Unia: Echo of Harmony

The Fall of the Old Order: The Dance of the Harvest. Act 2

The scene was hauntingly familiar to Ruy—a scene he had witnessed countless times in the aftermath of his merciless campaigns. The marauder had razed villages, slaughtered their inhabitants, and left behind a trail of despair so many times that the sights of grief and helplessness seemed as rehearsed as the sun rising. This woman's slow, faltering approach was no different from the many he had seen before: her empty gaze fixed on nothing, oblivious to the chaos around as well as the threat that loomed in the form of the invader before her.

The man's cold, calculating stare sharpened as he studied the horned woman, as if assessing the worth of a trophy before claiming it. Whether intact or severed, he had seen so many of these faces that his eye had learned to discern their features with practiced ease: the high cheekbones, the deep curve of the flat nose, the wide empty eyes—all marked the figure before him as the daughter of the antlered giant whose blood still clung to his blade, the warmth of life at his feet that is soon to fade.

As her shuffling steps ceased and this broken soul collapsed to her knees before the body at the outsider's feet, there were no screams, no curses—only the dull moans of someone who had never known the brutality of war, and now faced it for the first time. She wept as only those unacquainted with cruelty could, the tears flowing like a river of innocence in a world that had no place for it.

This child of forests likely viewed the world with the same skyward vision her father had, an outlook untouched by the human perspective, where cruelty was not just a part of being, but its very foundation. The fleeting memory of the old forester's dying look, filled with pity instead of hatred, caused Ruy's teeth to grind, but the sight of the crying woman restored his calm. A crooked grin spread across the man's face, the kind that stretched the scars on his cheeks, deepening the lines etched by years of violence. The thought of her naivety amused Fuerte, as did the knowledge that she would soon learn the harsh realities of her new state.

This peaceful forest dweller couldn't have known that instead of the swift end she probably expected, a far crueler fate awaited her—a long, torturous existence as a slave, if lucky, to a merciful master. Nor could this unfortunate soul have realized that, until she was sold, her life would belong to the very same invader who had just slain her father. The old hornbearer's actions had fractured something within Fuerte, leaving a void that he did not fully comprehend. Now, all that hatred, all that emptiness, had passed onto the daughter, as if by inheritance.

Mentally praising himself for this false nobility, the tormentor chose not to interrupt this spectacle. Instead, he savored the sight, letting the new slave's misery soak into his skin like a balm.

With grim satisfaction, he focused on the woman's features. To the average person, a woodland maiden might have seemed strange, her angular face grotesque. But years of raids and massacre had dulled Ruy's taste for human beauty, and he found something almost enticing in such an alien appearance.

His gaze slid from the woman's tear-streaked face down to her body, wrapped in a wide, thick mantle that concealed her form. But the conqueror's eyes had seen enough of her kind to know exactly what lay beneath the garment: a nearly flat chest with sharply defined nipples, greenish skin so thin that inhumanly wide ribs likely showed through. And lower still, a waist so slender it would be envied by any noblewoman, no matter how tightly she bound herself in a corset.

The thought of what lay beneath that waist set the man's veins aflame and flesh to swell, hardening with eager excitement.

In his anticipation, the antlered one's loins would be as delicate as an orchid, a flower whose petals he would tear away one by one. Dark delight filled him at this vision, a silent laugh echoing in his thoughts as Fuerte pictured defiling the horned elder's daughter right on top of her father's corpse.