Whispers
 

"Strange how the winds have that silver shimmer across the mount. I'd sit there, day after endless day, watching the whispers and whirls about the purple heathers. Watching the frantic dance in which the cherry blossoms would act as they fell from their branches, across the tall grasses and over the edge toward the sea. It was beautiful..." Iishka rubbed her forehead with her right hand, silver jewellery sparkling in the light of the storm overhead. The thunder cracked, sending echoes through the intertwining caves of the clifftop. The lightning split across the blackened skies, forking in what seemed like a thousand directions before dying and then sprouting elsewhere. Raising her umbrella over her wet head, Iishka looked down to the small cat at her feet. Looking more like a drenched rat, the poor little critter just sat there, little green eyes staring up as if wishing to go home.

"All in good time." Iishka said, patting the creature on the head, the large bell around its neck jingling as he purred happily. With a slight sigh, Iishka looked along the sodden trail, watching the water wind down and puddle in places. The storms had come and gone for the past few months, but never had the beautiful spring weather she remembered so fondly returned. Clutching her satchel at her chest, her painted fingers rubbed against the small lock that held away all of her secrets. All that she had left from the place she had called home. And within the hour she'd be gone. With the dawn awakening, she'd be far away from the mountains and the smouldering village down that path. She'd be across the ocean and far, far away...

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OOC: Jump in if you feel you can contribute and expand to the current storyline. This story has no set direction, so feel free to add your own elements. Where at all possible, avoid OOC conversation. This is a fantasy setting RP and God moding character posts will be deleted. Thankyou.

ooc: Rai rai has returned to her kingdom. interesting.

Still nothing compared to the 20 paragraph ressurections I used to perform as a roleplayer. XD Anyway, ahem, on topic now please. =3

OOC: This is most intriguing... And I'll give it a try...

The small village rested, almost peacefully in the night, some fires being the only sign of activity. From a distance, a travaller might see it as a pleasent resting point on a long journey. But from Janus' location, he could see the truth.

This village had burned.

He stepped on some random rubble thrown in the street from where a fireball had gouged out a slab of wood and belongings from someone's home. He looked at the village, watching the flames flickering in defiance against the rain that poured down. They would lose eventually however, and this once peaceful, kind town would just be one more monument to the cruelty of man. The dead had mercifully died quickly, and the town had quickly been ransacked, covering the streets in torn clothes, destroyed furniture, and the belongings accumulated in lifetimes that became so much litter in the end.

His steel boot, complementing his plate mail armor, prodded at the rubble, then kicked it aside in rage. He whirled on the small group of bandits and ruffians. "You incompetants! I send you out here for one item, just one, and you fail me so miserably! The Dark One will be very displeased, and I won't be the one he is angry at on this one..." He shoated, the end of his fury hanging in the air like the executioner's axe over the bandits' heads. Some of the scraggely, malnourished thugs looked at each other with fear, knowing tales of what happened to those that failed the Dark One...

They came to a pathetic joke that might charitably be called a salute, before Janus gave his next command. He pointed down the road and said, "We know the aritfact was here, and if someone fled with it during the raid, there is only one way out of this small mountain town. The road. You willl follow the road, look for any sign of this person, and if you find them, return the artifact to me. If you fail me, you had better run, and hope I never see any of you again. Now get out of my sight before I make an example of one of you for failing me." He turned his back, and he heard a brief scramble followed by whispered threats and warnings, and after about ten seconds past, he looked back and the ruffians were gone. He turned back and looked at the town, now quietly savoring the destruction that had been sown...

OOC: I'm in...unless I get thrown out, which I hope doesn't happen.

IC: Dart limped along the street, unable to move his left leg easily. He had recently been in a fight with a drunk person...and lost miserably. After what seemed like hours of walking in the cold, wet rain, he stopped and leaned against a building, sliding down to the ground. He looked at his leg, which was covered in blood from a stab wound, the rain was making the blood soak into his pants much more easily than normal. He reached into the wound and began pull the tip of a knife, which had broken off during the fight. He groaned as he pulled the broken blade from its new home, the pain being alittle more extreme than he originally thought.

After getting up, he limped over to a better place to sit down, which happened to be an overturned bucket. He picked up his sword, which he had dropped a few feet before he had sat down near the building, and proceeded toward the bucket. He sighed as he held the injury to keep it from bleeding.

OOC: Now, by OOC coversations, do you mean just OOC post, or OOC all together? If it's the latter, that idea scares and confuses me...

IC:

Deep within the wood, Morti could see the smoke from the nearby village. He knew what had happened there, and he had decided to help out.

He sat down in the middle of a clearing in the forest, his staff planted deep into the ground in front of him. The decorative feathers and beads swayed in the unnatural wind filling the clearing. Slowly, the staff began to glow from the butt up. An eerie white light filled the wood, zigzagging between the two main wooden carvings in the staff. Upon reaching the top, the decorations of the staff filled with the light, then shot upwards towards the sky. The light leaked out from the feathers and beads, and formed into a large ball feet above the staff.

However, any one who might happen to come across this clearing would see nothing. They would just see an odd, young man covered in black and white robes sitting in the clearing with his eyes closed, his staff resting in the middle of the clearing. From Morti’s eyes though, everything was much different. The world acted as though everything was made of a wave of black and white. And even then, Morti still saw more. Everything glowed with it’s own special colors. The trees glowed an eerie green, the rocks shining a dull gray, the spirits of the recently departed floated around in a ghastly white. In streams the spirits came, all directed from the burning village. They entered the ball of light above Morti’s staff, which then showed them the path to their final resting place.

As Morti Verstorbene continued his ceremony, he sighed and opened his eyes. Slowly titling his head back, the shaman stared into the sky. Droplets of rain dripped onto his head, slowly running down his cheeks as though they were his own tears. “It’s as if the heavens themselves are crying for you…” He mumbled to himself before closing his eyes and returning to the guidance.

"I told you that it would happen tonight you foolish novice!"

"If perhaps you had explained the extent to which this was important, rather than just mumbling half-hearted dialetics from the Masters, I might have been more inclined to hurry!"

"You, boy, will be the death of me. You refuse to trust in the wisdom of those that know much better than you do."

Any stranger who had glanced upon the two companions would be more than a little surprised. The two figures were very much different, one was tall, gangly and dressed in a full length grey hooded robe, which shrouded his face in a somewhat unatural darkness, more that light preferred to avoid his face rather than merely being blocked from it. The lad's attire was strange and probably foreign, the battered stick in his hand and lack of pack gave the appearance of a rather pathetic traveller. The other companion was more surprising however, in that it was a cat. Not any cat however, it was black, sleek and from the pure white of it's eyes, seemed to be blind.

"It's too late now Auroch. They probably already have it."

"Yes. We'll have to inform the Masters."

"Couldn't we stop for a while? The village has just been raised! There might be someone who can tell us what happened."

"There's no time for that any more. We have to return. Now."

"Oh shush you silly cat. I'm going down there."

And so the two ended up making their way into the village.

She had waited, but they hadn't come. Clutching her bag tight to her chest and ditching her sodden umbrella, Iishka had run through the forests in the rain, her faithful companion running close to her side at all times. She had spiraled the path down to the bottom, dropping to her knees in a puddle as she struggled to catch her breath. The little cat nuzzled at her side, purring heavily.

"Hush now, Demmit." she said as she patted the poor little gray cat on the head again. The cat just sat down in the puddle of rain and looked straight forward toward the rocky beach. Iishka's eyes followed with a sigh escaping her lips. There was no boat. "Blast this place to hell! Is there no way off of this dreaded land?! What are we to do now? If we don't get to Reuma soon..."

She stopped talking, putting her small hands over her red lips, long platinum hair sticking to her wet face. The footsteps. She could hear them all around her. Eyes darting around she looked along the shoreline. She knew there was a cave somewhere, but with the storms, much had changed. Getting to her feet, she hobbled and tripped her way over to the stone wall, pulling herself along until she reached a small hole in the wall. There she huddled, cat sat before her, his eyes now glaring red as she cowered behind him.

"Demmit, if they come...if they come I want you to run away. I don't care where...just wait until it's safe. Wait until you can stow away on the big ships...and then...then I want you to go to my brother...tell him...tell him that it was nice while it lasted. He'll know then that mother and I are dea..." the cat turned to glare at her as if to tell her to keep quiet, so she did as she was bid. Closing her eyes, she concentrated her senses onto the shouts and noises above her on the hillside.

The interrogation process had not gone well.

"Of course I realise that if what you are doing is your own business then it is...urk. You know it would be much easier for me to 'get out of your face' if you weren't pinning me to the wall by my neck."

Somehow this failed to discourage the burly bandit who had spotted the young man. Indeed it made him push harder. This was a mistake, as it caused his hood to be pushed back. A few seconds later there was nothing left of the bandit.

"Poor bastard" said the young man as he flopped to the floor, struggling to stand and retain his composure.

"What I don't understand is why you Weavers don't just do that to all of your enemies" chuckled Auroch, having emerged from the shadows.

"Because we aren't allowed to. Only if one is foolish enough to throw back the hood by choice can this ever happen. It is regrettable, and will have caused truly shocking tears in the Pattern."

Once, he had a name.

Once, he had a Name.

Now, he was little more than a wandering ghost, a faded memory of what was and a broken dream of what could have been.

The man who passed over the dark countryside once had a name and a Name. He had sworn the two in service to king and country, but when king and country had been conquered, so had they. He tried to remember what it had been like, before the fall, but the memories evaded him. The magic of the oath was powerful, and that was all he knew.

Because a Name was more than just a colelction of words and syllables.. A Name was a representative of the sum total of a life's experience. Memories, hopes, relations, desires, connections - a name was a label. A Name bound them all together. A Name was a life.

And the loss of his Name had been as good as killing him.

Something stirred in the back of his mind as he saw Iishka standing alone on the beach, some half-forgotten echo of the past he no longer had any claim to. He had seen this before, but the hows and whys and wheres eluded him. All he had was an image... and the faint emotions that colored the mental picture.

The woman in his mind had been crying. And as he examined the canvas of the mind, he realised... so had he.

But that was merely a shade of the past, an errant shard of wispy thought and memory, and he put it behind him as the silver-haired girl covered her face with her hands.

The vessel was nearby. So were the pursuers.

It was time.

He approached Iishka with an instinctive caution, not for himself, but for her. It would be a shame if she fled a would-be savior and ran into the jaws of the enemy. He cleared his throat, to let her know it was there, and then he spoke, in a still, small voice.

"Have you any further companions, miss? Or are you the only one?"