Private Tales The Legend's Heir

[Solgrin]

Before Luka could open his mouth to answer Solgrin spoke over him, his voice carrying through the Inn loud enough that people almost immediately quieted down.

"I am glad you all had this chance to rest!" He called out to them, no lie in his voice as he smiled at them. The expression he wore was one of true joy, though it slipped away a second later as he continued to speak.

"I had intended for us to stay another few days." Some disappointed noises already carried through the room. "But we're leaving tonight."

Some groans, but no one argued anything. "The good mayor has told me that a storm is coming, and I don't intend to get stuck here before we can make it up the mountain."

There was a clatter of agreement, and Luka leaned into violet.

"Looks like you'll get that ride."​

 

[Serafina]

We'll discuss the gem more in the mountains...

His words from yesterday echoed in the back of her mind, a forkful of food half way to her mouth and then forgotten. Excitement and dread filled her.

"It explains why the wargs were so excited," Sera murmured then finished her food and chased it down with some coffee. Violet had managed to sit herself up and was leaning heavily against Luka for support whilst he tried to coax some food down her. She glanced away from the strangely intimate moment and looked up to watch Sol and caught him staring right at her.

"I'll go pack for us, Vi," she abruptly stood up and patted her friends shoulder before heading upstairs.

 

[Solgrin]

Ten minutes later Serafina would hear a knock on the door.

It was quiet, muted, almost as if intended only for her ears and no one else who might be nearby. There was a pause, and then another short round of knocks. "Sera, it's me."

The voice of Luka floated through the door.

"I need to talk to you." It was barely a whisper, but it managed to echo loud enough to pass through the door.

If Sera cracked it she would see Luka standing there, an odd urgency on his face. There were no weapons on him, and he was glancing over his shoulder.

 

[Serafina]

Sera was carefully folding her clothes into one of the big canvas bags they had brought along with their supplies when then knock sounded. The knife was laid out on her bed and she glanced at it briefly as a thousand irrational thoughts ran through her mind. When she heard Lukas voice though she relaxed and threw her duvet over it to hide it.

"What's wrong?" She frowned hurriedly and her eyes slid over his shoulder to make sure he was alone before stepping aside. She walked back to the bed and let him shut the door behind him as she returned to her folding. When he didn't speak straight away she glanced over her shoulder at him.

"Luka?"

 

[Solgrin]

His eyes settled on her. "You can't go into those mountains."

The words hung in the air as a solid declaration of fact. There was a sternness to it. He wasn't quite commanding her, not really, but almost sounding concerned. As though he simply did not want her to go more than anything.

"You...We need to get out of here." Luka took a step from the door, glancing back at it for a moment as if paranoid it might open, though outwardly he appeared disturbingly calm. "Otherwise he'll never let you go."

There was no panic in his voice, he was just stating fact.

His hand came up, running through his hair and flashing that strange mark again. "I can get you out of here. There's horses, tucked away in the barn. Not as fast as the Wargs but I think we'll be able to hide our scent."

Luka did not say how.

 

[Serafina]

"Luka you're scaring me..."

Sera had slowly stopped packing the more he had gone on about the reason for his visit into her room and she now stood hugging herself, eyes wide, whilst she watched him pace. She looked like a frightened deer caught by the hunter with his bow drawn.

"Y-you said this wasn't a bad life..." she swallowed. Sera of course hadn't entirely believed him but the past few days... even before then when the tension had eased... she thought it might at least not be awful. It might have been a gilded cage but if it meant she was not bound and tied like a hog day in day out then perhaps she could at least enjoy that bit.

"Besides he has the gem, Luka, he can follow me anywhere he doesn't need scent or prints," her voice was one of defeat and with a deep breath she tried to offer a reassuring smile. "Is that a tattoo?" She nodded to the mark.

 

[Solgrin]

The hand snapped away. "It's not important."

There was an urgency to his voice.

"The life isn't bad for me, but for you...it'll be all wrong." He stepped forward a little bit, though didn't get too close to her. His throat cleared. "You'll never be safe with him, he'll use you, and once you're on that mountain..."

His head shook, "You won't come down the same."

That much was obvious.

"We can get away, today." Luka told her. "There's a place nearby we can hide too."

 

[Serafina]

The brave smile she had plastered on for him came crashing down once more. Fear was an open letter across her face from the slight tremor in her bottom lip to the way her eyes darted from him to the door nervously. This was dangerous talk. The last two times she had left the Bandit's group had been against her will and thus she had skirted punishment, but if she willingly went? There was no doubt in her mind that Sol would find her.

She took a step back.

"Luka I can't - w-what about Violet?" Sera blurted out. The pain against her own person if this failed she might be able to withstand but if she went without her friend, it would be Vi who would suffer the consequences until she was found. "I just can't. He'll kill you.. he'll..." the panic rose in her voice and her hands clasped together frantically to stop them from shaking.

 

[Solgrin]

Frustration crossed his face. "He won't hurt her."

That was a bold faced lie, and Serafina likely knew it, but Luka kept pressing. He wanted to get her out of there, bring her away. That much was clear, and the urgency wasn't getting any less. He looked back at the door again, then faced Sera.

"It'll be fine." He told her.

A hand reached out gently towards her, a soft grasp touching her shoulder as he took two quick steps up to her.

"We have to go." Luka said. "Now."

 

[Serafina]

Alarm bells were beginning to ring and she put a hand on his wrist to gently, but firmly, take his hand off her shoulder.

"Luka you're scaring me... what's gotten in to you? What's so bad about the mountains?" she took a cautious step back from him, and another, trying to put more distance between them and putting her closer to the knife under the blankets on her bed. She would never leave Violet and he had to know that. He had been at her side the whole time she had held her on the brink of death. He knew, better than most, what she meant to her.

Unless... he hadn't been. Her mind flickered back to what Sol had said about necromancy...

 

[Solgrin]

"Enough of this." Anotehr voice left Luka's mouth, a hiss that seemed to echo in the ear.

Before she could get away from him completely the boy suddenly lurched forward to try and grab her. It was almost like a break, a difference of how he acted. A mask that shattered within an instant. Not a physical one, but something else hidden.

'Luka' wrapped his fingers about Serafina's left arm, placing a hand over her mouth so she did not scream. "He'd going to make you a puppet, a plaything."

He said quietly.

"Remember what I told you in the tent. What we could do together. What we could achieve." 'Luka' practically whispered. "We can still do that, but not if you go up that mountain. So we're leaving. Understand?'

 

[Serafina]

When Luka lurched forwards Sera gasped and leapt back. With the bed taking up the majority of the room however, and with him between her and the door, she didn't have much further to go. The backs of her legs hit the bed and her right hand snapped back behind her as though she were about to stop herself from falling. Instead it was him who caught her in his grip that was so tight around her upper arm it would leave bruises. A deep breath filled her as she prepared to scream but he muffled it with his hand. Trapped. Again. Anger swirled within her at the continuing helplessness she found herself feeling. Sol, Ari, Nasaar.

Fear still rode her and was visible in her eyes but she nodded all the same, letting him believe she would listen to him. Why would any of them expect anything different of a timid little mousy serving girl? Her right hand, however, had slid beneath the blankets and curled around the hilt of the kitchen knife. When 'Luka' tugged her towards the door she suddenly struck and with all her strength slammed the knife into the soft bit of skin and muscle between neck and shoulder.

"HELP!" Sera screamed and as he reacted in surprise to the attack, threw herself towards the door.

 

[Solgrin]

The door clattered open almost as though someone had been standing behind it.

When Solgrin stepped inside he had a look of bewilderment on his faces, as though the chaotic scene he was faced with wasn't quite what he had been expecting. Confusion crossed his features, and his arms suddenly fell around Sera as she threw herself towards the door.

He grabbed her tightly, his muscles tense as he pulled her half to the side so that he could peer over her head and see what was going on.

'Luka', had clattered onto the ground, clutching desperately at the knife that had been stuck into his throat. Blood spilled from the wound, the jagged edge of the blade having cut his flesh beyond what it could bare with the steel.

Solgrin frowned. "Shit."

The Bandit Chief said, no other words finding their way to his tongue as the young man bled out.

 

[Serafina]

The fear of a necromancer was far greater than her fear of Solgrin and in that moment he was the only thing that could save her from the twisted being that Nasaar had turned Luka into. Sera didn't even flinch when he gripped her arms and she buried her face in his chest, her hands over her ears so she couldn't hear the sounds he was making.

I killed him...

No, Luka was already dead. He must have died on the field that day they came for her. Tears clogged in her throat as she realised the man that had been the first to make her laugh had actually been dead all this time and nobody had been able to mourn him. It wasn't just Sera who had liked him after all.

"H-he... Nasaar," she stuttered and looked up tearfully at the Bandit chief. "He was going to... to take me away. I..." shock. Panic. Horror begun to set in one by one like the lines of a poem across her face. Easily readable. Easily seen.

"I killed someone..." her voice was a tight hoarse whisper.

 

[Solgrin]

"He was already dead." Solgrin said, reinforcing the thought in Serafina's head.

He'd had his suspicions on it.

Luka had always been a kind lad, but he'd also been careful. When things had started to change he'd assumed perhaps it had been the girls, but with the way he had particularly treated Serafina it had not been too difficult to guess.

The Bandit Chief had not thought Nasaar foolish enough to be so forward, it was not like him. Why had he been so hurried? Was it one of the others?

Lips thinned for a moment. "You're safe."

Solgrin said as he gently patted her head.

"You're safe with me." He repeated, looking at the corpse with a slight frown.

 

[Serafina]

"Am I?" Sera asked quietly and titled her head up to look at him. Tears glimmered on her cheeks and her body still had a tremor to it but despite it all she still managed to look ... defiant in a way. Something had definitely changed within the young girl in the last week. Whether it was the incident with Ari or the feeling of being nothing more than a prize that would be passed from pillar to post it was hard to say.

"H-he said I was going to change in those mountains, that I wouldn't be the same anymore. What are you going to do to me?" The last sentence was a whisper filled with horror and am odd note of sadness, as though she felt betrayed someway that he would do this to her. She had behaved for the past three days, had now killed before letting herself be taken from him, and he still had plans to break her?

She pulled back from him.

 

[Solgrin]

He blinked. "I don't plan on doing anything but telling you the truth."

Oddly enough, a statement of truth.

Yes he would break her. Yes he would bind her two him, but he had neither the ability nor the knowledge to do so in some magical way. His path was a far more sinister one, shackles forged through their time together, bindings she would settle into place herself.

"What the gem is. Where it came from. What can be done with it." Through her. The power was hers, but she would never truly be able to guide it.

At least if the legends were true. "Nasaar would have done the exact same."

Solgrin explained.

"just somewhere in the woods." Rather than on the mountain top. "It is best not done around...people."

Ordinary people.

 

[Serafina]

Was he telling her the truth? Sera studied him carefully as another tear rolled down her pale cheek. Was this another game to get her to trust him? She simply didn't know. It sounded real and a part of her wished it was the truth; if she could understand the magic, wield and control it she would feel less as though she were just a means to an end. She was so tired of feeling this way.

So she... relented.

Her shoulders sagged and her eyes drifted from his face to the pool of blood spreading over the floor. "That makes sense," she admitted, quietly, after a time. Allowing herself the start of some tiny bud of trust in him at last. "I don't want to hurt anyone."

 

[Solgrin]

"I know." Solgrin said as he gently slid an arm around her and shifted her so that she was pulled away from the corpse.

The Bandit Chief was not entirely sure how Nasaar's magic worked. He had only suspected Luka because someone had told him they'd seen him fall. There were no other dead men in the town, at least not as far as he knew, but they would need to be careful.

Even that thought did not calm him though.

Nasaar was not the type of man to press an issue, he was not the type to rush. Was one of the other two nearby? Had he known something that Solgrin didn't? "Come on."

He told Serafina softly, arm still around her.

"Go join Violet, I'll get your things." He paused. "Maybe show her how to saddle the warg."

Give her something to do. "She should know too."

 

[Serafina]

Gentle, soft, caring. Things she didn't expect from him but that she had deep down needed. Sera was young, naive, and she had grown up believing that being good would reap rewards. Sol in this moment was merely playing to that indoctrinated idea and it worked to ease her, sink her further into a state of comfort around him. Remove another a bit of her desire to escape one day. She didn't even realise it was happening but her body relaxed against his side, she found herself nodding in agreement, and even managed a shaky smile up at him.

"Yeah... yes, that's a good idea," she let him guide her from the room and was almost thankful that he took charge of the situation. "Thank you," she bit her lip. "I think I did most of it... it was just the dresses from last night," then she was off down the stairs and calling out for Violet to help her with the wargs.

 

[Solgrin]

Solgrin nodded his head as though he actually cared about what Serafina was saying, seeing her out the door before he slowly drew it shut and stepped over towards the corpse.

Blood was now seeping into the floor, likely staining the wood. He would have to leave a few pieces of gold behind so that they could replace it. His hand reached out, flipping Luka's body so that his face was laying upward. "Fool."

The Bandit Chief said quietly.

Luka had been a nice enough lad. Not the brightest, but helpful in his own way. It was a shame that he had died, even more so that Nasaar had taken his mind.

His head shook, hand reaching out and closing the boys eyes. He would have to send some of the others up to take his body and bury it. He deserved that at least. Clicking his tongue Solgrin stood, moving over towards the best and finishing packing before heading downstairs.

 

[Serafina]

The mindless but relaxing task of saddling the wargs was exactly what the young girl needed centre herself again and she talked a hungover, barely listening Violet through the process word for word like Sol had.

"Sera, my only concern today is not to throw up on the thing," her warg gave her a sharp look as if it had understood what she said and Sera gave it a palacating pat on the head. It snarled but she was learning not all snarls were necessarily bad. Once Violet was sorted she went and sorted Nipper who was eager to be off.

The girls were some of the first ready and waiting in the courtyard.

 

[Solgrin]

Solgrin came down stairs eventually, talking to Maria and a few of the others. His response were quick terse nods of understanding.

Nasaar would be back eventually, in some form some way, Solgrin knew that much. This time though it would be more difficult. Yet he was not the true threat. It was the other councilors he had to worry about now, the most likely reason he had been so rushed.

The Bandit Chief tried to push that out of his mind as he stepped out of the Tavern and into the Stable, moving towards the girls. "Here."

He told them as he offered them the packs.

"Did you make sure the Tailor got his money?" Solgrin looked to the both of them.

 

[Serafina]

"Yes, I left him a note too," Sera explained as she finished the last strap and then took her pack from Solgrin. The way she was when around the wargs was a lot different to when she was with the Bandit, caring for something that cared for her as Nipper did made her much calmer, bolder, professional even. Once she had checked everything she glanced over to Sol again, both hands braced on the wargs back.

"Do you mind?" The brace helped her to walk with a slight limp but jumping and running were still beyond her which meant she still needed help mounting.

 

[Solgrin]

Solgrin grabbed Serafina without hesitation and lifted her onto the Warg with a surprising amount of gentle care.

His touch on her form was not harsh, but there was a certain possessiveness that carried with it. The act was unspoken, but it was there. A moment later his fingers slipped free of her, the voices of some of the other bandits carrying as they prepared their own creatures.

"It will get cold." He warned, looking up at her.

The elevation of the mountains was not as high as those of the spine, but the cold would set in quickly.

"If the storm moves fast we'll have to find a cave." He told her. "Be on the look out."

A simple task to keep her mind off the mornings event,s another small manipulation, another way to twist her thoughts in the way that he desired.