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 Posted: Wed Apr 03, 2019 2:27 pm
Sitting on the end of a broken peer, her feet well above the water, she almost thought she caught a whisper of something through her mind. She'd come down here chasing that wisp, but it had been teasing her since. She almost felt like she knew what the ships looked like that had traveled down this river. It felt like the shadows from the buildings behind her should have reached this far by now, but without their broken tops, she still felt the heat of the sun on her mottled shoulders and red-streaked hair.
This place was strange, for the hints of memory it gave her and the way it felt like home. Or maybe more like a home she'd had once, a long time ago. Not like the nostalgic feeling of a grown woman visiting the house she'd grown up in, seeing it empty and abandoned... but like she'd left for a while and just returned recently. Like it had been waiting for her, or she for it. It was almost as much of a homely feeling as the apartment she lived in now, and they both had that sort of empty feeling to them. Like something was missing or waiting to be returned.
At least this place tickled memories. Hers of life on Earth stopped abruptly on that day in the park, surrounded by senshi. Everything beyond it was a blank, cloudy wall she couldn't pierce... even if sometimes she wondered if she couldn't see things shifting in that vagueness.
She'd thought the uneasy feeling she had was because of the annoyance at her memories and the turn her thoughts had taken. Lifting her head, Tanais pulled herself from her thoughts and frowned as she looked back over her shoulder.
Nothing there. Crumbling walls, broken stairs, dried grass poking out of forgotten corners. Shadows darkened some, but not enough she couldn't see. There truly was nothing there, but... she felt like there was something watching her, as cliche as that sounded even to her. Mars was empty, everything she had seen and everyone she had talked to had agreed to that aspect of their homeworlds and wonders. Empty. But she didn't feel alone here.
Her ancestory maybe? Some knights had them, but the few times she had visited, she hadn't met a ghost of any kind.
The water continued to ripple past as she rose and strode back up the peer, looking side to side for hints of movement, shadows that looked oddly shaped. Up through the archway into the city and down the broad avenue to the city center, the great fountain that sat ruling over all. Nothing moved... nothing stood out... but as she stood there, trying to calm the goosebumps that ran up her arms, she hear a low, rippling growl come from behind her, washing over her and seeping into her bones where prey instinct knew the sound of a predator...
And she fell into it, the world shifting.Word Count: 565
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Posted: Wed Apr 10, 2019 9:46 am
Blood ran down her face and Nemea glared at her older brother, Jordan. He laughed down at her, the short blade in his hand red along one edge from where it had cut open her cheek. Her bare, brown arms had cuts like that too, and her short tunic was ripped.
To the side of Jordan, Amele laughed too, sounding closer to a bray than she would ever admit.
"What makes you think you're worthy of being Tanais?" Jordan spat, flourishing his xiphos.
"You haven't done anything to DESERVE it." Amele snarled, leaning on her own, point down in the dirt. Father would have beaten her red for blunting the tip like that, if Olavo didn't get to her first. The arms master had certainly drilled it into them often enough. Amele was too arrogant by half.
"I WANT IT!" Nemea shrieked as she launched herself to her feet, heedless of her dirty and bleeding state. Her own xiphos lay off to the side, thrown when Jordan had disarmed her. He expected the bull rush from her, she'd done it before, but because of that, he was also expecting the punch that never came. It was the kick between the legs that doubled him over, howling in rage. Twice her age at fourteen, he was a good couple of feet taller, but her kick had all of her slight weight, and all of her fury, behind it.
A hard body impacted her from the side and she was laid out again, groaning when she wanted to snarl. Amele rolled her shoulder and loomed over her, nearly as tall as Jordan, and as broad.
"We ALL want it." Amele growled through her teeth.
Off to the side, Somala watched with slitted eyes, Bach crouched beside her, fiddling with a round buckler in his hands. Of her many brothers and sisters, it was Jordan and Amele who tried the hardest to put her in her place, feeling it was their duty as her eldest siblings. The rest would not have hesitated though, had they not been there. Amele was right. They all wanted to be the one that inherited the title of Tanais. Only one of them could, though, and Father showed no preference for one over another, only encouraging them to be stronger, faster, tougher. There was no saying who would end up with the post, but that didn't stop any of them for vying for it.
"Tanais is a MALE post." Jordan said as he straightened back up gingerly. Amele gave him a glare for that, but he only grinned back in that cruel, self righteous way he had when he knew he was right. Nemea refused to accept that, though. She'd seen female knights before, passing through the city as they traveled up or down river. Women could be knights, so why couldn't the Knight of Tanais?
"I'm going to be Tanais!" Nemea shouted from the ground, her red eyes hot as fire, nearly spitting sparks.
Jordan's grin turned back into a snarl as he rounded on her, Amele close behind. They left her there in the dirt of the practice yard when she stopped trying to get back up, her mouth swollen where one had gotten a good punch in. The others went with them and it was one of the servants that finally came forward to help her up. They didn't berate her for fighting... none of the servants would. Mars was a tough world. The soldiers of Mars had to be harder than that.
They led her off to bathe and salve her bruises, and Nemea knew this wasn't the first time she had been beaten nearly unconscious, nor the last time it would happen. It took her older siblings a little longer each time, a little more effort to do so. Her black eye twisted the expression, but her eyes still burned like coals, fire banked, but ready.Word count: 689
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Posted: Wed May 29, 2019 1:43 pm
And she blinked at the lion that loomed before her, snarling to show long, white hot fangs. Fire roared around it's face like a mane, trickling down its spine to the tip of its lashing tail, and looking into its eyes was like looking into the sun itself. Frozen, Tanais could only stare at it, feeling her heart leaping in her chest, blood pounding in her ears.
"You haven't done anything to DESERVE it." Amele snarled.
The knight felt her face twist in an answering snarl. The echo of the... memory? Had come without thought... and she burned at it now as much as she had then.
"Its mine!" She shouted back at the beast, raising her fists. They flashed with brass, wrapped in her lion-backed gauntlets. She was Tanais. She had woken up in this body, in this uniform, weapons on her hands. The first thing she had ever known had been this. It was her on a level so deep it couldn't be separated from her own identity. She was more Tanais than she had ever been Aris, and the surety of it was in her bones.
The lion gave a coughing growl.
"Why do you deserve it?" Her brother spat at her. Across the span of countless years, she heard the jibes, the ridicule, but beneath that, the bald question. The sense of pressure, like it was a true question needing answered.
The lion's mouth opened wide and the cough became a roar that made her bones rattle inside of her, pebbles jumping around her feet. Fear rushed through her, seizing her till she couldn't breathe, and she watched as the lion turned and ran for the manor house behind them. He streaked through the door she knew led to the training yard like a falling star and she was frozen in her place, fighting the rush of emotion she felt.
Maybe I don't deserve it. She thought wildly. Maybe that thing'll eat me if I don't... I could die here and no one would ever know...
But the fear of death had never stopped her before? And if she didn't deserve it, when she had walked through the pit of shadows to come out the other side... then no one deserved to wear this mantle.
It was hers.
Tanais had to force her legs to move again, jerkily at first, before she was running for the door as well. She caught the glow of the lion as it rounded a corner and she pounded after it, breaking free from the dark of the hall into the brightness of a small arena, open to the sky above.
The lion turned as it neared the other wall, barely pausing, and rushed back at her. Tanais had to stop short before it crashed into her and sent her flying backwards, hitting the ground and skidding to a stop. Pain arced through her, lighting up all her joints before she could groan and force herself up. The lion hardly waited for her feet to be under her before coming at her again, all elemental fury and heat. It singed her armor with the brush of it's mane and its teeth sank into her bare arm, making her scream with pain.
Everything was pain, and struggle, and the fear that she wasn't as strong as she had always assumed she was, her confidence crumbling as the lion shook her like a kitten, throwing her down again. Over and over it hit her, threw her down, and back. They circled the yard, heat searing bare skin and blood spotting the cracked dirt. Tanais felt like she was going to crumble under the onslaught. Break in half and collapse like a doll.
She had to push herself to keep standing back up and keep meeting it head on. She hit it with her gauntlets, called her magic and hit it again, over and over. It never seemed to tire. Tanais did, and sooner than she could believe.
Collapsed against one of the stone walls after another hard blow had thrown her there, she wheezed and spit blood, everything aching. She struggled to push herself up and her knees gave up, sending her sliding back down the wall. She could barely raise her arms and she knew that this time, that fanged maw would take her throat....
"Why do you deserve it?" Her brother jeered again.
Tanais lifted her head and bared her teeth at the lion as it stood over her, the fires of its mane flickering hotly. It coughed and she growled back, too tired to be afraid any more, but too defiant to quit.
"I WANT IT." She spat at the thing, hissing through her teeth. And she did. She wanted to be Tanais. It was everything she was. The duty, the sacrifice, the call to protect. She wanted all of it, more strongly than she wanted anything. So what if she had done little to deserve it? If the things she had gone through didn't count, then so be it. She'd fight for it, had fought for it, and she was not giving it up until the last breath left her.
Sun-hot eyes bored into her red ones till she had to lift a hand to shield her face, the light growing hotter, and brighter. It blacked out her hand infront of her face, swallowed everything, and then it was gone.
The afterimage burned and she had to blink hard to clear it, darting eyes around the suddenly empty training grounds. No lion. Nothing. The hand she lowered fell on something that felt like leather and Tanais squinted down at what she picked up.
It was a leather band, tails on either end for tying it around something. Across its surface, pawprints had been burned into the leather. Simple, almost shabby by way of adornment, but she felt like she had held it before. She could almost swear she felt the power radiating from it, like heat from sun-bright eyes.
My summons?
Something, perhaps, to ask Gehenna about... or maybe Hvergelmir. Hver knew knight things and didn't come with the complicated feelings Ghen did. The knight groaned as she finally managed to push herself to her feet, feeling blood trickle from her cuts.
Fine way to say Hello. She grumped to herself as she willed herself back to Earth and the first aid kit she had in her apartment.Word Count: 1119
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