweet sainted aunt," said Cyril with some amusement. "I cannot for the life of me find what a clover would be upon you. Do you not have some uniform, some something that would make you feel naked without it? -- not clothing, of course, for would we not all be naked without them? Even me, with my thick-fog limbs --"
"Cyril."
"-- forgive me, of course, but there are no ladies present! And anyhow, I do not mean clothing, as of course that would be absurd, although in some ways I supposed the clover was an adornment---"
Darius' mouth tilted upward further for the barest second before disappearing. "We will find you another."
Cyril paused. His eyes were on Darius' lips, watching them carefully, his fingers splayed and his body tensed, as though waiting for a wild animal to reappear after hiding. His own smile grew wide and curved.
"You know," he said, his voice becoming pleasant and rich. "I believe -- I believe we shall."
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Posted: Sat Aug 31, 2013 8:44 pm
✤ w i n t e rxx r o a d ✤ exploring anica: the clover
It still bothered Cyril the next day.
What made his Grimm his Grimm? Why should it be so strange to him that there was no ... uniformity to Darius, that he should change his appearance without much care, that he should take such pains to be without distinguishing marks? To be forgettable, when he was anything but? Surely others could see it. Surely!
He knew within himself that Darius was exquisite. That he was all that was right and moral and good. That his face was more than pleasant and his body strong. So why should his Grimm not delight in it? Adorn himself accordingly?
There were no secrets. He knew his Grimm was once a Guardsman. That he strove now for anonymity in a faked death. But it was not right. Cyril did not know what a guardsman's uniform looked like, but he knew that Darius must look right in it.
But even were that not possible, that he deserved something else. A clover of his own.
They walked in the forest. There were deer marks on the fallen snow, and rabbit marks, and the trail that Darius' footfall left. To Cyril, it was all the same. Black-barked trees, barren of leaves, as far as the eye could see. He looked at each of them, at the pattern of their branches, at the fingerprint of their peeling bark.
Between the trees, sometimes he could swear he saw the outline of houses, grey figures looming in the distance. Darius avoided them, walking quickly and deftly in the treeline. Cyril clung to his cloak, squinting as they went, trying to see the appearance of people in the haze of space.
Mary wanted Darius to learn the skills of a mage, Cyril knew. They spoke of it -- or Mary did, in quiet, reassuring words, her hands soft and small atop Darius'. It would be a different uniform, a different skill, a different place for his Grimm. They would be attaching themselves to the stoic grand magus and her sword knight.
He liked them, did Cyril. He felt they were good, trustworthy.
He wondered, though, if such a thing could happen. If he and his Grimm could reattach to anything, or if it would be like the peeled bark of the trees, torn off and put on another bare spot with sap. Patched on. Waiting to reel backward and fall again.
He wondered if Darius felt the same. If he worried. If he trusted that massive plague knight. It had been difficult to read what Darius thought in his eyes, then and afterward. Certainly, Cyril felt that Sloane was kin, or had adopted him immediately as such, but did kin not betray kin?
Cyril shook his head.
He liked the mages. He trusted Mary, and she in turn trusted the Grand Magus and the knight Sloane.
And it was a way to give his Grimm his clover, wasn't it? To strip away the mask of the backwoodsman.
Cyril looked up at his Grimm. The blue eyes stayed on the landscape. The chest rose and fell in easy rhythm. They descended, footsteps sure, closer to the grey stone buildings, half-hidden by frost.
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Posted: Sat Aug 31, 2013 9:04 pm
✤ w i n t e rxx r o a d ✤ exploring anica: the radish
The houses were empty.
It was obvious as Darius and Cyril approached them that there was nothing within. Stones littered the snowy gardens and the fingers of frost tore through doors and roofs and walls. There were not many houses in the grouping, and they were not attached to any still-working road.
"Somebody made a go of the wilderness and then repented," observed the plague cheerily, relaxing on Darius' shoulder.
Darius nodded once for a reply.
"Such a pity, for it's a lovely place," continued Cyril, sighing dreamily. Trees loomed all about the houses, as though trying to creep up on them, some younger saplings within gardens and rooms. "So lovely how nature reclaims a place, do you not think?"
A soft sound escaped his Grimm. Darius' eyes narrowed slightly as he caught sight of something in one of the houses -- he tensed, and his footfall became light and silent.
Cyril dropped his voice accordingly. He flattened himself on Darius' shoulder, looking in the direction his man's eyes went. His voice was a whisper as he spoke. "What is it?"
Darius did not reply. His face went from suspicious to perplexed. Cyril followed his eyes and let out a sputtering noise of surprise.
Green.
There was something green in one of the ruined houses. In all the grey and white and black, the acres upon acres of white splashed with cold blue, there was suddenly a bright and vivid green. And a tiny, moving spot of red to go with it.
Darius unbent and went forward.
The two of them peered inside the broken house.
Inside, there was a tiny garden, being tended to by an even tinier ... radish.
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