#my tale

[ahotauthor]

On Sunday evening, he meets a witch at the ice-cream parlour.

[dumb-dumb-mander]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Chapters: 1/1 Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Trahearne/Male Player Character (Guild Wars), Trahearne (Guild Wars)/Original Character(s), Trahearne/Player Character (Guild Wars) Characters: Trahearne, Taimi (Guild Wars), Mordremoth (Guild Wars) Additional Tags: Nightmare, Strangulation, sylvari commander - Freeform, Trahearne Lives (Guild Wars), Trammander Summary:

Mordremoth has been killed from the inside. From its own mind. But before that, It had the time to put a seed inside the marshal. A seed that stayed even after the fight. A seed that could promise dismay.

And it worries the Commander more than what he wishes.

[lynnytt]

" these damned dead wings. now he can’t fly — it means he can’t breathe, but stop, stop-stop-stop, don’t be in a hurry, he is dead as a doornail! any dead fae shouldn’t breathe anymore — and he can’t cut these almost useless things. he hates it of all loves. and of course he hates himself, but now it doesn't matter. but what does bloody matter now? n o t h i n g. what a funny word!"

[easterlingwanderer]

First Memory

My first memory, the first clear one, is the Day of Giving. Oh I have flashes of times before. The sharp taste of goat milk on my tongue. The feeling of the dusty road on my soles. The acrid smell of horses. The pungent scream of the hawks above the plain. The softness of the yurt’s cushions under my head. But they are separate impression, not coming one after another in a clear, storylike fashion.

The day I was given, as tribute, to the Dark Lord.

We had gone to the Place. It was autumn. The air has the chill which heralds frost soon to come. I was sitting on a horse, astride from somebody, the powerful muscles of the animal moving between my legs. I lifted myself excitedly, pressing my small knees on the horse’s flanks as to see father ahead, beyond the animal soft ears.

On the plain and on a clear day, you could see the mountains everywhere, brown and white and green. As your eyes followed the path of the mountains, the greens and brown became muted greys, and then the greys darkened into black, a black so deep it was like watching inward instead of outward.

That was the Fortress. That was what I was looking for.

I sat back, satisfied. The shifting weight of the warrior behind me told me it was almost time to stop. The horse felt it too, and his pace become slower, more measured still. We were, all of us, hot and dusty and sweaty. But I, at least, was not tired. I cast a shrewd glance around. The tribe’s women had started to unwound the yurt, the young men where trotting to round up the horses and the cattle and the sheep. Quick as a mouse I heaved my leg above the horse’s neck and slid down the horses, falling on my bare feet on the ground. As soon as I touched it I was running, running toward the center fire of the caravan. The warrior shouted something behind me, insult or salute I have forgotten and never cared.

I jumped chickens and dogs and logs, running zig-zag fashion between the felt tents. The air burned in my lungs and frosted my checks. My heavy woolen pants flapped around my ankles. Other children ran with me, fast, but I took others, more daring paths, between the poles of half-risen tents and under the belly of tall horses and under the racks where food was being set, long strips of meat for the scouts, and small flasks made of kid’s stomach full of water. I stole one of each, laughing gaily and dodging the stone-throw before knowing it.

So it was I was among the first in the Place.

It was a circle. Wide and devoid of the tall, blade-sharp grasses of the steppe and surrounded by high, wooden caskets, full of wool and pelts and blankets and felt and all the things we owed to our Lord, Thje Dark Lord. The setting sun tinged everything red, from the ground to the wood, and insects whispered their secrets to each other in their chirping language.

I smiled. I was there first.

I tied the flask to my neck and put the meat between my small teeth, tasting its satisfying richness, and climbed the highest casket I found, scrambling from hold with my bare toes and finding both splinters and a place to sit. I started taking away the splinters with my small knife, which I had even then, and thumped the unharmed foot on the wood. It made a good, satisfying, almost empty sound. I did it again.

A shadow fell on me. I did not lift my head.

“Whose are you?”

“Nobody.” I replied, spitting the meat on my lap and looking up at the stranger with unblinking eyes and frowning. He had the black clothes of the soldiers of the Great, covered in the fine black dust that was so common on them. I did not blink as he watched me, a scar on half of his face, one of his eyes milky blind. Black grime had set so deep on the scar it seemed drawn on him with charcoal, like a drawing done on a white stone with a spent ember. I watched it with interest, indifferent to his glaring and keeping my small knife firm in my hand.

I took away a particularly big splinter and spat on my foot to clean it of blood.

The man looked at my foot and at how I held the knife. A thin smile parted his dark, chapped lips.

“You knowing the use of that, uh?”

I looked contemptuously at him. Who didn’t know how to use a knife? Babes were taught when able to walk without falling every three steps. You need a knife. Twice so if you are a boy but even girl-children would be taught of its use.

The man looked at the meat, at the water, at the blood and knife.

He smiled again, grimmer and wider. He extended a hand, made dirty from the road, toward my meat.

I struck with my knife. I was fast, indeed, but he was faster. He snatched the hand away, but without the meat. The small knife stuck into the meat itself, but I had knowing of knives enough it didn’t went further, and I was unhurt. I tensed, waiting for the moment to flee if a revenging blow would come.

The man guffawed richly and I lifted my eyes on him, munching on my meat.

He left, still laughing, the sound mixing with the hawk’s cry from above, in the endless sky.

I munched my meat and watched him talking with other soldiers in the same, dust-black and dirty. Some had the long arms and deep fangs of the orcs, some had the slender tallness of mankind. I watched them, and they watched me too.

Two days later, I left with them.

 I remember a man’s hand (my father?) clutching mine. I remember the hand leaving mine, and a push on my shoulder blades. If there were words, I do not remember them.

 I stumbled a little, and walking onward toward the wagons, loaded with blankets and all kind of woolen cloths. Long-horned cattle and bleating goats were tied behind.

From the wall of blackened men the scarred one emerged, a knife in his hand. He took my chin in his rough hand and jerked my face to him.

There was a flash, and I felt my skin part in my left check as the knife slashed into the soft baby-flesh. I tensed, more in shock than in pain, my eyes growing wider. The man laughed, low and throaty before walking beyond, to slash another child.

I stood there, blinking, holding the sack with my belonging to my chest. The pain flowered as the blood flowed beyond my face, into my neck, darkening the woolen clothes I wore. I stared onward, waiting though today I cannot tell what for. A word? A touch? An arm on my shoulders?

Nothing came.

At length, I looked up, at the cattle. I saw the ropes around their neck, and the knots. I looked at the wagons. I walked, and stumbled again, my own feet strange and dusty, the wound sending flashes of pain in stripes down my neck and arm. I there was a wagon piled with blankets and climbed over, the wheels’ giving me all the ladder I needed. The wool’s scent was known, and comforting, the feeling of it not unlike the night in my yurt.

I hug my knees at my chest, a sack with all my meager possession in between chest and thigh. I could hear some other children’s cries and the sharp sounds of blades being drawn. Then a thud, and then nothing but the tangy scent of blood. I had no need to peer beyond my wool’s fort to see the criers’ heads in the dust. I inhaled sharply from my nose, the tears prickling in my eyes but I refused to let them fall. I spat on my hand and cleaned the wound as best as I could.

I waited. The wagon started to move. I hid inside the blankets and fell asleep, my arms around the sack.

[askald]

I am so lucky for you came into my life several years ago. You chosed me. What have I done to be granted by such a wonderful person, a great nature goddess, and her kagemono. Thank you my sweet. You saved my life.

[snakechamber-blog1]

Energy and practice

Energy is something of the most important thing in everything. Both in meditation or in rituals or in cleaning out your home. It can help to protect and it can help to improve yourself and your powers, as energy is the keyword in that.

For instance you can create a barrier of energy, either to make people avoid you, or keeping spirits and bad omens away, you choose how big. You can also use it to control outcomes, because if you send the energy out there it will eventually happen with enough power and concentration.

All of this takes a lot of practice, its not something you just do. Because most people at first have a very shaky energy, not weak, just out of control, and that can take years of perfection through practice, meditation and selfawareness.

You can start by make a ball of energy in your hand, you will do that by thought and if succeding you will either see and feel it, or just feel it, depending on how open you are. It will be a pleasant warm feeling. From that ball of energy, you can begin to train in how big or small you can get it, or how to shape it, because you will feel it in the air too.

Energy is meant as a neutral thing, so if you feel like using it negatively or am in a bad mood, your energy will be bad, but it also happens the other way around. Just remember that it can bite you in the tail if you aren't careful about what you send out.

[ahotauthor]

After drinking the magic potion, the ugly beggar turns into a handsome young man.