Original Submissions by Briar
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Light Dancer
Added on Oct 23, 2008There are two kinds of light - the glow that illuminates and the glare that obscures.
Still Unbroken
Added on Oct 23, 2008Run when you have to, fight when you must, rest when you can.
A Family Lost
Added on Sep 16, 2008'Loss is written into the very earth. We are only its most dramatic reminder.'
Street Acrobatics
Added on Sep 3, 2008"There is an art to street tricks, girl. Learn to throw yourself at the ground and miss." - one acrobat to another
The Stormer
Added on Sep 1, 2008Redemption is not often found in the Sea.
Dusk
Added on Aug 29, 2008With the night, he comes.
A Halfling's Meal
Added on Jul 29, 2008Be ever watchful in the Grey or you could be the next meal of the day.
Ptar Ken
Added on Jul 29, 2008'Ware of a lost forest child, Take note of his teeth and feet, And his wailing, and weeping lest he be a halfing in guise. - Tuluki superstition
Halfling Hunter
Added on Jul 21, 2008Among the ancient baobabs of his people he watches, he hunts.
Merchants
Added on Jul 3, 2008His song carried on through the smoke, playing the music of merchant hearts.
The Water and the Wheel
Added on Jul 1, 2008When the Water of Life and the Wheel of Fate meet even the suffering of the earth can be turned. - words of a Reader
The Currents of Magcik
Added on May 24, 2008A mage.
Corporal
Added on May 5, 2008A Tuluki Coropral soon after his recovery from battle.
Wayfarers
Added on Apr 30, 2008Children of the Wayfarer's Road.
Ehlos
Added on Feb 21, 2008Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart.
A Kadian
Added on Jun 11, 2007A young woman born of the Greater Merchant House Kadius.
Ganin's Dancer
Added on Jan 24, 2007The dance is a poem of which each movement is a word. - Words of Ganin's Dancer.
Daughter of the Moons
Added on Jan 23, 2007With a finger to her solemn lips, the Moon hushed the shadows.
A Moonlit Night
Added on Dec 24, 2006A child finds her element within Tuluk's Ivory Walls.
The chiming click-clack of sandals, the rhythmic wheezing of tired, desperate lungs, and the constant shifting of heavy fabric about flailing limbs echoed through the long, marble-floored halls.
Run! Run! Run!
The little girl, her night-clothes still clinging to her body in weighted drapery ran as her thoughts compelled her to. Her small hands tore at the ivory toggles at the front of her silk robe, pulling awkwardly as her feet continued to drum into the floor, carrying her as fast as they could from those that chased. She thought she could still hear the din of their black boots pounding in pursuit and continued to flee from her bedchambers.
Lirathu, full and brilliant, shone stark against the starless night as shafts of light broke between gauzy curtains along one side of the hall, bathing the child in fleeting pools of silver. In a flurry of brown and gold, her robe fell from her shoulders, melting to the floor in a muted puffing sound as she bolted farther down the hall. She turned right and right again, and ran until she pushed through screen doors of pymlithe lattice to a lush garden.
Her tiny hands batted angrily at the brush as she darted through trees and manicured foliage, away from the trails, burrowing deep into the cluttered garden held captive in high, ivory-painted walls. She stilled, coming to an abrupt pause and choked, sucking in wells of breath as she turned her head to the side, listening to the lulling breeze that crept around, attempting to cool the still clinging heat from the earlier day that sweltered. Wait, she told herself, her thoughts even hard to understand in the painful cramps in her legs and lungs.
Silence.
The hushed drumming of foot-pads echoed in the distance, sounding like fingertips tapping a beat onto a silk pillow. Run, her mind screamed but she stayed still and forced her eyes closed. Listen, she told herself as she raised her trembling hands outwards and lowered to a crouch, hiding within a clutch of flowering bushes. She felt the breeze touch her skin, prickling the flesh alive as the air suddenly chilled and her fingers outstretched to tentatively grasp the earth beneath her.
The gardens dimmed with the light of the silver moon paling and fading as a graying twilight took over in the matter of a breath. Some manner of moist, faint smoke began to form, creeping from within the green depths of the trees to thicken along the narrow, marble-floored paths. The sound of steps stopped in the distance and began again in opposite directions from one another. The little girl waited, her eyes held closed and her breath slowing, coming in softer gulps as she listened intently.
Help me, she whispered mutely to the brush as she opened her eyes and looked down at a small ishra flower that surprisingly lifted its four-petals to face her. A shiver ran down the purple flower’s dark green stalk and a ripple of movement shifted abruptly through the garden as trees and flowers came alive, blossoms opening and tendrils, roots and vines unfurling, stretching across the paths, seeking those that searched. With a faint rustle of her amber-colored silk shift, the little girl rose halfway from her crouch and peered through the topmost branches of a bush to see the distant trail as a nearby crash sounded through the growth.
One of the black-clad men had fallen. She could make out a vague figure, his form veiled in the thickening, moist air. His body writhed soundlessly as something from the ground seemed to attack him. The little girl lowered, ducking down to the ground as she looked quickly to the flower beside her. Its pollen-filled center quaked briefly as it shook itself off, sending a scented plume into a tiny space of air about it. She watched, waiting and began to move into the brush on hands and knees in the direction the ishra’s face turned.
The wind blew down and through the garden, filling it with a chilling, hammering roar as the child moved slow and carefully across the ground. A myriad of roots shifted, curling back within the soil as she passed, closing in behind her. Another crash sounded in the distance, a faint cry cut off short following it.
Pausing, the girl looked up through the clinging, humid air that remained thick and dark and came to her feet. How many was there, she thought and stood still. She squinted her eyes and balled her dirty hands into fists as she tried to remember. All she could recall was gloved hands slipping between the curtains of her bed, reaching for her in the dark. There had been no warning, no sound, but strangely the child could recall the strong scent of her mother, clove and a mixture of laok and jasmine powder, on the figures who attempted to wrestle her out of her bedding. She had escaped, squirming between hands and arms and bolted for the door. How she’d managed to outrun them, she couldn’t understand. Nothing made sense.
Silence stretched and she waited, listening. On the southern end of the garden she heard the sound of the gate’s heavy locks and moved suddenly, without thought, towards it in careless strides through the brush. Pushing desperately once more at the garden, the little girl began running through its trees and brush, the wind roaring in her ears as the fog began to darken the wooded area into a near blackness.
Through blackened trunks and grey-looking foliage, a shaft of silver shown through the misty veil. It pooled over a white-stoned trail through the branches of sagging wylrith tree and deepened the darkness that hung like a void in the opening of a vine-covered stone alcove. Sucking in sharp breaths that stung, the child darted towards the light, her eyes going wide as she fought for words to shout out in the gate’s direction.
Run! Run! Run!
Stop!
She did, coming to a stumbling halt just a cord within the shaft of moonlight and stared, breathing quick and heavily as she dug a hand into the pain in one side. Her eyes darted across the path as she stood between the squirming roots of the tree, its limbs creaking and swaying, brushing and reaching to touch her, as if to draw her back into the gardens. She looked beyond the light to the blackness of the alcove and squinted at a faint, silent motion.
A pale hand reached out of the dark alcove, stark against a black sleeve and held a round, sugary cookie with in its long, spindly fingers. With a flickering gesture the shadowy figure beckoned the little girl closer. She stood still for a stretching moment before instinctively sliding one barefoot behind her into the brush.
‘Storia Dasari,” said the voice, feminine and familiar to the little girl.
Momma, thought the little girl and she moved forward as the wind screamed and the trees thrashed behind in silent pleading. She stepped through the pooling light of Lirathu and extended her tiny hand to the cookie as she stared at the darkness within the alcove.
A pair of cold silver-flecked, black eyes flashed within the shadows and met Storia’s brown eyes. As she took the cookie in her hand the hand of the figures withdrew into the black and suddenly the thought took hold in her mine: Those are not momma’s eyes.
A whisper of leather.
A flash of a shimmering blade.
Silence and stillness suddenly embraced the gardens for a long moment. Brown eyes searched the darkness of the alcove, wide and confused. The cookie slipped through her fingers and fell, breaking apart on the ground. She fell, the shift of color and light flashing around her as the moon shone above, filling her eyes with white. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, all at once she felt numb and cold, heavy and lost. Momma, she asked Lirathu as the moon shown clear above. Momma why, she asked again, as the scent of her mother filled her nose, coated her tongue and filled her thoughts with the woman’s face. Everything began to fade, slip into the white that hung above.
Storia lay dying, blood pooling beneath her, glittering like liquid rubies lit by fire. The red ebbed further outward, forming a halo around her amber-colored curls as she continued staring up into the silver moonlight. The shadowy figured stepped forward from within the alcove, wiping his stained blade upon a white silk handkerchief.
“It is done,” said the black-clad woman as she turned her face to the side, casting a sidewards glance into the deeper black of the alcove.
Alithia Dasari melted out of the darkness of the alcove. She was not a tall woman, in particular, and she had dark red hair that fell in a straight, shimmering curtain to her lean hips. Her face was pale, with a touch of perpetually ruddy cheeks, and her eyes were the color of deep, blackened gold. She lowered her eyes to the dying child and held them there for a moment, indifference showing clear before she raised her attention to the black-clad woman.
“Do not state the obvious, dancer,” the Chosen Lady said as she turned gracefully from the alcove and moved down the path. She paused with deliberate ease and drew her eyes over the shoulder of her emerald-silk gown as she added with a neutral tone. “Remove it from my estate.”
Without another look to the crumpled child on the ground, Alithia returned to her smooth stride and faded into the distance down the path.
The black-clad woman looked down at the child, watched as the glassy look overtook her wide, confused eyes. The woman knelt down, taking up Storia’s pale, limp hand in her own and pressed her lips to the child’s knuckles. She watched.
Storia turned her eyes slowly to the woman’s, searching her silver-flecked, black eyes. She could not speak but she looked at the woman, asking why silently as her fingers twitched within the woman’s. Her fingers tightened around Storia’s in turn and she nodded tightly.
“You are what you are, little one. You are an abomination. I am a dancer. For you, I exist. For me, my blades exist. Do you understand?”
The little girl could only blink, tears welling in her eyes as she stared at the woman.
“Look to Lirathu, little one, She will guide you. Mercy is Hers. Go to Her,” said the black-clad woman as she clutched the child’s fingers in one hand and watched, waiting.
Storia turned her eyes to the moonlight, staring as the sight faded, glazing over until nothing remained but empty flesh.
“She loved you, this is why,” whispered the woman as she rose, letting the dead child’s hand fall through her fingers to hit the ground with a faint thud.
The black-clad woman removed her cloak with a single flick of a slender hand, exposing a pale tattoo of Lirathu on the inside of her wrist, and deftly covered and rolled the child within it, concealing every inch of Storia’s body. Settling the limp form between her arms, the dancer moved, silently and in steps down the trail that seemed more fit to the slow rhythm of a bard’s song. A bloody outline of a child’s upper body and haloed head painted the top of the alabaster flagstones of the pathway, lit brightly by Lirathu through the sheer veil of the clinging fog.
The chiming click-clack of sandals, the rhythmic wheezing of tired, desperate lungs, and the constant shifting of heavy fabric about flailing limbs echoed through the long, marble-floored halls.
Run! Run! Run!
The little girl, her night-clothes still...
Continue Reading...Southern Guard
Added on Dec 15, 2006"As you command, Lord Templar." - Words of a southern guard.
A Lady of Borsail
Added on Dec 2, 2006Image is everything to a Lady of the Jade.
Lover's Breath
Added on Oct 23, 2006Fleetingly does Lirathu pause in her dance to stand beside Jihae before once more stepping across the sands, beckoning him to chase.
Gwoshi and His Gypsy
Added on Oct 21, 2006What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.
Kurac
Added on Oct 3, 2006A broken coin and a red, blazing sun.
A Gypsy Woman
Added on Sep 26, 2006What beyond the sands can catch such eyes? What song on the wind could carry her name?
