Clare (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
demisemidemon) wrote2012-03-11 04:37 am
demisemidemon) wrote2012-03-11 04:37 am
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Narasen is another town barely distinguished from the others. Smaller than most, in mining country, but nothing too distinctive. Humans are fiercely proud of their little towns and villages, often enough, but to Clare they blur together. She sees so many, and so briefly: they're all a mass of dusty streets, frightened faces, and buildings she rarely sees the inside of.
She has the same conversation with the headman as always: no, don't give me the money, give it to the black-clad man from the organization who'll come later. If I die, you don't have to pay.
The yoma is hiding. It seems experienced enough to suppress its aura, which means it can hide from her. Not forever -- Clare's target is set, and yoma are rarely patient -- but long enough to be annoying. Clare walks, and listens.
The stink of yoma rises behind her, along with the running footsteps of a child; Clare yanks up power, whirling with her sword slicing its lethal arc before her--
And jerks to a halt, just barely in time for her sword to stop by the boy's throat. He's not a yoma. He stinks of one, but he has no aura, and this is too close to hide that.
He's a human boy.
Just into teenage years, Clare thinks, though she's not very good at guessing the ages between child and adult. She spent all that time being trained in the organization. He was part of the crowd that greeted her. He stinks as if he's been spending all his time with a yoma, but he's bright-eyed and cheerful. He must not know he's with a yoma, then. Yoma are cruel; if he knew, he might be alive, but he wouldn't be smiling.
She needs to rest, and she needs to find the yoma. She finds a gate in the wall, sinks her sword into the ground for a backrest, and settles down to wait. The boy tags after her.
"I just wanted to follow you for a while!" he tells her, and he won't be put off. He thunks a stick into the ground and sits against it, giggling as he imitates her. He calls her big sister, like she's just another human he hasn't met yet. He pesters her with questions. He tells her she's prettier than the girls around here.
Clare doesn't understand. He doesn't know he's with a yoma; nobody's beating him, nobody's kicking him out of their village. Humanity accepts him. What does he want with a silver-eyed killer? She answers the questions she has answers to, but she doesn't understand why he's asking them.
He tells her, then, that the yoma's first victims were his parents. He was there. Only he and his brother survived.
He stinks of yoma. Clare knows, now, what happened.
"If I was strong enough, I could avenge my parents," he says, staring down at his fist. He's a human; he'll never be strong enough to kill a yoma. And a boy, so he'll never be one of the organization's warriors, either. "Now you're the one who's going to kill it for me."
"I'm only doing this because we got a request," Clare says. "I'm not doing it so you can get revenge."
"That's just as good," he tells her, beaming like a fool.
When the village bells ring at late afternoon, Raki jumps up. But as he's leaving, he stops, and turns around. "My name's Raki! What's yours?"
"You don't need to know my name," she says. "You'll forget it soon enough." It's the truth; he has a human life, a human village. What does a silver-eyed slayer mean to him?
He doesn't understand. But he leaves without asking any more questions.
She follows him. Not too closely, though. She doesn't want the yoma to realize.
It doesn't. She lets Raki run home to his 'older brother' and flush it out; when Clare crashes through the ceiling of the tiny storeroom they're in, Raki is huddled in paralytic terror, while the yoma wearing his brother's clothing looms over him. It tries to fight -- they always do -- and cackles with hungry bravado about how it'll kill her, but it's no match for a half-yoma warrior. She slices its arm off, but it manages to get to Raki, and grabs him to use as a shield.
So Clare cuts its other arm off. It can't hold Raki without arms.
She draws on more yoki power, enough that the veins stand out on her face, and she answers the yoma's question, once it's sprawled armlessly in a puddle of its own purple blood. How 'half-breed' warriors have yoma blood in their human bodies to bring them speed, yoma flesh to bring them strength. Then she swings her claymore once, one-handed, and slices the yoma open head to groin, slashing straight through the brain and heart where it can't regenerate, and watches both halves of it die in a spray of blood.
Raki is huddled, unhurt, staring at her with wide traumatized eyes. He's breathing in loud gulps, making a low repetitive sobbing noise he probably doesn't even hear.
Clare cleans her sword with a quick, sharp snap that sends purple blood spattering downwards. Raki doesn't seem to notice: he clutches his knees, whimpering ah, ah, ah, ah--
Clare leaves.
Raki runs after her, when she leaves. "I won't forget you!" he shouts, though she can hear him perfectly well. They're not that far apart. But he's shaking -- he hasn't spoken in hours, the people were saying -- and he's shouting now. "Thank you! I mean it!"
He asks her name again. This time, she tells him.
Then she walks away from Narasen. She doesn't look back.
Raki may be grateful, but he has a life here; he's not like she was, back when she was human. His village seems willing to keep him. He's not desperate enough to follow her, which is proof enough that this is where he belongs.
She has the same conversation with the headman as always: no, don't give me the money, give it to the black-clad man from the organization who'll come later. If I die, you don't have to pay.
The yoma is hiding. It seems experienced enough to suppress its aura, which means it can hide from her. Not forever -- Clare's target is set, and yoma are rarely patient -- but long enough to be annoying. Clare walks, and listens.
The stink of yoma rises behind her, along with the running footsteps of a child; Clare yanks up power, whirling with her sword slicing its lethal arc before her--
And jerks to a halt, just barely in time for her sword to stop by the boy's throat. He's not a yoma. He stinks of one, but he has no aura, and this is too close to hide that.
He's a human boy.
Just into teenage years, Clare thinks, though she's not very good at guessing the ages between child and adult. She spent all that time being trained in the organization. He was part of the crowd that greeted her. He stinks as if he's been spending all his time with a yoma, but he's bright-eyed and cheerful. He must not know he's with a yoma, then. Yoma are cruel; if he knew, he might be alive, but he wouldn't be smiling.
She needs to rest, and she needs to find the yoma. She finds a gate in the wall, sinks her sword into the ground for a backrest, and settles down to wait. The boy tags after her.
"I just wanted to follow you for a while!" he tells her, and he won't be put off. He thunks a stick into the ground and sits against it, giggling as he imitates her. He calls her big sister, like she's just another human he hasn't met yet. He pesters her with questions. He tells her she's prettier than the girls around here.
Clare doesn't understand. He doesn't know he's with a yoma; nobody's beating him, nobody's kicking him out of their village. Humanity accepts him. What does he want with a silver-eyed killer? She answers the questions she has answers to, but she doesn't understand why he's asking them.
He tells her, then, that the yoma's first victims were his parents. He was there. Only he and his brother survived.
He stinks of yoma. Clare knows, now, what happened.
"If I was strong enough, I could avenge my parents," he says, staring down at his fist. He's a human; he'll never be strong enough to kill a yoma. And a boy, so he'll never be one of the organization's warriors, either. "Now you're the one who's going to kill it for me."
"I'm only doing this because we got a request," Clare says. "I'm not doing it so you can get revenge."
"That's just as good," he tells her, beaming like a fool.
When the village bells ring at late afternoon, Raki jumps up. But as he's leaving, he stops, and turns around. "My name's Raki! What's yours?"
"You don't need to know my name," she says. "You'll forget it soon enough." It's the truth; he has a human life, a human village. What does a silver-eyed slayer mean to him?
He doesn't understand. But he leaves without asking any more questions.
She follows him. Not too closely, though. She doesn't want the yoma to realize.
It doesn't. She lets Raki run home to his 'older brother' and flush it out; when Clare crashes through the ceiling of the tiny storeroom they're in, Raki is huddled in paralytic terror, while the yoma wearing his brother's clothing looms over him. It tries to fight -- they always do -- and cackles with hungry bravado about how it'll kill her, but it's no match for a half-yoma warrior. She slices its arm off, but it manages to get to Raki, and grabs him to use as a shield.
So Clare cuts its other arm off. It can't hold Raki without arms.
She draws on more yoki power, enough that the veins stand out on her face, and she answers the yoma's question, once it's sprawled armlessly in a puddle of its own purple blood. How 'half-breed' warriors have yoma blood in their human bodies to bring them speed, yoma flesh to bring them strength. Then she swings her claymore once, one-handed, and slices the yoma open head to groin, slashing straight through the brain and heart where it can't regenerate, and watches both halves of it die in a spray of blood.
Raki is huddled, unhurt, staring at her with wide traumatized eyes. He's breathing in loud gulps, making a low repetitive sobbing noise he probably doesn't even hear.
Clare cleans her sword with a quick, sharp snap that sends purple blood spattering downwards. Raki doesn't seem to notice: he clutches his knees, whimpering ah, ah, ah, ah--
Clare leaves.
Raki runs after her, when she leaves. "I won't forget you!" he shouts, though she can hear him perfectly well. They're not that far apart. But he's shaking -- he hasn't spoken in hours, the people were saying -- and he's shouting now. "Thank you! I mean it!"
He asks her name again. This time, she tells him.
Then she walks away from Narasen. She doesn't look back.
Raki may be grateful, but he has a life here; he's not like she was, back when she was human. His village seems willing to keep him. He's not desperate enough to follow her, which is proof enough that this is where he belongs.