This is a story about a sheepgirl holy woman exploring how much of herself is safe to give for the greater good.
See Chapter 4 here!
Dawnsister, Chapter 5: All We Have
Ampara sunk into the mire. She drowned; the cold, dreadful feeling of forgetting something of vital importance crept from its usual home in her gut and permeated her whole being. She was late to an engagement; she was unprepared for an examination for her aspirancy; a friend was in need, and she was not there. She wanted, more than anything, to leap to her hooves and run, to stop wasting time, but she could not. Her arms and legs refused to heed her will, and as her heart continued to rail against its bony cage, she too was imprisoned.
Consciousness ebbed and flowed. All at once, her nerves sprang to attention, overwhelming her utterly and yet bringing her no closer to waking; she would struggle, then slip away, and she had no way of knowing how much time had passed by the next time she seized and shivered. Snippets of conversations reached her ears at the times she was closest to lucidity. Hurried instructions, concerned whispers, and faraway chatter, all set against the crackling of a fire; she mustered the strength to whimper, to half-mumble a desperate reply to half-heard words, and then was dragged away from the surface again.
When life finally returned to her paws, she clutched the sheets on which she laid and thrust herself bolt upright. She gulped down air as the sounds of Edelyn’s shelter came into relief in her ears. The bedsheets–now full of ragged holes beneath her claws–and her wool were both damp with her sweat. She reached out, feeling which way she could stand from the cot, but lightning arced through her flank and up her spine as she twisted. She reached down to find bandages wrapped around her torso, and gauze packed over the wound dealt to her by the mercenary. There were smaller bandages peppered across her body, stuck down against shorn patches of skin–lesser wounds that she hadn’t noticed. Such was the danger of her work.
The Dawnsister did not let it stop her; she gritted her teeth and rose anyway, feeling her way around the slapdash infirmary with measured, slow steps. Her blindfold hung on a hook near her bed; she was uncomfortable at the thought of it being removed by someone else, but she supposed that whatever apothecary or chirurgeon had treated her was simply doing their due diligence. She suspected she already knew to whom she owed thanks. Tying on the blindfold once more, she tapped her way into the main floor of the room.
“Sun above, you don’t know when to quit, do you?” Ah, and there she was.
“I cannot quit,” the ewe replied plainly.
“Do you have the slightest idea what it took for me to get you back here?”
“An inkling. I asked you not to follow me.”
“You’d have died if I hadn’t!”
“And I am grateful for your help. Still, you should not be involved in this.”
“Pardon?” the mouse huffed.
“I cannot ask you to put yourself in danger; in fact, I must do the opposite. It is my place to risk myself. Not yours.”
“You forget that we’ve survived this whole disaster thus far! You’ve walked these streets twice; I’ve ventured out for food, for tools, for medicine, more times than I can count!”
“And there is nothing wrong with defending yourself when necessary. It is no longer necessary.”
“I can do more than defend myself. Most of us here can!”
“I can undertake this alone.”
“You couldn’t before!” the mouse spat.
“I was close,” the ewe growled. “And I must return to my task as soon as I can. The longer I remain here, the more time the devils have to return to the city. If it is not kept clear, it will not remain clear, and it will be so until those would-be dragons are separated from their hoards.”
“Then let us keep our own streets safe!”
“You know I cannot allow you to contend with demons.”
“I slew the one that made to sneak up on you.”
“I would have survived such an ambush.”
“But you would have been wounded!”
“That does not matter.”
“It would make the rest of your devil-hunting harder.”
“It would not stop me.”
“But I made it easier for you! Why should you choose to suffer the pain of a fiend’s bite when all it would take to avoid it is another pair of eyes at your back?”
“Because I am willing, and I am able, to bear injuries in the stead of one of my kin.”
“Well I’m willing to risk injury! I’m able! What gives you the right to make that decision for me? From any of us?”
“I can tolerate that pain! I can fulfill my duties even with grievous wounds, and they will not last for me as long as they would last for you! My magic will stitch this gash in my side in two day’s time–any one of you would be bedridden for more than a week, and surely could not fight for another month!”
“But you’re still suffering!”
“My suffering does not MATTER!” erupted the Dawnsister, quieting the whole of the storehouse. “Look at all of you! Look at yourself, Edelyn! You are surrounded by dear friends; some of them are here with their partners! You have people who depend on you! Who love you! To ask you to make such sacrifices would be to take you away from them–perhaps even forever.”
“But there will ALWAYS be sacrifices to be made,” she continued, a flood in place of her fire. “And if I am able to save another soul the pain of making such a sacrifice, I will, and I will do so as many times as I can bear. THAT was the oath I made when I became a Dawnsister: to give myself up. I have need of less than you, and I have more to spare. Some of my sisters could not give as much, and this was no fault of theirs; some of them chose not to, as was their right; but as for myself? I have forged myself into a tool, a weapon, to be wielded in the service of others. I have forsaken such bonds, that there might be more of me to give, that others might have to give less. And I will give all that I have.”
She could feel the eyes of the whole encampment upon her now, and her face burned under their gaze. Edelyn made a soft, strangled noise, as though she had changed her mind just as she began to speak. She couldn’t wait to hear what she would eventually say–she had work to do. She began to turn, to look for her mail and another weapon.
“Ampara–” Edelyn finally mustered. She flinched at the sound of her own name, doubly disquieted by the concern in the voice of its speaker. She was acclimated to neither.
“Please,” she choked. “I am a Dawnsister.”
“Yes, precisely,” the mouse began, taking a step closer. “Your sisters–they took that oath as well, didn’t they?”
“They did, but–”
“Which means they were willing to give of themselves for your sake.”
“...Yes. Still–!”
“Did they ever leave you alone on the battlefield?” Another step closer. The Dawnsister was frozen, unsure whether to face her or keep turning away. A long moment passed.
“No.”
“And did they force you to care entirely for yourself? Did you clean your shrine by yourself, cook and eat by yourself, hone and polish your own weapons?”
“They did not,” she managed, her voice wavering. She thought back to her last breakfast with her sisters; aspirants and superiors, shoulder to shoulder on the benches. She had eaten standing, in the kitchen by the pot, as she served portions to them–she had already sequestered herself in her contemplation, by then–but she realized now how she had cherished the lively sounds. “I did not.”
“Then you already know what it means to accept when others give of themselves. You might’ve tried to live a solitary life, Ampara,” she said, and still the Dawnsister winced in spite of the gentleness in her voice. Edelyn took another step forward, and the ewe closed herself off, curling her arms about herself. “But you never have. None of them could do everything, so they all did what they could, and didn’t expect it of only you. And though you wanted nothing more than to give to your sisters, they wanted to give to you as well. We want to give to you.” She put a paw, gently, on the ewe’s forearm.
“It matters not,” she whimpered, wet spots blooming on her blindfold, shoulders bunching up nearly to her horns. “I still did not give enough. If I had returned sooner, perhaps none of you would have had to endure everything that’s happened. Perhaps…” she choked. “Perhaps my sisters would not have all perished.”
“No one woman can change the world, Ampara,” she reassured her, her name eliciting another sob from the ewe. “Not even you. And you’ve done things no other mortal could do–do you know how long you were out there?”
“No,” she sniffed.
“TWO damned weeks! I didn’t see you sleep once! It’s a miracle the Dawnsisters aren’t subtle, or it would have been dreadful trying to track you down when I lost you overnight!” The ewe giggled, despite herself, and Edelyn grinned warmly. “But it goes to show, doesn’t it? Even someone who can call the very sun down to the earth can’t do this alone. We have to rely on each other, don’t we? After all, we’re all we have.”
“Wise words,” came the warbling reply as Ampara whirled and embraced Edelyn. The blubbering ewe dwarfed her, and though she tried to reciprocate, the mouse could hardly get her arms around her. “Very, very wise words. I am sorry.”
“We’ll make it up, sister. Together.”
Having finally relented, Ampara agreed to rest properly, at least until her largest wound healed. It weighed easier on her mind knowing that she would recover faster than most, but it made little difference; resting by no means meant that she couldn’t help in other ways.
She was still the most experienced, at least in demon-hunting, by decades; she set about educating anyone willing to pick up a weapon in the defense of their neighbors. She stressed that most of them would be better suited to learning self-defense and staying as far away from devils as possible, there were exceptions among their community. Edelyn, clearly, was intrepid enough to at least play the role of scout, and some among them, like the watchman, were veterans who had no home to return to upon the conclusion of their tours. Under her tutelage, she could see them keeping at least the streets around the storehouse free of demons–and perhaps, with greater numbers, they could maintain the safety of even more homes.
In addition to her knowledge, she shared her strength with the other sick and injured who came to visit the shelter; at least, to the extent that Edelyn would allow her before she began to fuss about how Ampara would keep up her own magical healing act. She also began recounting the history of the Dawnsisters and discussing the intricacies of wielding the light to anyone who would listen. Soon enough, she had many new inquirers–with fewer monsters in the streets, the people could meet and speak more freely, and news spread quickly about the source of all the demonic disappearances and extraordinary lights that had swept through the city.
This alone would have been enough to undermine the influence of the burg’s barons: the arrival of a Dawnsister was tantamount to a warrant on each of their heads, and their lieutenants could tell that they grew more fearful by the day. Not only that, but news of a collective working to reconstruct the town–to feed, shelter, clothe, and heal those in need, all for its own sake–rekindled hope in the hearts of those within their walls that they could survive without the need for such coercive measures. As their numbers began to wane, though she was eager to knock them from their thrones, she did not feel the need to formally plan an offensive. After all, the ascendant Dawnmother would soon have a brand-new generation of Dawnsisters to lead, and with so many working arm in arm, they could not be stopped.
This is a story about a sheepgirl holy woman exploring how much of herself is safe to give for the greater good.
See Chapter 3 here!
Dawnsister, Chapter 4: Kin & Kindling
CW: violence again <3 she's gotta reach her demon quota each chapter guys
Edelyn led Ampara through the shadows of many buildings, turns and pathways unfamiliar to her. Though it seemed they had to step over the carrion of pit-dwellers–and, occasionally, the corpse of a poor soul who had made a meal for them–they did not tread in a warzone. The Dawnsister felt eyes on her from between the boards of hastily-barricaded windows. She heard whispers and shuffling from within the buildings; the hushed hustle and bustle of prey foraging through the underbrush, ever-careful to avoid the notice of predators.
The buildings themselves were reasonably intact, in spite of whatever had brought so many devils to their doorsteps. It was clear that it was unsafe to maintain them properly, and yet a few ill-aligned bricks (and a handful of deep cracks in the streets, which her hooves had nearly tripped up on more than once) were the only physical sign that anything had happened at all.
The pair snuck around what demons they could–easy enough for Edelyn, but more difficult for Ampara, bedecked in clanking mail and clacking hoof–and the Dawnsister made quick work of the ones they couldn’t. They arrived late into the night, but arrived nonetheless: the two now stood before a wide, low building, whose walls were thick stacked stone slabs plastered with mortar and crisscrossed with heavy timbers. Metal grates filled small cutouts in the stone, well above even Ampara’s prodigious height–they were secure, clearly more for ventilation than for the light or the view, not that the ewe cared for either.
Her mouse companion approached the tall, broad oaken doors and knocked an odd rhythm on them. Footsteps followed from within, then a grunt and the grinding of a large bar as the occupant cleared their way. One door cracked inward two paces, enough for Edelyn to pass through.
“We’ve a visitor,” she said to her friend within, and Ampara heard a stifled exclamation as they turned to look at her. The door creaked open a touch wider, and she nodded politely in their direction in thanks. Murmurs of conversation flitted around what sounded like a mostly-open room; a grunt and a distant PAFF as someone set down a heavy load; rummaging and rustling, then the scratch of charcoal on parchment. There was even a fire crackling in the corner nearest her and Edelyn–she assumed it was under one of the small windows–since it likely wasn’t safe to cook outdoors as one normally might. Edelyn directed Ampara around any seating arrangements that the occupants of the makeshift garrison had pulled up for themselves, and found a spot for the two of them a respectable distance away from her comrades.
“Now then,” Ampara inquired, seating herself on a crate that Edelyn had pointed out to her, “How did our predicament come to be?”
“The summer’s been most unkind to us, Ampara,” the mouse replied, raising the ewe’s hackles by a hair yet again. “It started when the mountain opened its damned maw. It may as well’ve been a portal straight to hell.”
“An eruption?” She asked, and the mouse nodded.
“Imagine the misfortune. The city’s stood for centuries, and nobody had the slightest idea what we were building ourselves atop!”
“Terrible, indeed. Pray, what city is this?” She didn’t recognize the name when Edelyn spoke it, and the sound of it was about as foreign as the mouse’s manner of speech. She knew not the mountain, either, and she wondered just how far she had been willed from her own monastery.
“Millie!” called Edelyn to someone nearby, at the ewe’s urging. “Do you happen to know when that statue was erected at the Dawnsisters’ shrine?”
“No,” came the reply, “but it’s been there longer than I can remember.”
“My granduncle told me it had been there since he was a boy,” chimed in another voice.
“The sisters spoke of it more like a myth or a saint than a real person, didn’t they?” asked a third.
A chill wind blew through Ampara. She felt undeserving of such reverence, especially having earned it by derelicting her duties to her sisters. And her sisters–to tend a statue, dedicated to her, for so long… Even if it had served as an inspiration to some, surely it was a reminder of her absence for others. Shame burned her cheeks; she hadn’t considered how they would feel about being left behind.
More chilling still was the revelation of how long she had been away: names and language flowed like molasses, but flowed nonetheless. Was it possible that the mouse’s truncated words were not a dialect, but an evolution? She could have heard of this city, in her own time, even lived within traveling distance of it. She had never stood in the shadow of a mountain, so she couldn’t know the one that sheltered the burg now, but even if she had, would she recognize it after it had so violently shed its peaks?
“Tell me more about the eruption, if you could,” she asked, soberly, eager to put the idea out of mind.
“Right. The damned mountain spat so much smoke and ash that the clouds grew darker than a boar’s hair and even thicker than that, and they’ve stayed that way since. Without proper sun, the harvest failed, and well… people started to get desperate.”
Ampara frowned. That would be where the monsters entered the scene.
“They turned on each other.”
“That they did,” Edelyn said gravely.
“But even that would not invite such profusion from the pit. People acting out of desperation–it is not the same as betraying and stealing with evil in their hearts.”
“But wouldn’t you know it,” the mouse bitterly began, “the ones with evil in their hearts made all the difference. The ones who owned the land, and the ones with enough money to hire themselves some swords, they took what they could snap up and they hid themselves away with it. Did the same thing in the wake of the eruption, too, when the earth shook and buildings fell on people–you left your arm and leg in the rubble, or you paid with them for your medicine.”
“Despicable.” The ewe’s frown curled into a sneer. A fire in her own chest crackled in time with that of the makeshift hearth. “At least you have all been able to keep safe, in spite of the powers that be. How did you come to take shelter together?”
“Most of us’ve known each other a long while. The first lessons any of us learned were in turning to each other in times of need–that’s what you do to survive, when you’re cast out.”
“May I ask?”
“Oh, none of us are ashamed of where we come from. Some of us have bad blood with family–they didn’t like our friends, or our lovers, or the names we chose for ourselves.” Ampara nodded, understanding fully. “Others couldn’t find work, or couldn’t work to begin with. Some simply met misfortune and were left out in the cold. When it all began to go to hell, we all knew we’d have to ride it out together.”
“This little fort of ours used to be a storehouse,” the mouse continued. “Once all those ill-bought brigands picked the armories clean, they moved on to apothecaries and granaries, like this one. But you can’t steal a building! And while they’re off protecting some miserable manse for their miserly master, we’re using the place to stockpile the goods that we can still find in the city, and anything we can buy or beg from the merchants who come close enough to the outskirts to barter, and to provide shelter from the beasts. This is one of the only places in this lightforsaken town with doors still open to those in need. We’re all we had before,” she said, sighing, “and we’re still all we have now.”
“Wise words. May the rest of the city remember that soon.” Edelyn said nothing, offering only a pensive little hmph in response. Ampara turned her thoughts to the room. Though late, someone stirred a pot over the fire in the corner. A cat and a crocodile sat across from a beetle and a rat, talking amongst themselves. A hound and a deer sat, shoulder to shoulder, against a rack that was once used for backs of grain, repurposed now as a stand for scavenged weapons. A squirrel, perhaps a bard or busker when there were still people on the streets to perform for, pestered the watchman and told jokes to others who passed by.
Their camaraderie was plain to see, even for one who could not; and though she could not feel them, she envied them, most of all the ones who shared bedrolls to stave off the dark of the night and the hopelessness of the disaster. The Dawnsisters took no oaths against being wed, and in fact, many of Ampara’s sisters had families outside of the monastery. They stayed there for some of their days, out of convenience (it was easier than making the trek to work every day, and sharing one’s chores always made them easier) and out of necessity (as the minutes saved on that trek could be the difference between life and death in an emergency).
Ampara, for her part, had simply been too zealous to spend time taking a lover or forging a friendship. Her studies, her training, and most importantly her duties, all took the lion’s share of her youthful vigor. As she got older, and as she approached the nadir of her weariness, she had thought that such connections would ease her mind, but, well, by then it was simply easier to push forward. To invite someone into her heart was to track the mud of worry into theirs, whenever she was called to action. To relax in the arms of another was to turn away from people in need for a time, and she could not… she could not bring herself to lower her guard.
Her mind drifted back to the sisters she had spent every day with, who confided in her about the horrors they had beaten back for the sake of their fellows, who she broke fast with each morning and bread with each night. She thought of the townsfolk she served; everyone from those who did business with the monastery and whose routines and habits she learned by proximity, to those she had had to save more than once, whose problems and lives she had become intimately acquainted with. Surely, any of them would have accepted her, had she reached out. But it was too late to lament a path she had turned away from.
“On the subject of reminding this town of the way that things should be,” she began, eager to take her mind off of her abbey but unable to escape her sisters, “where can I find the Dawnsisters of this city? I must join them in dealing with these so-called ‘lords’ of yours. I am sure I can convince them to part with some goods to aid you; elsewise, we would be able to offer you shelter with them.”
“Ah,” Edelyn mumbled.
“Surely, you were at the shrine seeking their aid. You must know where they are, or at least where I could begin my search.”
“No, I simply… I was scavenging, and was taken by surprise by those devils. I needed somewhere to hide, and—damn it all.” Ampara turned toward her, concerned. “Well. Pardon me for this, but in the shock of seeing you stride out of a statue to my rescue, it didn’t occur to me to let you know. The Dawnsisters were spread quite thinly for a while after the eruption, leading reconstruction and caring for the sick and such. Their hands were still full when food got scarce, and when the first real wave of devils emerged… They weren’t prepared. They were our first line of defense, and…”
“That’s impossible,” Ampara insisted.
“As far as we knew, there weren’t any left. You’re the first we’ve seen in months.” The ewe’s mouth hung slightly open, and she turned her visage to the floor. “Things haven’t looked up at all, either. With the Dawnsisters gone, those damned thieves grew even bolder. More mercenaries, more hoarding; and then, with no other option in sight, people started joining up just to have some protection, even if it meant leaving their neighbors to starve.” She bunched up her shoulders and forced herself to exhale. “I’m sorry, Ampara–”
“Dawnsister. Please,” she nearly spat. She took a deep breath and drew herself up from her seat. “I understand the situation now. Your watchman is still at the door, yes?”
“I–yes, he is–”
“I will relieve him. You will all be safe under my watch. Then, at dawn, I will set out to begin making things right.”
“Make things right? How exactly–you’re one woman,” Edelyn sputtered, standing to follow the Dawnsister.
“It is what is needed. I will do what I must.”
“Do you plan to kill every damned fiend in the city by yourself?”
“If I am the only one who can do so, then yes. I have not any other choice.”
“That’s–” The mouse watched as the Dawnsister stopped before the weapon rack. She held out a paw, hesitating over the selection–most rusted or bent–and hefted one in her hand seemingly at random. Evidently satisfied, she turned and marched toward the door, where the watchman looked to Edelyn with uncertainty. She nodded at him, and he left his post, leaving his seat open for Ampara to take.
“I will not be swayed,” she said with finality. “You are in need, and to help you is why I am here.” Edelyn opened her mouth to protest, but the Dawnsister had already unslung the book from her hip, and was reciting hymns to herself. She could feel an otherworldly warmth radiating from the ewe–perhaps these were mantras to bolster herself through the night, or perhaps she was simply calming herself after receiving admittedly crushing news. Whatever the case, the mouse didn’t foresee making any further headway in conversation, and returned to her friends to retire for the night.
The Dawnsister did not sleep. One could say that she had awoken late the previous day, and the rhythms of life were untethered from the light of day for one such as herself regardless. She set out, as she had planned, at dawn, with her borrowed weapon in hand. It was a warhammer–a sturdy, leather-twined iron rod nearly as long as she was tall, topped with a solid chunk of steel as thick as Edelyn’s torso. It had felt right at the time, and this was the basis by which her faith most often guided her. She liked staves as much as her scriptures anyway, as far as a focus for her magic went, and the handle of the hammer would serve her as well as any other rod. Thus equipped, she set out for her first task: to clear the area around her new wards’ stronghold of devils and inform anyone she met where they could find aid.
She ruminated between meetings with monsters. These people truly had no other hope left–the full weight of the city fell squarely on her shoulders, and once again, the noose of necessity rubbed rough on her neck. But she had asked for this, she scolded herself as she whirled the great hammer around her body. It was SHE–she swung, taking the head of a fiend clean off its shoulders–that wanted only to be returned when she was needed. She simmered, stewed, seethed, at the twisted joke, the cruel MERCY–she brought her hammer down, splitting a beast from crown to crotch, and with enough force to spare that she leapt straight over the carnage and pounced on her next mark–of being allowed to “rest” until there was absolutely no other recourse but to return her.
Perhaps if she had stayed, the situation would have been different, she fretted as she left the stronghold again, having provisioned herself for a good few days. The first few blocks of buildings had been easy work; Edelyn and her friends had picked a safer part of the city to work from, and they and their neighbors had been vigilant in reporting and disposing of any wayward demons. She ventured, now, even further into the city. While she could not completely cleanse it without striking at the source of the corruption that compelled these creatures, her first priority was to make it safer for the people trapped there, and in any case, a clearer path would make for easier work later.
What good their statue did them in your absence, she berated herself. How inspired they must have been. What of your experience? What of your skill, your strength? Had you not FLED, perhaps you would have been able to travel to this city and reinforce the Dawnsisters here. Their blood is on your paws, she concluded as she withdrew her claws from the throat of a pit-dweller. She set it ablaze and followed the trail of the next. If you had just pushed through–if you had remained strong, and kept to your duties, not only would things be easier for you now–they would be easier for this entire CITY.
She had rested only when absolutely necessary. Some time ago, her stock of food and water had depleted, and now her pauses included time to scavenge as well as time to eat. She hadn’t slept–at least, not that she could remember. She was nearing the heart of the city, now, and the demons grew denser and denser. She hardly encountered a fellow mortal anymore–most here were living in the fortified complexes run by the bastards that had buried the town to begin with. She cut closer and closer to these as she went, aiming to leave herself a safe trail to storm them later. Now, she pushed: she stood before a column of demons that filled the entire thoroughfare before her, and she did not waver. She took a wide stance and grasped for control of her breathing, haggard and wild. Drawing up as much air and strength as she could muster, she loosed a roar that shattered the glass remaining in the boulevard’s windows, and a jet of fire erupted from her maw. Panting, she puffed the smoke from her lungs and marched over the ashes of the devils.
She hunted near the gates of the town’s lords, now, and they rightly reckoned that she was a threat to their hegemony. Mercenaries had been sent to seek her out in the buildings surrounding the walls of their holds; she bested them, easily, even when outnumbered, but she fought with much greater care than when she was dueling with demons. Some of these folk, she recalled Evelyn saying, felt they had no other choice. Surely some among them fought for medicine for their loved ones, or a roof over their own head, rather than for greed and glory; such was the evil of these lords, that their will bent even good people to play by the rules of their suicidal rat race.
One, however, had wounded her as she tended to his incapacitated troupe. The fruit of your inattention, she rebuked. Your INDOLENCE. Your NEGLIGENCE. She had bandaged herself up with scraps from her robes. You must remain VIGILANT. She would not allow another underhanded attack like that; in fact, she would keep these foul men at bay entirely, and then she wouldn’t have to worry about sorting the desperate from the dirty.
The Dawnsister now turned black night into brilliant day. The air itself hissed at her passing; the paving-stones steamed, and the steel of her warhammer and her now-decrepit mail glowed red-hot. The mercenaries knew better than to charge her now. The monsters did not. As they leapt mindlessly at her, their rotten hides charred and bubbled, and they hissed and keened as they roasted to nothing. Her lungs burned, and even her own wool singed. Push. Through. She half-chanted, half-choked, hymns and verses, leaning on the warhammer like a walking stick as she went.
Hired blades retreated from her advance across a city square, passing through the shadow of the great spire of a cathedral. She doggedly followed them, pressing their lines back, further back, hoping to drive them within the walls of their foul fortresses so that she could scour their city for them in peace. She heard cries from among their ranks–barked orders and confusion. A deafening FWOOSH sounded overhead, and her ears snapped toward the sound of a fireball emerging from the roof of the church. Then, crack after crack after CRACK, and the sound of a church bell clattering wildly against its housing as it began to fall. They had laid a trap for her, planning to bring the spire down on her head, but something had gone wrong. She was on the opposite side of the square, well clear of the jaws of the trap as they snapped impotently shut. Above the crashing, one more sound reached her ears: the panicked screams of someone standing, paralyzed, beneath the crashing steeple.
She released her wall of fire in an instant and dashed for the center of the square. Someone else–perhaps one of their own, perhaps a scavenger who had ventured out of their stronghold–had been snared in her stead. Perhaps they were bait, part of the trap itself, the victim of a fumbled matchstick or misread signal. It didn’t matter who they were. She had only one thought, over and over: push through. Protecting her kin was her job. Her purpose. She held her arms aloft, and that pillar of her very being flared out above her, a shield like the golden rim of the horizon at the break of day flickering to life above her head, and stopped the tower dead in the air. Every muscle and joint wailed. Her knees began to buckle. Push through. Her shoulders bowed. PUSH THROUGH. She pushed with all her might, keeping the tower from sinking any further, and shouted over her shoulder.
“AWAY WITH YOU,” she thundered. “TO SAFETY. MAKE. HASTE.” Her rescuee found their bearings, and she waited for their footfalls as they ran for dear life.
She pushed, one final time, and gasped as the weight of the church tower slid from her shoulders. It fell to her side, rattling the stones of the street and jolting her bones. Her own weight followed to the ground thereafter, and on her knees she choked on plaster dust and saltpeter smoke. She wheezed and huffed, pawing at the ground to remain upright, fighting to stay conscious. And then, once again, she returned to oblivion.
This is a story about a sheepgirl holy woman exploring how much of herself is safe to give for the greater good.
See Chapter 2 here!
Dawnsister, Chapter 3: Bergentrückung
CW: gore , violence , more metaphorical suicidal ideation
She awoke to a plea.
“–if this shrine has any of the divine left in it, then by the light of day, just DO NOT LET ME PERISH HERE–” A CRACK cut the desperate prayer short, and frantic swearing mingled with the sound of creaking iron and splintering wood in the desolate prayer hall.
Ampara’s head was unwieldy on her shoulders; her skull felt as though it was stuffed to bursting with sand, and ached dully from the pressure. Her heart hammered against her ribs, and though it beat in time with the pulsing in her head, she could feel the vitality slowly returning to her limbs. She stretched her claws, and they sluggishly obeyed her command, like an ox reluctant to work before the cock’s crow. More whimpering and swearing met her ears from beneath her; she reached down to lay a hand on the supplicant’s shoulder, only for them to recoil at her touch, as though surprised she was there.
“What in–” they cried, fumbling onto the floor away from the ewe. “Who… How–” CRACK.
“What?” rasped Ampara, pointing toward the buckling door. Her tongue sat thickly in her mouth.
“Demons,” they replied, after a beat. “Many, many demons.” Ampara nodded, straightened, and drew in a breath. Even her lungs felt leaden. She exhaled, growling, and stretched yet more as she approached the locked door. The Dawnsister reached out, feeling for a handle, and instead felt a fat wooden beam barring it shut. She cocked an eyebrow–the need for fortification was a bad sign. Muttering a prayer to herself, drawing upon any source of vigor she could muster, she hefted the girder over her shoulder and swung the door open.
The handful of devils that had been pounding against the timber fell forward onto their repellant faces. She dropped the beam onto the neck of the first, swift as an executioner’s axe, before leaping into the air and stamping her hooves into the skull of a second with her full weight. Roaring, she seized the last fiend by its spindly tail and hoisted it over her head, flinging it bodily into its fell companions and knocking the unholy host away from the door of the prayer hall.
With a menacing rumble in her throat, the Dawnsister took up a defensive stance before the rest of the horde and recited a verse from the anointed pages hung at her hip. She clapped her paws in front of her, then spread her arms wide; rising heat and swirling air rustled the tome as a ring of fire encircled Ampara, warding the entry to the sanctuary as would a ring of pure salt. The lesser ghouls scattered before the light–problems she would have to attend to later, she begrudged herself, but out of the way of more pressing matters for the time being.
And press those matters did–a hulking devil lumbered forward, unfazed by her fires. It reared back, more teeth than face, and shot forward with the bloodthirst of a viper; Ampara rolled backward, grasping for the beam, and braced it before herself just in time for the beast’s maw to SNAP shut around it. It snarled and spit; its hot, fetid breath washed over her, singing her whiskers. Ampara pushed, rising from her knees, and began to force the beast back. She heaved a step forward, digging her hooves–caked to the ankle in foul, sickly-purple blood–into the earth, and fought for every inch she could put between the abomination and the threshold.
Once she had pried the demon out of the doorframe, she could take the offensive–the vile thing couldn’t keep its body out of her reach any longer. She forced it back, further back, up against the wall of a building opposite the shrine’s entrance. There she held it, pinned by its own jaw with groaning timber, its gangly neck bent and twisted unnaturally. Ampara’s paw darted from the beam to the creature’s underbelly, and she levered her claws between the plates of its hide before it had the chance to reclaim a foothold in their deadly tug-of-war. Bellowing, she found purchase and tore with all her might, laying bare the poisonous heart of the heart-poison hound. Her claws plunged forward again, digging into the sinuous chambers of the dreadful organ, and pulled. The beast wailed a horrible wail, clenching and thrashing and kicking, and still she pulled; its jaw tightened, innumerable teeth cracking the wood and biting closer to her occupied paw, and still she pulled. She tugged and yanked and wrenched until finally, vein and grain both yielded with a sickening SNAP, and the hellspawn slouched onto her.
She cast its carcass from her corpus with contempt. With no more monsters to drive off, and with her chest heaving, the Dawnsister sank to her knees a pace away. She had awakened. Why was this so? Ampara had hoped she would never awake again. DAMN it all! She beat the ground with her clenched paw, only to splash herself with her latest kill’s foul ichor. She felt no less drained than the day she had left, but this, at least, she understood: she hadn’t pleaded for a reprieve, but for a deferral of her duties. It was her constant vigil that had worn her down, and while she welcomed a chance to not need to watch over anyone (for as great a folly that turned out to be), she had never allowed herself time to let her guard down.
Ultimately, she also knew why she was awake–she had consigned herself to a conditional oblivion, and the terms of her resurrection had clearly come to pass. Some poor soul had been in the right place to receive her aid, and at the wrong time, to have need of her at all. She wondered whether she would disappear again, having finished the job. But no, what called her back to this world must be greater than that; for demons to gather in such great number without any resistance, her sisters must have been completely occupied elsewhere, or worse, utterly overwhelmed. In any case, her job was not actually done until she had assured the safety of her charge. Standing, she–
Her ear flicked. The twang of a bowstring, and the whistle of point and plume slicing the air. She whirled, relying on faith to guide her paw, but instead of plucking an arrow from its arc, she found only empty air. Above her, an imp gurgled and slid down the wall. Not all of them had fled, it seemed, and in her preoccupation she had failed to sense it. She trudged back through the sturdy gate of the sanctuary and addressed the one who had recalled her to this world.
“My thanks,” Ampara said, flatly.
“The thanks are all yours,” came the reply in a calm, but shock-stained voice. “You–what are you?”
“I am Ampara. A Dawnsister.”
“I gathered that from the inscription.”
“Inscription?”
“Well, when you touched me and I looked back, the statue’d gone–”
“Statue?” Ampara tromped past the voice–a mouse woman, she could see, with her senses now about her again–to the end of the room, feeling about for a dais from which she might have stepped down.
“A touch to the right, there,” the mouse guided her, and indeed, her paws came upon a smoothly-cut slab of stone, set with deep-carved letters spelling out her own name. She thought it ironic that the will of the divine was not to do away with her entirely until her return, but she supposed it brought her comfort to know that she may have inspired her sisters and their wards even in her absence. More than that, she felt the tiniest bit justified–she hadn’t had to be around to have been of use.
“Interesting.”
“So, do you care to explain how a memorial–” The word twisted the relief in Ampara’s chest into regret. While she had been confident of the wellbeing of her sisters in her absence, she hadn’t… Did they think this her grave? Perhaps when she left, it was not quite as painlessly as she expected. “–sprang to life and saved my hide?”
“I was needed,” the Dawnsister replied, bluntly. A few silent moments passed between them, and the mouse’s raised eyebrow went unseen.
“Can’t dispute that.”
“Apologies,” began the ewe, without turning to face the mouse. “I know not your name.”
“Edelyn.”
“Would that we could have met under brighter circumstances, Edelyn,” said the ewe, politely biting back that she would rather not have met her at all. “This place could be fortified again, had we something to bar the door, but for now–have you anywhere safe that I could deliver you?”
“The folk staying at the encampment’d surely rejoice at the sight of someone like you, Ampara. ‘Tis safe, but surely they’d feel even safer with you in reach.”
Ampara bristled. The woman’s speech was unfamiliar to her, and overfamiliar all the same. She made no insistence about her title, but to be addressed so personally was… a distant luxury. What’s more, she acutely felt the weight of being needed. A single task had seemed daunting enough, but to return to her watch…
No matter. She had sworn herself to this, both when she first became a Dawnsister and when she had made her plea to the divine. So long as there was need of her, she could push through; no price was too great for her to pay in service of mortalkind. Perhaps, when this crisis had passed, there would be no need for her, and she could return to her so-called slumber. She stepped aside and gestured for the mouse to lead the way.
I'm really blessed with this "padala" from my family and friends :) I admit, spoiled na talaga ako. :) It's a different feeling din pala na hindi ikaw lang lagi ang nagpapadala sa kanila at ikaw naman ang pinapadalahan :) Sorry, hindi ko na rin kailangan picturan ang Pampanga's longanisa at ang malutong at malaman na chicharon Bacolor/Guagua. Salamat din sa pasalubong na Pili nut brittle at marami pa :) Thanks a lot! :) You don't know how you made me so happy :) #SB2015planner #StupidisForever #Kukai #Edelyn'sPeanut
