Private Tales The Storm

[Arctus Valerian]

Hooves thundered across the fertile wilds of Thanasis beneath the guiding wings of dragons. Roars, cries of draconic dominance scattered wildlife wherever they flew and did wonders to make the search for one Vivien Damaris since her kidnapping. An act that had sent the nobility of Thanasis into an indignant uproar. Most of all one Carsan Sahar who, with all the composure of a man possessed, had marshalled all his political weight to the retrieval of his "prize". Arctus had agreed to join the hunt, earning begrudging respect from the indignant Sahar, for though Carsan disliked the man the loss of his prize in Vivien was too great a risk to deny even he.

So it was that countless men, noble, common and all in between, swept the countryside over the ensuing days. Arctus among them. Whether by dragon wing or horseback all were dedicated to the task.

Meanwhile.....

In an isolated tower chosen for it's hidden, isolated clime a small group of brigands took to resting with their prize. They had been paid anonymously by some benefactor unknown to see the Damaris woman brought across the sea to lands distant from Thanasis. Into whatever future might await her there. A future, as it were, that would never come to pass. From her isolated, moderately furnished lodgings Vivien would hear the shouts of her hired mercenaries. Voices raised in alarm at some approaching party. Only for a man to scream, and die, cut down with ruthless efficiency. Then the harsh TWANG of a crossbow bolt being loosed. A loud, sickeningly wet death gurgle. Closer now to her high perch. The clang of metal, the impact of metal upon flesh, another life snuffed out without remorse.

Vivien would then find the room she dwelt within kicked open with great force.

But it was no knight or champion of Thanasis that stood there, in the doorway, but instead a towering Jarlax. This one with deep olive skin, blood fresh and hot running down it's chin to drip obscenely upon it's chest, a tattered piece of bleeding flesh caught in it's maw. The two blades of bone it held in two hands slick with viscera and gore. While this towering, mutated Jarlax sported yet a third arm. One that gripped a metal mace not of Jarlax make. Clad in naught but a loincloth and tribal fetishes the only other distinguishing feature of the muscular creature was a band about it's waist, replete with the skulls of women, and the Jarlax would hiss an unknowable sound at Vivien before beginning to stalk toward her with slow, hungry steps. It's blood-slick tongue lashing it's fangs in anticipation for the taste of her flesh.​

 

[Vivien Damaris]

The days following that rain-soaked night had been… strange. Unsettled. Vivien found it impossible to stop thinking of it. Of him.

Arctus haunted her waking thoughts and her dreams alike; those molten gold eyes burned into her memory, there whenever she closed her own. She had spent three days confined to her bed after that night, the cold having settled deep into her bones. Fever took her, fierce and unrelenting, leaving her drifting in and out of sleep, her dreams vivid and disquieting; warm hands, a low, rumbling voice, the echo of a smile she could not quite forget.

They had been furious, of course. Her parents. Carsan. The household rang with indignation of her actions. Yet none of it had been concern for her, not truly. She had expected as much, had expected to be left to the care of servants while the true outrage centred on appearances, on reputation bruised rather than flesh. And so she lay there, burning and shivering in equal measure, with far too much time to think.

In less than a fortnight she would be a wife. Lady Sahar.

The thought stole the breath from her lungs every time it surfaced, panic crashing over her like a rising tide, drowning her until she could scarcely breathe. Whatever little freedom she still possessed would be stripped from her entirely, her life sealed and settled into something cold and airless. The walls felt closer with every passing hour.

The moment she was strong enough to walk unaided, Vivien slipped away.

She wandered streets she had no business being in, veiled and quiet, heart hammering as she followed instinct rather than sense. It was there, in a market tucked far from noble eyes, that she found 'traders'. Their wares told their own story: spices not native to Thanasis, metals she had never seen worked by local smiths, accents muddled by distant lands. When she named her price, when she offered coin worth double their entire stock - half now, half once she was safely across the wastes and the sea - they had scarcely bothered to hide their eagerness.

She made sure to make her room look like there had been some sort of struggle.. As though she had not gone willingly to meet those men in the night. She packed lightly. Clothes she had purchased from the market, to help her blend in, and enough currency and jewellery to begin again somewhere far away, somewhere her name meant nothing. She would find a way to send for her sister in due time, otherwise, she would not mourn this life, this place or these people…Though she did regret that the night in the rain had been cut short. That single night of warmth and comfort became something precious, something to hold onto whenever she felt her panic and anxiety rise.

The journey across Malakath had been brutal. What began as fourteen men dwindled to eight, claimed by poisonous flora, venomous creatures, wildling traps, and predators that struck beneath cover of darkness. The heat in the day was merciless, pressing down on them until breath itself felt like work.

And still, none of it was worse than the future she had fled.

The abandoned tower where they now took shelter stood only hours from the coast. One more day, and she would be off the continent entirely. They had come so impossibly far...

She had been asleep when the screaming began. Vivien woke with terror clenching her heart, the sound of raised voices tearing her from uneasy rest. She rushed first to the window, peering out into chaos, then to the door, dragging a chair across the stone floor and wedging it beneath the handle with shaking hands.

It made no difference. The door exploded inward with unnatural force, the chair splintering to kindling.

She had seen Jarlax from afar before, during their assault on Thanasis, but up close was a different horror entirely. A towering, eyeless thing, its face a gaping maw of jagged teeth, blood slick across its claws and dripping from its tongue. It did not need eyes. It could smell her fear, hear the frantic thunder of her heart in her chest.

She snatched up a fire poker, her hands trembling as she slashed it clumsily through the air.
“Get back!” she cried, her voice shaking as the creature advanced, forcing her step by step into the corner of the room.

This was it. This was how she died.

Wasteful, she imagined them thinking - her parents, Carsan - disappointment etched across their faces. Gold eyes flashed through her mind, fierce and blazing, and her own burned with sudden tears.

The Jarlax was too close now. Any closer and she wouldn’t be able to strike at all. So she chose to act.
With a furious, desperate cry, Vivien lunged forward, driving the poker toward the creature’s chest, refusing, in this final moment, to go quietly.

 

[Arctus Valerian]

The Jarlax was, at least, malicious enough to be amused by Vivien Damaris 's attempts to ward it away. The sinuous, serpentine tongue flicking and lazily lashing the air at the utter non-threat she posed. As she clumsily swung the fire poker at it the confident creature would drop it's weapons, baring it's claws, flexing the gore slick appendages as it prepared to revel in tearing Vivien apart with it's bare hands.

It was surprised, just a bit, as Vivien suddenly cried out and lunged forward. It's mutated third arm would grip the shaft of the poker just as it met it's skin, the Jarlax's bone-masked face staring defiantly into Vivien's eyes, her own features vaguely reflected in a warped, twisted way in the polished, bloody sheen of the bone mask. Only for the Jarlax to use it's two free arms to grip her by the throat. The cloying, awful scent of blood and viscera staining her neck, flooding her senses, before the mutant Jarlax tore the poker from her hands and threw it aside.

The two powerful, muscular arms of the creature would lift Vivien from the ground by her throat, choking her, strangling her, claws just barely shy of piercing into her throat while that third arm delivered a hellishly brutal punch to her stomach. The creature had no mercy save for it's twisted, sadistic desire to kill her slowly. Nothing near a blessing, but instead a curse. Only when Vivien's pulse began to pound in her ears, when her eyes began to swim, did a new sensation reach her.

Hoofbeats. Fast, purposeful, and the sudden cry of a Jarlax from down below outside the tower. The creature currently strangling Vivien would pause, hiss, gnash it's fangs, before throwing her without care into the bed. Not onto it, but spine-first into the wooden frame as it turned, crouched low, and as another Jarlax cried it's last it picked up it's weapons and began to stalk forward toward the very door it had just kicked in.​

 

[Vivien Damaris]

Vivien’s eyes blew wide as the Jarlax caught the poker before it could do any real damage.

For a heartbeat she was frozen.. Shaking, trembling, the world narrowed to the warped reflection of her own terror in the blood-slick sheen of its bone mask. 'Silly girl'...

She managed only half a scream before clawed hands closed around her throat and squeezed.

Air vanished. Her hands flew up on instinct, fingers clutching at its wrists, nails scraping uselessly against hide made for war and slaughter. She tried, but it was like clawing at stone. No breath would come. No sound would leave her. Only silent, frantic gasps tore at her chest as her body begged for breath.

She kicked at it wildly, her bare feet striking muscle and bone in desperation, but the Jarlax barely seemed to notice. Then pain exploded through her as a brutal fist drove into her stomach, bruising on impact and stealing what little strength she had left. She could not cry out. Could not inhale. Could not exhale. She dangled there, suspended by her throat, utterly helpless, the awful certainty settling in that this was it, that this monster would take its time, and she would die here, nameless and forgotten.

Tears spilled from her eyes, and the edges of the world darkened, tunnelled inward. Her ears rang with the pounding of her pulse, loud and frantic at first, then sluggish… slower… slipping. Her legs stopped kicking. Her grip slackened. Arms fell uselessly to her sides as strength bled out of her far too fast.

This is how I die.

Then, she was thrown.

The relief her body felt as her lungs dragged in a greedy gulp of air was seriously short lived. She slammed spine-first into the wooden bedframe with a sickening crack of splintering wood. Pain screamed up her back, blinding. Her head struck hard, light detonating behind her eyes, before she slid, boneless, to the floor.

She lay there, crumpled and unmoving.

Breath came only in shallow, broken drags, each one a struggle. Her body was a map of pain; throat burning, stomach aching, spine aflame, but she could not muster the strength to move, to crawl, to do anything at all. Barely conscious. Barely alive..