Six Feet under Water...

[Iriah Caitrak]

((Closed))


Her knees slammed against the rough, beige stone. Pain shot up through her legs and into her hips. Hands fought against tight bonds in a pointless attempt to brace her body. Off balance, she fell and her shoulder and the side of her face scraped against sand and stone. Like the heat of a fire, she felt the sting and the burn spread along her cheek and the bare flesh of her arm, consuming both. Blood trickled and welled and began to mingle in the dirt and tiny pieces of grain worn rock, which dig into her flesh. She swore she could feel every small, razor sharp piece, which embedded itself into her flesh, digging further and further into her like a relentless little demon, rending her to bits. Fisting her hands into a tight ball, she tensed the strong muscles of her stomach and pulled herself up onto bruised knees.

A cold day in Fallien would be had before Iriah Caitrak willingly stayed on her stomach before anyone. It disgusted her to be forced to kneel and ate away at the pride that she could barely hide behind cold, silver eyes. Standing seemed far from an option for her though. It would merely prolong the inevitable and cause more bruises. She’d prefer keeping her face looking the way it was, as well as her body. It had taken years of training to get to the point she was at now. Given the opportunity, she’d gladly repay the bhandakhinya for the wound already marring her skin.

Drawing in a deep and somewhat calming breath, the Akhetamika warrior quickly began to assess the situation. Her hands were tightly bound behind her back by what felt like cloth and her pack had been taken from her. Her crystals still lay upon her person though, in plain view for all the blinded tribesmen to see, if only they would look hard enough. They were too intent on other things to even think of properly disarming her. Stupidly, they assumed that taking her hands out of the equation was somehow good enough. She would enjoy the look on their faces when she showed every one of them why they should never underestimate an Akhetamikan.

At least twenty people surrounded her. Their clothes were worn and brown and plain, marking them as one of the many travelling tribes throughout Fallien. Thin, layered robes covered their sun bronzed skin, protecting them from the harshness that could be Mitra. As well as the relentless winds and sands that could kill and dry the heartiness of warriors and travellers. Each one of them carried a weapon in their hands or upon their person. From the Kukri and it’s twisted blade and odd design, to swords and spears and Chakrams. Though Iriah possessed confidence in her skills, she had not come here with a death wish. There were far too many of them for her to safely battle and even then, she knew in the end she couldn’t kill them.

As anxious faces filled with worried and angry expressions watched her, one stepped forward. An older woman, her face still beautiful and yet worn by the elements and time. Iriah could even see white lines of hair fanning back from her temples and standing out in sharp contrast to the pitch black that coloured the rest. The layers of brown and red cloth covering her were ragged around the edges and the colour was fading, bleached by the sun. As she swept her eyes over her, Iriah noted the woman’s hand, resting upon the hilt of a Khanda and took note of the experience that lay within dark, aged eyes.

Their gazes locked. The dark of one and the constant, swirling silver of the other clashed and each warrior assessed while only one made assumptions. Iriah had learned long ago not to judge someone upon looks alone. A silent battle of wills waged between the two of them and neither even considered the option of backing down.

“Tell us what you were doing in the forest.”

--Two days earlier...

Wind gently slithered across her skin, pushing through the thin layers of her dark red and purple clothes and easing the heat pounding down upon her. The sun had yet to reach its apex, but already the heat in the desert nation of Fallien was stifling. It was a heat she had missed being away from her home for so long and one she had longed for in the humid and oft wet days spent in Dheathain.

Dheathain...

The one simple word held so much heartache for her. She needed to let it go and move passed what had happened. But it was hard, nigh it seemed impossible for her mind to wrap around it. She’d already spent long nights crying herself to sleep and waking up with swollen eyes and no rest. She’d dealt with the hollow feeling in her chest as she moved through the nation alone; so alone. It had been a crushing experience. She had spent months with him and now that he was gone, she found herself missing the little things, the big things and searching for him around every corner and in every dark alley. Eventually she’d given up. Otherwise, she’d crush herself under the weight of the past. And Iriah was a stronger woman that that.

“I think I love you.”

“But you didn’t, did you, Malagen?”

This was the first time his name had been spoken aloud in months. She’d called it out in her head, screamed it in her mind and echoed it in her dreams. It had always been there, but she’d been avoiding it, hoping that if she stopped thinking about him, he would just disappear. As if he had never existed.

It all seemed so much...less now that she had said it aloud and acknowledged him and the time they spent together. Then she began to feel the pain in her heart once more, making it hard to breathe. She placed her hand against her chest, as if that could fill the void, the emptiness. It merely allowed her to feel the rapid beats of her heart.

The months seemed to have helped very little.

Slowly she steadied her breathing and calmed the flutter of her heart. She’d let no man do this to her. She would overcome it, no matter how long it took. Instead of focusing inward, Iriah drew her senses to what surrounded her. Even though she’d been in The Valley of the Dead for over an hour now, she’d barely looked at it. Then again, what was there to look at? It never changed, never really changed. Each year more names were added, but the gentle slope of the soft beige and red sand remained the same. And the large spikes of jagged obsidian still jutted from the earth like disjointed claws. Upon each of them was a flat surface that ran the length of an entire side. Carved into that surface; names, hundreds of them, thousands of them. All the name of their ancestors since they had started recording the dead and no one was really sure when that had begun anymore. Uriahd’s name was in here and Iriah knew exactly which spire it lay upon.

“Iriah, you have a moment?”

Turning her head sharply, Iriah looked upon her friend Mika as she glided across the sand towards her. Her bright red hair looked like fire in the sun and only served to brighten the iridescence of her light blue eyes. For some reason, oddly coloured hair and eyes were part of the package of being an Akhetamikan.

“Of course.”

Her friend nodded her head and came to stand next to the rock she sat upon, eyes sadly scanning the valley as she spoke.

“Gereint has a mission he wants the both of us to go on.”

At least Gereint still trusted her. “How did you know where to find me?”

“He told me.” The corners of Mika’s mouth turned upwards in a slight smirk.

Iriah mirrored the expression. For a blind man, Gereint certainly could see clearer than anyone else she knew.

“When did you want to leave?”

“As soon as possible.” Iriah responded, “You know me, I’m always ready.” And I could use the release of a mission.

“Good, I’ll fill you in on the way back to Astaka.”

[Rebellion]

Surprise. c: I'm using Rose instead of Vincent.

The desert was no place for a girl in armor. Rose's blood colored hair hung limp in front of her face as she panted with each step, burdened for the first time by the black armor she wore. It was nothing special, just a suit of iron that had been form fitted to outline her slim body, and thus attracted the heat like dragon dung attracted flies. She used the butt of her glaive to support her, trying not to collapse from sheer exhaustion. Rose had been walking for hours on end now, and every joint and muscle in her body screamed for rest.

Oh, how she missed her homeland of Dheathain at times like these. She had grown up there, and was thus unused to the desert's merciless heat and weather. Back in Dheathain the weather was cool, the humidity a secondary armor to her draconic skin. The wetness of the swamps, the taste of the saturated air...oh, it wet her tongue at the mere thought of escaping this horrid continent and returning to her homeland, where she would be surely greeted with open arms once again instead of hostility, as she had encountered when she had first arrived in Fallien.

She was only there for a bounty, but upon arriving in Irrakam by a ferry she had been almost immediately besieged with guards and authorities asking for her identification. Upon learning she was a bounty hunter, not only did they ask for her license, but also made her go apply for a special Fallien license as well. It had wasted too much of her time, and now her bounty was probably half way across Fallien right now.

To make matters worse, in her rush to catch up with her prey, Rose had not even adequately prepared for what the desert threw at her, carrying only a small canteen of water on her now that had been drunk up long ago. Her rations were spent, and it was all she could do to keep moving on this deadly day. The butt of her glaive dug deep into the sands as she pushed along, her skin wet and slick with sweat. The air before her eyes shimmered from weariness and the desert heat, illusions dancing through her half-dead mind and causing her to stumble away from the path she was following; a series of deep, man sized foot prints. The only traces that her prey had been here at all and one good sand storm could sweep them all away.

Oh yes, did she long for Dheathain, even though she had sworn never to return there until she had avenged the death of her dragon. Her companions had tried to coerce her to stay, wanting her to wait until an adequate force had been put together to hunt the slayer itself, but she had left anyways. She had failed as a dragoon; she was not about to fail as a hunter as well. However, her stamina was at its limit, her draconian boundaries long exceeded at this point. The only thing that was keeping her going was sheer will power at this point, and even will power had its limits.

Then she saw it. She couldn't believe it, but she saw it. She rubbed her eyes to make sure that she wasn't seeing things, that the desert mirages were not playing tricks with her head once more.

Off in the distance, in the middle of the desert, a forest had grown. Not the murky, wet forests of her homeland, that was for sure, but it was a forest all the same. Rose's heart leaped in relief and joy, for not only was there a forest but the tracks she followed led straight to them. It seemed her quarry had needed a break from the desert sands as well. Walking at a faster pace now, her six foot glaive pounding heavily into the ground, the air tickled the exposed parts of her body as her breathing became heavier, panting. Her eyes were focused on the forest alone, her salvation from this wretched heat and dry air. Where there was life, there was water, and oh, how did Rose miss the taste of water dripping down her throat.

Each step took her closer and closer to the green paradise ahead, and she could almost feel the wetness of water encasing her body. Her anticipation was tangible as she reached out with her free hand, encased in a shell of armor, needing to feel the rough bark of the trees in reassurance.

And soon enough, she was there. Her legs buckled as the sweet aroma of life invaded her nostrils, and her blurry vision finally found peace as she closed her eyes and fell to the soft earth below, her armor clanking heavily as the glaive fell from her grip. She lay there for some time, until her exhaustion overtook her and she gave in to sleep.

[Iriah Caitrak]

Wind whipped through the dry desert. It stirred sand into small funnels that twisted and reached towards the sky but died before ever touching its majesty. They danced and swirled, catching the tiny grains of rocks and throwing them around in an unrehearsed play until the wind died and they fell back to the ground, one grain at a time. They caught the sun as they fell, glittering like small diamonds in the rough. It caused the horizon to shimmer and shift and created what most of them knew to be mirages as they mixed with the heat. Tricks of the light and of the mind that made those so dehydrated and deranged that they perceived what they wanted the most and didn’t realize it a figment of their mind until it was too late. She was not one of those people though.

Iriah calmly cut through the sand. The flat side of her boots and the almost nonexistent tread allowed her to practically glide upon the surface. Though it caused her to slip upon other surfaces, the spread of the flat sole prevented the sand from trying to swallow her here and gave her the edge most people never had in the desert. Years of living here, growing up here and training here had honed her for fighting in the desert. What the Akhetamikan warrior had a hard time fighting in were the forests. The trees always seemed too close and the ground unstable. It rose and fell in quick succession and the ferns and moss oft hid holes that one could catch their foot in. Many a time she had lost her balance in the woods of Concordia and many a time Malagen had scolded her for it. In his mind, no matter the terrain she should have been able to walk in it without nearly falling flat on her face. And he had been right. And because of him, she now could. There were plenty of things she could now do because of him. Perhaps he too had learned some things from her. But in the end, what she’d wanted most from him was not training. Something he had been incapable of giving her. Or maybe something he had just run away from.

“It must feel good to be back home.”

She glanced at Mika out of the corner of her eye. For a moment, she said nothing, content to let the silence reign between them. Did it really feel that good to be home? Or, did she pretend that it felt good and on the inside she slowly withered away and died?

“I missed it...” She said to her friend. She couldn’t bring herself to completely tell Mika what was on her mind, just a small fragment of the truth. Somehow, she had the feeling her friend would not understand. Even after all they had been through together, something inside of her had changed outside of Fallien and grown into something more than just this place and it would never go back. Maybe that had happened even without him to make the change. Maybe that had been an inevitability when travelling so much away from everything she’d ever come to know.

They walked in silence after that. Whether Mika sensed something beyond those words or felt comfortable enough to leave it to the wind, Iriah didn’t know and she didn’t push to find out. The distance that had grown between the two of them felt tangible to her, even though the other warrior walked directly beside her. Would she ever be able to tell her friend the things that happened in Corone and in Dheathain? Would she remain quiet about it forever? No, she’d speak her mind, in time. That’s all Mika gave her, time. Time to collect her thoughts and her feelings and settle back into the routine of being a proper Akhetamikan warrior and this mission would solidify that in her mind.

Glancing behind her, Iriah could see the towering masses of the Zaileya Mountains as they ripped towards the cloudless sky. Their massive forms dominated the backdrop behind them like colossal giants that demanded attention and received it no matter what. Each jagged peak a single entity capped in white and startling against all the colours of the desert. Even the rock itself, grey and dark and shadowed by the sun seemed oddly out of place in this desert. With them in the distance and slowly fading into the horizon, the ruins of Marayyah would be coming up soon. Even though hours of good light remained for travelling, Marayyah would be the safest place to rest for the night. The Hiding Place of Coradan or Ras Arid would be more than half a day’s journey and they didn’t have enough time to reach it before night fell.

Travelling in the desert at night never had appealed to the warrior. Too many monsters lurked in shadows and hid under the surface of the sand. She knew better than to test her luck.

“What do you think killed them all?”

Iriah blinked and looked over at her friend, “What?”

“All the souls... Gereint didn’t tell me how they died; in fact it seemed he might have been a little unsure of it himself. He just wanted to send us out here to deal with it quickly.”

“Hmmm...I’m not sure.” Iriah began. “But the tribes in this region are wanderers and rather territorial when they settle into a new area. Perhaps two of the tribes just didn’t see level ground. I suppose we’ll find out soon enough. He said it was around the area of Marayyah.”

Mika nodded her head, thoughtful for a moment. “I just hope it has nothing to do with the Harpies and Cultists, I’ve had enough of them to last me a lifetime.”

Iriah agreed. The war between them had been brutal and bloody and many a warrior had fallen to the magic of Cultists or the claws of Harpies, among them many an Akhetamikan warrior. Times like that made her regret that The Jya now knew of their existence and could call upon them like she did any other citizen. Akhetamikan’s were not there for her disposal or her wars. They were there for the aftermath. To leaders though, warriors were warriors, it mattered not their true purpose.

She drew her gaze upon the rise and fall in the waves of this ocean of sand. Her eyes caught something odd in the distance, around the area where the ruins of Marayyah should be. At first she thought it a mere trick of the desert, but the colour seemed far too vibrant and the closer her feet brought her, the more it came into view. Not only that but she could see the prints of another, possibly two others, heading in the very direction that they were. The distinct footprints were nearly erased by the wind now, but they must have originally settled deep into the sand in order to still exist.

“Iriah...”

“Hmm...I see it.”

The fact that Mika looked upon the same thing she did meant no illusion lay here. The deep and verdant green that she perceived, sprouting forth from the desert ground in a thick display of life was real. But only one placed in the entirety of Fallien looked like this; The Oasis. And they were far from the confines of that place. No, this had to be something else.

“I don’t understand...” Mika said her voice quiet and unsure.

“Neither do I, but we’re headed in that direction anyway.”

They had no choice. The ruins of Marayyah were in there and Gereint had said the souls resided near Marayyah. What if they had died within that place?

The closer the two of them walked, the more detail Iriah could see. It truly amazed her beyond anyone’s understanding to see such a vibrantly alive place in Fallien. As the wind whispered through the air, she could hear it hit the trees and rustle the leaves, forcing them to dance and sway and reflect the light of the sun. It looked as if it had been here for hundreds of years. The trees towered towards the horizon, thick and full, they ignored the dry heat of the desert. Their trunks seemed to span for feet to come, alive and covered in deep brown bark that looked rough even from here. Ferns thrived and grass and moss began to encroach itself slowly into the desert sands, as if trying to convert this dead nation once again into something alive.

Feet away from the edge, they stopped and Iriah could hear Mika and her pleasured gasp. It truly looked as if the greatest of the Gods had taken a chunk of Concordia and given it to them. Yet, even though Iriah could feel the life from this place pulsing into the very ground, no sounds of animals met her ears.

“What’s that?”

Turning her gaze towards her friend, Iriah watched as Mika tentatively entered the forest. It nearly humoured her, the way she looked as if expecting the place to attack her. Moving after her, Iriah soon laid eyes upon what had attracted Mika in the first place. Laying flat on her back and covered in some of the heaviest black armour the two of them had ever seen, was a woman. She looked like a black blight upon all the lush life around her. At first she thought her dead, perhaps dried out from the desert before she could reach this place. But then she realized her soul still beat within her, though she looked as if she’d seen better days.

Kneeling down next to the woman, Iriah slipped off her rucksack and quickly reach inside, procuring one of her skins of water. Reaching behind the stranger, she lifted her head and paused. Her fingers touched smooth and hardened skin that at first she thought armour. Giving it a quickly glance though; the Akhetamikan realized they were scales of the same bloody colour as the woman’s hair.

A Draconian?

Pushing aside the amazement, she focused on saving the woman’s life. “Open her mouth for me, Mika.”

Her friend leaned over and carefully parted the woman’s lips and Iriah slowly began pouring water into her mouth, bit by bit, making sure she swallowed it and would not choke.

[Rebellion]

The exquisite taste of water flooded Rose's mouth, interrupting her dreamless sleep and causing her to cough from the sudden surge. It ran down her throat, sweet and cold, and the draconian almost went on her knees right there and then to thank the Dheathain gods for this gift of life. The sun still hung high within the azure sky, but did not beat down upon Rose's form as before. The leaves from the overhanging branches of the trees surrounding her blocked out that cursed orb partially, saving her from its fiery gaze. Moaning softly at the taste of the water, Rose almost panicked when she felt its source being pulled from her lips and immediately her right arm lifted to stop it. However, as her gauntlet clenched around flesh, Rose's eyes opened wide and she let go, sitting up in her armor as she looked around.

She was still where she had fallen, not twenty feet from the edge of the strange forest that had found life within a lifeless desert, and everywhere she looked within it she found green vegetation and earthen ground. However, two new figures had made their presence known during this time, both kneeling by Rose's side. One held the canteen of water, a dark skinned woman with long purple hair that lay tied back, exposing her neck and jaw line. Upon seeing these did Rose also see the scar and puncture marks that were there, wounds seemed so horrendous that the dragoon could not help but wonder at the strength of the woman to survive such blows to her body. Silver eyes peered out at Rose in concern and mild surprise as she helped the draconian sit up, her hand on Rose's armored back now. All and all, she was an attractive woman, although from the look upon her body she had seen her fair share of hardships as well. The other woman had moved away slightly to give the bounty hunter some breathing space, a red headed woman like Rose herself with eyes as blue and clear as the sky above.

Rose took a deep breath before looking around her, searching for her weapons. Her short sword lay still sheathed at her side, the blade strapped against her leg, but her glaive lay a few feet away, the long polearm a silent contrast to the earthen beauty of the nature around. Reaching over and grasping it, the ex-dragoon slowly stood, leaning on it for support. She gasped, though, as her legs buckled beneath her, and had it not been for her grip upon her weapon she would have fallen to the ground once more. Her muscles still ached--it seemed that the rest she had gotten had not proven to erase all of her troubles. "I...thank you..." She breathed out to the two women, closing her emerald eyes for a moment. "...whoever you are." Shakily, she stood up to her full height, casting her head back to expose her light skin and the small flecks of dragonscale decorating her cleavage. "I do not know if I would have survived alone. My name is Rose..." She slowly extended one armored hand to the two. "...and whom might you be?"

[Iriah Caitrak]

Her eyes surprised Iriah. Never throughout her weeks of travel in Dheathain had she met a Draconian with green eyes. Every last one of that race had possessed eerily black eyes that ran throughout the entire eyeball and showed no distinction from iris to pupil and white; as if they used but the whole eye to see everything around them. This woman was different though. Her eyes opened and revealed a luminous green, both beautiful and disconcerting. Not even the Akhetamikan warrior had seen eyes like that and her race was known for the odd pigmentation born in both their hair and their eyes. A good example of that being Iriah’s, which swirled and moved as if silver were constantly being melted within their depths. Unlike most of her race though, she could change their colour at will and sometimes even without her will. Perhaps this woman was not of Draconian descent. The scales were the only thing she had to go on and it would be foolish of her to think that Draconians were the only race on Althanas to have the protection of scales.

There was more to it than that though. The armour she wore resembled that of Draconian make. From the colour she could not tell of its strength, but the detail and work put upon the piece reminded her of the dedication of the Draconians. War and fighting seemed to flow in their very veins and they took it quite seriously and because of that their arms reflected it. Even as the woman moved, slowly beginning to pick herself up from the forest floor, Iriah could see the appearance of more scales. They stood out in stark contrast to her skin, looking like spots of blood marring her otherwise flawless skin. When she nearly stumbled, the Akhetamikan had to stop herself from lending a helping hand. She knew how stubborn and prideful Draconians could be and she did not want to offend the woman, especially if she knew something about this forest. All this green and lush life could never be native to Fallien, something or someone must have created or put it here. How it survived, she didn’t know. In the intense heat of the desert, the leaves should wilt and fall away and without water, all of this should be nothing more than dried husks reminding this region of what it had once had and lost because of its own greed.

“No need to thank us,” Iriah said politely, “we find lost travellers all the time in the desert. Sadly we’re usually too late to help them. I’m glad to see it was different with you.”

Without hesitation, Iriah reached out and clasped her fingers around the armoured forearm of the woman. She had learned early on in her travels that many people shook hands as a form of greeting, but in Fallien people rarely touched hands with strangers, especially outsiders. It was too personal of a thing; so instead she compromised and usually went for the forearm and like most people, Rose quickly adapted. Releasing the arm of the woman, Iriah watched her friend hesitate slightly before following suit and wrapping her fingers around the cool armour.

“My name is Iriah Caitrak and this is Mika Dhavala, we’re from the Akhetamikan tribe north of here.” Mika let go of the woman and took a casual step back, putting a small amount of distance between them. Unlike Iriah, Mika had not done very much hunting outside of Fallien, thus seeing a woman like Rose might seem rather odd to her. Not to mention most in her tribe were always weary of strangers, though still more charitable and hospitable of them than those in The Oasis and Irrakam; especially around the time of festivals. “We’re out on a mission that apparently is taking us into this place, though I’ve honestly never seen anything quite like this in Fallien. These trees seem ancient and yet I swear to Surayani, my last trip here was less than a year ago...”

Her silver eyes had drifted towards the trees, which gently swayed in the light breeze. In the shade of their branches, the sun filtered through in small rays and pooled on the ground, looking like nothing less than gold. The temperature seemed far lower than what had been pummelling against them throughout their journey, almost like the warmth of a hot summer day in Corone.

Coming back from her thoughts, the Akhetamikan locked eyes with the siahd once more.“I must admit though, Rose does seem rather...human for a Draconian.”

Iriah decided a shot in the dark at the woman’s race seemed like the best idea. If she wasn’t Draconian, she’d know from the woman’s answer.