Sasseria - An Introduction
Sasseria - An Introduction
While I wait on Zaryn to finish his parts of the Zaryn/Ashiwi story, I figured I'd busy myself with another storyline, and a completely different character. I thank all of you for the patience and wonderful comments you've carried through Zaryn's and my efforts so far, and I'm tickled to have such a perfect public forum to vent creatively on. Now, on with the show.
Rubble crunched under her feet, abnormally loud in the heavy air. Piles of broken stone lined the path she walked upon, spilling into the road and making her footing unsteady and treacherous. Somewhere in the distance the call-and-answer of blood curdling howls and dying screams cut through the stormy night.
This landscape was foreign to her, the unknown ruin of a once thriving village. The acrid smell of woodsmoke filled her nostrils, mingling with the faint iron tang of freshly spilled blood. Overhead the sky crawled with spidery tendrils of lightning, providing just enough light to cast the destruction about her into shadowed relief.
She stepped forward, shuffling her feet through the broken stone in order to find stable footing. Her skin crawled at the idea of moving deeper into the horror around her, but the screams of the dying compelled her and drew her on.
Her hand flexed at her thigh, but her blade was not with her and she felt naked and vulnerable without it. A cold breeze whispered through the flimsy shift which covered her, curling around her naked calves and caressing her face with its fetid touch, causing her to shiver in a mixture of cold, fear, and revulsion.
Her foot pushed against something soft and she jerked back, leery of what might be creeping through the scattered debris. Broken blocks of stone in all sizes lay haphazardly strewn across the ground, once part of the torn and jagged walls forming the homes which had lined this path. As her eyes adjusted to the shadows around her feet she recognized the pallid white of dead flesh buried partially beneath a large stone. Delicate fingers connected to the bloodied arm, the flaccidity of the muscles making a mockery of its living form. Her eyes traced over the stone, searching for the rest of the owner’s body on the other side, but no crushed legs, no shattered hips met her eye, nothing at all.
The path opened around her, smaller paths crossing the one she traveled upon. This might have been the main square of the village, and beneath the crumbled stone her feet felt the familiar texture of cobblestones. In the center of the square was what appeared to be a large water basin and handpump, several stones from a collapsed wall tumbled around it and over the lip, broken from the impact.
The skittering of tiny feet pulled her around in a circle as her eyes searched her surroundings for anything which might be threatening her. Suddenly the air was full of the furtive rustlings of animals which could not be seen, first coming from her left, then just behind her, then some distance to her right. She clamped down on the fear welling up in her chest, her muscles tensing into a defensive stance as she cocked her head, straining to define each sound within the cacophony which assaulted her ears.
Suddenly the sky flashed, the blue, green and white filling her vision and blinding her momentarily. The shockwave of the thunder rumbled inside of her head, nothing more than an echoed memory in her now silenced ears. For the briefest of flashes before her vision rebelled and the lightning faded to leave her in the utter darkness of her blindness, she saw the square in details too gruesome to be the ghosts of her imagination. Scattered within the rubble were the remains of some of the villagers, each of them torn and shredded beyond any recognition. Lying halfway in the water basin was the corpse of a young elf, his belly torn open and his organs spilling themselves into the murky water around him. The sight burned its way into her brain, the negative image floating in front of her eyes as her vision slowly returned. Even as she regained her ability to see she closed her eyes tightly, tightly enough to cause painful white flashes behind her eyelids, trying to drive the images from her mind.
She stood in silence, the only sound she could hear her own breathing as she waited out the effects of the lightning strike. Although it seemed like an eternity as the sound of her own heartbeat bounced between her ears, it was a mere moment before her vision faded in once again and the sound of her breath quieted back to a frightened parody of normal. The ghosts faded to be replaced by the degrees of darkness which surrounded her, but the memory remained and she recognized each tumbled shadow now for what it was, or for what it used to be.
In the distance she picked out the howling again, and the screaming which seemed to accompany it. Whatever had reduced this village to rubble was hunting down the survivors, and she was now sure her life would be forefeit were they to pick up her scent. She began to edge her way backwards, no longer drawn by the need of these pitiful remnants. Those still alive in this damned place were already condemned to their deaths, and without her armor and weapons she would stand no chance against forces which could rend a body into pieces as if it was nothing more than a cornhusk doll.
Her heel landed upon a sharp, unsteady stone and twisted painfully, fanning the fear that was beginning to blaze inside of her mind. She steeled herself and gritted her teeth, forcing herself to count and breath, count and breath, count and breath, each repetition unlocking another set of her muscles and giving her back the control she so desperately needed.
Suddenly a flash of movement caught her eye. Directly down the street she was facing, a small figure wandered into her view. The child was young, not more than five summers, and dressed only in nightclothes. Even from this distance she could hear the child’s frightened whimpers, and the world crashed to a halt around her, her focus narrowing to include nothing more than this one small child lost and wandering through what must be hell.
She took a step forward and saw the child turning toward her. She stopped, not wanting to frighten the girl away, and waited for the little one to recognize her as an ally. Her arms stretched out before her of their own accord, beckoning the child to her, urging the little one forward so they could depart this horror to safety.
The girl took a hesitant step forward, looking all about her as if she expected death to fall from the skies on top of her. Another step brought her closer, and then she was running, running with all of the strength her little body could muster, running with terror hounding her heels, her arms stretched out, as if they could close the distance that much faster.
Without warning a flowing, amorphous mass boiled out of a ruined doorway and snatched the girl up mid-stride. A scaled, scabrous claw held the child in mid-air, her screams cutting through the night and razing nerves down to the bone. The hellish thing’s maw yawned wide, and then the child’s screams were nothing more than the patter of the blood which streamed from her torso, now all that was left of her.
The thing turned, it’s sickly, venomous green eyes shining like lamps within the swirling shadows surrounding it. It gazed upon her, motionless, as motionless as she remained in the deluded and childish hope that if she didn’t move, it couldn’t see her. Then it moved, the shadows swirling and bunching about it as it hurtled itself down the road toward her. A spine-wrenching skreeling filled the air as it howled out its frenzy of bloodlust, the distance between it and her closing at an ungodly pace, a pace she knew she could never outrun.
Sasseria opened her mouth to scream, a long, loud, tendon wrenching scream which ripped its way up through her gut and left her throat raw and torn.
She found herself awake, the scream still silent on her partially open lips, her body pushed up into a sitting position as the nightmare had drawn her up out of her sleep. She cast her eyes about the room, taking in the familiar lines of the broken wardrobe and washing basin, the straw-stuffed mattress pricking at her from many frayed and worn spots in the heavy material.
With what seemed like a great effort she released the breath she was holding in one long, shuddering gasp, and forced herself to breath evenly. A cool breeze washed in from the open window, assaulting her senses with the familiar smells of Waterdeep. The sweat upon her flesh congealed, causing her nipples to stiffen painfully and her skin to tense and prickle in the chill, and she reached up with one hand to swipe the moisture from her lips and throat.
The caress of a warm hand sliding across her belly and around her waist caused her to jump before she remembered Zenriel’s body lying next to hers. He snuggled tightly up against her and she felt the brush of his lips across her lower back as he mumbled groggily through his still half-drunken haze.
“Was that a nightmare?” He gave her what was supposed to be a comforting squeeze, but her head was still fuzzy from the liquor and the dream had set her on edge. Her eyes traveled over the silhouette of his naked body under the tattered blanket, simply gazing at him for some time before she lay back and settled her head on her pillow.
Sasseria pulled at the arm Zenriel had draped around her, coaxing his body on top of hers. He responded with surprised amusement, a mischievous grin breaking through his sleep-and-drink-induced daze. He leaned forward to kiss her, his lips finding her cheek, but she continued to roll, pulling him over with her motion. Before he realized what was happening his body found the edge of the bed. There was barely time for his yelp of surprise before he hit the floor with a painful thump. Loud curses rose from the shadows next to the bed. She caught his eye from where she lay and his stream of epithets stopped for a brief moment.
“Stay out of my bed.”
She reached over and pulled the blanket from where it had become tangled around him, then twitched it back over her legs, making sure she was completely covered before allowing herself to relax into a comfortable position, her gaze wandering idly over the tops of the buildings outside of her window. Zenriel chuckled at her and continued his grumbling from somewhere behind her, but she tuned him out.
She did not know if she would get back to sleep, or if she would instead slip into reverie. Sleeping was not as comforting as reverie, and it came with the nightmares, but on nights like tonight it seemed to help when the drinking finally stopped.
This landscape was foreign to her, the unknown ruin of a once thriving village. The acrid smell of woodsmoke filled her nostrils, mingling with the faint iron tang of freshly spilled blood. Overhead the sky crawled with spidery tendrils of lightning, providing just enough light to cast the destruction about her into shadowed relief.
She stepped forward, shuffling her feet through the broken stone in order to find stable footing. Her skin crawled at the idea of moving deeper into the horror around her, but the screams of the dying compelled her and drew her on.
Her hand flexed at her thigh, but her blade was not with her and she felt naked and vulnerable without it. A cold breeze whispered through the flimsy shift which covered her, curling around her naked calves and caressing her face with its fetid touch, causing her to shiver in a mixture of cold, fear, and revulsion.
Her foot pushed against something soft and she jerked back, leery of what might be creeping through the scattered debris. Broken blocks of stone in all sizes lay haphazardly strewn across the ground, once part of the torn and jagged walls forming the homes which had lined this path. As her eyes adjusted to the shadows around her feet she recognized the pallid white of dead flesh buried partially beneath a large stone. Delicate fingers connected to the bloodied arm, the flaccidity of the muscles making a mockery of its living form. Her eyes traced over the stone, searching for the rest of the owner’s body on the other side, but no crushed legs, no shattered hips met her eye, nothing at all.
The path opened around her, smaller paths crossing the one she traveled upon. This might have been the main square of the village, and beneath the crumbled stone her feet felt the familiar texture of cobblestones. In the center of the square was what appeared to be a large water basin and handpump, several stones from a collapsed wall tumbled around it and over the lip, broken from the impact.
The skittering of tiny feet pulled her around in a circle as her eyes searched her surroundings for anything which might be threatening her. Suddenly the air was full of the furtive rustlings of animals which could not be seen, first coming from her left, then just behind her, then some distance to her right. She clamped down on the fear welling up in her chest, her muscles tensing into a defensive stance as she cocked her head, straining to define each sound within the cacophony which assaulted her ears.
Suddenly the sky flashed, the blue, green and white filling her vision and blinding her momentarily. The shockwave of the thunder rumbled inside of her head, nothing more than an echoed memory in her now silenced ears. For the briefest of flashes before her vision rebelled and the lightning faded to leave her in the utter darkness of her blindness, she saw the square in details too gruesome to be the ghosts of her imagination. Scattered within the rubble were the remains of some of the villagers, each of them torn and shredded beyond any recognition. Lying halfway in the water basin was the corpse of a young elf, his belly torn open and his organs spilling themselves into the murky water around him. The sight burned its way into her brain, the negative image floating in front of her eyes as her vision slowly returned. Even as she regained her ability to see she closed her eyes tightly, tightly enough to cause painful white flashes behind her eyelids, trying to drive the images from her mind.
She stood in silence, the only sound she could hear her own breathing as she waited out the effects of the lightning strike. Although it seemed like an eternity as the sound of her own heartbeat bounced between her ears, it was a mere moment before her vision faded in once again and the sound of her breath quieted back to a frightened parody of normal. The ghosts faded to be replaced by the degrees of darkness which surrounded her, but the memory remained and she recognized each tumbled shadow now for what it was, or for what it used to be.
In the distance she picked out the howling again, and the screaming which seemed to accompany it. Whatever had reduced this village to rubble was hunting down the survivors, and she was now sure her life would be forefeit were they to pick up her scent. She began to edge her way backwards, no longer drawn by the need of these pitiful remnants. Those still alive in this damned place were already condemned to their deaths, and without her armor and weapons she would stand no chance against forces which could rend a body into pieces as if it was nothing more than a cornhusk doll.
Her heel landed upon a sharp, unsteady stone and twisted painfully, fanning the fear that was beginning to blaze inside of her mind. She steeled herself and gritted her teeth, forcing herself to count and breath, count and breath, count and breath, each repetition unlocking another set of her muscles and giving her back the control she so desperately needed.
Suddenly a flash of movement caught her eye. Directly down the street she was facing, a small figure wandered into her view. The child was young, not more than five summers, and dressed only in nightclothes. Even from this distance she could hear the child’s frightened whimpers, and the world crashed to a halt around her, her focus narrowing to include nothing more than this one small child lost and wandering through what must be hell.
She took a step forward and saw the child turning toward her. She stopped, not wanting to frighten the girl away, and waited for the little one to recognize her as an ally. Her arms stretched out before her of their own accord, beckoning the child to her, urging the little one forward so they could depart this horror to safety.
The girl took a hesitant step forward, looking all about her as if she expected death to fall from the skies on top of her. Another step brought her closer, and then she was running, running with all of the strength her little body could muster, running with terror hounding her heels, her arms stretched out, as if they could close the distance that much faster.
Without warning a flowing, amorphous mass boiled out of a ruined doorway and snatched the girl up mid-stride. A scaled, scabrous claw held the child in mid-air, her screams cutting through the night and razing nerves down to the bone. The hellish thing’s maw yawned wide, and then the child’s screams were nothing more than the patter of the blood which streamed from her torso, now all that was left of her.
The thing turned, it’s sickly, venomous green eyes shining like lamps within the swirling shadows surrounding it. It gazed upon her, motionless, as motionless as she remained in the deluded and childish hope that if she didn’t move, it couldn’t see her. Then it moved, the shadows swirling and bunching about it as it hurtled itself down the road toward her. A spine-wrenching skreeling filled the air as it howled out its frenzy of bloodlust, the distance between it and her closing at an ungodly pace, a pace she knew she could never outrun.
Sasseria opened her mouth to scream, a long, loud, tendon wrenching scream which ripped its way up through her gut and left her throat raw and torn.
She found herself awake, the scream still silent on her partially open lips, her body pushed up into a sitting position as the nightmare had drawn her up out of her sleep. She cast her eyes about the room, taking in the familiar lines of the broken wardrobe and washing basin, the straw-stuffed mattress pricking at her from many frayed and worn spots in the heavy material.
With what seemed like a great effort she released the breath she was holding in one long, shuddering gasp, and forced herself to breath evenly. A cool breeze washed in from the open window, assaulting her senses with the familiar smells of Waterdeep. The sweat upon her flesh congealed, causing her nipples to stiffen painfully and her skin to tense and prickle in the chill, and she reached up with one hand to swipe the moisture from her lips and throat.
The caress of a warm hand sliding across her belly and around her waist caused her to jump before she remembered Zenriel’s body lying next to hers. He snuggled tightly up against her and she felt the brush of his lips across her lower back as he mumbled groggily through his still half-drunken haze.
“Was that a nightmare?” He gave her what was supposed to be a comforting squeeze, but her head was still fuzzy from the liquor and the dream had set her on edge. Her eyes traveled over the silhouette of his naked body under the tattered blanket, simply gazing at him for some time before she lay back and settled her head on her pillow.
Sasseria pulled at the arm Zenriel had draped around her, coaxing his body on top of hers. He responded with surprised amusement, a mischievous grin breaking through his sleep-and-drink-induced daze. He leaned forward to kiss her, his lips finding her cheek, but she continued to roll, pulling him over with her motion. Before he realized what was happening his body found the edge of the bed. There was barely time for his yelp of surprise before he hit the floor with a painful thump. Loud curses rose from the shadows next to the bed. She caught his eye from where she lay and his stream of epithets stopped for a brief moment.
“Stay out of my bed.”
She reached over and pulled the blanket from where it had become tangled around him, then twitched it back over her legs, making sure she was completely covered before allowing herself to relax into a comfortable position, her gaze wandering idly over the tops of the buildings outside of her window. Zenriel chuckled at her and continued his grumbling from somewhere behind her, but she tuned him out.
She did not know if she would get back to sleep, or if she would instead slip into reverie. Sleeping was not as comforting as reverie, and it came with the nightmares, but on nights like tonight it seemed to help when the drinking finally stopped.
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