A Necessary Sacrifice

By: Thenidiel Posted on: June 29, 2006

A Necessary Sacrifice

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The wind blew her hood off her head, revealing a face pinched with cold and worn with battle scars. Once she had been beautiful - her hair glossy and sleek, falling over her shoulders in torrents. Now she was nought but a shadow of her former self, tarnished by too many days at war. Her hair fell in rats tails around her head, matted and greasy with lack of care. Yet curiously she did not seem to be bothered at all - the misuse of her body seemed almost like it was part of her.

Tugging her hood back up with impatience, she stalked onwards through the tourmented mountains. She could see it on the horizon - the looming red presence, choking all that entered it. When she reached it. she took out a parchment and quillpen and began to write, detailing every aspect of the area around her - the disgusting green seaweed that made the floor as slippery as ice, giving out its putrid, nauseous stench.

Kneeling down to the ground, she scooped up some of the seaweed into a small jar, covering her mouth and nose with her cloak to avoid vomiting over the sample. Sealing it swiftly, she then placed it neatly into her kitbag. A serene sort of calm crossed her face as she contemplated what she was about to do. A necessary sacrifice, she told herself. Necessary to understand...to prove to herself that nothing could survive here but that which had evolved.

Stiffening her resolve, she put her fingers to her mouth and whistled sharply. A moment passed and then she heard hooves cracking down upon the rough ground of the mountains. A whinny alerted her to the roan's presence, as it stumbled in, shaking its head and spluttering in the Fog. She watched it, studied it carefully, as its eyes began to water and lips peeled back, revealing a tongue twitching in a gag.

As she watched her faithful mount choke to death in the poisonous fog, she did not weep. The serene calm came over her once more and she stiffened. Strength, she told herself. Strength through pain. Understanding through strength. A necessary sacrifice. She averted her eyes when the thud came, letting out a small sigh. She was weak, she knew that - but with time...with time, strength would come.

She rose, slinging her kitbag over her shoulder, and closed her eyes in concentration. Reaching out with her arm into the rift, she pulled a spool of rope forth and lashed it to the roan's neck. Placing a booted foot on the horse's haunches she pulled it taught, trying to ignore the strange snapping sound that came as she did so.

It took her some hours to drag the corpse across the mountains - going down was almost as hard as going up the mountain, when the corpse slid down the rocky slope, pulling her with it. The sun had set when she reached the highway once more, and rested. A brief supper of Eleusian bread and cheese refreshed her enough to carry on, the distance to the shrine far shorter than her trek so far. When she reached it, she slowly heaved the corpse onto the shrine, and muttered a prayer of sanctification to her Patron, the tempest of Vengeance.

In the beckoning darkness, she crept back across the land to the village of Eleusis, where she lay down in the Central Oak and slept. With the wind lapping at her cloak as she awoke, she listened to the chatter of nearby Cubs and Wards and contemplated, the jar of sludge clutched in her pale-skinned hands.

Though her resolve waned through fear, and she felt guilt for the loss of her faithful companion, she did not waver in her acts. She proved to herself that which she had sought - that the Fog took life, but gave life to other things where it took, and so she continued to walk amongst it, to the dismay of her fellow villagemates - but with her own peace of mind.

Her guilt faded with time. It was a necessary sacrifice.