A Trial of Stars, A Found Flame

[Babehab 386]

(The following is a vision quest fueled by a concoction of hallucinogenic herbs after being dropped off unconscious in the wilderness. Nothing is as it seems, colored entirely by the character’s addled perception. This is related to the Order of Helwyr, a guild of Petra. Do not metagame any information in this post)

 

Francesca awoke to the intense smell of burning and an oppressive heat. The very sky above was set ablaze, scorched an ugly, hellish red by the forest fire which raged all around her. The stars were hardly visible through the smog, which certainly boded well for her Trial of Stars, though she could hardly muster the mental power to dwell on that.

She rose to her feet unsteadily, her stomach turning; the herbs had done a number on her body and mind, but it wasn’t like she could just lay there and burn to death. Fran wondered if Briar had set the fire. Would he really go so far? Was this even a part of the trial?

A sudden snap of branches, the padding of feet. Although the trees around her were alight, flames writhing upon them like anguished ghosts, the forest floor yet still remained dark. Francesca spun about, met with the glowing eyes of a distant predator.

As the beast began its approach, the Helwyr in training reached for her sword, and her stomach lurched as she found nothing. She’d forgotten; no weapons. Her eyes flitted about to search for something to fight with, but she knew better than to look away from a predator.

The beast growled--a low, warped noise unlike anything she’d ever heard. As it drew closer she realized why; it was a wolf, though not a living one. Its flesh seemed to just barely cling to its bones, the loose flesh covered in bald spots, and yet its stomach remained sucked to its spine. That bastard’s pet, she reasoned. After all, someone had told her that necromancers could raise the corpses of animals once. This must’ve been revenge for sheltering Pierce. That changed things; it couldn’t be frightened off, and it likely wouldn’t leave her alone until it was dead, which meant she needed a weapon.

Francesca’s heart felt like it was trying to beat out of her chest as she frantically looked about. Heavy, necrotic paws bounded towards her as she grasped a heavy looking stick from the ground. She whipped about, the stick howling through the air, just in time to see it connect with the undead wolf’s jaw with a CRACK! As it barrelled into her.

Once again the ground greeted her, as did the infernal sky above. The wolf rolled off of her, carried by its uncontrolled momentum. The fledgling Helwyr hardly remembered standing, head still spinning from the killer combination of herbs and sudden movement. The wolf seemed to cower in fear as she swung again, soon after fleeing in terror from Francesca and her powerful weapon.

She let out a heavy breath, watching it disappear into the abnormal darkness of the burning forest. How could a reanimated corpse feel fear? Perhaps it was retreating in the hopes of luring her into a false sense of security, or to get her to chase after it. Francesca refused to fall for it, resting the heavy stick against her shoulder as she jogged the way opposite of the wolf. She needed to get out of the inferno and away from that horrid man and her pets, at least until she had a proper weapon. As she trekked through the wilderness, her paranoia began to get the better of her; each time she caught a dancing shadow in the corner of her eye, she could swear it was. Surely the others would’ve tracked that man here. She couldn’t be utterly alone against a necromancer.

“But you are alone,” A familiar voice called.

The fledgling Helwyr felt her blood run cold as she spotted him there in the clearing ahead; that horrid man. A figure in a long, black robe, hood pulled up to hide his face.

“See what you’ve wrought?” The figure spat through guttering flame, his body wreathed in the same blaze as the rest of the forest, yet indestructible, untarnished, “This was a place of beauty once. You ruined it.”

Francesca felt nettled at that, and remarkably brave as her nostrils flared, “Says the guy with a gaudy bust of himself in his house. Quit shifting the blame and get out of my way.”

The fire roared as the hooded man began his approach, the very ground seeming to shift as he left more destruction in his wake. Trees fell along his burning path, blackening and crumbling to ash in a cacophony of groans and creaks; somehow this fire was coming from him.

The Helwyr took a step back, and then another. That man wasn’t supposed to be able to do this, no one was.

“You’re one to talk about shifting the blame. You keep lying to yourself. Caught in denial yet forging ever onwards down this path,” The figure’s voice was coarse, low, but not at all like what Fran recalled that man sounding like, “Can you not feel yourself changing? Growing more jaded? Need I remind you of what happened to Lenore?”

Suddenly, Francesca wanted to vomit, “What happened to Lenore was an accident. She would’ve lost more than her legs if-”

“Who are you to make that decision? Once again you run from the truth. The pain you’ve caused just with Expatriation. I’ve tried to spare you the pain, but you keep reaching for me, and each and every time this blaze only grows stronger--maybe someday you’ll be consumed by it,” It was then that the Helwyr realized that this wasn’t that horrid man at all. This was someone--something else. Something old, something all the more terrifying. It took another step, the grass at its feet wilting and catching alight from the heat, “I tried to be kind. Tried to protect you from ever finding out what you might become… It hasn’t worked.”

Without a word, Francesca booked it in the opposite direction. Smoldering trees streaked past, blurring together in the blazing hellscape that was the forest. Even still, it wasn’t enough; with each step her pursuer grew closer, the overwhelming heat bearing against her back.

“Just this once I’m going to reach for you instead,” The figure growled. Pain shot across Francesca’s shoulder as a burning hand clamped down onto it, forcing her into the dirt with impossible strength. Fran impacted the ground in a cloud of ash, gasping for air as she squirmed in her pursuer’s grip. Flames consumed her body, and though they left her undamaged, she was not spared the agony of burning. Her pursuer roughly turned her over, and from down in the dirt Francesca could finally see that it wore her face.

The Flame, that was who it--who she was; a construct of the mind. There was no necromancer, just her. Only in the white hot clarity of pain did Fran realize that she was all alone here, just as they had said.

“Do you get it yet? Do you understand why you struggle to hold me despite everything?” Asked the Flame, an accusatory zeal to her voice, “The pain we can cause together?”

“You’re not just a weapon…” Francesca choked out

“Not to Astrid, no. She planted that belief in your head, and it grew into a wonderful little forest, but now you and I are burning it down,” The Flame’s fingers dug into Fran’s shoulder as she knelt atop her, eliciting a shout of pain from the girl. The burning woman hissed in her ear, barely audible over the roar of the blaze, “She has chosen a gentler path; you haven’t. Yours has led you here, to a burning forest, chasing ghosts with the intent to slay them. Accept the truth that you have tarnished what she made of you, that neither of us is as noble as she makes us feel.”

It was all getting to be too much. The Flame was right, wasn’t she? Francesca let out an anguished wail, curling in on herself in an attempt to shut it all out--and it worked. 

The pain which wracked her body ceased. The blaze was gone, the forest grew dark and empty, yet still the damage remained. What little greenery languished there would likely die soon enough. She stayed there like that for a time, unwilling to make a noise lest the Flame berate her further. Perhaps a few minutes passed, perhaps a thousand years, it mattered little to the tortured hunter. Her mind felt ravaged, yet she had her answer.

“...Blood begets blood. Violence begets violence,” She finally said aloud, her voice escaping her lips as a parched croak, “You are a weapon to me, it’s true. You always were…”

Wind howled through the blackened husks surrounding her--the only answer she received. The Flame was gone, nowhere to be found.

“And…What happened to Lenore will weigh on my heart for as long as I live. I acted irresponsibly, used my magic in a way I shouldn’t have, and as such, an innocent was hurt,” Francesca struggled to get her feet under her, pushing herself upwards with trembling hands, “Indiscriminate, overwhelming force. That is the weapon of the Church, the very selfsame that they use against you and I…But I owned up to my mistake, I begged for forgiveness and was given it readily.”

There was a light in the distance, just barely poking through distant trees. Francesca hobbled along, wracked with pain which she ought not be feeling, “You are mine to define, not the other way around.” Her feet were heavy, each step a monumental effort just to keep pressing onwards. “We may stumble, but we will never fall to their level again. I did not choose you simply to cause pain, to kill for the sake of killing, I chose you to defend those who cannot defend themselves.”

Early morning sunlight bled over the horizon as she came to the forest’s edge, bathing the plains beyond in a golden glow. Tal’andria would be easy to find from here.

The young Helwyr spared a look back to the forest, only to find that it had been mysteriously untouched by the inferno which had engulfed it previously--a hallucination, she realized. And yet she felt a warmth in her chest, one which wasn’t there when she entered; that part of herself which held such doubt, such self loathing, perhaps it could finally find a new purpose. 

“...The path that we walk is awash with blood,” She whispered, perhaps to the Flame, perhaps to herself--granted, there was little difference, “We will kill, we will be stained with it, but we will walk it with a head held high for the sake of those innocents around us. May we never forget that, may a mortal life always weigh heavy on our hearts… and may atonement come at journey’s end.”

[Cat Evocation 3728]

 

The Master Helwyr was awaiting Francesca at the gates of Tal'Andra a tall keep in the mountain pass of Petrans valley. He refused to get sleep that night knowing that one of his newbloods, the very first to take the Trials of Stars no less, is still out there still in danger.

 

"Is it worth it? To send them on their way like this. To put them in danger. It is not unlike the trials I had undergone." He would mutter to himself, worn fingers reaching down to take up a paper pack of Cigarettes he pulled one out and placed it between his lips. He lit a match off his boot and put it to his smoke taking a drag. "She'll pull through, I know it.

 

Soon sunlight broke over the horizon other members of the guild have come and gone greeting Briar at the gates, but he still stood there waiting. Soon, upon Francescas arrival he has let out a sigh of relief. He rarely showed emotions where he could help it but he couldn't help but smile, a genuine still unfamiliar emotion stirred in him.

 

"Welcome home, Helwyr."

[tezzaract 191]

Astrid Thriceblood potters around their shared home in the meanwhile, utterly oblivious as to what her beloved was presently experiencing. I hope Francesca enjoys her camping trip, she muses. Perhaps she might even find a cool bug to tell me about. That would be nice.