Welcome to Gaia! ::

Hey! Name's Rua and I just joined earlier this morning. I figure the next step is to post something, right? Well, this post is actually pretty old. Okay, a year old. But I reeeeaaaally like it. And it's been editted and revised many many times.

Sis'trom is my character. I've been playing with her longer then anyone else, she's my baby. I love her. She's been revised and changed many times though. So some parts have been editted for different RP sites and whatnots. That's why some places are... weaker then others. Anyways, I hope you enjoy!!

Sis'trom. Ebony waves, snow-kissed skin, onyx eyes and dirty blood that marred any beauty in the above features. Her feet had pounded the earth for hours on end; no particular direction; only one destination: away.

Maybe it had been only hours of break-neck running, it could have been minutes for that matter, though it felt like years of track making. The sinewy muscles that made up the strong elf had begun to double-up in effort to keep her path. Yet, no matter what her battle-oriented mind tried to tell her, she inevitably found herself slouched against a tree. Her fingers, swollen from dehydration, rested on the hilt of her sword, though they shook so hard with fatigue and over use that they couldn't have lifted it to scare off a rat. Perhaps it was just a security issue; though she may be bloodied up, wounded, tired and unable to move, there was a good piece of steel at her hip.

Security or purpose, that's where her hand was, just as dirtied as her legs that were, from toe to knee, caked in dust that stuck to the blood that had been spattered from her earlier battle... The only remains of the Drow that had made the mistake of crossing paths with her family. She was three hour's full speed run from there. There being where half a dozen mangled bodies smoldered in a suffocated fire, where the heat struggled to survive under the ooze of blood. The reek hadn't caught up to the Elf's flaring nostrils yet, though eventually every village for a hundred miles would know that the trouble makers had met a suitable end. Suitable for everyone except the survivor.

Sis'trom was anything but happy. Ruby liquid flowed mercilessly across her blouse and smooth leather pants (the only outfit she carried with her). Two openings ran parallel along her cheek and across her mouth, another had appeared on her temple when she forgot to mind an opposing dagger and at least a dozen others flecked both her sword and defense arm. In short, she was a mess. To top it all off, every time she drew in, or let out a shaky, wheezing breath, more of the precious liquid that kept her alive flowed from her throat. Twin gashes gaped on either side of her neck, breath and blood trickling through them.

The acrid metal that had seared through at the last had left its taste forever in her voice, or what was once her voice. Yes, if you couldn't assume as much by reading the previous paragraph: Sis'trom was a mute. Sis'trom of the alto voice that had serenaded larks and nightingales alike had lost her one true talent. Well, there was her dexterity with a blade, and the strange mind trick she was born with... but those were not an art. One was common knowledge for any decent Silver Elf and the other was a mistake in genetics.

Her mind tricks were the secret of her tribe. They were the only shame she bore, but what a shame to bare. Her only explanation was that she was mixed. Impure. On some visit with some village or other her mother had stayed with someone other then her 'father'. Perhaps a Grey Elf had played some magic trick on her. Perhaps she was unfaithful. But she never knew the true story. It was something that no one talked about much. And once she was old enough to realize she didn't want to ask questions, it wasn't mentioned at all. All that mattered was that she was abnormal.

After a few decades of sitting there, like a wounded dog waiting to die, she tore the bottom of her cloak and wrapped it around her throat. It was only a matter of minutes till that was soaked through. She tore off another piece and pressed the coarse fabric against the wounds again. The biggest downside to weaving your own fabric with cheap supplies is how harsh and unloving the end product is. It scratches even the most callused of skin, and open wounds were slightly more vulnerable then a violinist's fingers. This made the hard-trained Silver Elf let the tears that burned behind her lashes fall. Pain, loss and exhaustion won her over. The shameful lines of moisture cut along her cheeks, collecting more blood and sweat before they fell on to her hands and shirt. Those blistered hands pressed the cloth to her throat still, though it took all her concentration not to collapse in a fit and cry like a child half her age.


She let her head lean against the oak she sat under, relieving some of the tension in her muscles. Slowly the blood began to trickle slower; her breath evened as her mind adjusted to loss of blood, starvation and the other half a dozen woes that had befallen her. Her muscles even began to stop their shakings and cramping. Yet, her family was still dead. That did not adjust itself. The past would not change itself, nor would its effects on the present.

The problem with adrenaline is that when it fades, it allows conscious thoughts and thinking to proceed. Everyone she had ever known was dead; She had just made her first kill. Her body was so mangled and hurt it would never be the same. By now the tears nearly flew from her eyes, though she did not bawl or make any noise of self-pity; the searing droplets just continued to fall. They were no longer of pain though, for that pain had been desensitized and became part of her, but for the fear that had risen. Her brother falling at the point of the sword, her mother fleeing into the forest with one of them in hot pursuit, all these things and more pounded into her mind. The flashes of steel, like silver fish in moon kissed ponds, still blinded her in the soft shade of the whispering trees. The cutting voices bellowing their incomprehensible battle cries still rang like the bell of a cathedral in her elegantly pointed ears. She shook her head, strings of hair sticking to her wet face, as she tried to push the images away. She heaved her tired-self up once more. It would do no good to stay as she was, caked in crimson and mud without a roof over her head.

Her feet resumed their path, less shaky even if in more dire need of an inn with a bed and a good strong drink on tap. The well worn leather of her shoes had gone soft as silk with the recent strain, but they hadn't burst at the seams, and quickly fell into an even pace like that of any traveler. It was the pace that would take her to the edge of a forgotten hamlet at the edge of a forgotten forest far off in the forgotten north.
The patrons, the tender, and the inn were all uneventful and not in the least bit memory worthy. The only plot-advancing point was that she left physically rested, on the way to being mended, and mentally more strained then ever she had been before. Her new clothes were clean and sweet smelling, though sadly not her particular style. The only seamstress in town happened to specialize in woman's casual wear, so she was stuck with a dress. Long, loose, cumbersome, but at least it wasn't constricting. The appealing feature was the collar that curved up to hide her ghastly wounds. That the sleeves reached her wrists was also pleasing. Least she wouldn't be labeled an undead creature on sight anymore. Still, the thoughts, the knowledge of what had happened... When the metal of hate had shot through the voice of the innocent, silencing it forever... When equal deathblows had been blown... That moment, that instant, that exchange, that which would plague her forever and never be undone...

As she started off again the next morning, it was nothing but straight road. Her path was mercilessly uninteresting and only allowed more of these unmentionably horrid thoughts creep into her mind. Thoughts such as: What if I loose this new battle? Where will I go from here? Who could cure me in this damnable world? These, of course, lead to answers more morbid than the questions. I'd be ruined, and no longer me, I'd be... insane. I'll just have to keep walking, walking forward till hope dares to show its face to the cursed. These disturbing ponderings streamed like this to no end. From the time she awoke till the sun slipped its tired red head into the west, slanting its rays into her unseeing eyes. All she had eyes for was the curve of silver around onyx, the seductive sheen of the hilt at her hip. Feet skidded suddenly to a stop, making dust rise again and fall in another layer on her new travel outfit. Her rough fingers had pressed themselves around the strong power of the blade's handle. The reflection of the metal caught the sun and made it dance around her face. The metal that took so many lives...

It had eagerly flashed in defense of her loved ones, slaughtering without second thought. One more life couldn't be so hard to take, could it? It was in defense of herself, no? It would take too much time to find an alternate solution. Things may go astray before then, and no one could say what that might mean. Memories of crimson hinted in the sunset's reflection, both blood and light shone with suicidal delight in her twin charcoal orb eyes. So easy... one more flash... one more stroke... Her eyes went to her wrist; it sat there like a willow branch waiting to snap. No, willows did not snap easily, they bent and fought back. This scrawny branch was willing though, already it was too long off the tree and dying, it was ready to break, and it wanted to. What else was left for it? But...


The sword sighed with relief as it was slid back home into its sheath. Not today, there were still too many places this path could turn, if she didn't stop to trip on any twigs left in the road, that is.

You should try to split the text up a bit more. I get a headache trying to read what you've written when it's like that.