The Storm Lamb

Grey

Death was natural. Life was abnormal. A period where the nothing became a something and return to its original being, abnormal. It is this "something"'s acceptance and feelings toward its return that was amusing. The dead priest was missing a hand, his guts were hanging out. She knelt next to him, a grim and solemn expression as she eyed the steadily flowing blood from the void of his hand. 

"Why do you think he ran all the way here?" She asked quietly amongst the commotion, the sound of the thunder, groans, and screams, hoping to drop the question completely if he doesn't hear it. 

"I heard a lot of people want to visit you after hearing what you will do. Maybe that."

"He was bleeding and dying. I see no reason for him to-" She paused suddenly and stared deeper into his broken face. Her eyes widened and she whispered something under her breath. 

"What? I think we should get on with it." He said disinterestedly, having seen his fair share of magic-mutilated dead bodies by Westland mages, speculating that perhaps this was the first one she has seen.  

A faint glow still illuminates his necklace, the light reflected in her grey eyes. A compulsion moved her, she wrapped her hand around the spiked sun necklace, softly squeezed, gently lifted his head and removed the trinket from his neck. She remembered the words well, as she had read it about a thousand time, recited it for probably about a dozen times by now. 

"Souls flitter and bodies flutters, nothing shall remain when all is said and done. Sprinkle my ashes into the winds of the Storm and bless the lambs that follow it, for the end is never near because where my ashes remain matters not, my deeds shall outlive me. Thus I shall never die." She said every vowel weighing, swallowing the soreness of her throat with every pause. 

"Anoint his soul with light and bless it be...his life." 

Hail lay the necklace back to his chest and stared deeply into his face with crestfallen eyes. A silent whisper passed her mouth as she knelt before him, closing her eyes, she imagined him alive, his eyes wide open, to show that she could say the same thing to him even while he is alive, she uttered it again, but she stopped mid-sentence. She can't do it. 

She stood up to look at Eli. He gave no reply or expression, a blank look, devoid of judgment, exactly how she wanted it although expecting something different. They walked out of the hall in silence, even when they reached the courtyard, that had meant nothing to the sound of blades clashing, and the brewing storm. 

The colors of her perception returned to its usual greyness, the grass was grey, the flowers were grey, the sentries who were sliding off and impaled by swords and magic were grey, the people that held the swords and magic in their hands were grey, the people who lied unmoving was grey, even the blood was grey, all vibrancy that previously shrouded the world gone and fittingly bringing her soon to be companion along with it. The icy wind that dug into her which previously would have been met unfazed now shudders her to the bone. Through the killing and the storm calling with thunders, she barely heard or paid attention to Eli. 

"Our horses and belonging are at the stable, I packed beforehand, from my guess I don't think the Westland Mages are going to stop us from leaving."

She thought nothing of it. Something else, deep and disturbing was rumbling in her mind, characterized by her twisting expression. A storm was brewing. The first rain of the last was about to come. She continued to daydream about the viciousness of the rain as the wind grew stronger and more Westland Mages run into the castle. It didn't surprise her to see one dawdle a little and remarked in a rather friendly tone that their horses were waiting for them at the gate. 

No thoughts of the escape. Her mind only demanded refuge from thoughts and everything she was witnessing, so she thought about the physique of the horse and play in her mind how fast it would take for a horse to get there. But all she really desired was to shout until her throat bled, it wouldn't be release, but it would have felt like it. 

Eli was agitated by the scene despite his previous encounters with it, all these dead men, he actually knew some of them. He fidgeted a little as they continued to walk at a normal pace, past corpses, half-dead people clinging to lives, he frantically wriggled free of one holding his leg, less stoic than before. She saw a few familiar faces amongst the bodies, she first saw the King, a pathetic look on his face, the demanding and accusing look no longer there, yet that was what she drew attention to, another one, the advisor. He was dead as well. 

Their pale faces watched her and she watches back. Eli pulled her hand and only then she went. 

Four men were holding on their horses as the mage had said. They didn't speak as they handed the horses over, she stepped onto the saddle, paused and stared at the horse's head then at them, one of them took notice and winked at her, it was the moment that her face started twitching. 

She turned back and rode. 

Eli grimaced as they rode through the crowd, the two were knocking over merchants and beggars alike, it was all the same to his horse as he can hear the distinct sounds of bones shattering through other noise. And then through the accidental chaos, came another one. Murder. The man dons a dark red coat, his features were barely visible amongst the crowd and the lightless surrounding, but he held something that distinguishes him from everyone else, an axe. He watches with half interest as he sees red when it went down, he turned back as he tries to wade through the crowd with his horse, he had pulled his sword out and brought it down onto one who was trying to pull him off his horse. He turned and saw some men were standing atop boxes stack atop of wooden boxes screaming prayers as loud as they could, gesturing wildly at the sky and at the people that were fleeing from the pouring raiders. 

The senses started huddling into a logic, concluding in finality that all of these had something to do with the vaults and rain. These people were going to raid the vaults. And she was going to help them do it by her mere absence, the epiphany struck her the same way the might of the thunder did. 

The ringing of her eardrums began, subverting all living noises with its dead and monotonous ring, as she watches helplessly at the sea of people running again. Just like the village that ran, they ran, the same village that had sought solace in the capital had found chaos again, affirming the silent morbid idea she had in her mind. 

The rain had finally come, swept together by the wind, blowing fiercely into her face, moving her hair back and forcing her eyes tight shut. Eli looked back as he reduced his gallop to a canter, the mercenary companies pouring into the city from outside, there were no gates, the city was just a light in the middle of a storm-ravaged wasteland and the barracks was in the castle, no one would have expected this. He sighed as he felt the rain with his hand, the water fell between his fingers. It served as a minor distraction to the anarchy he was currently observing. 

"Why are they not running away from the city?" She muttered grimly. 

"I am sorry, again?" He shouted against the noise of the storm. 

And as the rain continues to clatter in the mud and men continues to move into the city from all sides, with axes and swords in hands, steel ready to see red, the red flowers on the ground blooming ever so brightly under the rain. And as the rain continues washing her hair down to her face, covering her eyes and masking the expression she made as she watched it all through the small gap of her hair, and she drops her head even lower. The silence extended to feel as if whatever that needed to be said was already said, she belatedly screamed. 

"WHY ARE THEY NOT RUNNING AWAY FROM THE CITY?" 

All the edges in her throat sharpening her trembling voice into a concoction of cold acrimony and burning rancor, it was as if every single scene in the narrative of this world was reinforcing her presumed selfishness, a congregation praying in unison for her to die so it can live. Eli gripped the rein of his horse by that, the acrimonious yell took him by surprise, for some second he tried piecing vainly words in his mind to explain. 

"I don't know. People can't just leave their home just because it's under attack, it's where they live. Think nothing of it. All will die one day. If the will of the Almighty is to let this land live, you will surely accomplish your task, but if it isn't, then they will die knowing that God had chosen this fate for them. They will die happy." 

She heard only some of what he said, however, every word he put out was obscured by the faint screams, clapping of thunder, and the sound of rain.