Private Tales Don't go into the woods

[Lagakh]

The elf blanched at the mention of being eaten but Laga was too busy staring at Charosh to notice. The hand on her hip curled into a fist as she did her best to fight off the offset anger. But it was boiling over now and far too late to reduce the temperature.

"He helped make me, you..." She grew even more angry as a healthy shade of red crossed her cheeks. She'd likely blame the heat if asked. "He raped my mother or...or so I thought."

"Elfs don't rape." The elf piped up, listening intently to the conversation but seemingly surprised.
"So help me, Elf, if you speak again without request..." She eyed the elf and he tucked his tail, cowering back to the length of his rope.

"Cut North, Charosh of the Fiarach. If that is your wish." She tugged the rope and began walking. "But I need to have a talk with my father."

 

[Hath Charosh]

"Oh," went Hath, encapsulating a whole world of understanding in just a single syllable. Her father was all the way down here in Fal'addas and not across the Spine. Apparently, there was also some mystery surrounding her conception.

The past was no always worth dwelling in. Lessons they needed became stories for the future. Last time he had seen Lagakh much of her world had been grounded in the anger she felt for the abuses suffered by her mother. Her world had probably been tipped upside down.

"I know where the road to the city is," Hath sighed. "You won't get there without being seen. If that is where you want to go"

 

[Lagakh]

She grimaced, shaking her head at the 'oh' comment. One of the elders used to have a saying, Laga recalled, regarding that statement. Should would say that oh was the sound of a thought hitting an empty head. In this moment, she wondered on the accuracy of that statement towards her current predicament.

Though she wouldn't say outright because, despite what airs she was putting on, she was happy to see the bigger Orc. Maybe he was dense, maybe he was just being obtuse. But either way, he could compete with elfs on a bow and that sort of thing could come in handy. And his companionship, while abrasive and recalcitrant so far, would no doubt erode into something more pleasant as the days waned on.

"Yeah I know." She admitted in orc, donning a sudden grin. Then she turned back to a language she knew the elf could understand. "When we encounter more elfs, assuming we don't sneak up on them, our friend here will negotiate for us. Or, at the very least, will serve as a pin cushion."

He dropped his head as he walked, the two orcs following behind. "Then you can eat him."

 

[Hath Charosh]

"These ones were thick as shit," he replied. "The rangers guarding their borders...we won't sneak up on."

I won't sneak up on them, he thought to himself, you definitely won't.

"You really want to bring this one? Might rat us in and have them gut us. Looks the sort. Better to walk up alone and hope they speak human. Also means we get fed on the way."

Hath spoke the last part slowly and carefully. Just in case the elf did speak some orcish.

He continued along with them both. That begged the question as to why. If her father was there and wanted to see her then they might not actually be murdered on the spot. Perhaps he had a morbid curiosity about that.

Perhaps you don't want to return to your tribe.

It was a long time since the demonic presence had spoken to him. In its place came a voice from his own psyche. Rather than urging him to violence, this one seemed content to point out things that Hath deliberely avoiding paying attention to. Such as the changing political landscape of his own tribe and how he wanted to shirk the weight of responsibility that had in store for him.

 

[Lagakh]

For the first time, perhaps since they first met, she got the impression that Charosh was underestimating her. He understood her to be strong with utterly impenetrable defenses. He understood correctly regarding her combat capabilities. But it seemed he knew very little of the extent of a scar caster who had some flesh in the game.

Stopping in her tracks, she looked towards Charosh with a hefty dose of incredulity. Not towards his comment but more towards the fact that he was still carrying on. Yanking on the rope, the Elf jerked back and landed hard on his ass.

"Ow...ysgarthiad!" He whined and Laga approached. The runes around her hands and wrists emanated a deep vermillion as she knelt, wrapped her hands around the bindings, and tore the rope loose.

"Run, little elf. Before this one eats you." She growled in almost a whisper, leaning over the elfs shoulder. "Run. And know that I can track you. If you go to your friends, you bring me in your wake." She stood up and patted her hands. "Run along now."

The elf didn't waste his time, scurrying across the ground and panting. Before long, he was running off into the woods.

She approached Charosh, crossing her deceptively broad arms over her chest. "Got your wish. Now we can walk alone."

 

[Hath Charosh]

He stood tall, turning to watch the elf scurry away. Slowly his gaze panned back to Lagakh. She did not look pleased.

Hath had stumbled into her quest. One that was deeply personal for her. She hadn't asked for his help, nor did she seem to want it. Now that the elf was going she was going to have to take it or go and find some more elves to bother.

"What?" he asked bluntly.

 

[Lagakh]

She realized, rather abruptly, that she wasn't being particularly fair to the man. Somewhere along the way, she had been carried away by her own anger and desire for vengeance. And the desire for a measure of truth was also quite persuasive to right the duplicity that had otherwise governed her upbringing.

She was stuck now with Charosh and she decided that that wasn't a problem. Far from it. She was now, more than she had been previously, very thankful for his presence. And quite curious as to what had motivated him to trudge through the treacherous woods.

Happenstance?

Concern for her wellbeing?

Out for an early morning jog?

None of the options she weighed were of any particular fault for Charosh.

Exhaling, she uncrossed her arms and dragged a chestnut lock back behind the point of her ear. "It's...nothing. We should get moving, we'll be out of daylight soon enough."

 

[Hath Charosh]

Hath made a sound in the back of his throat that was somewhere between an acknowledgement and a noise of contemplation.

There was an air of finality to the moment. They were going to the last, or at least largest, city of the elves. There was a significant chance that he wouldn't make it all the way there with his head still on his shoulders, but he found himself determined to match that stare of Lagakh's with action.

"I agree. If we make good pace by middle of tomorrow we will be close enough to worry about patrols."

Hath had a good mind for routes. During the difficult months he had ranged ahead of his tribe, finding the best way forwards to bring them to the food supply.

He picked a rough direction and started walking. There was plenty of room between the trees, the ground hard and firm underfoot so they would not leave obvious tracks.

 

[Lagakh]

Charosh had a bit of optimism regarding their timing, though perhaps that was tempered by the gloomy expectation towards patrols. Admittedly, Laga wasn't particularly experienced with this sort of thing and would invariably, if not silently, yield the floor to Charosh.

He seemed to have a healthy amount of caution to counterbalance her flagrant disregard.

As they moved, she leaned over and rummaged through a bit of debris and leaves. Picking up a stick, she pricked her fingers on the bark thorns and cursed beneath her breath. As the scars on her hands burned scarlet, she ran her hand up and down the sapling hand hold to rip off the prickles.

"So..." She spoke quietly as she caught up with Charosh, walking with the devils walking stick. "What happened to you since I last saw you on the spine?" The question was open ended. But it was clearly pointed towards a certain and concerning mystical residue.

 

[Hath Charosh]

"Fought orcs, gnolls and then fucking demons," he grunted. "One of them...and this is the truth Lagakh, I do not make fancy to mock you...stabbed me with part of itself. An obsidian feather. It left something even after we left Pandemonium."

He was ashamed of how long it had taken to notice its influence. In fact it had taken a chance encounter with a maester of Elbion.

"It whispered and grew. It is gone now. I will tell more when we make camp later if you wish."

What was brief on the move when he was listening out for elves could become a grand tale when they came to rest. Telling stories was how the orcs had shared knowledge since their kind had begun. Layers were added over the generations to make lessons of the past.

 

[Lagakh]

She did not like dark magic or anything resembling it. She had concurred with her mothers death over using such magics, as was the condemnation of the tribe. Doing her best to not scowl or scrunch up her nose as Charosh explained, she settled on many different conclusions. The foremost being that she believed just about everything he said. Everything except the idea that it was gone now.

It never truly leaves.

"You should know..." She whispered as she stepped over what she suspected was a particularly loquacious grape vine. "That your answer has not satisfied me." If it came out harshly, it wasn't her intent. But this was akin to someone taking a bite of meat, after proclaiming they were not hungry, only to realize that they were nearly sick with hunger.

"I mean that I do wish for you to tell me more." She looked over, directing her mahogany gaze towards the larger Orc. "And I would like to inspect what remains of your rune."

It wasn't easy to explain and she uncertain in her ability to convey her meaning. But a rune like that could serve as fingerprint. Not only could it identify the caster, but it could gather an aura not entirely unlike a blight or blemish. Like upraised grooves for dirt to collect, the rune could serve as a diary for all the mythical and magical experiences that Charosh had experienced.

 

[Hath Charosh]

Wearing a frown, he cast his gaze over at Lagakh. It wasn't the request for more of the story that concerned him. She was going to poke an old wound. The fact that she had called it a rune suggested she was going to study its magic. The story, however, he would happily tell.

Another moment of indecision. Hath scratched at the edge of his beard as he ducked under some branches.

"Fine," he replied.

Still carrying the spit, he was keenly aware that he was leaving a scent trail of cooked meat that might draw in predators. The elves kept these woods relatively safe for themselves, but they were vast. There was plenty of room for beasties to stay hidden. For that reason he suggested making camp before the light entirely dwindled.

They were far enough from the elven camp that they would be hard to find, without risking walking through the nest of something horrific in the dead of night. He leaned the skewer against a fallen tree, keeping the meat from the ground.

"They'll have cooked all flavour from this," he bemoaned as he drew a knife. He preferred his meat far more rare.

 

[Lagakh]

His hesitation regarding her inspection felt like an animal, protecting a wound. That meant that she was likely right, that the reluctance spoke towards an injury that was simply being paraded about as old wounds, clearly scarred over. But it wasn't healed, not by a long shot.

"Oh I am not so sure..." She stopped, placing the walking stick against a nearby tree. She spied an evergreen tree, likely cedar of some sort, and began to peel off branches along the truck. The feathery leaves would make for suitable beds during encampment.

"The elf spoke of many things." She smiled coyly as she tossed a branch to the forest floor and pulled at another. "Herbs. Sage and Thyme, Vinegar and Pepper..." She listed it off, fighting the urge to count on her fingers. "Can't really tell right now but while it was cooking, it smelled pretty...decent."

She was a connoisseur of cooked and salted meat, after all. Though her preference wasn't nearly as far towards rare as Charosh's.

 

[Hath Charosh]

He sliced a thin strip from their bounty. It wasn't entirely dried out at least, still nice and moist. Cooked more than he would have liked, but tender. The only meat he cooked slowly was dwarf. That was tough and inedible rare. The venison was over seasoned on the surface to his palette. It was still a feast that had required no effort to hunt.

Lagakh had of course used up some of her magic to bring down the elves. He wouldn't have interrupted them.

Hath sliced another piece and held it out for her. A piece of bark off the tree would make a good plate on which the meat could be piled high.

"Have you heard of what happened with the red mists?" he asked, as he considered where to start the story.

 

[Lagakh]

Laga was a league ahead of Charosh, holding a bit of plated pine bark in one hand. It was coarse and crumbly, covered in a sap where the bark had attached to the trunk. But otherwise, it would serve well as he trimmed the meat.

Taking the first offered piece, she laid the plate down between them and took a moment to investigate the scent of the meat. It smelled fresh enough but the Elf was being honest - there was a good deal of vinegar and herbs mixed in. It would have concealed the flavor of the meat when recently cooked. Now, so far removed from the flame, thyme and sage was about all Laga could smell.

That didn't stop her from taking a big bite out of the meat.

She followed the bite with a sharp shake of her head, offering the plate as Charosh continued to trimming. "Very little. It seems I was fortunate enough to avoid it almost entirely."

 

[Hath Charosh]

He chewed thoughtfully and stacked then sliver of bark. When there was enough stacked for them both - or at least to his estimation as Lagakh did have a healthy appetite after calling on her magics last time - he sat on the same fallen trunk he had rested the spit against.

"It was like blood, spreading across the land. At first the shamans of the Ashlanders thought it just an ill omen, a sign of difficult times ahead. In a way that was right, because the cloud held a fucking horde of demons.

"Where the mists went the ground churned up and plants died. There was a gathering of the tribes and they decided to ride into the mists to find the source of the danger.

"It was carnage. Each group lost sight of the other. Then we could hear one of the other groups come under attack. Their cries for help were drowned out by the screams of the things that came for them.

We gathered together as best we could to hold them off. All manner of beast. Some larger than orgres, some small and fast. No two were quite the same. We held tight until they were driven away.

"When we followed them we emerged from the mists...somewhere else. The sky was a ruddy shade of red. Ground was mulch with tendril running through it that came together to form trees of twisted vines.

"A demon was waiting for us. A great thing thrumming with magical power. I fought its thralls as long as I could. The beast took to flight on wings of...well, imagine the darkest black you've ever seen. In one flick it filled the sky with its feathers. Like arrows hissing through every bit of the air. I took one in the shoulder.

"You ever get an arrow strike you so deep it hits bone?" he asked.

 

[Lagakh]

She listened to the story without feigning any form of disinterest. Charosh, despite claiming that his brother spoke too often, always seemed to surprise the Shadowreaver in his way with words. Perhaps his weren't as many but when put to proper use, the weaving of a tale seem to fall easily from his lips.

Her interest was only mirrored by her disbelief, which she showed with the cursory shake of her head amidst whatever pauses were interlaced in the tale. Not disbelief for his story, but disbelief that she had missed such a thing. Wherever she had gone, the red mist and the various rumors seemed to dog her step without making any form of advancement. She counted herself fortunate but with the way this campaign unraveled, she may have thought wrong.

She shook her head in response to his question, ripping at another piece of meat. "No, I tend to ward myself against such things..." In many ways, her magic was instinctual. It responded to threats in a psychosomatic fashion, coming to life in defense of the shell. But as she pondered on it, she did remember the first cuttings. "Though I have felt cuts so deep it touched the soul..." Such a dark thought might have dragged some into abyss of memories, absent pain but burdened with unfortunate remembrance. But Laga wasn't one to dwell for too long.

Instead, she perked up and eyed the man, looking towards his shoulder. "This feather, did it leave a permanent scar?"

 

[Hath Charosh]

He tilted his head to one side, eyeing her runes. If he was protected from arrows by magic then perhaps he also would have been less agitated about marching so close to the elven city.

"Worse than an arrow in bone, is having one pulled out of it. Was not the end of it. I did not see the corruption spreading across my skin. That has gone now, but the scar of the wound will always be there."

He traced across the front of his shoulder with his left index finger. He found the line of soft skin that gave too easily under a gentle press.

 

[Lagakh]

Laga, perhaps, paid more attention to his finger, drawing the line over the wound, than what might have seemed necessary. Corruption like that, in her experience, had multiple layers. Like a burn that cut through deep and healed at varying stages.

She couldn't understand how it would have simple gone away.

"What other symptoms did you experience?" She wandered openly, picking at bits of the charred meat. "Did it make you see anything, hear anything?"

Corruption, for some, could be an enticing venture. Like being given elixirs that empower without fully understanding the consequences. But everything came with a price and sometimes, the price was eternal.

Her internal musings led her to stray and gaze skyward, towards the slowly darkening skyline.

 

[Hath Charosh]

He grunted and looked down at his feet. There was a touch of embarrassment in the set of his brow.

"It spoke. At first I thought...I thought it was just my own voice, my own thoughts. You know when you dismiss a thought and think nothing more of it..."

Or act on it in some cases. It made it hard to work out what had been that voice and what had been his own anger. He kicked a few pebbles away from his foot.

 

[Lagakh]

"Hmm…" She offered in reply, glancing over what were obvious signs of shame and embarrassment. She couldn't understand his position or truly empathize with what occurred. For those not born or raised with magic, the inclination wasn't always apparent.

"And the things it said…" She paused, bringing her eyes back down from the horizon to inspect the mountain orc. "They weren't things you truly felt." That wasn't a question and she intended that. A demons preference or corruption was no reflection of the man.

"Do you still hear those voices or suggestions?" Depending on how long it had been, it may have been difficult to now tell his own voice from this other being.

 

[Hath Charosh]

"I don't hear it any more, no," he replied. Looking up at Lagakh he saw that it was curiosity and not, as he might have suspected, concern that the darkness still had its claws in him.

"When it saw its end it spoke to me directly. Finally made a clear distinction between it and me. Tried to bargain. Offered me power through change. Ascension.

"It's gone, but what did it do to me before it went?" he asked rhetorically.

 

[Lagakh]

She didn't have an answer so she said nothing. The damage that may or may not have been done by this entity could only be understood by Charosh. But Laga did find herself quietly contemplating how one could determine such a thing. To look at a reflection in the still waters and wonder how it changed…

She looked down towards the bushel of spruce branches, collected on the expectation that it would be more comfortable than just bare ground. Even with a bit of moss, it could make for a comfortable spot beneath the leaf cut canopy of open starry sky.

"Do you think it will draw attention if we start a fire?" She interrupted the silence with a thought out of left field. Since she had moved down from the mountain, she had found the heat nearly unbearable. It was the primary reason that her furs had been replaced with thin hides and sometimes nothing at all. But there was something to be said of the comfort of crackling ember and the ability to see the person she was speaking to.

She could, of course, pull from the moon as she had when they first met. But despite what airs she had put on, the fight with the elves had taxed her tremendously.

 

[Hath Charosh]

"Hmm."

In the savanna a fire could be seen at night across vast distances if your enemy was on a hill. The smoke could be seen from even further the next morning. Here the forest was thick. These lands were vast.

"It is a risk, but I don't suppose those elves you smacked about will be looking for us."

Perhaps there was as much chance of it keeping a woodland monster at bay as of drawing in elven rangers.

Hath was still considering the ways that he had changed since he had last seen Lagakh. He kept returning to the fact that he was a far more efficient killer than he had been. Not hunter, but killer. How much of that was being forced to fight blight orcs and men and how much was the mark it had left upon him?

 

[Lagakh]

Those elfs wouldn't be looking for the orcs, not if they had any sense about them. Especially the one Lagakh had purposely let go amidst a childish attempt to spite Charosh. While that was clearly ineffective, the larger orcs's continued comments on eating the elf were likely a helpful deterrence from ever seeing that particular elf again.

But that didn't really concern Laga, not as much as the ever darkening brow of her companion. Pensiveness seemed to consume him after his comments, sunk deep in an aura of contemplation. Perhaps her questions dug deeply at things that were busy being buried. And some times, that was the best someone could do.

She lifted a hand to his upper arm, not far from where his gestured at the scar. Squeezing gently, she tilted her nose towards a particular spot not far from the where they were standing. "Come. I can't risk the magic to start the fire...I need your help."

It had been some time since she had started a fire with debris, wood shavings, and friction. She assumed that with his affinity for traveling, Charosh knew the practice all too well.