Clare (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
demisemidemon) wrote2012-08-01 12:37 am
demisemidemon) wrote2012-08-01 12:37 am
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Her job is a yoma. Just one, but it seems to have killed the previous warrior sent to deal with it. Clare's on her guard.
It's been haunting the forest and cliffside paths of this area. Unusual -- mostly yoma stay within the towns, or they travel on -- but there are several towns clustered here. Enough, it seems, that a yoma can pick off merchants and stragglers and slake its hunger for guts. Egon and the other towns went together on the call for a warrior, and are splitting the fee. Sensible.
So Clare suppresses her yoki power down deep so she won't be spotted, and she listens, and she waits.
The trouble is that Raki seems to be a magnet for yoma, or just a magnet for trouble. He comes running out from town as soon as he wakes up, fruit stains on his shirt and crumbs and desperation on his face, and Clare isn't the one who finds him first.
She's not far behind. She's been following the yoma for days, tracking its aura through the forest -- easy enough, because this yoma is more strong than crafty, even if strong is still enough that Clare was waiting for a good opening -- but all the same, by the time she makes it there, Raki's figured out what the yoma is, and it's got a taloned hand dug into his neck.
It's wearing the skin of the warrior it killed.
It doesn't matter. Clare would have killed it anyway -- without the skin and armor and sword it's wearing, without the way Raki stammers and gulps as claws press into the soft skin of his throat. So the burn in the pit of her stomach is irrelevant. She draws on her power: enough to fight with, enough that she meets the yoma's eyes with golden cat-pupiled eyes of her own. 10%, 11%, 15% -- no more. She holds there. Never use more than you have to.
The yoma talks to her. They always do. It cackles and gloats and tells her to drop her sword. It tries to guess why she cares about Raki: that maybe she had a little brother, that Raki's touched her heart. Its guesses miss the mark, but it wouldn't matter either way.
The yoma's a gloating idiot. But it's right about one thing: as they stand right now, Clare couldn't kill it before it killed Raki.
She tosses her sword down the cliff.
The yoma's delighted. "You humans are fools!" it crows, dashing for Clare, and she stands her ground weaponless. "No -- you're only half-human! You Claymores are half of nothing!"
It hurts when the yoma stabs its arm through her stomach. It hurts a lot. But being made into a warrior hurt worse, and for far longer; this is nothing.
She straightens herself around the impaling arm, and grabs the yoma's elbow. Raki is yelling a warning, human-slow and far too late to do any good, and Clare flings herself over the cliff, pulling the yoma along with her.
After that, it's just a matter of grabbing her sword. She cuts the yoma's arm off first. Then she kills it.
And then she pulls its severed arm out of her stomach. That hurts too.
It's enough to make her drop to her knees in the forest dirt, gasping, one hand clenched around her gaping stomach and the other scrabbling at her sword hilt. The problem isn't the pain, as such -- that's not fun, but Clare can deal with that as long as she has to. The problem is the size of the wound, and how near it is to the vulnerable area where Teresa's flesh was put into her. She needs to heal this, and fast. But healing fast means drawing on a lot of yoma power, and that's hard to balance. She can't let herself overload -- she can't ever, there's no going back from that, you're a monster and that's the end of it, and if you're lucky you can get yourself killed before you lose the last of your human mind -- but it's hard to draw on so much yoki power without letting it overwhelm her.
She pulls on the power, gasping in the dirt, and shuts everything else out. She can feel her veins and muscles stitching themselves back together, torn flesh regrowing -- and she can feel the hungry power flooding her, pushing at her mind, deforming her face and throbbing in her muscles. It tells her that it's so easy, everything's so easy, all she has to do is lose herself in the blood-hot ravenous rush of it.
Clare clenches her fists, and heals herself, and shoves her power back down to its coiled heart. Her human mind is strong. She wins.
When she comes back to herself, she realizes that Raki has scrambled and tumbled his way down the cliff, and he's babbling desperate apologies at her back. She resheathes her sword and stands, her back to him, while he gabbles her name and sorry, it's my fault, I'm sorry.
Clare looks back at him. "Don't get the wrong idea," she tells him. "I didn't throw the sword away because of you."
Raki needs to know this. He needs to know what the warriors called Claymores are.
"I only did it to trap the yoma," she continues, while he gapes at her. "If I'd gone through you to get to it, it would have killed you and gotten away. So I dropped my sword to draw it in."
"Oh," Raki manages weakly. "I see."
He's trying, anyway. She'll give him some points for that. But the question is why -- why is he trying to bond with a silver-eyed witch? Why is he so desperate that he'd do that? "What are you doing here, anyway?" she asks. "You're a long way from your village."
He stammers and hesitates, and it crystallizes a certainty inside her.
When he's spent nearly a minute failing to answer, she adds, "Did they throw you out?" It's blunt, and only half a question.
But against her expectations, that one throws Raki too. "No!" he yelps. Then he grits his teeth, steeling himself for some unpleasant truth, but what comes out is more stammering. "No, I... That's not why." Tears are streaming down from eyes squeezed shut by the time he finishes with, "I just... I... I'm not a yoma."
Clare knows that. Of course.
But --
But humans don't.
But humans mistrust the people who were close to those eaten by yoma, even when an organization warrior's been and gone. They play it safe. They assume that a victim's family might be yoma themselves -- and after all, humans have no way to tell, so it's just self-protection. Raki's own older brother was a yoma in his brother's skin.
So was Clare's brother, once upon a time. Long ago, when she was just a human girl, and didn't yet know how much pain the world really held.
"Do you know how to cook?" she asks, without lifting her head.
Raki makes an inarticulate, bewildered noise. He's so full of exclamations; he's so young, and so human.
"You said before that you'd do the cooking," she reminds him. He didn't know what he was offering then and he doesn't really know now, but he has nowhere else that's any better. "Are you any good?" Raki, eyes wide, nods frantically.
"Okay then," Clare says. "If you can cook, you can follow me until we reach a town where you want to live."
Raki beams. She can almost remember that kind of simple joy, but she can't remember that naivete. "Okay!" he declares.
It's been haunting the forest and cliffside paths of this area. Unusual -- mostly yoma stay within the towns, or they travel on -- but there are several towns clustered here. Enough, it seems, that a yoma can pick off merchants and stragglers and slake its hunger for guts. Egon and the other towns went together on the call for a warrior, and are splitting the fee. Sensible.
So Clare suppresses her yoki power down deep so she won't be spotted, and she listens, and she waits.
The trouble is that Raki seems to be a magnet for yoma, or just a magnet for trouble. He comes running out from town as soon as he wakes up, fruit stains on his shirt and crumbs and desperation on his face, and Clare isn't the one who finds him first.
She's not far behind. She's been following the yoma for days, tracking its aura through the forest -- easy enough, because this yoma is more strong than crafty, even if strong is still enough that Clare was waiting for a good opening -- but all the same, by the time she makes it there, Raki's figured out what the yoma is, and it's got a taloned hand dug into his neck.
It's wearing the skin of the warrior it killed.
It doesn't matter. Clare would have killed it anyway -- without the skin and armor and sword it's wearing, without the way Raki stammers and gulps as claws press into the soft skin of his throat. So the burn in the pit of her stomach is irrelevant. She draws on her power: enough to fight with, enough that she meets the yoma's eyes with golden cat-pupiled eyes of her own. 10%, 11%, 15% -- no more. She holds there. Never use more than you have to.
The yoma talks to her. They always do. It cackles and gloats and tells her to drop her sword. It tries to guess why she cares about Raki: that maybe she had a little brother, that Raki's touched her heart. Its guesses miss the mark, but it wouldn't matter either way.
The yoma's a gloating idiot. But it's right about one thing: as they stand right now, Clare couldn't kill it before it killed Raki.
She tosses her sword down the cliff.
The yoma's delighted. "You humans are fools!" it crows, dashing for Clare, and she stands her ground weaponless. "No -- you're only half-human! You Claymores are half of nothing!"
It hurts when the yoma stabs its arm through her stomach. It hurts a lot. But being made into a warrior hurt worse, and for far longer; this is nothing.
She straightens herself around the impaling arm, and grabs the yoma's elbow. Raki is yelling a warning, human-slow and far too late to do any good, and Clare flings herself over the cliff, pulling the yoma along with her.
After that, it's just a matter of grabbing her sword. She cuts the yoma's arm off first. Then she kills it.
And then she pulls its severed arm out of her stomach. That hurts too.
It's enough to make her drop to her knees in the forest dirt, gasping, one hand clenched around her gaping stomach and the other scrabbling at her sword hilt. The problem isn't the pain, as such -- that's not fun, but Clare can deal with that as long as she has to. The problem is the size of the wound, and how near it is to the vulnerable area where Teresa's flesh was put into her. She needs to heal this, and fast. But healing fast means drawing on a lot of yoma power, and that's hard to balance. She can't let herself overload -- she can't ever, there's no going back from that, you're a monster and that's the end of it, and if you're lucky you can get yourself killed before you lose the last of your human mind -- but it's hard to draw on so much yoki power without letting it overwhelm her.
She pulls on the power, gasping in the dirt, and shuts everything else out. She can feel her veins and muscles stitching themselves back together, torn flesh regrowing -- and she can feel the hungry power flooding her, pushing at her mind, deforming her face and throbbing in her muscles. It tells her that it's so easy, everything's so easy, all she has to do is lose herself in the blood-hot ravenous rush of it.
Clare clenches her fists, and heals herself, and shoves her power back down to its coiled heart. Her human mind is strong. She wins.
When she comes back to herself, she realizes that Raki has scrambled and tumbled his way down the cliff, and he's babbling desperate apologies at her back. She resheathes her sword and stands, her back to him, while he gabbles her name and sorry, it's my fault, I'm sorry.
Clare looks back at him. "Don't get the wrong idea," she tells him. "I didn't throw the sword away because of you."
Raki needs to know this. He needs to know what the warriors called Claymores are.
"I only did it to trap the yoma," she continues, while he gapes at her. "If I'd gone through you to get to it, it would have killed you and gotten away. So I dropped my sword to draw it in."
"Oh," Raki manages weakly. "I see."
He's trying, anyway. She'll give him some points for that. But the question is why -- why is he trying to bond with a silver-eyed witch? Why is he so desperate that he'd do that? "What are you doing here, anyway?" she asks. "You're a long way from your village."
He stammers and hesitates, and it crystallizes a certainty inside her.
When he's spent nearly a minute failing to answer, she adds, "Did they throw you out?" It's blunt, and only half a question.
But against her expectations, that one throws Raki too. "No!" he yelps. Then he grits his teeth, steeling himself for some unpleasant truth, but what comes out is more stammering. "No, I... That's not why." Tears are streaming down from eyes squeezed shut by the time he finishes with, "I just... I... I'm not a yoma."
Clare knows that. Of course.
But --
But humans don't.
But humans mistrust the people who were close to those eaten by yoma, even when an organization warrior's been and gone. They play it safe. They assume that a victim's family might be yoma themselves -- and after all, humans have no way to tell, so it's just self-protection. Raki's own older brother was a yoma in his brother's skin.
So was Clare's brother, once upon a time. Long ago, when she was just a human girl, and didn't yet know how much pain the world really held.
"Do you know how to cook?" she asks, without lifting her head.
Raki makes an inarticulate, bewildered noise. He's so full of exclamations; he's so young, and so human.
"You said before that you'd do the cooking," she reminds him. He didn't know what he was offering then and he doesn't really know now, but he has nowhere else that's any better. "Are you any good?" Raki, eyes wide, nods frantically.
"Okay then," Clare says. "If you can cook, you can follow me until we reach a town where you want to live."
Raki beams. She can almost remember that kind of simple joy, but she can't remember that naivete. "Okay!" he declares.