- Messages
- 20
- Character Biography
- Link
Vittoria leaned back against the ash tree, baring her teeth before widening the sets to bite aggressively into her red apple. Juices from the fruit coated her lips, dribbling a little past them as she crunched and chewed, ocean gaze staring hard at the kneeling forms of two prisoners.
Normally, deserters did not deserve her attention or train of thought, but the happenstance of these two coming across her patrol was too good to pass up.
“How’s the apple, Larrainth?” A voice asked from behind, walking past her and her tree and coming to a stop before the two prisoners. The Dreadlord stared down at them before turning halfway to look to the Initiate.
Vittoria smiled, though sincerity nor sweetness aided it. It was startling despite the pretty face she adorned. She lifted the hand holding the apple, brushing the apple juice from her chin. “A little too sweet for my liking.”
At the sound of her family name being spoken, the male prisoner closest to her lifted his head and stared up at her in surprise. Horror, he recognised it.
“You are his daughter. Tamhas…”
“Did you think that his death meant you were safe?” She asked, inspecting her apple before angling it for another bite, again, with her teeth bared beforehand.
“I…” He started, but could not figure what truth to speak.
“He hunted us before the Revolution! His orders were expelled the moment the Republic came into power, you little witch!” The voice beside the male became known, and her head too raised to look Vittoria in the eye.
Vittoria had delayed her chewing, and so began as amusement finally coloured her face.
“It’s as if he never left.” The Dreadlord laughed, moving past the prisoners and inspecting their wagon they traveled in. “Your father was a great Dreadlord, Little V.”
“Thank you, uncle.” She replied, eyes not leaving the prisoners.
They were not truly prisoners.
Her ‘uncle’ was her father’s closest friend, who had taken Vittoria in as ward after his passing when she expressed the last holdings of House Larrainth be in the hands of someone trustworthy before she became of age to govern it. None of it was to go to her step mother, or the step brother that bore the name Vittoria had been born to.
The two prisoners were her true uncle and aunt. Vitt had grown up hearing the hateful words of her father against his brother, who ran off with a half elf. How dare Hadeon Larainth drag the family name through the dirty earth and think there would be no repercussions.
Vittoria’s head fell to one side, looking curiously at the remainder of the Larrainth family. “His orders no longer exist, that you are correct. I have my own.” She bit into the apple again, now having bitten into its diameter before tossing it to the side to rot over time. Connell frowned, catching the movement from his peripherals but did not say a word of her wasting food he had foraged.
Pushing off from the tree, she approached her father’s twin brother. They did not look alike, but she could see the similar traits they shared. High cheekbones, like she had. The jawline too. Oh, and those eyes, the same exact hues she too bore.
As her chewing finished, the Initiate crouched down before them both. There was a trained hardness to her expression, conditioned to be unfeeling to the notions of this family reunion.
“He told me about you, so many times over the years. How you used to be his greatest ally, his greatest friend. Your brotherhood could not be unbroken, until you met her.” And Vittoria’s eyes flicked to the woman bound and kneeling to her right. She got a proper inspection of her, pursing her lips once she saw the half-tipped ears that gave away her heritage. “Blood oath, Uncle Hadeon. That is what you broke. It is a sentencing passed onto me, the daughter of Tamhas Larrainth. Do you understand this?”
Hadeon looked up at Vittoria, who towered above him despite him standing taller than her five feet and ten inches. But he had been battered down and bound to the ground, his muscles aching from being forced to keep this position for so long. “I regret not reaching out to you when I heard Tamhas had passed. You are free… V, for Vittoria, is it not? He named you after our mother.” This he smiled at. “Do you understand the blood oath, what it is you must do?”
She furrowed her brows.
“I do. He prepared me for this moment.” And her eyes wandered once more, to the collar at his neck. This prevented him from using his magic, creating hysteria. There had been glory days where the Larrainth twins were unbeatable with their tandem wielding of magic and sword. “Do you know what my magic is, Hadeon? And why I wear these cuffs?”
“No.” Even the half elf woman stared at the cuffs Vittoria fidgeted with on both wrists.
“Then allow me to demonstrate.” She smiled that same smile, without kindness, without hope.
The Dreadlord, Connell, cleared his throat and dispersed quickly, having been witness once before to her malicious magic. Vittoria appeared to do nothing once she slipped each cuff off her wrists, getting comfortable and sitting her arse on the earth and crossing her legs. Seconds went by, and Hadeon locked his jaw. In her hands, she rolled the cuffs that were her own nullifiers, but she had become well practiced in slipping out from such confines.
Was she toying with them?
“Something… something is happening.” Whispered the woman, squirming and fighting the restraints that kept her bound. She too wore a collar, as the Initiate and Dreadlord were unsure of her abilities. “It feels like… a blade cutting.”
Vittoria raised a brow, noting the new observance.
And then the woman roared, throwing herself forward to escape the strangeness she experienced. Hadeon almost stumbled away, but kept his position as he helplessly watched his wife writhe within the constraints that kept her arms at her back. He watched as she screamed murder, cold, bloody murder. He watched as her skin seemed to tear apart, and continued to watch the spectacle of each rip grow larger and longer, until he could see the layers beneath, until bone. Until organ, and the beating heart.
Her very being expanded slowly, ripping apart and hanging there, suspended in the air before everything that made up his wife was on display in a fashion that was as if she were exploding in the slowest flair.
It was cruel, this art. Hadeon's stomach churned, and he had to turn away. Gone was the beauty he fell in love with, now reduced and made spectacle of. He felt warmth and liquid coat him, the sound of squelching heard at his side and he knew it was the heaped mess of Avery Larrainth. Her entire form made mess beside him; hot blood and insides now cooling in the early spring air.
Hadeon shut his eyes tight, breathing erratically now.
“See, Uncle Hadeon, I know what it is I must do. He gave me this pendant. One last name on the list.” Vittoria kept her ocean eyes on her blood relative the entire time. She had seen many bodies and objects come apart with her magic, but never had she the chance to witness someone come to the realisation that they were helpless in saving someone they loved. As pretty as she was, no one had shown such an interest in her, nor did she go to investigate such a mystery called love, but a satisfied smile stretched at her lips. It was beautiful, witnessing one to suddenly lose it all.
Her uncle looked up, catching sight of the golden medallion she held out with just her thumb. Vittoria turned it to the other side, showing him the name on the reverse.
Larrainth.
“Until every last one of them is gone… we will be erased from this history, and I will bear a new name, a new legacy. If you had not left him all those years ago, perhaps he would have kept his love for the family name you both would have continued…” Vittoria hummed, almost sounding sad. “Oh well. I keep my promises.”
“It was nice to finally make your acquaintance, uncle.”
"Done?" Connell frowned at the Initiate as she stalked towards him, out from the thick of trees, where a few miles deep would be the bodies. "I assume you cleaned up after yourself, V?"
"Yes uncle." For eyes so calm and bright, they held such a coldness. Vittoria lifted her chin, standing before him. "No one will find them. Animals will swarm, perhaps even paw at the earth they are now concealed in, but no trace will be visible." She lifted a hand to brush it against their horse to the wagon, but after a few motions, the chestnut horse turned his head from her.
Fine, be that way. Vittoria pressed her lips together and kept herself from pouting, a mimicry of the other girls in her class. She used to wish she would have been admired so easily like the other girls at the Academy, but she soon learned why they shied away from her. It was like the horse beside her, who knew deep down what she was capable of. The fact she was never sickened by her magic, the grotesque tableau she could create with a living thing. The Academy then thought to occupy her mind with puzzle boxes, hoping that it would distract her for a few hours or days, but she only needed minutes to work with it before learning every secret needed uncovering to solve it. She liked to think she herself were a puzzle box; different compartments to her self that needed uncovering, and at her center, at her heart, a prize so rare.
Only one person had earned her respect at the Academy, a friend she now counted as close as family, now more than anything.
The ride back to the camp was uneventful, but Vittoria deduced it to Connell fighting against words he wished to speak. She allowed him this hour to figure it out, to think over the approach he clearly was having trouble with. It gave her time to think also, of how best to go up against her step mother and her thieving son, the one that claims as a son of House Larrainth he was now deserving to inherit the title and land afforded to her minor but noble family. Those thoughts were interrupted when her uncle spoke up, finally.
"The Academy... are they still training you to use that magic?" That magic could only mean her Undoing. She pulled down the sleeves of her jacket, covering the slight sheen of her nullifying cuffs. Their wagon rolled into the outskirts of the camp that found a large participation of Anirian Guards, Dreadlords, and a small handful of Initiates. They had been gathering supplies, checking in with other posts, scouting. Activity was almost running rampant
"The Proctors remove them at the end of breakfast, as most training sessions for me take place in the morning. By lunch, they strap them back on." Vittoria stared dead straight, not making eye contact with guardsmen they were rolling past. "I am to use them under supervision if I am outside of classes." Her lessons were no longer the same caliber as they were prior to the Revolution, something her father often lamented in their exchange of letters.
"Good." He breathed. Vitt shot him a look, brows deepening their furrowing. After all that silence of the hour, that was all he needed to say?
"But I would like to use---"
"No, Little V." He cut her off, clearing his throat and smiling to some Dreadlords he knew. "It is best we keep the Academy firm in their beliefs you are compliant. Your father told me you do well in that part, and I must ask you to continue doing so. Let them believe you haven't been exercising it unrestrained, that you are the perfect soldier. If the tides change, and the winds shift, we may be back to how things were before this Revolution."
"But I do not..." A perfect soldier, a perfect liar. Vittoria let her protest die with a slow exhale. Patience, that was what her father had given her many lessons on, and she clung to them now.
The wagon came to a slowed stop, Vittoria jumping down from it before it did, and turned to her uncle. "I suppose I should return to my duties as an Initiate. Thank you for allowing me to see the Anirian outposts, Uncle. Illuminating..." Her voice, sans sweetness, held an icy sharpness to them, despite the practiced pleasantness she displayed on her face. Vitt left no time for him to impart anymore wise words to her as she turned and stalked back to where she could see many other Initiates helping prep the dinners meant to feed this large gathering.
Normally, deserters did not deserve her attention or train of thought, but the happenstance of these two coming across her patrol was too good to pass up.
“How’s the apple, Larrainth?” A voice asked from behind, walking past her and her tree and coming to a stop before the two prisoners. The Dreadlord stared down at them before turning halfway to look to the Initiate.
Vittoria smiled, though sincerity nor sweetness aided it. It was startling despite the pretty face she adorned. She lifted the hand holding the apple, brushing the apple juice from her chin. “A little too sweet for my liking.”
At the sound of her family name being spoken, the male prisoner closest to her lifted his head and stared up at her in surprise. Horror, he recognised it.
“You are his daughter. Tamhas…”
“Did you think that his death meant you were safe?” She asked, inspecting her apple before angling it for another bite, again, with her teeth bared beforehand.
“I…” He started, but could not figure what truth to speak.
“He hunted us before the Revolution! His orders were expelled the moment the Republic came into power, you little witch!” The voice beside the male became known, and her head too raised to look Vittoria in the eye.
Vittoria had delayed her chewing, and so began as amusement finally coloured her face.
“It’s as if he never left.” The Dreadlord laughed, moving past the prisoners and inspecting their wagon they traveled in. “Your father was a great Dreadlord, Little V.”
“Thank you, uncle.” She replied, eyes not leaving the prisoners.
They were not truly prisoners.
Her ‘uncle’ was her father’s closest friend, who had taken Vittoria in as ward after his passing when she expressed the last holdings of House Larrainth be in the hands of someone trustworthy before she became of age to govern it. None of it was to go to her step mother, or the step brother that bore the name Vittoria had been born to.
The two prisoners were her true uncle and aunt. Vitt had grown up hearing the hateful words of her father against his brother, who ran off with a half elf. How dare Hadeon Larainth drag the family name through the dirty earth and think there would be no repercussions.
Vittoria’s head fell to one side, looking curiously at the remainder of the Larrainth family. “His orders no longer exist, that you are correct. I have my own.” She bit into the apple again, now having bitten into its diameter before tossing it to the side to rot over time. Connell frowned, catching the movement from his peripherals but did not say a word of her wasting food he had foraged.
Pushing off from the tree, she approached her father’s twin brother. They did not look alike, but she could see the similar traits they shared. High cheekbones, like she had. The jawline too. Oh, and those eyes, the same exact hues she too bore.
As her chewing finished, the Initiate crouched down before them both. There was a trained hardness to her expression, conditioned to be unfeeling to the notions of this family reunion.
“He told me about you, so many times over the years. How you used to be his greatest ally, his greatest friend. Your brotherhood could not be unbroken, until you met her.” And Vittoria’s eyes flicked to the woman bound and kneeling to her right. She got a proper inspection of her, pursing her lips once she saw the half-tipped ears that gave away her heritage. “Blood oath, Uncle Hadeon. That is what you broke. It is a sentencing passed onto me, the daughter of Tamhas Larrainth. Do you understand this?”
Hadeon looked up at Vittoria, who towered above him despite him standing taller than her five feet and ten inches. But he had been battered down and bound to the ground, his muscles aching from being forced to keep this position for so long. “I regret not reaching out to you when I heard Tamhas had passed. You are free… V, for Vittoria, is it not? He named you after our mother.” This he smiled at. “Do you understand the blood oath, what it is you must do?”
She furrowed her brows.
“I do. He prepared me for this moment.” And her eyes wandered once more, to the collar at his neck. This prevented him from using his magic, creating hysteria. There had been glory days where the Larrainth twins were unbeatable with their tandem wielding of magic and sword. “Do you know what my magic is, Hadeon? And why I wear these cuffs?”
“No.” Even the half elf woman stared at the cuffs Vittoria fidgeted with on both wrists.
“Then allow me to demonstrate.” She smiled that same smile, without kindness, without hope.
The Dreadlord, Connell, cleared his throat and dispersed quickly, having been witness once before to her malicious magic. Vittoria appeared to do nothing once she slipped each cuff off her wrists, getting comfortable and sitting her arse on the earth and crossing her legs. Seconds went by, and Hadeon locked his jaw. In her hands, she rolled the cuffs that were her own nullifiers, but she had become well practiced in slipping out from such confines.
Was she toying with them?
“Something… something is happening.” Whispered the woman, squirming and fighting the restraints that kept her bound. She too wore a collar, as the Initiate and Dreadlord were unsure of her abilities. “It feels like… a blade cutting.”
Vittoria raised a brow, noting the new observance.
And then the woman roared, throwing herself forward to escape the strangeness she experienced. Hadeon almost stumbled away, but kept his position as he helplessly watched his wife writhe within the constraints that kept her arms at her back. He watched as she screamed murder, cold, bloody murder. He watched as her skin seemed to tear apart, and continued to watch the spectacle of each rip grow larger and longer, until he could see the layers beneath, until bone. Until organ, and the beating heart.
Her very being expanded slowly, ripping apart and hanging there, suspended in the air before everything that made up his wife was on display in a fashion that was as if she were exploding in the slowest flair.
It was cruel, this art. Hadeon's stomach churned, and he had to turn away. Gone was the beauty he fell in love with, now reduced and made spectacle of. He felt warmth and liquid coat him, the sound of squelching heard at his side and he knew it was the heaped mess of Avery Larrainth. Her entire form made mess beside him; hot blood and insides now cooling in the early spring air.
Hadeon shut his eyes tight, breathing erratically now.
“See, Uncle Hadeon, I know what it is I must do. He gave me this pendant. One last name on the list.” Vittoria kept her ocean eyes on her blood relative the entire time. She had seen many bodies and objects come apart with her magic, but never had she the chance to witness someone come to the realisation that they were helpless in saving someone they loved. As pretty as she was, no one had shown such an interest in her, nor did she go to investigate such a mystery called love, but a satisfied smile stretched at her lips. It was beautiful, witnessing one to suddenly lose it all.
Her uncle looked up, catching sight of the golden medallion she held out with just her thumb. Vittoria turned it to the other side, showing him the name on the reverse.
Larrainth.
“Until every last one of them is gone… we will be erased from this history, and I will bear a new name, a new legacy. If you had not left him all those years ago, perhaps he would have kept his love for the family name you both would have continued…” Vittoria hummed, almost sounding sad. “Oh well. I keep my promises.”
“It was nice to finally make your acquaintance, uncle.”
"Done?" Connell frowned at the Initiate as she stalked towards him, out from the thick of trees, where a few miles deep would be the bodies. "I assume you cleaned up after yourself, V?"
"Yes uncle." For eyes so calm and bright, they held such a coldness. Vittoria lifted her chin, standing before him. "No one will find them. Animals will swarm, perhaps even paw at the earth they are now concealed in, but no trace will be visible." She lifted a hand to brush it against their horse to the wagon, but after a few motions, the chestnut horse turned his head from her.
Fine, be that way. Vittoria pressed her lips together and kept herself from pouting, a mimicry of the other girls in her class. She used to wish she would have been admired so easily like the other girls at the Academy, but she soon learned why they shied away from her. It was like the horse beside her, who knew deep down what she was capable of. The fact she was never sickened by her magic, the grotesque tableau she could create with a living thing. The Academy then thought to occupy her mind with puzzle boxes, hoping that it would distract her for a few hours or days, but she only needed minutes to work with it before learning every secret needed uncovering to solve it. She liked to think she herself were a puzzle box; different compartments to her self that needed uncovering, and at her center, at her heart, a prize so rare.
Only one person had earned her respect at the Academy, a friend she now counted as close as family, now more than anything.
The ride back to the camp was uneventful, but Vittoria deduced it to Connell fighting against words he wished to speak. She allowed him this hour to figure it out, to think over the approach he clearly was having trouble with. It gave her time to think also, of how best to go up against her step mother and her thieving son, the one that claims as a son of House Larrainth he was now deserving to inherit the title and land afforded to her minor but noble family. Those thoughts were interrupted when her uncle spoke up, finally.
"The Academy... are they still training you to use that magic?" That magic could only mean her Undoing. She pulled down the sleeves of her jacket, covering the slight sheen of her nullifying cuffs. Their wagon rolled into the outskirts of the camp that found a large participation of Anirian Guards, Dreadlords, and a small handful of Initiates. They had been gathering supplies, checking in with other posts, scouting. Activity was almost running rampant
"The Proctors remove them at the end of breakfast, as most training sessions for me take place in the morning. By lunch, they strap them back on." Vittoria stared dead straight, not making eye contact with guardsmen they were rolling past. "I am to use them under supervision if I am outside of classes." Her lessons were no longer the same caliber as they were prior to the Revolution, something her father often lamented in their exchange of letters.
"Good." He breathed. Vitt shot him a look, brows deepening their furrowing. After all that silence of the hour, that was all he needed to say?
"But I would like to use---"
"No, Little V." He cut her off, clearing his throat and smiling to some Dreadlords he knew. "It is best we keep the Academy firm in their beliefs you are compliant. Your father told me you do well in that part, and I must ask you to continue doing so. Let them believe you haven't been exercising it unrestrained, that you are the perfect soldier. If the tides change, and the winds shift, we may be back to how things were before this Revolution."
"But I do not..." A perfect soldier, a perfect liar. Vittoria let her protest die with a slow exhale. Patience, that was what her father had given her many lessons on, and she clung to them now.
The wagon came to a slowed stop, Vittoria jumping down from it before it did, and turned to her uncle. "I suppose I should return to my duties as an Initiate. Thank you for allowing me to see the Anirian outposts, Uncle. Illuminating..." Her voice, sans sweetness, held an icy sharpness to them, despite the practiced pleasantness she displayed on her face. Vitt left no time for him to impart anymore wise words to her as she turned and stalked back to where she could see many other Initiates helping prep the dinners meant to feed this large gathering.
