Fable - Ask My Lambkin and Me

[Vardan]

BAYOU GARRAMARISMA
BITTERHEARTH - MAIN HALL

Ryan Ashford

On Vardan's wooden throne, that hastily carved and uncomfortable thing, there was a splinter that stood up straight on one of the armrests. And when Vardan was bored, or antsy, or pondersome, he took it between two fingers and twiddled it around.​

​

"Nnnnheh," he grunted to the silent hall. Only the quiet cackling of torches answered him.​

​

Corpses of allirians, scoured from a shipwreck, had been dumped into the muck. He could raise them, but without arms or armor, they were of little use. Fodder. And fodder had failed Geladryx in the end. But where to outfit them? And how? Conundrums. This swamp was not giving and it offered precious little to barter.​

​

The splinter snapped off. "Mmmnnh?"​

​

He inspected the splinter, his formerly faithful companion in thought. Now useless. Divorced from the whole. Pitiable! He flicked it away, on to the moldering carpet. Bored. There was the rub. He was bored.​

​

"You," Vardan shifted in his throne, "Where is Ryan Ashford?"​

​

One of Bitterhearth's natives, a bald and grey-skinned fellow stationed to Vardan's left, straightened up. "Should I fetch her, sire?"​

​

"Mmmm..." Vardan tapped his throne. "Yes. Fetch her."​

 

[HRavielle]

Ryan could not for the life of her remember the bald mans name and she really did not care either. He was here to serve at the behest of Vardan just like she was. Just like they all were.

"The Lord Vardan wishes to see you," she man said after she allowed him entry into her room. Ryan glared at him in silence for a moment then nodded. It was not his fault that she hated everything here.

He disappeared and she stood with a sigh. Ryan closed her eyes and took a moment before she headed towards the main hall to meet with Vardan.

She approached the carved throne with hesitation but it did not stop her from bowing before Vardan. She was learning. Slowly.

"I have come at your summons," she said without lifting from her bow.

Vardan

 

[Vardan]

Ryan Ashford

​

Much to his shock. Vardan cocked his head at her, matted hair swaying with the motion. He had been expecting a deluge of profanity - or perhaps something more pithy and sardonic. No matter. The day was still young.​

​

"Thou hath been undead for nearly a fortnight now," he rasped, "It behooves me, as thine lord, to inquire. How hath thou adjusted to this change?"​

 

[HRavielle]

Ryan rose from her bow and looked up at Vardan. It had already been two weeks? She wondered briefly if her family had been informed of her demise yet. It was not something she could dwell on.

She had a new family now and she needed to start to accept that. She couldn’t continue to be the resident cunt.

“It sucks,” she said without giving her brain time to stop the words. “I am dead at a young age, I know I have family grieving for me, this place is depressing as fuck, and I still don’t understand my new magic or why it changed at all…”

Ryan stopped talking and frowned. The silence stayed for a few moments. “But I’m not trying to figure out how to actually end my existence anymore so there’s that?”

Vardan

 

[Vardan]

Ryan Ashford

​

Vardan did not appear overtly concerned by the revelation she had been seeking to destroy herself. Least of all because he was incapable of showing an expression other than a death's head grin.​

​

"Thou wilt grow accustomed to it yet," Vardan assured her, "Death cometh soon or late to each creature on this sorry plane. If thou couldst recall the cruel oblivion of true death, thou wouldst know thy current state to be much preferable. Thou'rt lucky to hath been recalled."​

​

But it never felt lucky. Clawing your way out of a collapsed mausoleum did not feel lucky. Neither did waking up in a swamp, he imagined.​

​

He clutched the arms of his throne and pushed himself up. He stepped slowly down the stairs.​

​

"Hrrnh. Come. Let us walk about the grounds. We shall discuss thy altered magick, and what is to be done for thy family."​

 

[HRavielle]

"I would find it more lucky to still be alive..." Ryan looked sad now and just looked down to hide it.

She was never going to fall in love, have children, or grow old. It was not like children were on her mind when she was alive but it was the fact that now she was fully aware of. She would just be like this forever. No change. Nothing.

Ryan watched Vardan walk towards her and she nodded. As they started on their walk, she just stayed silent and studied her surroundings. She had not really cared or paid any attention before today. Now it was time for the change. Her change.

Vardan

 

[Vardan]

Ryan Ashford

"Yes. Well. Thou cannot have everything," Vardan replied, as if advising someone who had missed a party instead of woken up undead.​

​

A pair of footmen wordlessly peeled open the keep's heavy doors to allow them outside. The town of Bitterhearth was still a vacant place, silent save for the ambience of the swamp and the creak of the wooden platforms under their feet.​

​

There were only figures in the distance. The freed prisoners or locals going about the drudgery of swamp life. Sharpening tools, stringing up fish, stirring vats...​

​

Vardan picked a direction, seemingly at random, and plodded along.​

​

"Once one livest in death, it is not unusual for their magick to change. But thou were risen by the black flame, which consumeth magicks both temporal and divine. Thou hath noted such a change, yes?"​

 

[HRavielle]

Ryan fought the urge to stick her tongue out at Vardan. It was not like she was asking for much. She just wanted to not be dead. She did not stick her tongue out but she did make a mocking face...hopefully out of his view.

It usually took her a few moments to figure out what the fuck Vardan was saying but once she did, she nodded. She had noticed. Obviously. That is why she mentioned it.

"Yes, when I was alive, I could absorb and use the magic or energy. Now," she paused as she tried to think of the right words, "I seem to be a void. Magic does not affect me and I can stop others from using it."

She knew this because she had practiced on a few locals who possessed some magic. She had been curious and wanted to see if she was going crazy or not.

---

Vardan

 

[Vardan]

Ryan Ashford

This was evidently news to Vardan, as he immediately began to issue a ragged cackle. "Aah, is that so? Then thou art indeed an exemplary vessel. Such joyous news..."​

​

Vardan absently rubbed his hands as he toddled along.​

​

"It is good thou hath seen to it thyself. The black flame must be sated regularly, elsewise the rot shall set in."​

​

He indicated himself.​

​

"And thou'rt yet sentimental to thy skin, I'm sure."​

 

[HRavielle]

Exemplary vessel.

That was all she was. His to be used however he saw fit. Was it so different from when she was alive though? The Dreadlords had controlled her and made her do what they needed. She had been forced to kill long before anyone should have to be faced with that order.

Ryan's attention came back to Vardan at the word rot and the gesture to himself. Her lip curled in disgust for only a second.

"Yes, I am. No offense to you, but I prefer to not look like I am dead."

---

Vardan

 

[Vardan]

Ryan Ashford

"Of course," Vardan mused, "Fret not. Once thy peers are long passed, such trivial attachments will fade."​

​

He'd awoken a meagre skeleton himself, a thousand-odd years removed, with only his funerary raiment and the desiccated hairs which still clung to his pate. A jarring change to be sure.​

​

But when everyone whose opinion you cared about was dead, what reason was there to fuss before a mirror?​

​

Vardan shook his head. "Hnnnh. But thou worries yet for thy family. Tell me of them."​

​

​

 

[HRavielle]

Ryan was taken aback by Vardan's request for her to tell him about her family. She, honestly, did not think he gave a fuck about her besides how she could serve him. Maybe he was not so bad after all...maybe.

"My family," she started and then paused. She had thought about them very frequently since she had awoken from death but she had not spoken about them.

"My parents are retired from the Anirian Guard. They were fantastic parents. I was sent to the Dreadlord Academy when I was young but because of their positions, I still got to see them often. My sister joined the Guard when she was eighteen and never left. I was supposed to graduate in a couple months..."

Ryan sighed sadly. So many things were different now.

---

Vardan

 

[Vardan]

Ryan Ashford

So they were only men-at-arms. Lowborn and powerless. And Vardan had nearly worried they would go after their lost daughter.​

​

"The academy of Dreadlords," Vardan mused, "Didst thou enjoy thy studies there?"​

​

The Dreadlords were a recent contrivance, so far as his age was concerned. He knew only that they were prodigious battlemages, and yet Ashford and her companion had seemingly died so easily in the swamp...​

​

 

[HRavielle]

Ryan gave Vardan an incredulous side eye when he asked the dumbest question she had ever heard.

"Um...no...I did not," she answered slowly.

Until a year ago, the Academy was a living hell. The children (because that is what they were) were beat, murdered, made to murder their fellows, tortured, and more. It was slightly better now but only by a smidge. Killing your fellow Initiates was not frowned on.

"I hated it there but I was so close to graduating. So close to starting my life as a full-fledged Dreadlord."

They were made to be weapons but they were still human.

---

Vardan

 

[Vardan]

Ryan Ashford

"Nnnh. Only a miserious life awaited thee," Vardan grumbled, "Even if thou still rues thy death, thou'rt better off now. A battlemage slaved to a nation of artless warlords. Such a pitiful existence."​

​

Oh, yes, she would be of much better service to the dynasty. He had no doubt. Vardan idly scratched the back of his eye-socket as he continued on.​

​

They were approaching the edge of the settlement now. Where the platform they walked on met the damp soil of the swamp.​

 

[HRavielle]

"A battlemage slaved to an undead Lord seems like a better one?" Ryan asked with sweet sarcasm dripping from her words.

She couldn't help the lift of her upper lip when Vardan scratched the back of his eye-socket. Gross.

"What do you really want, Vardan? I doubt you truly care about my feelings..."

It was not rude. It was just a matter of fact.

---

Vardan

 

[Vardan]

Ryan Ashford

Vardan stopped just at the edge of the walkway, where it gave way to a ruddy dirt path. A good thing, too. His jawbone swung open abruptly - a rare and usually unnecessary occurrence - and he made a short, barking laugh out at the murky wasteland.​

​

"Ahah!"​

​

It clicked shut again. Now he looked at Ashford. "Thou thinkest thyself a slave? Where art thy manacles, hmmm? No arcane compulsion or contract binds thee here. Avaunt if that is thy desire."​

​

He indicated the endless swamp with a wave of his hand.​

​

"And yet... Belike thou'rt well aware of what awaits thee among those pious living."​

 

[HRavielle]

Ryan hated that he was right. There was no where she could avaunt to where she would be accepted. She would be hated and looked upon like a plague or a demon. She really hated when he was right.

"Obviously, I cannot leave," she said finally as she crossed her arm. She was a foot stomp away from a petulant child.

"So, again, what is it you want, my Lord?" There was no sarcasm in her voice this time. She respected Vardan...even when he irritated her.

The others though...nope...not even a little bit of respect.

---

Vardan