The Cursed Lands of Kovgrad

[ivery 590]

 

The Cursed Lands of Kovgrad

556 E.S.

 

The sun is warm on her face. In the darkest part of winter, it is such an expected blessing that any other would be suspicious. Outside, there is rare laughter as the residents of their little village roughhouse in the warmth. She can hear how every thump shakes snow off of the roof. It should make her smile. It has made her smile, any other day; she counts every laugh as a victory. They’re still human, in a way, still mortal beneath the shackles that bind them. Her children, she whispers of them when no one can hear. Tainted by their own bitter ambition, driven to tear apart pieces of themselves.

 

Her other children were shackled too.

 

The missive in her hands- abdication of Kovgrad- crinkles at the corners. Teardrops fall onto its words and warp the ink. She knew. She knew. 

 

The pair of them should be here with her, joining in on the joyful clamber outside. They should be free to be what they’d wanted to be, before the world tore the dreams from their hearts. They should be within reach instead of this damnable missive--

 

─── ✧✧✧ ───

 

Months ago, cornered in a den of wolves, she had backed away from her daughter’s hand.  She had begged for her to stay there, through the danger. They would be safe, her daughter begged. They could be happy.

But she heard their footsteps close by, thunderous against the keep’s cool stone. Deafening. She remembered what it felt like to be caught in their sight, to be torn apart when they had caught the scent of her blood.

She stepped back into the storm of sickly flames and left her.

They could both live on without her, she had thought with certainty, muddled by mind-addling terror.

Her daughter would be safe and happy among them without her.

 

Years ago, in a quiet stone chapel, she had sat in the front row as the lady of Kovgrad married a Barrow.

Reza had never been one for finery, but there were pearls carefully woven into her hair, and her patchwork skirts had been traded for silken drapery. Andrey stood beside her, having tamed his hair at long last.

When he had approached, his royal finery did not match his quiet request. To speak on behalf of him, in place of the family that was absent from the hall.

Her son, she had called him. His family was there. The part that mattered.

In the weeks that followed, the crowd behind her would whisper that Reza had made a mistake to do so, that she was marrying a cruel man. But looking between them, at where their hands were clasped together, she knew better.

He was not cruel, not to the wife he loved, and she was not fragile. In spite of everything whispered behind her, there was love in their eyes. When she stood to give her blessing, she did so proudly.

 

Decades ago, the Kovachev girl clung to her skirts in a crowd. She had hovered a hand by her shoulder, protective as she often was in the wake of Amaya, and guided her to safety.

She had barely seen her in passing before that, sickly as the girl was. In doorways, from the corner of her eye. Never had she come closer or spoken up. It was a familiar scar of the war, if a sad one.

Then the next day, that same shy girl had run up to her, tugging at her skirts. Thank you, Miss Deia, she’d said, treating her to a real smile and a clumsily-made flower wreath.

Proudly had she hung it up on her wall, preserved for the years that followed. She swore to herself that that shy smile would never fade, only grow. The first of her daughters, her foundlings.

 

A lifetime ago, in the dead of night, she watched a young princess loom over a crib. She dared not come closer than the doorway and be caught. She could see plenty from just the sliver of moonlight.

The pillow in the princess’ hands was a shock of white against black sleeves. Down, down, down it went, until it smothered the child entirely.

Frozen in place, she had done nothing. Perhaps she had prayed to drown out the princess’ weeping and the child’s muffled gasps, but she hadn’t moved.

Andrey’s sharp cry had filled the room as the pillow gave way, the princess collapsing to the ground in anguish.

 

─── ✧✧✧ ───

 

They find her weeping.

 

Clawed hands, colored every shade of the rainbow- burned that way by malflame and ambition- reach out to her in concern. Their roughhousing outside had been so brutal, surely leaving behind char marks and cracked walls, but the way they reach for her is gentle. She is not like them, and like this she is breakable.

 

Perhaps that’s what does it. When they ask what happened to bring her despair, what they can do, she tells them honestly.

 

“It’s a tomb,” she whispers, the truth coming out like harsh glass. “None remain. My daughter, my son-”

 

Gone, gone, gone.

 

“Burn it, before it curses the rest of them.”

 

─── ✧✧✧ ───

 

The sun rose over Kovgrad long before the rest of the world. Over the course of the night, the infernal had stolen into their keep with torches and demonic flame, setting the wooden walls to light. The keep, abandoned by its servantry who had in turn taken the livestock and freed them into the woods, was silent beyond the ominous rising of crackling smoke.

 

With Kovgrad’s walls crumbling around them, accursed words of grief and justice were spoken into reality. Splatters of blood boiled into nothing in their wake. For her, they had bled. For the foundlings lost, and for those who would take their place in lands now cleansed.

 

As morning broke, only ruins remained, but the land remained cleansed, ash raining down over the last licks of flame. On and on ash fell, forevermore.

 

Spoiler

Thank you so much to those who gave us the go-ahead to do this and everyone who participated! It was tons of fun and a good ending to a months-long group story arc. Hope you guys enjoy the concept we decided on ^^

[ChillDemonLad 170]

A boy, only a boy, watched as the flames burned. Cloaked in fabric and with fake features adorned, he watched as everything turned to ash. How the sky wept with the other's agony, how the birds screamed as his mother lit their home ablaze. He watched the blood dribble onto that accursed symbol, the one his mother from long ago had warned about.

It was horrid.

It was beautiful.

It was what his family wanted, so he should want it too, no?

He felt sick.

[ProcaPro 557]

Embering eyes watch the keep burn. They wonder what memories were in its walls, what life it had. What dedications, cares, pains and love it had held secret and cradled within itself.

 

Fire was a purifying thing, of course. But it was a shame about the books.

[Herod 1417]

The newly made Baron Kovachev wondered what circumstances and timing could proponent such a calamity to his home. He quickly gave up. The otherworldly acts of malice cannot be explained by earthly reasoning, but by pure vengeful rage.

[HogoBojo 4725]

The aging Duke of Kvasz, Henrik-Otto Jakob Ludovar would let out a deep sigh as he heard the news. "This is horrible news, I do hope that none of the Kovachev family were home during this horrific blaze, or I hope that they got out safely." He'd murmur to himself as he started to draft a letter, offering relief support supplies to the new Baron.

[winterblessing 1800]

 

Emika could see the smoke billowing in the distance. She watched on in horror as her home was turned into nothing but ruins. Without Rezalisa and without Kovgrad, Emika felt lost. The quiet bleating of a goat that clung to her side was not enough to snap her out of her daze. As a hand ran through the goat’s fur, the servant woman was left with more questions than answers.

 

What would she say?

 

What would she do? 
 

Where would she go now? 

[PrimnyaQuorum 3998]

Above the raging inferno, beyond the ashen skies - stars weep. 

 

They watch. All they can do is watch, and feel sympathy. 

[Pureimp10 5691]

1 hour ago, Herod said:

The newly made Baron Kovachev wondered what circumstances and timing could proponent such a calamity to his home. He quickly gave up. The otherworldly acts of malice cannot be explained by earthly reasoning, but by pure vengeful rage.

 

Duncan Baruch offered Varon a pat on the back, hoping to console the poor boy.

 

"I guess th' mud walls didnae 'elp dampen th' fire after all, but it's ok, ye can only go up from 'ere!"

Edited November 16, 2024 by Pureimp10

[Frawlic 1602]

Cursed. The young Kovachev had always considered their family cursed to some degree. Where did all the others go, those of only the strongest wills remained. She wasn't one of them, having fled to the capital at the smallest estrangements. Though her brother was a larger piece of herself than her twin preoccupied with the moons, this home was his. He was bitter, though resilient and warily did she begin to ease herself back into his confines. Dima snuck through his heart and mind, proving that her existence by his side was necessary, and so just the two of them would create something new, and wonderful, allowing it to flourish upon the lands bestowed upon him.

And yet when she ran to that keep to retrieve a coat made with love, to chase that cold ache from her bones, the girl of thirteen had never seen a light so bright, so blinding, that even the sun didn't compare in those moments. That heat rattled her, the flames licking away a future her mind had just begun to form.

Cursed.

[Toffee 2843]

Remnant embers glowed in Adalfriede von Hexenwald's eyes, silent tears tracking, unbidden, down her cheeks. The charred skeleton of Kovgrad was all-too-similar to the blackened Hexenwald, growing smaller through the trees as she was carried away by Ser Malcolm. She didn't know she could still cry, didn't know she still had tears left for that distant castle and the family burned within.

 

"You will survive," she told Dima, for a moment seeing herself in the girl.

 

"Not just survive." The little Princess Oliviya squeezed Adalfriede's hand. "Dima will thrive."

 

Perhaps. If she was strong enough.

[winterblood 11181]

 

There was only darkness around Rezalisa as the frosted winds whipped at her tent, some weeks had passed by now since her trek into the Ailmere blizzards; to ascend this accursed Mountain.  The horrors that found home in such cold shadows disturbed her, yet she knew she could not let herself falter now; not after everything.

She wrapped herself in her furs and did her best to get some rest, even if she knew little of the time; night was constant here - all light of the sun was choked out by the haze of snow and fog.  Hearing the winds outside, and the softened sounds of the Nornish camp around her tent, she contemplated the words of that Witch who spoke to her of dreams and peace; Where do you find solace, Lady Rezalisa?

Despite the threats introduced her to that day, it was those words that echoed in her mind rather than such unearthly things.  What gave her solace?  She thought of her children, as any mother should; yet it was in their image where she only found ache. . . Her son, who only regarded her with a bitter hatred for the life she had birthed him into; who would only refer to her as a wh*re and curse her name.  Then there was her fair-headed daughter Dima. . . Who shied away from her touch and gradually carried more and more of a silent resentment to her mother.

Rezalisa's love was unending, yet so was her pain; for no matter how much she had tried to mend the fractures of her home, more would blossom at her touch.  So she had accepted her fate of solitude, for her love to be held at a distance.

Where do you find solace?  That voice of Heimlaug rippled through her mind once more.  Rezalisa thought of her home, of Kovgrad; yet its spires cast long shadows over her life and reflected memories of soot and misery.  Her eyes closed tightly to push the images of that ugly day out of her mind, and she found herself in a gelid forest.  There was stillness to be found within that winter cold, a true peace of frozen slumber within nature.  As Rezalisa pulled her furs over herself more, she thought of her wolf Syr, who had come to be a close companion in her hunts. . .

She clung to this, for such solitude is where she believed there was only peace to be found then.  Yet, a gentle cough was heard from beyond her tent; one of the Norns tending to the nearby bonfire so that its flames would not wane.  And she was reminded of the new kinships she had found and nurtured.  Perhaps love could be had without its thorns, at least for a time.

[Frostdrop1 1843]

A curious, distant white crow watched the blaze. Wholly unearthly, it had no place in the mortal realms except the promise it upheld: bound in impossible promises.

 

Ice-warm eyes flickered closed as Marus hid the sight from view, but little could the flicker of light be quelled by his attempt. 

 

He could surely never find her now, elusive as she had become in the last many, many years. How terribly lonely it had all become, for in his resolve to remain for those he connected to none of those persons cared to seek him.

 

None, of course, but a tiny handful of those readily at home and one inquisitive girl-turned-woman.

 

Cursed, she had thought herself. Yet even now, with her far-gone it is the lands that still burned. It was the ambition that burned. It was the hope fir something better in shadowed lands that burned. It was strife that burned.

 

He remained afar, watching the blaze until all was ash. Silently, he wished the children he had been barred from well. Silently, he wished her well.