Open Chronicles Some Skin Just Won't Shed

[Violetta Amrita Primrose]

Western Falwood - Elvish Rebellion Display.
​

Violetta had seen it before. It wasn't her fight in the end.

She stood just a few hundred feet away from the show of it. Hooded and hidden from sight behind the trees, Violetta had hooded herself and dressed a bit unlike herself. Less motherly and more so like a rogue. It didn’t play to her strengths but she wanted her great sword back. And Vel Anir wanted her head.

Merciless didn't even begin to describe it. Though even after the Dreadlord Revolution it was rather common to see elves cutting them down when found in the Falwood. At least from what she'd seen. This though, was meant to send a message.

The Dreadlord they had in their captivity was likely new. They seemed young. No older than nineteen. These elves, who she'd just realized were all wearing similar clothing, had beaten the boy senseless. Some sort of rough gang of rebellious elves aiming to pay Vel Anir and the Dreadlords back for all their suffering.

The boy was dragged to the top of a makeshift gallows with the intent to hang him by the neck.

Violetta was torn. She should intervene. There was a high chance he was just a new Dreadlord based on his age. And he likely would have much less blood on his hands, if any at all. Then again, if the Dreadlords were already aware and coming to rescue him, they may have seen her face on wanted posters and take her with.

It was such a difficult decision.

But Violetta knew herself. She hated the Dreadlords. She could even help the boy desert. She just wasn’t the kind of woman that could watch this play out, even if it meant knocking elven heads.

She burst through the woods, making her presence known almost immediately. No surprise they’d been on high alert.

To think she’d ever rescue a Dreadlord.

 

[Edric]

Edric ached from the bruises covering every inch of his skin.

It wasn't often that he allowed such wounds to linger, but as he had learned over the last year sometimes such things were necessary. His face remained remarkably impassive as the Elves pushed him forward, forcing him up the thrown together steps which lead up to the gallows.

One of them jeered at him in their melodic language, but Edric's ignorance protected him from any understanding. Another shove sent him a few steps forward, his boots thudding against the wood as he stumbled to just beneath the rope of the hastily assembled gallows. He glanced at it for a moment, then to the sneering elf who snapped the noose into his hand.

A second later he lay it around Edric's throat.

No concern flickered over the young Dreadlord's face, expression entirely impassive as the noose was fitted to his neck.

All around him life teemed and called out to him. Birds, insects, elk and other animals running around the Falwood. Even the trees themselves called out to him, strong and flowing with vitality which sang like a sweet song.

Even his executioners, the flowing vim of the Elves which held so much more than most human's was there.

Edric could have taken any of it, could have grabbed and seized at all of it. He knew it would have been enough, knew that it would last him through the slaughter. But that wasn't why he had been sent here. He wasn't here to kill Elves.

As much as the core of him, the part that had been trained for better part of a lifetime wanted, Edric did nothing. He let the Elves slide the rope around his neck, standing at staring at them with quiet defiance when suddenly a figure burst out into the forest. His eyebrows rose when he saw a demon emerge, the Elves whirling around in an instant.

Two arrows drown in the snap of a finger.

 

[Violetta Amrita Primrose]

Brazen of them to fire without questions. They knew they were in the wrong, then. Made her decision easier.

In for a penny, in for a pounding.

She didn’t have the reflexes she wished she did. Was always athletic but never agile. Even still she’d been in this boat recently. And arrows were slower than bolts, if only by a little. The first one she was swift enough to deflect with the axe she’d been forced to use since the separation from her blade. It felt masterful, the way she’d knocked it aside.

Her mortality was again brought to her attention when the second connected with her forearm. It hurt like hell. Unlike normal arrows. Barbed. She could only pray they weren’t poisoned. No time to fret.

The blow was painful but lacked force. The two archers must have assumed her impediment by their lack of reaction speed. They still went to cock the next arrow, but weren’t fast enough this time.

Violetta descended upon the first in the group. The blunt side of her axe meeting with calf. The audible snap of a broken leg upon impact.

“HALT YOUR PASSAGE!” Another cried out as the battle came to an anticlimax, with several arrows pointed at her.

“What is the meaning of this intrusion? We know you not, are you in aid of the Dreadlords?”

Violetta scoffed.

“Y’all wish. Just a wayward soul not willing to watch a kid die. S’meaning of this anyway? Boy is hardly an adult, if he even is one.”

The elf who addressed her stepped forward.

“You clearly are unaware of the capability of the one we have in custody. If he is not killed, we all will be.”

Violetta shook her head. Looked to her as if his fight had been long over. Edric looked tired, defeated. Unlike a weapon. Maybe her soft heart was getting in the way.

“Let the boy speak then, say his own piece ‘fore you go making assumptions.”

“Oh, much like you have?”

“Quiet, fucker! I wanna hear the kid talk.”

Edric

 

[Edric]

Edric stared quietly, coldly as the devil woman fought with the Elves.

Again that temptation to free himself roiled within his chest. His heart beat and thrummed, yet he maintained that veneer of calm. Reminding himself of how Ralene or Noel might handle the situation. Controlling that wilderness which ran so strongly through him.

He stood in place, shifting only slightly against the rope as the quick beat of combat came to a tense end. Arrows knocked on bows pointed directly at the demoness, Edric's eyes falling on her along with everyone else as she demanded his voice.

For a moment the Dreadlord stayed quiet, and then finally spoke as the Elf at his side gave him a nudge.

"He's right." His voice was cold, calm. "I could kill all of you."

There was a scoff from behind him, but Edric didn't turn. "But I don't plan to."

He added, his voice slightly dispassionate still.

His plan had been a relatively simple one. Edric knew what his magic was capable, knew that the rope they sought to hang him from wouldn't do the trick. He had hoped they would hang him and then simply leave his 'corpse' swinging. A warning as they had said. Though one that would not have worked quite the way they had wanted.

 

[Violetta Amrita Primrose]

Her hood thrown from her head as the Dreadlord child spoke, she really didn’t know what to say to that. There was an expectancy of acceptance or a slight chance at him wishing to be forgiven, but none of those things carried on his words.

It was as if the boy had preordained the hanging. Wanted it to happen. He spoke with that low, emotionless tone that she knew the Dreadlords to keep. All she could do was shake her head.

“For what sake d’ya drag this out for? You crave death?”

The elf whose leg she’d shattered could be heard wailing behind her on the ground.

“Be done with this, child. You live under a cruel regime with those who hate you for your title. Why not abandon it for a chance at freedom?”

A loud bending sound echoed as the arrows pointed her direction were pulled tighter in unison.

“Not how this is going to go.” The previous elf who’d spoken said. “This man will be hanged for his hand in the deaths of our friends and family. A Dreadlord is a Dreadlord. End of story.”

Violetta’s wrist tightened around her axe. She wouldn’t dodge these arrows from this close. She just had to hope this boy still had some common sense left in him.

Edric

 

[Edric]

Edric stood on the platform, his lips turning to a frown for a few moments.

He could see the woman’s determination, hear the surprising amount of compassion within her tone. It was touching, and one of the others might even have lauded her for it. Edric though was not the sort. A slow breath dragged into his lungs, and slowly he shook his head. ”Just let them hang me.”

Perhaps he should have let them kill her too, fought, argued, but Edric didn’t see them point. The Elves wanted their price in death, and he would give it to them. At least he would make them think he was giving it to them.

”Come back later.” He told the devilish woman, slowly turning his head to regard the elves. ”Let her take my body when you’re done, and I’ll not fight this.”

The Elves seemed to tense somewhat, and he could see the confusion within their eyes.

To them he was supposed to be a monster. A force of nature that had burned half the Falwood and wreaked havoc on thousand of elven lives. That was what Dreadlord’s were supposed to represent, supposed to be. The fact that he was just giving up was…off. Strange.

Edric only stayed calm.

He knew that a rope around the neck was not enough to kill him, not for long.

 

[Violetta Amrita Primrose]

She couldn’t believe her ears when the Dreadlord spoke. Was this his own way of taking his freedom back? There were no masters in death, after all.

Her violet hand squeezed against the oak handle of the axe. It’s iron head shining in the silent son, a reminder of the oblivion she could deliver if she so chose. The wood pressed in by her fingers dented from her strength and threatened to splinter under the pressure.

It was an impossible choice for her. Had she found him dead already, she would have buried him. But she hadn’t. She’d found him in a position where she could save him.

She could prevent some of the arrows, but not all of them. Violetta would yet again be impaled by several bolts. And luck was only distributed so much. It wasn’t her quarrel until moments ago since she had made it so.

This was so unfair. The Gods were such cruel bastards.

SNAP

The oak axe shattered in two as the pressure from her mind channeled into her grip. Some of the elves eyes widened from the sudden sound but their arrows did not loose.

“I will wait. And I will bury the child.” She said solemnly. Violetta stepped away from the gallows and returned her hood to her head. She took a seat in the dirt, faced away so she didn’t have to watch the boy die.