Open Chronicles Beneath Her Hands

[Monifa Oya]

The dawn light filtered through woven awnings and sandstone arches, painting warm gold over the outer districts of Lazular. Grain carts rumbled past stone courtyards, the scent of dates and dust already thick in the air. Beneath the low call of morning traders, a single sharp cry cut through: a newborn’s first breath.

Monifa Oya knelt beside a woman soaked in sweat and triumph, inside a narrow home with prayer markings etched into its lintel. Calm and steady, Monifa cleaned her hands in silence, her dark fingers stained with blood, her eyes unreadable. A bronze medallion with spiral etchings hung at her chest, worn smooth by time, a quiet badge of her long service.

“Strong cry. She’ll live,” Monifa said simply, handing the child to her mother. “You did well.”

At her side, a younger apprentice fumbled with clean linens and murmured thanks. Monifa gave only a nod and stood, joints creaking faintly from years of kneeling. Her linen scarf had been tugged loose, revealing strands of silver in her tightly braided hair. The indigo sash tied at her waist marked her as a near-elder midwife, a rank earned only by decades of trusted service and survival.

Outside, she sat beneath the awning and unwrapped her tools one by one: carved bone instruments, a vial of umbilical ash, bundles of dried herbs bound in sinew. The routine was familiar, grounding. Necessary.

A few neighbors passed by, offering respectful nods. None lingered long.

Monifa said little. She never did. Those who worked with her knew her as capable, quiet, and deeply rooted in the rhythms of life and death. The kind of midwife who didn’t flinch from blood, who returned after a long day.

 

[Zyndyrr K'yoshin]

There was something about walking throughout a city in the light of the dawn. For one thing, it was easier on the eyes and the skin. Certain kinds could appreciate that even with the hoods over their heads and the gloves that covered their hands. A drow had just that amid his outfit, keeping every inch of his skin clothed with a shadow over his countenance.

He walked the streets, did not linger in one spot for long, kept his head bowed, kept his head down. If he bumped into someone, maybe brushed the wrong shoulder, he would walk along and let any frustrated pedestrian walk it off. Failing that, there was always a back alley to take them to and open their throat. Sometimes death was the best persuasion.

For now, however, as he passed bars and shops, restaurants and markets, humans and elves and orcs, even a few dwarves, the drow in their midst was just lost in his thoughts. This city wasn’t his, in more than one sense, but neither was this continent, nor this world, so why not walk it and see what it might unfurl for him? So he did.

Lazular, a breadbasket of a settlement, was yet one more gem in a desert that shined with them. Yet it wasn’t riches Zyndyrr K’yoshin was after, not like this. There was more to it. So, with his cloak hiding the swords at either hip and the knives and daggers and armor amid, he kept his senses alert for danger but did not search for it. Unfortunately it had a way of finding him. Murder often did.

Yet, life had come with the dawn, not death. Zyn might not recognize a midwife but he did recognize his own kind. The orc sitting beneath the awning wasn’t exactly drow but she was a curious enough sight to make him pause. He did not nod. He might not linger long. He was no neighbor, either. He was just a stranger on a walk and brought no danger.

“Curious,” Zyndyrr said to her as he stood in her presence, gesturing toward her collections. “Ash and bone.” He tilted his head enough for his dark visage to be shown. “What are those instruments?”

Monifa Oya

 

[Monifa Oya]

“Curious,” Zyndyrr said to her as he stood in her presence, gesturing toward her collections. “Ash and bone.” He tilted his head enough for his dark visage to be shown. “What are those instruments?”

The hearth’s glow cast soft orange across the mud-brick walls, throwing lazy shadows onto bundles of dried herbs and hanging amulets. The scent of mugwort and woodsmoke hung heavily in the air, curling like memory around the edges of the small healing hut.

Monifa Oya stood tall in her flowing robe, her hands stained faintly with turmeric and lavender oils. She had just finished tending to a birth before the visitor arrived—a young man, armed and pale-eyed, though politely postured.

“The umbilical ash cleans,” she said. “The bones guide.” Her thumb brushed the spiral etched into her medallion. “They serve where life hangs between breaths.”

"Sit, child," she said with the calm warmth of desert dusk. Her voice carried the wisdom of years, yet had the cadence of a storyteller, slow and composed. "You’ve walked far in this sun. Let the wind do its work while you rest your bones."

At first, she didn’t look too closely—strangers came through Lazular daily, soldiers from Kherkhana, caravans from the Baal-Asha, and even Elbion scholars poking at bones and blood. His height, posture, and manner registered as surface-world. Only when she fetched water and knelt to pour it did her eyes catch the faint sheen of grey in his skin, the glint of red in his gaze.

A flicker of recognition struck her heart like a quiet bell—but her face betrayed none of it. She set the water down before him and rose slowly.

“Tea?” she offered. “Bitterleaf and mountain mint. For clarity. And courage.”

She handed him the cup, her smile calm, her posture easy. But her eyes, dark as river stone, watched him carefully.

“I am an elder midwife of Lazular,” she said, dipping her head. “Born under the sun, as my hands found work where the grain meets the sky.”

She shifted, eyes flitting again to his features—somewhat striking and disturbing. But she asked nothing of them. Instead, she asked something else.

"You seek something, soldier—not healing, I think. Not yet," she said with a soft smile.

She began busying herself with a mortar and pestle—not grinding anything in particular, just circling—trying to remain composed. Her speech slowed, eyes occasionally flicking toward the young man. There was something about the sharp line of his jaw, the cut of his ears…

“My door stays open to more than mothers and newborns. Even a soldier may need counsel—especially if newlywed, and still learning the rhythm of a woman’s body.”

She let the words sit for a breath. Not teasing. Not cruel. Testing.

“Is it her quiet in the mornings? Or the way sleep escapes her at night?” Her gaze flicked to him again. “You’re not the first man to lose his footing in such things.”

Her hand paused. A breath too long.

Silver caught the firelight. Red eyes. Unmistakable. Her grip on the pestle tightened before she resumed the motion—slower now.

“If you’ve come for a charm or protection for travel, I’ve herbs for the belly and spirit,” she said. “If it’s appetite,” she added, voice gentler, “I have a root that stirs warmth without shame.”

Her smile returned—still calm, still unshaken. But the watching never stopped.

 

[Zyndyrr K'yoshin]

A simple question, a simple answer. Zyn was glad that this woman didn’t fiddle with some convoluted explanation. Yet she was no simpleton. The ash cleans, the bones guide. His eyes shifted to the side just then as if to take in the kind of apothecary for the first time. Right.

“I’ll stand, thanks,” he replied, never mind 'child', though his tone was polite. As kind as he knew to be given kindness was an unlikely luxury in his ugly city. Tell that to the drow of his underground, however, and his father might have you flayed alive from the toes to the bone of the skull just for the insult.

Mesmerized, despite not knowing why, the son of K’yoshin watched this orcish woman’s movements as she fetched that water in her knelt posture. He was further reminded of a certain orc in his realm who lived her life as a slave for his kind. Before hell’s blade claimed her life.

“Yes please." He accepted the offer for the cup of tea at least, studying it carefully, cautiously, with choice before him.

She mentioned he sought something, like she was a seer in addition to a midwife, and if he didn’t know any different he might have wondered whether that was fear in her visage. Then again, fear was second nature to Zyn. It was in the eyes of his enemies when they tried to poison him.

I seek the healing of this tea. Finally, he took a sip, and almost spat it out the moment his host mentioned the rhythm of a woman’s body. Oh, he knew both.

It was all Zyndyrr could do to watch her and listen. She busied herself with a mortar and pestle. His thoughts were lost on the last woman he cornered and wrestled.

When her hand stopped that moment, his eyes did not. They were embedded within hers in the light of the fire. It was like catching a spider in its own web. Silence followed her tongue. Zyn said nothing in response. He just watched. Then spoke.

“I assure you,” he licked mint from his lips. “I have long learned the rhythm of a woman’s body. I take pleasure in her quiet in the mornings when I wake first and watch her, or watch her sleep peacefully when I’m still awake at night, feeling her heart beat and hearing her breath, slow and pleasant when only moments ago it was rapid and ragged.” He left little to the imagination.

“There is warmth in my veins, orc, and I have no shame in those who I take to bed or in my performance.” He tilted his head. “Their energy was better than this bitterleaf tea can ever be.” He drank deeply. Yet he could piss its clarity and courage into the wind. “Though it does the trick. I only hope it helps keep me awake.” Though sometimes the nightmares were what kept him sane. "What are you grinding, anyway?"

Monifa Oya

 

[Monifa Oya]

“There is warmth in my veins, orc, and I have no shame in those who I take to bed or in my performance.” He tilted his head. “Their energy was better than this bitterleaf tea can ever be.” He drank deeply. Yet he could piss its clarity and courage into the wind. “Though it does the trick. I only hope it helps keep me awake.” Though sometimes the nightmares were what kept him sane. "What are you grinding, anyway?"

The pestle slowed, then stopped. She set it aside with a practiced touch and turned toward him fully, the firelight painting her cheekbones gold.

“Sorrel seed,” she said softly, “and pink ginger. One cools the blood. The other brings heat back where sorrow makes the chest go hollow.”

She looked to the cup in his hands—not at the boldness in his words, but the quiet between them.

“I’ve ground it for fighters before. And for widows.” Her hands worked a piece of linen over her palms. “Same medicine. Different ache.”

She moved slowly, as if not to startle a wary beast.

“I helped a woman deliver her third daughter just before dawn,” she said, voice hushed but steady. “She came tangled in her cord—silent as dust. Her mother wouldn’t stop singing. Not for a moment. And then…” Monifa tapped her own sternum lightly, once. “Breath. As if something unseen had heard her and took mercy.”

Her gaze drifted to Zyn—not sharply, but searching, as if listening to the shape of his silence.

“You strike me as someone who’s been pulled back from quiet places,” she said. “Maybe more than once.”

A pause, long enough to let the words settle without pressure.

“My papa…” her voice softened, eyes glinting. “He said the hardest part of growing up wasn’t the pain—it was the carrying. The way grief curls into the bones if no one helps you name it. He was seven when his father left. A quiet boy, but stubborn. I think he learned to hold his pain so tightly it became a language.”

No race. No house. Just a boy with too much silence.

“I drink this tea to remind myself what’s bitter can still be useful,” she added, raising her cup. “And that not all medicine is meant to taste sweet.”

She took a sip, then fixed her gaze on him again—not challenging, not coddling.

“You speak of women like a man used to control,” she said gently. “And yet I hear longing behind your bravado—like someone who’s been left alone in too many beds.” Her smile was faint but knowing. “Even fire leaves a shadow.”

Then, quieter:
“Whatever shaped you did not finish the carving. You still have the chisel in your hand.”

The fire popped, and the hut breathed again.

“If sleep comes with teeth, I have herbs for that. If waking feels worse, there’s balm for the morning. But more than that…” She reached to adjust a crooked charm above the hearth, her fingers brushing it like a prayer.
“…you’ll need to treat your soul like something you want to keep.”

She turned her back again, busying herself with a fresh steep of tea.

“There’s a second cup if you want it. Stronger. For men who lie awake with full hearts and empty hands.”
Zyndyrr K'yoshin

 

[Zyndyrr K'yoshin]

Sorrel seed. Could have come from a corral reef for all Zyn cared and simply helped with bowel movements. However, cooling the blood and bringing heat back was a nice enough contradiction. Sorrow, though, was hollow. Didn't take a man or woman to go through hell to know.

Zyn listened, cup in hand, maintaining his stance. He was torn between feeling bored and indifferent as much as fascinated in the way this orcish woman explained her ways. She mentioned medicine for pain. Though, seemed to be as oblivious to his own words as he was to the agony in his bones.

His gaze did not waver from hers and, if she looked down to the hand that grounded, Zyn simply watched her movements. He was patient with her speech, sipping his tea as pedestrians walked by beside them, never minding the activity within the hut nearby. All that mattered to him at that moment was this woman, her apparent wisdom and her omens.

“If you think I speak of women like a man used to control,” spoke the man. Though he wasn’t flippant. “Then you didn’t listen. Control is relinquished between the limbs, within the rhythm of the heartbeats, when flesh and skin become one, and breath is shared under the moon, under the sun.”

No grin on his lips. No mint licked. His tone was focused like his eyes. “Cold nights or warm mornings, I have no longing for a wife. I’m satisfied with the gift of a body as long as she is. This tea, for instance, is bittersweet. Like my soul. Probably.” He shrugged.

“My father always told me a man should strive for his glory but my father is another story with a bit of a bloody history.” He stepped forward toward her. Perhaps the clarity in his drink was catching up to him. The courage already existed, however.

“Tell me…” Zyn grinned. “What tea do orcish midwives drink when they have no man to dine with or to kiss?”

Monifa Oya

 

[Monifa Oya]

“Tell me…” Zyn grinned. “What tea do orcish midwives drink when they have no man to dine with or to kiss?”

The pestle sat quiet in the bowl, and Monifa’s hands stilled with it.

She turned her head, not sharply, but with the slow gravity of a woman who had lived through enough full moons to know when a boy was testing his voice instead of his strength.

“That depends,” she murmured, voice like dusk rain, “on the kind of hunger you’re trying to feed.”

Her eyes met his—calm, unwavering, with a weight that neither blushed nor flinched.

“When I’ve no man to dine with,” she continued, “I take goat’s rue and golden bark. Keeps the blood strong. Eases the knees. Reminds me that the table does not mourn an empty chair—it waits. With patience. With dignity.” A pause. “And when there’s no kiss waiting on my mouth…” she smiled faintly, “I brew fennel, smokeleaf, and wild orange peel. Bit sharp. But it makes the lungs sing.”

She glanced down at the steaming cup, then back up with a slow nod.

“You called your soul bittersweet.”
She nodded toward the steaming cup. “This one’s like mine. Bitter, yes—but it sings when it’s warmed. Not for company. Just for remembering how breath feels when it’s not held tight.”

She turned toward the fire and stirred the kettle gently, watching the steam rise.

“There was a time,” she said, quieter now, “when I lived in a place that called itself kind. A city of high minds and low whispers.” Her hand rested briefly over her chest, where the cord-knot necklace lay beneath her robes. “I made one mistake. Something in me slipped. I didn’t understand it, couldn’t stop it. And in the end… someone was hurt. Badly enough that others paid the price too. Even my parents.”

The fire cracked.

“After that, my friends—what few I had—drifted like smoke. The streets I knew turned strange. Cold, not with frost, but with forgetting.”

She didn’t blink. Her voice flowed low, like a river beneath ice.

“My papa said he knew that silence. Said it echoed from his own childhood. His mother and her husbands called him Filth, some spat. Even in his mother’s hearth-circle, he had to earn each bite like a thief.”

Her fingers traced the rim of her cup.

“He said the worst part wasn’t the hunger or the blows. It was the way they watched him. Like he was a curse waiting to unfold. Like all he could ever grow into was the fear they’d planted in him.”

She sipped her tea—dark as loam, sharp with roots.

“So we left. Not in shame. In search.”

Her gaze turned toward the window, where dusk had begun its slow descent.

“People don’t shed their shapes easily. But soil? Soil can heal what stone cannot. A new sky teaches different names for mercy. And his journey…” she exhaled, the breath like incense, “it let my papa soften. The bark loosened from his spirit. The sharpness dulled. He began to laugh more. And I—” her voice warmed— “I learned how to breathe again. Like moss underfoot. Like morning after a storm.”

She paused, hand resting briefly over the corded knot beneath her robe—the talisman tied in the old ways.

“The shadow never left him. His heart—it remembers. But in leaving, he shaped it. Wove it into something steadier. Like a root learning to hold both dark and light.”

Her eyes drifted to Zyn’s face—not searching now, but soft. Offering something like understanding.

“Your father sounds like a man who mistook fear for strength. A man who carved his name into others because he didn’t know how to bless his own son.”

Coward, she thought. May the gods forgive him. You deserved better.

And still—her shoulders eased. Zyn had not drawn steel. Had not dragged her to the Underrealm like the last one. She offered a silent thanks to the hidden One who watched over wandering daughters.

“You don’t strike me as cruel,” she added, more to the moment than the man. “Just… shaped by hands that didn’t know how to hold.”

A beat.

“There’s strength in pulling yourself out of that mold, you know.”

She turned again to the hearth, then nodded to the second cup steeping nearby.

“This tea’s for when the bed is cold but your mind won’t quiet. I won’t ask your story. But if you drink it, drink it slow.”

Her voice dropped low, like a hymn.

“Some wounds only speak when the room is silent.”


Zyndyrr K'yoshin

 

[Zyndyrr K'yoshin]

Goats rue and golden bark. Zyn thought. To him it just sounded like she traded a man’s kiss for a goat’s and a tree’s touch but who was he? Who was she, for that matter? There they were, waging words with each other, never mind staring daggers. Yet he was being less vehement than feeling intrigued. Maybe it was the other way.

For all her plants and weeds and flowers, Zyn listened intently, patiently taking it all in. Maybe that was the power of the tea yet again keeping him from intensely ending this conversation. There was just something about this orcish woman, half-orc or otherwise, that reminded himself of his own kind. He might not be a midwife or an herbalist but he liked those bones and he was curious.

As curious of her as his own interest in her. One moment he wanted to mock this woman. The next he wanted to stop his feet from leaving the scene. Maybe that was the clarity. Then again, maybe he needed the courage for his own bloody memories.

“Clearly you have some history.” Zyn sipped his current tea as bittersweet as blackcurrant. “Both of us do, I’ll grant you that, as far as fathers are concerned.” He watched her hands, watched her eyes. They might have danced once upon a time.

“Cruelty is in the eye of the beholder, I believe.” He smiled at that; open teeth. “Shaped by hands indeed. My father carved his name into others…” He hesitated, licking his lips the way a vampire might. “...Quite literally…”

He turned to the hearth, to the second cup steeping nearby, and wondered. Might be she is just trying to poison me. Might be she recognized his kind without him having to utter the word ‘drow’. However, if he was right about her, then she wasn’t so different.

“I think you mistake me as some lost soul caught in mold like a rotten goblin,” he scoffed. Tapping his finger on an empty cup, his vision shifted between one thing and another. “And you might not have been kissed in many nights.”

With a sigh, the drow stepped closer toward the orc, shifted his garments, and sat down to share the same seat if not the same memories. “Some wounds only speak when the room is silent,” he repeated as he lifted the cup of tea and breathed in its steam.

“Other wounds scream like a bleeding virgin just penetrated.” He sipped the tea, hoping to feel. “Or from a knife that slips between the topmost layer of skin…” Something. “...And peels.”

Monifa Oya

 

[Monifa Oya]

Monifa’s lip twitched—more irritation than amusement—as Zyn slid beside her. She didn’t shy away. No, she let him feel the heat radiating from her side like a hearth warned not to touch. Her gaze stayed forward, fixed on the darkening horizon out the window, but her hand remained steady near the kettle.

“You taste tea and speak of blood,” she murmured, the cadence of her voice low, smoke-smooth, “and yet you say I mistake you.”

She finally turned to face him. Her eyes didn’t flash. They glowed with a slow, steady glower—like coals that had been burning all night.

“Let me ask, Drow—if I had poisoned you, would you thank me for the clarity it forced on your tongue? Or curse me for the taste?”

A pause. She let the words hang as she poured his second cup. The steam drifted like ghosts between them.

“You wonder if I recognized you.” A dry smile pulled at the edge of her mouth. “I did not. Not until you sat your pretty bones so close to mine, smelling of spite and secrets. Now? Now I see too much.”

She handed him the tea, her fingers brushing his just barely—a warning, not an invitation. Then she sat back, shoulders drawing high like a tide preparing to crash.

Her thoughts turned inward, her tongue sharpening not for Zyn, but for the divinity in her mind.

Vaene.
Mother of biting skies and blind justice.
Was this one yours? Would your children stir for him? Or would they sleep still and let me choose?

And in the hollow behind her ribs, Monifa felt the faintest flutter. A bat’s wing brushing shadow—not yet flight.

“Not yet,” she thought. “But close.”

Back aloud, she softened—but it wasn’t comfort. It was a blade sheathed in silk.

“You speak of wounds that scream and skins that peel.” She leaned in, just slightly. “Do you think I have not heard worse in a birthing tent? Watched worse done by those who wore cloaks and crowns, not knives?”

A slow breath. Then: “If your father carved his name into others, mine tried to smother mine out before I could say it. You think we are alike because we are bruised in places no one sees? That does not make us kin.”

Her hand found her hip, thumb brushing against the charm wrapped in bat-leather.

“But I won’t call you a goblin in mold. That would be rude. You smell more like…” She sniffed, teasingly thoughtful. “Regret, boiled in old wine. With a splash of lonely.”

And then, a tilt of the head. A final pivot—a subversion.

“Oh. And for your concern—” Her smile was calm, cruel, sweet. “I am kissed. Just not by those who think it a weapon.”

She stood, letting her absence weigh heavier than her presence ever had. One hand ghosted over the hearth.

“The cup you wonder about?” she said, not looking back. “I brewed it for you. The poison, if it exists, is only what you bring to the taste.”

A heartbeat passed.

“If you still believe that my hand carries poison,” she added, voice low and sure, “then let the silence of my leaving settle your spirit, like dust after a storm. May my absence taste sweeter than my presence ever could.”

Then, slowly and deliberately, Monifa turned from the hearth. Her shawl caught the lamplight like dusk on water, casting no shadow, only silence. She didn’t rush. She didn’t explain. Her steps were soft but unyielding, the kind of quiet that made even old floorboards hold their breath.

She crossed the threshold with the same care she brought to a birthing tent—measured, alert, braced for blood or blessing.

Let them follow me, she thought. Better me than him. Better me than the girl in the next room, the stable boy outside, the woman lighting lanterns two doors down. Let them think I walk alone. Let them try.

I will be their path. I will be their wrong turn.

Behind her, in the places only shadow knew, something stirred. Not Zyn. Not the city.
Others. Drows who bore no sigil, but carried silence like knives.

They had not come for tea. The door clicked shut behind her like the end of a sentence. And the night swallowed her silhouette in the alley— where Monifa had warned her not to tread years ago.

Zyndyrr K'yoshin

 

[Zyndyrr K'yoshin]

As their fingers brushed, Zyn thought little and less of the touch. She was a comely creature, in her own way, but she had a way with speech that left a sour taste in his tea. Evidently I have pretty bones at least. He’d remember to share his physique with the next woman with a better tongue than this one.

“Kin?” Zyn blinked. Where was she going with this? Poison, even? He never voiced it and only drank as bidden. He could only fit the word in between her sentences, however, so he simply sat, sipped and listened. She had his full attention, rest assured, but whatever foolish notion she had summoned that he thought the orc his sister was certainly curious.

Regret boiled in old wine. The thought encompassed Zyn’s mind. With a splash of lonely. He sighed, casually remembering one lady whose kiss was quite like a weapon indeed if laced with honey. She had a way with her lips against his skin sharper than any blade. This orc before him taking her leave had a darker face but a much different tongue. Such a waste.

“When the bed is cold and my mind won’t be quiet,” he whispered alone as though reciting a poem. “Then my soul is dead and my life is silenced.” No grin on Zyndyrr's coutnenance, no frown on the Drow's lips. They were rigid. He sipped his tea, relaxed, and decided he liked it.

Monifa Oya

 

[Monifa Oya]

As Monifa stepped into the alleyway, thick with the sour breath of rotting food and shattered crates, she turned briefly—Zyn was not behind her. Expected due to her unrefined words. She had warned her apprentice about alleys, about what skulked where the city forgot to look, and yet here she was, drawn back into shadow again. She sighed, not for fear, but for the foolishness of men who thought themselves clever with compliments laced like daggers. “Pretty bones,” I had said. Her words should have been sterner, stripped of any curve or curl that could tempt the wrong kind of hunger. Goddess help me, the last thing I needed was a drow following me with loins louder than sense.

But the emptiness unsettled her. Where were the vagabonds who curled like questions in the dark corners? Even shadows need witnesses. Vaene, she whispered inwardly, this silence is too complete.

Midwife, came the answer, soft and sharp like silk drawn over bone. They are not harmed. Their lives are merely held in the hands of the unfortunate.

She pressed forward, fingers brushing the alley’s breath. Then—a shimmer of red eyes. Her body stilled. Not Zyn’s. No. This one was deeper—midnight navy, cloaked in silk and sin, smiling wide enough to usher in a storm. His garb draped like theatre curtains, meant for stages, not gutters. Make it black, she thought, to better conceal your failure to sneak.

The stranger saw her, and his grin curled crueler.

“Oh, child of the vampire,” he purred, voice lined in lace. “How was your night?”

Her eyes rolled skyward. A spider’s web of fools, strung from clouded minds.
Watch the cocoons, Vaene warned.

And there they were—dangling above like swollen fruit, wrapped tight in silence and waiting. A dozen or more. Drow work. Priestess work. Spider work.

“What brings the Spider’s spawn to such dry soil?” she asked, voice made of embers and dusk. “There are kinder woods, softer snows than this cursed dust.”
And cursed it is, she thought, if it birthed more of you.

The figure took a step forward, his smile practiced. “I seek those like me. Those cracked open by power. Those chosen without choice. My Goddess guided me to you.” His hand moved close, grazing her fingers. “Perhaps we could talk. Share breath. Break bread.”

Monifa did not move, but the fury that rose was not hers alone. It coiled up through her marrow—Vaene’s breath, thick with centuries of scorn. The Goddess knew the scent of souls who fed on weakness, who wore false righteousness like stolen cloaks.

Her eyes flared, gold as a desert sun before the kill. The alley swelled with stillness. The stranger froze.

“The blood of these people will fall on your hands if mine touches the dirt,” he said quickly, desperation crawling into his voice.

She tilted her head and smiled—a thin crescent of prophecy. “You’ve less wisdom than a whispering ghost. Not the first she sent. Not the first consumed. But your illusions? As flimsy as funeral gauze, fluttering in the wind, pretending to be robes of power.”

His lips tried for prayer, but bats came first.

Not the flitting, fearful kind. These bore fangs of moonlight and bodies of half-seen shadow—Vaene’s brood. They came as a storm, winged and righteous, and fell upon him in silence. They did not kill. They erased—bone, magic, soul, ego—consumed as penance.

When they were gone, so was her sight.

Darkness draped itself over her eyes like a widow’s veil. No panic. No fear. Just the toll of communion.

Guide me, Vaene, she whispered.

And the Goddess did.

Not with hands, but with echoes. With smell and soil and the hush of dust beneath her feet. A tug at her blood, a breath on her ear. And step by step, the blind midwife made her way home—where, if mercy had a sense of humor, the sexually frustrated drow had found somewhere else to warm his tea.

Zyndyrr K'yoshin

 

[Zyndyrr K'yoshin]

It was a curious thing. Events developed as they did yet all Zyn had wanted at first was to question those bones and trinkets. From one moment to the next, however, conversation went from ‘What are those instruments?’ to ‘the rhythm of a woman’s body’. Honestly, he should probably have expected this shit and sudden shift in topics from a deprived midwife with no one to unbutton her shirt at night.

Time passed, but it wasn’t much. Lost in thought, finding contentment in sitting alone bereft of a body in heat simply because he needed no companion to lie with him for the moment or a throne like his father did, Zyndyrr K’yoshin wondered after that orcish sorceress.

She had a way with words and, though being a bit verbose, she had a way with her fingers as much as her tongue if the remedy of her tea said as much. He would not deny that his mind would not be quiet and drinking this liquid was quite relaxing this minute.

Given the mistress who did sit in his presence, Zyn might be forgiven for expecting his beverage to be putrid but it wasn’t. Bittersweet. Delicious, even, or maybe that was the illusion. Time, however, was fluid. Yet his feet were proven to never miss a beat.

Seconds. Minutes. They tended to blend together. Having no intention to rest his head on a bench for the evening, the Drow turned his head in the direction his host had left his guest. Beckoned or not, bereft of intention to ride her despite how much she liked to talk about limbs intertwined, he heard a purr, felt the surface of a spider, and was reminded that he was still in hell.

Oh well. At that, Zyn got up and entered the alleyway. Hood over head, consuming his ashen countenance in blackness, he was a figure to be missed as he followed this hollow echo that guided him. Whether it was like a light to a fly or sight for the blind remained to be seen.

Maybe it wasn’t the spider, however. He heard words, or thought he did, because for all he knew this tea really was spiked but he didn’t mind. Were those wings? Bats. Perhaps.

It could be Zyn’s vision was as mistaken as he was the moment he left for the surface of the earth and that figure in the distance wasn’t the orc from before. He followed after her anyway and, if nothing else, he would find some tavern to escape his hell.

Monifa Oya

 

[Monifa Oya]

Monifa kept walking, but her steps faltered—she nearly stumbled on loose pebbles strewn across the alley. Her legs ached. Her head hung low like a wilting reed.

Once I get home, she thought, I’ll draw a bath with herbs. Pray to Vaene. Burn palm oil and myrrh. Wash this night from my bones.

She exhaled wearily, thinking of the strange Drow men she had crossed paths with. One seemed ready to churn butter with his tail; the other wanted his end pigmented black, like a blank canvas begging for meaning.

Is this what the Spider Queen sends these days? A child with an ego? She scoffed aloud, bitter and bone-tired. At least my Goddess deals in sense.

But then she paused, heart knocking softly in her chest.

“Goddess Vaene,” she murmured, voice half-prayer, half-question. “How many were meant to come before my magic stirred?”

A silence followed. Then, as soft and clear as moonlight on obsidian:

You call for my attention, Midwife.

I do. You told me of “Drows.” But I only fought one.

And you did not ask more.

Monifa’s soul dropped into her heels. Of course. She had asked after. After the tea. After the riddles. After the foolish teasing. If I had listened better… no—if I had asked sooner…

The air behind her shifted.

A wrongness rippled through her shoulder like cold wind laced with needles. She felt it—before she saw it.

Then came the bite.

Monifa gasped and staggered forward, her right shoulder blazing with pain. She turned on instinct, eyes wide and wet, catching sight of the grey figure—elegant, terrible. A female Drow. Purple-eyed. Cold as moonlight on steel.

The second one.

Though still blind, she swung her left arm out of reflex. Her fist struck the woman’s jaw, sent her sprawling. But the Drow rolled with the blow, eerily graceful—spitting out a chunk of Monifa’s shoulder as she rose again.

Monifa turned to flee, but her legs betrayed her. The poison was fast—sapping her joints, stealing her breath.

They want me, she realized in a flash of dread. Alive.

But why?

A sound—soft, sticky, wrong—filled the alley. She turned her head slowly and saw it: webs. Thick, glistening. Threading down from the shadows above. Wrapping her legs. Her arms. Her chest. Her vision blurred.

And then she saw her.

The third one.

Another Drow.

Another woman.

The one who had waited.

The third spider servant, Monifa thought, as the last sliver of sky narrowed above her.

Vaene, protect me.

And then—nothing but the snickering of Drow.

Zyndyrr K'yoshin

 

[Zyndyrr K'yoshin]

Spoiler: Music OOC

Prayers. Zyndyrr had long learned to bid them farewell ever since he had left his under-realm for the surface of the earth. They meant little else than words and he felt himself well off without them. After all, how could the Spider Queen see him so far from her thralls? Isn’t she just another bug?

The son thought as he walked. The shadow’s descendant. Not an insect, perhaps, if one wanted to argue with semantics, but an arachnid which dwelt underground no less. A nightgown that wants to be a dress. She was a shroud to the sun’s breath.

Silly notion. The drow wandered onward in this alley between buildings. He had little and less to do but follow the echo of his own kind when he was so far removed from home. So he did just so knowing that, whether it was simply the tea or not, Zyn was being bidden into this street, and the spider had a painful bite like the cry of a babe in its cradle.

The son of K’yoshin. He followed the footsteps, not of his father, but of the one who had already walked this path. He didn’t know who or what it was, and he might chide the tea, but he could sense the presence of a spider nearby, if not an orc at least. Sight, however, could be deceiving.

First came the blind.

Then came the bite.

In an instant, Zyn lifted his eyes, training them in the same direction he had heard a gasp. Maybe he was mistaken. Then again, his father had long since trained him in the sounds of pain. Anguish was like a mountain and a forest for him to claim.

Stopping in his tracks, he glanced side to side, hood pulled over his eyes. Fly, you fool. So he did. Zyn ran but he did not go back. He went forward toward the danger. Cloaked in the shadows, though his kind had since adapted to the darkness, born into it, and their sight went beyond eyes.

Purple eyes. Red eyes. Color did not matter. Daggers did, however, and Zyndyrr K’yoshin had knives that could bite like spiders. Rushing into the scene, he heard the bloody snickering, determined three figures, but one of them wasn’t a threat. It was too busy being cradled in a web.

Sable skin. All of them had it. Yet his own kin were unmistakable. First things first. Zyn whipped one of his kukris from his hip and let it kiss the wind. That web was thick, he knew, but his blade was made to cut through it and rip the threads in two in the attempt to free the captive.

Wasting no moment, the drow directed his attention just then to the other drow. It looked like she had just risen from the ground. A perfect moment, perhaps, and she might have even been a tad distracted. Whatever.

Zyndyrr didn’t hesitate to unsheathe his scimitar from his other hip and swing it in the same motion. The blade was intercepted by his opponent’s but she was caught off guard as she staggered backward.

“You attack one of your own!?” She spat at him.

“I need this one breathing,” he answered her. “Her tea, like her tongue, is just that bittersweet.”

He tore his sword forth, seeking to remove her head from her shoulders, but she parried the blade as they exchanged blows. No matter. She was brave. He made sure to be bolder.

Monifa Oya

 

[Monifa Oya]

After the darkness, the soporific Monifa was called by a calm, resonant voice.

Midwife. Monifa. Open your eyes.

She stirred like a newborn, her head tilting weakly before her eyes fluttered open. It was not darkness that greeted her, but a long, narrow table made of golden-brown iroko wood, flanked by chairs carved with leaf and fang motifs. At its end stood a tall, statuesque figure. Her broad nose and proud cheekbones spoke of ancient lineage. Her silver eyes shimmered like polished moonstone, their gaze steady and unnerving.

"Your actions," she said, "were quite unsatisfactory for your kind of strength."

"I understand, Goddess. I let my restraint fray and become unkempt. Forgive me for my disregard of your message. If I may—please allow me to inquire about the hidden people in the alley. What fate do they now face?"

Vaene did not smile, but there was a softening in her tone.
"I have set many children upon the face of Arethil and through the veins of the Underrealm. Many have known death. Some now seek wisdom to continue their path. A few… blame nature for their mistakes.
You, however, admit your fault. A mess in life, yes—but one willing to tidy it."

Monifa lifted her gaze slightly.

"As for the people," Vaene continued, "the web-weaving Drow holds them still. They were moved—no longer in the alley. They lie bound near the abandoned house by the baobab tree."

"Ah. Of course—no wonder I couldn’t find them. They're on the outskirts. Based on how quiet the night was, I believe the mystic Drow cast her webs to snare her prey, while the purple-eyed one used her animal venom to paralyze the rest. A dreadful combination."
"I need to return. I must escape the cocoon."

Vaene stepped forward, eyes gleaming.
"About that—your tea partner took care of the webbing issue."

" Ténéré?" Monifa blinked as she called Zyn’s pseudonym.

"Yes. He burned through your bindings, but the bloody matter remains. He faces the other two now. And he does not comprehend their true strength. The one you faced was defeated by luck, not skill."

"Oh." A breath of laughter escaped her nose. "That fool. Like a sprat who thinks he’s ready for Elbion College just because he’s learned to boil water." Her eyes twitched open wider, the edges of her grin sharpening. "But I’ll admit, it’s a brave thing. Brave and reckless."

She placed her palm to her chest.
"I am ready. I’ll wake."

But before she turned, she added softly:
"Goddess… when the blindness comes, I cannot feel my power. It slips from me."

"It does not slip—you simply never reached for it. Your power is not your sight. It is your spirit, your breath, your calling. You must learn to see without eyes."

The divine presence faded. The iroko table, the baobab trees, the silver glow—all pulled away like mist at dawn.

And Monifa stirred—returning, rising, reborn.



Zyndyrr K'yoshin

 

[Zyndyrr K'yoshin]

He had done this dance before more than once. Against orcs, humans, or his own kind. That sword in his hand was nothing new to him. It didn’t matter if he was lower on the ladder than this woman before him. Zyndyrr of House K’yoshin was a warrior and a soldier, and his lord father was the governor of his land. It was no wonder once his mother lost her life that Lord K’yoshin began to expand, with no female head to direct him, and his son was his hand.

Those hands were bloody instruments. Zyndyrr had raided, slain and burned others for the sake of his land and the name of his house. For queen and realm? By extension, yes. Yet the weapons that Zyn was raised to wield and kill with belonged, not to his queen, but to his father, though neither person meant a thing at the moment. He was his own weapon now.

“Typical male,” taunted the female drow as she stepped backward to evade the blade that came her way. “You should know your place, boy.” Her eyes were so violet in the void.

“You’re right,” Zyndyrr agreed, aware of the other figure nearby. He wasn’t sure if that one was just letting her sister relish the fight or would decide to finish it a second later but he decided to bide his time.

“It isn’t in the pit beneath my feet and perhaps not on the surface of the earth.” Weapon brandished, he maintained his stance with a two-handed grip, blade trained his opponent’s way. “But it isn’t with two fuckugly bitches like you either.”

After his words, Zyndyrr heard her hiss something vicious. Violence in violet lights. Her own blade raised, she charged toward him. Zyn didn’t forget that creatures like her had venom in their lips and at their fingertips but such was this dance. She wanted to show the man her own hands so he let her advance. Yet violent delights have violent ends.

She came within range and their blades clashed but, just before they did, Zyn shifted to a one-handed grip and ripped his other sword from the scabbard on his hip. In that same motion, he swung it at his opponent, cutting a line across her stomach so that she cried.

In that moment, he noticed that her blood was as dark as her eyes. Maybe it was from luck or skill. Whatever happened next, however, Zyndyrr was determined to kill her as much as not be killed. Now his enemy drow was disadvantaged and had a nasty gash. A sword in either hand, in the seconds that passed Zyn expected her sister to attack. That was fine if so. He'd be delighted to open her throat.

Monifa Oya

 

[Darkweaver]

Combat. A street scuffle. Perhaps a showdown amongst gangs. The sounds remained soft and distant - but they were there, unmistakable to his veteran's ear. He recognised the clang of blades, the swish of snapping cloaks, the crunch of footwork across dusty ground. Even here, in the warm bosom of Lazular, conflict managed to worm its way into its veins.

Hugo exhaled through his nostrils, steeling himself. He knew the family he sought were supposed to live here, somewhere. All he had was a name and a description, along with the maddening directions of the locals, spoken in a tongue he struggled to grasp. On top of that, the heat rendered him sluggish and slow, causing his clothes to stick to his clammy skin and his brow to constantly drip with pespiration, forcing him to doff his hat and use it like the fan of a lady, all while leaving his old officer's coat to hang from his shoulders like a cape. Gods' teeth, if his comrades could see him now! They would have a right laugh.

Despite all this, a sense of obligation - if not honour, at least - bound him to investigate. Perhaps this brawl involved the people he sought. Perhaps the blood of ruffians would illuminate his path better than the tongues of opportunistic hawkers and peddlers.

When he drew near, he pressed his back against a cool sandstone building, sliding against it, just out of sight. A wounded cry emerged then from around the corner - a woman, by the sound of it. He gripped the hilt of his own sword and pressed the opening of its scabbard with his other hand, ensuring a quick draw, should it be needed. For now, he would wait a spell and gauge the situation.