Random Rainimator Stories

The Plague Doctor and Me

Inspired by the concept for the book The Salt Grows Heavy. This is more of a ship story if we're being honest. I can't write as poetically as the author of the book. Please don't sue me.
Part two of this story is not planned, but I haven't even read the book from which I got the idea. I'm just going off the sample I read, so bear with me here.
Unlike the other stories in this book, this one is in first-person, from Hilda's POV. Did I capture her canon personality? Probably not. Will I ever write in first-person again? Also probably not.

"Where are you going?"

The voice had come from behind, but I didn't turn. Instead, I looked at the Frostbourne's ruins, the taste of ember lingering in my mouth. I wouldn't blame anyone for mistaking the castle for the remains of a giant's body. Its door was a gaping mouth, its charred roof a half-broken skull, its chimney a hand reaching for the heavens. Then, there was the environment the giant had died in. Bones and flesh littered the ground like stars in the night sky above. Smoke from lingering fires pulsed through the air, reaching for me like a hand trying to pull me underwater, to drown me in its dark abyss. The snow had been burnt away, becoming soft and mushy against charred green blades. It was a sore sight to see.

"My apologies. I forgot you can't talk anymore," the voice spoke again. I finally turned, eyeing the source with a narrower face.

The Occult Doctor. My plague doctor. A creature that defied the boundaries of male or female, a creature that was none at all. In all my years of living, I had never met a being as calm as Nostra. There were times when fear captured their face like an old painting, but nothing could truly capture their true beauty other than the naked eye.

Their face, however, was obscured by the renowned mask they always wore, the only thing left of their mother who died so long ago. They scanned around the ruins of the Frostbourne. Once upon a time, the faction flourished against all odds in the wintry biome. A place so bare and empty during the worst seasons, where Humans had been surviving since the dawn of time. Yet, some things aren't meant to last forever.

I was once a proud member of the Frostbourne. They called me the Frostbourne Shieldmaiden. However, I was taken prisoner by the Nether Empire not long ago. Taken by a vile piglin named Hogsworth, the same piglin I had defeated in battle a while back. How he escaped his prison cell, I will never know. I was chained to the wall in my prison cell, hanged like a roasted pig on display for all to devour. I was questioned every single day until they had no use for me. It wasn't long before they served me a tongue. A rich delicacy covered in spices from the finest parts of the Nether, a meal as hot as the blazing sun above. I would have been honoured if it weren't my tongue I was being served.

After that, I was dumped. Discarded and thrown back into the otherworld like a useless scrap. Perhaps that is how the Frostbourne saw me, not daring to even plan a rescue for me. Perhaps that is how the Nether Empire saw me, something that ran out of its resources once it was used up.

Either way, my former home was in ruins. The Nether Empire had questioned me well, for they had set off to destroy the Frostbourne once and for all straight after dumping me for dead. With everything I knew about my faction, they were easily successful in their mission. Perhaps we would have had a fighting chance if the Frostbourne had bothered rescuing me. It didn't matter anymore, nobody was left. As far as I could tell, they were all either dead, fighting somewhere else, running away like cowards or standing right next to me, eyeing me like I was a saviour to rescue them in this nightmare.

At least, that's how Nostra's face looked behind the mask, the glass of each eye socket beaming in the hazy fires behind. I shot them a look back, but they stepped forward, seemingly unafraid. Well, what could I do anyway? I was nothing but a mere woman, stripped of her powers in an old life long ago, stripped of her weapons in this life so recently.