The TwiceBorn

Within The Iron Of Her Soul

"...when they crumble me between their fingers, it will be you they find."--Winterson

Alora knew.  Suddenly and inexorably knew.  It was that sense of being horribly wrong and in a place where she’d forgotten more than she’d ever learned and with  no more time left to correct such a momentous gaffe in judgment.  Her fingers tightened on the reins but Loki didn’t pull up.  He simply disappeared.  His neck and withers rolled forward.  There was no time to kick free and she was too tired and done in for that much quickness anyway. 

The wind-whipped grass and mud rose at a frightening speed and she hit so hard she thought for a moment that her heart had exploded inside her chest. A wave of pain licked across her and a breathless gasp was forced from her mouth.  Mud rich yet bitter coated her tongue. The only good thing was she’d been thrown free. Otherwise,she’d of been squashed like a bug.

 She got to her hands and knees and stayed there, trembling, as she struggled to catch her breath.  The rain pounding against her back paused then renewed its fury. Small hailstones stung her skin.

Loki…

She tried to get to her feet and fell, going down again in the mud and grass.  Her body thrummed with pain but it wasn’t strong enough to do her thinking for her, her eyes took in Loki’s still body and told her what she refused to believe was true.

He stepped in a hole, he may have simply broken a leg that can be fixed, it can be fixed…

She crawled to him, the hail and her own pain incomparable to the wrenching sense of loss she felt as she watched one of his eyes slowly fill with tiny hailstones.  One trembling hand reached out and touched the shaft buried deep in his chest.

“No.”  She said simply as she brought her hand up to rest against his cheek.  She watched, stunned, as her hand traced the familiar path from his cheek down to the space between his nostrils, the place he always liked for her to rub and scratch.  Her hand did this unknowingly as though what had happened had been so sudden, all of her didn’t know yet.  Didn’t know that he was gone.

She wanted to scream.  To rage.  But her sorrow was so overwhelming and uncompromising, all she could do was continue to whisper, “No” over and over as tears mingled with the rain and ran down her face.

                             *************************************

Gre had thought all his life he could recognize a demon.  He’d heard about them first at Chapel when he was growing up. Him and his brother both had been forced to sit on benches and listen to the priest scream about fighting the devils that were everywhere. 

The “scourge” he’d called them.  Gre and his brother loved the sound of the word.  The hiss and roll as it came off the tongue. His brother had taken to calling him that as they’d grown up, both of them bursting into laughter afterwards.

Back then, he hadn’t known that drink could also be a demon.  Not then.  That came later.  A big demon with an insatiable thirst and good,sound reasons to imbibe.  He’d never really needed a reason though other than he just simply liked to drink.  So, that was one demon he’d secretly gotten on well with.

  The crusade against the Tribe had planted the seed that maybe what he’d been taught to believe wasn’t quite true.  But those thoughts had gone away easily enough with a few drinks. 

What he hadn’t realized…and what he was beginning to know now and painfully late in the bargain to boot…was all that ale and mead had simply watered that seed and allowed it to grow.

He was first aware of it when he’d seen Islinn and The Twiceborn together at Villum Creek.  And now here it was, all over again, written on Islinn’s face as she stared, wide-eyed, out onto the grasslands.  If he had to choose a word to describe her expression it would have been shattered.  Broken apart with all the pieces being held by another’s hand.

Gre turned and looked across the grasslands himself.  Yes, he knew demons.  Maybe there were many things he didn’t know and had only begun to suspect but one thing he was sure of was he knew a demon when he saw it.  And he was looking at one now.

One sauntering across the mud and grass with an arrogant smile in place and a sword that had been laughable only a short while ago but now appeared to be quite powerful.  And deadly.

And yes, Gre knew he was going to die out on this fool's journey how could he not when everyone he’d ever spent time with had told him so?  A cheap prophecy spoken by people he’d thought of as friends but cheap all the same. They’d culled it from their mind and spoken it in the tone of he-simply-doesn’t-know-any-better before shaking their heads and moving on.

And now here he was with a chance to change it all and make liars of people whose opinions had never truly mattered. And yet he couldn’t do it.

“Twiceborn!”  His voice rolled out as loud as the thunder and he watched as Aubery turned and glared.  Gre made sure he smiled big enough for the boy to see.  Because what nobody knew was Gre had just chosen to end his life on his own terms.  Instead of living on everyone elses.'

You’re going to die out there,Gre. 

Yes indeed he was.

He watched as The Twiceborn slowly turned and saw Aubery’s approach.  Gre's grin stretched a bit wider.

“Why?”  Islinn’s voice was incredulous.

“If he wants it badly enough, I’ll see him earn it.”  Gre replied and took another swig of ale.

                              ***********************************

     Alora turned and saw the boy approaching her through the rain.  She knew who he was.  He was the one Blixen had told her about, the one not to be deterred.

The raggedy boy.

Her lip curled.  All her confusion, and her  sense of something being not right, everything that had been easily explained away by rationalities now struck her hard like a blade to the heart.

He had been on her backtrail all along.

Her eyes darted to the left and she saw the other one.  With Islinn.  Regret flashed through Alora that the girl was going to see what happened next but it wasn’t enough to temper the anger she felt at losing Loki. 

The boy was almost trotting across the grass and his grin was hot and wild.  He wore his madness like a brand and Alora could smell him, copper and fire, as he approached.

She stood, almost casual, as he drew near and the smile on his face faltered a bit around the edges.  He had wanted easy.  It was written all over his arrogant cheekbones and stippled into the coward’s curve of his mouth.   But the shout from his friend had changed all that.   It was almost a shame that he wasn’t going to live long enough for that to truly take hold in his mind.

He stopped in front of her and his madness moved over her senses like a night wind through corn, rustling and whispering its song.  She waited as he slowly sized her up. 

“Oh,the stories the peasants tell…”  He said as he squared his feet in the mud and leveled his sword at her.  She smiled at the disappointment in his tone.  Her sword slid soundlessly from her scabbard and she cocked her head at him as she set herself.

 His madness was like a swarm of angry wasps in her head, made worse by the headache she still had, but it didn’t keep her from quickly picking through random thoughts and phrases and finding what simply felt right for the moment.

“Well, let’s see how you do raggedy boy, let’s just see how you do.”