Chapter 2: Disordered and Destined
Then Falls The Night
I stayed within my little haven a bit longer than would be the norm, still shaken I suppose by my near brush with whomever the Lady and her entourage were. Who could blame me, really, if I wanted to take a bit more of a reprieve from the more "civilised" world before returning?
No one.
Something I never really grew accustomed to when I was younger was behaving as expected by polite society. I wasn't allowed to fidget, even if that prevented me from speaking too much. Speaking at all was wrong unless I was asked a specific question that required my reply. "Appropriate attire" meant I had to be clean, pressed, and modest when interacting with one above my station.
My unruly hair received glares and eventual chastisement, so I cut it short like the men. It was freeing and helped to decrease the fidgeting they so loathed, but it apparently resulted in too much confusion about how to interact with me, so I was eventually hidden away except as necessary for social events.
And of course, I continued cutting it short to spite them because it put me one step closer to the one thing I truly desired: freedom.
Ew. Can I take that last part back? It feels a bit tired and cliché. How about instead of that, you pretend I said "the one thing I truly desire: to overthrow the tyrannical rule of the monarchy, stand against the inevitable surge of oligarchy, and probably die a martyr to a cause I can truly believe in." I think that's a much more fitting sort of desire for one of my station.
I despise that phrase and every one related to it, but it is ingrained. "My station", "above my station", "appropriate to their station". It's disgusting. In what way is it even slightly reasonable to treat people as though they are somehow lesser because they weren't born into a special family living in a particular district during a given age with enough resources? People are people. That should be enough.
Seems I got carried away. Where was I?
My walk home began as the sun met the horizon, darkening the sky enough for Deim and Phob to begin shining pale in the sky. They were my guiding lights on moonless nights, at least as long as the sky was cloudless too. Of course, the former condition was common, at least nineteen suns every moon, but the latter was less so.
Powell's Square, and the second district more widely, were situated in the rainiest region of her majesty's queendom. To ask for cloudless skies was to ask for diamonds to grow on trees. But in the early eve, it was common enough that Deim and Phob served my purposes well.
From my little cave at the foot of Ehler's Cliff, Deim was situated to my left and led toward district seven if followed perfectly. Phob was to my right and led back to Powell's Square. If I walked straight toward it, I'd miss the town by a mile or so, but that was helpful as well because my re-entry route was on the far side anyway.
I've always enjoyed the return trip. I only had to look up and confirm the bright yellow star was still there every couple of minutes and otherwise could just hop between trees, over roots, around bushes, and so on. It gave me plenty of time to get back into the head space of "polite society". Once the woods started thinning out, I could adjust my gait and begin walking "like a gentlelady". It was dreadfully uncomfortable.
Most nights, I made it home in just over an hour. If I left at my normal time, I'd arrive as the sun fell fully below the horizon and ushered in twilight. It was pushing the limits, but who would or could stop me? That night in particular, I wasn't so lucky.
It was already getting too dark to properly see before I made it even halfway there. That would've been fine, except that there was a reason travel after dark was prohibited. And that would've been fine any other time of the year, but the second sevensun of the ninth moon was around the time of the herd change, three sevensuns before harvest. If I did not arrive to town quickly, terrible things could happen.
And of course, happen they did.
Goddess-Touched
I should explain, but I find doing so would serve little purpose except to waste words. Still, it is useful to know that most creatures throughout Lafleur are migratory to some extent. Kept livestock and humans tend to be the exception, but even we have our wanderers among us. And where the prey migrate, so the predators follow. It is the natural order of things, so to speak.
Due to the wicked cold that sweeps through the deimward districts after the ninth moon, the second herd change happens around the second sevensun of that moon. A matching chill overtakes the phobward districts from the fourth until the sixth moons, and the first herd change begins in advance of that.
Human settlements do occasionally find themselves in the way of those migrations, but we've largely worked out how to avoid them.
Funny thing about predators. They tend to be nocturnal. It's a lot easier to catch a prey animal that's sleeping than to attempt to catch up with one on the move. Sure, plenty of predators choose to hunt with the sun, but it's far less common.
So. When I found myself in the woods duskward of Powell's Square as night fell proper, I should have expected the outcome. Even so, I remain embarrassed to admit that I was shocked as the larabrin's claws tore through my arm. And moreso at the shriek that found its way from the pits of my gut to the world outside.
I was walking back to town, no longer concerned with the Lady and her carriage, as it was getting to be dark enough I might struggle to find my way in. My legs felt the familiar ground beneath them and were fairly automatic as they traced each step toward home. I was as relaxed as one could be in such circumstances, so I did what any ordinary person would do. I started humming.
The song was familiar, although I hadn't heard it since my father left. When I was still very small, he would sing it as a lullaby to help me sleep. As I grew up, I learned it was an old drinking song he and my mother shared during the early suns of their courtship. Any time I felt lonely or stressed or scared or worried or happy or peaceful or calm or anything really, I would sing the lullaby version, and it warmed me from the inside.
I hadn't made it through the first verse when a searing pain screamed through me from the curve of my shoulder down the length of my left arm. "A shame," I remembered thinking later, "that it took out my sword arm in the first swipe." Of course it was a deeper shame that I hadn't brought a sword with me, that I didn't own a sword to have brought, and that I'd never learnt to use one before I was to die.
Or at least I expected I was to die.
After the first attack destroyed any chance of survival and my throat tore itself to bleeding from the scream, I felt the beast's weight slam into me as its growling rasp alerted any others who might be hunting that it had staked a claim on me.
The foreclaws of the beast sank deep into the flesh just below my collar, and one of its hindfeet found purchase on my leg. The weight was already unbearable, and my breath wheezed its way out of my chest as the third grievous wound was struck. Larabrins are not weightless creatures, and this one was particularly hefty. So as it reared back, the hindfoot that was resting on my thigh was suddenly holding half its weight, and my bones could no longer bear the burden.
A dreadful shock pulled all my attention away from the arm that lay bleeding limply at my side as I felt my leg snap.
That was enough, it seemed, to cause the larabrin to stumble off of me, granting one last view of the stars I loved so dearly. I could just faintly make out the guiding huntress constellation above me, and the faint sparkle of Deim drew my eyes to the lilac beacon I used to navigate. If that was the last thing I would see, then I supposed my life would have been well-lived.
Wherever it had stumbled to, the larabrin didn't come back to claim me. I was certain I was dying, moving toward the light as the trees around us became clearer and clearer.
There was a sense as my life left me that a person had joined me in those woods. A warrior by the feel of things, as I heard the sounds of footwork and a weapon swinging about. Their skill was impressive. Or if they were real, then it was impressive.
My eyes stopped being able to focus after a while, but my last clear glimpse was of a woman with deepest blue hair standing above me, a bloody sword in hand. She was smiling gently. I wasn't sure if she was a goddess or some sort of celestial or a mad hallucination created by a mind struggling to hold onto life as blood became less and less available.
A vague sense of familiarity flooded over me as I felt suddenly weightless, like being carried. I didn't know why, and I'm not sure I ever will, but I was certain I had been through that before.
The final thing I remember from that night was a soft scent flooding my mind. I'll never forget it so long as I live. How could I? That smell was safety. It was life. As far as I'm concerned, the scent was what truly kept me alive, since it's the only thing I could focus on as the world around me vanished.
Whoever she was, she smelled of Queen's Heart flowers.