Fable - Ask Darkest Night

[Zephyrine]

"Will you be alright, Zephyrine? You look pale and tired."

"I have been through worse." She smiled, but it wasn't to show any cheer. It was the same old story, the ones Dreadlords of old and new would know and understand. The reality of having to keep going, even if you cannot. Zephyrine had been exploited and used by the Academy for years, to push her boundaries and strengthen.

The full extent of what she had been taught prior to being introduced into the graduating class would never be spoken about. Not to anyone. She knew there would be people that would feel pity, would mourn a life for her...

Zephyrine didn't want their weakness... their concern. There was nothing against it, not really, but Zeph had no room to feel for the girl she could have been.

"I have my own ways of keeping focused and replenished. Pain still works wonders if we are after that enhancement in power." She reminded Kristen. Her palms were a map of scars, of previous times she had induced pain to bolster her reserves, and the momentary boost always felt like a rush for her.

In a low voice, words between the two young Dreadlords, Zephyrine murmured. "I will see to it that we get out of here alive. That we will not have letter sent... home." And the way she said it was convincing enough. For what home did Zephyrine have? What was left to her, she gave away to a family that needed it more than she did. She had hoped if she were to expire, a letter would not be sent to that home that was never her own. That a letter would not inform the family of Thraah of her death.

"Now, Lady of Vel Numera," Zephyrine's voice returned to normal volume, "are you ready?"

Kristen Pirian
Mortivore Urn

 

[Kristen Pirian]

With a quiet assurance Zephyrine mentioned escape, should the night come to it. Kristen feared that prayer and strength of arms might not be enough; but she feared more that her final moments would be unworthy of all the life that came before them. And so she resolved not to allow desperation to make a ruin of morality, to become as the Dreadlords whom she despised, who indeed savaged the notion of humanity even in far less dire times—and she resolved this even if it should cost her her life. But this she kept from Zephyrine, and only could she hope that Zephyrine's method of escape did not mirror Mortivore's earlier suggestion.

Are you ready?

Kristen gazed out over the plain beneath them, at those distant riders fanning out and covering the expanse and some wheeling around and riding back the way they had come.

"I must be—for the men, for my family. I intend not to deprive House Pirian of a daughter this night, if only I may draw breath to stave off such a cruel fate. And to what extent the gods allow, I wish not for any more Anirian families to suffer as such either.

She looked then to her fellow Dreadlord.

"But tell me, Zephyrine, and say true." A frown inevitably pulled at her expression. "Have you seen much victory in this war?"

Zephyrine Mortivore Urn

 

[Mortivore Urn]

Having secured a fallback plan, or some measure of one, Mortivore sought the company of his peers again, with the same inescapable tenacity as an umbral warden. His boots scythed through tall grass, gnashed earth and gravel, before grinding to a halt before them - just after Kristen had asked her question of Zephyrine.

His gaze aimed at the distant torchlight and banners of gathering Cortosi forces. Visual illusion, he thought, would be suitable in these conditions. The night would lend itself to optic obscurity.

Zephyrine
Kristen Pirian

 

[Zephyrine]

"Have you seen much victory in this war?"

Zephyrine heard the approach of the other Dreadlord, but her eyes stayed on the Lady of Numera.

A question that had been asked on both sides, and the answers always varied. She herself had fought where the battle was thickest, had seen the frontlines. Zephyrine had earned a place amongst the troops, showed exactly why the Academy trained her alone all those years, even after revolution. She saw it now, the potential the Academy and the Proctors saw in her. It made her glad to choose to remain in Vel Anir, to prove to herself she was the only one in control of her future.

She saw glimpses of her future right there on the front lines. Never had she been a dreamer, but she knew the future did not hold well for her.

"Vel Anir continues to move in towards Cortos each day, Kristen. I have fought in the battles that has brought us victory, but it is what I hear and do not see with my own that tells me that in equal measure have we lost positions and lives. If I have seen the worst of it and still remain alive, then I will ask you to put that faith in me to ensure I will get as many of us out of here alive."

Again, she held that promise.

It was the words unspoken that Zephyrine kept hidden behind that promise.

She intended to be the last one here, to ensure her magic still held up. Kress knew Zephyrine would do all she could to ensure as many of them survived this. Her tawny eyes flicked back to Mortivore, to whom she gave a nod.

Kristen Pirian
Mortivore Urn

 

[Kristen Pirian]

The slow downward glide of Kristen's eyes gave testimony to her pondering on Zephyrine's answer. Victory, though hard-won, but victory nonetheless—and rumor of loss elsewhere in the war. And indeed it was Zephyrine's own personal experience which Kristen sought to compare, and in this a worry—mild for it was ethereal and not yet fully grounded—flowered and took hold in her heart. It could all be the mere fickleness of fortune's dispensing of gifts and woes, or, as she feared, it could be rather Garron's pernicious influence, seeing to it that all war long Kristen was sent on the deadliest missions with the least hope.

She did not know.

But what she could do was exactly as Zephyrine asked. "Then my faith you shall have." And she glanced to Mortivore and included him with her eyes and said, "Though we have failed in our mission, we shall see the sun rise, and our boots will press again upon Anirian soil."

* * * * *​

All the preparatory work was done, and the beleaguered Anirians had naught else to do then but wait. No fires were made, and what rations and water could be pooled together were given out with the tacit air of a final meal. They rested, and some found calm, some nursed anxiety, and some in that old Anirian way took on a grim acceptance of their consignment. Kristen watched as all the Cortosi riders eventually disappeared from view, and the plain was empty, and no sign at all issued forth even from the eastern forest, from where the Cortosi ought to be coming. One could have believed in deliverance, that perhaps the Cortosi had gone back, or went by some other route toward Maguilla, and that they would not come by the Hilltop at all.

The moons and stars wheeled overhead, and some two hours passed, before there came anything to still that fragile peace upon the Hilltop.

"Lieutenant!" called Flower Girl from the makeshift rampart. Her eyes were wide, not with fear but with uncertainty, and she beckoned Kristen and the Dreadlords over. The other Guardsmen if they were sitting stood, and if they were already standing looked, but none moved from their places just yet.

Kristen went to the rampart and looked over. A small delegation of mounted Cortosi, seven of them, was at the bottom of the hill's sole path.

"Anirians!" called the delegation's leader in the Common Tongue. "We have come to offer you terms for your surrender! Though you hold no god nor gods sacred, for us it is not so, and we are bound to our accords by the Sunfather who watches us, and watches all. If this means nothing to you, then we implore you to instead heed reason! It will profit your country nothing to die on a worthless hill. What say you, Anirians? Shall we parley?"

Kristen shifted her gaze then to Zephyrine, to Mortivore.

Mortivore Urn Zephyrine

 

[Mortivore Urn]

Mortivore's face twisted below his beard. A barely perceptible scowl, the distaste dripping like acid from his tone:

"Cortosi lies. They scheme against us, no doubt. Same as the capture of Cliff Keep, when terms of surrender were offered - and every unarmed Anirian that poured out were butchered." He adjusted the iron spheres in his belt, then unhooked one attached to a rod, fashioned like some strange flail without spikes or the weight of a heavy ball to inflict physical damage. No doubt its implements geared towards other forms of injury. "But, if nothing else, speaking to them might buy us time. It might even garner us information. If you ask it, lieutenant, I shall go. With proximity, I may even be able to hear the thoughts behind their deceptive tongues."

Zephyrine
Kristen Pirian

 

[Zephyrine]

She cut a look to Kristen. "Getting more intel is not a bad idea. It may even give us those few seconds we need to ensure the tides turn to our favour."

Zephyrine looked down the hill, narrowed her eyes to keep their small presences perceptible in her vision. "The moment they mean to do us harm, I will cut down some of their numbers."

All they needed now was Kristen's command.

Kristen Pirian
Mortivore Urn