Shimmer: Journey To Death

Exile

     I had been called by the Rippling Mane Council. It never meant something good when you were called by the council. The last time someone had gone they got killed for injuring a young centaur. I had no clue what I was being called for. Was it the demon attacks? I was cause of them. Everyone knew it.
     Before I had been born, there was peace with the String of the Rippling Mane, one of many Strings, and the largest group of centaurs in existence. Then, exactly fifteen years ago, I was born and the attacks began. Sporadic at first, they grew more frequent over time. The most recent had been yesterday. A fillie, a little thoroughbred named Thea, had been severly injured and was in a limbo with death.
     I was jarred out of my thoughts when I reached the tent that was so black it looked like a hole in the fabric of the world. I took a deep, shuddering breath and walked through the flaps of fabric that served as doors for the tent.
     Torchs were set on the support poles of the tent, but the color of the tent seemed to suck the light from the torches. I gazed at the council.
     My mother Fera Cabus, a percheron like me, was the head of the council and the alpha of our String. Her long chesnut hair was the same color her fur was when she was a percheron in her beastia, her eyes a liquid stone gray. As a mother she was warm and loving, but as the head of the council she was cold and unforgiving. My father Kritanta Biron, a black mustang, was not on the council. He taught archery. The other four council members of the council were in varying degrees of race, color, and mercy. Two were relatively forgiving, while the other two were only slightly kinder than my mother.
     "Colla Biron. You have been summoned by the Council of the Rippling Mane for your involvement in the demon attacks on this String for the past fifteen years." my mother intoned. "We were willing to overlook this as you were a child and no one was seriously harmed, but we reached the limit when Thea Frang was put into a death coma because of the attack yesterday. We must deal with the issue now." she continued.
     My heart dropped. They were going to exile me. I would be alone against the demons. I started to panic and only barely heard their verdict. It was guilty. The punishment was exile from the String. They said I could take my personal things and my hippogriff with me, and that I was never to come back, or I would be killed.
     I nodded and stumbled out of the tent. Tears blurred my vision. I would be leaving everything I knew and loved today. I would never return.
     My father had already packed my clothing and my brush. He had left my private things for me to get. I picked up the painting that had been done of my parents and I the day before yesterday.
     There was a stark contrast between my mother, her hair chesnut and her eyes stone grey, my father, his hair black and his eyes ivy green, and myself, my hair liquid onyx and my eyes running bloodstone. We all had big smiles on our faces. A tear rolled down my face, and I stopped it before it could fall on the painting. I was a percheron like my mother, my coloring mimicking my hair and eyes in human form, like everyone else.
     I went for my ebony bow next, engraved with galloping horses. I had received it from my father last year, as a mark of my mastery of the bow and arrow. My arrows I slung over my left hip in their quiver. I gripped my bow tightly. It would be hard to leave. I grabbed my journal so I would have something draw on…if I would be able to draw anything after today. I found all my pencils too, and my deer horn knife. My bow was useless without arrows and my drawing journal was useless without pencils. I slipped on my soft leather moccasins, pulled on fresh travel shorts, and slipped a thin, clean blue shirt over my head. I put the journal and pencils in my satchel and slung it's one strap over my chest from my left shoulder to my right hip. I put my bow across my back the same way I had my satchel strap on. Centaurs were generally archers, taught the art of the bow by Chiron, the Teacher, the legendary figure all centaurs worshipped.
     I was partially blinded by sunlight as I stepped out of our tent, and I paused to let my eyes readjust. I saw my father, my mother, and some of the archery students who were kinder to me. They had come to say good bye. The archery students gave me hugs first and left. I smiled at their warmth towards me, since almost everyone shunned me as the source of demon interest. My mother gave me hug, whispered good luck, and gave me good bye kiss on the cheek. I hadn't expected her to apologize for her decision to exile me. It was best for the String. My father hugged me tightly.
     His voice was choked as he said, "Son, be careful. Remember your bow. Marmalade will help you. She always has. You will be fine. Don't forget the things you can do with the dead. They will help you in the end. Just wait and see." He let me go and went into the tent.
     An escort had formed from the members of the String to see me to the edge of the camp. Centaurs were nomadic, never really staying in one place long. We walked slowly to the northern edge of camp, towards the rising sun. Everyone gave me a bit of food and water until they were all gone and I had enough food to last me a while without the need to hunt. My father had given me a flint start fires with.
     When we got to the edge of the camp, I saw a creature waiting for me. It was the size of an average horse, with the hindquarters of a horse and the head, shoulders, wings, and feathered legs of a hawk. Its feathers were a liquid onyx like my hair, streaked through with white and silver. It had eyes of liquid gold. The horse part was a slightly lighter black than the feathers. It was Marmalade, my hippogriff. She was one of few hippogriffs that was born with the Shimmer every year.
     Since I was born, Marmalade had been there. Always loyal waiting to help me if I needed it. I loved Marmalade more than anything in the world. She let out a cry that was a mix between a hawk's cry and a horse's neigh when she saw me. She trotted over and rubbed her head against my chest. I put my arm over her shoulders and started walking, side by side with my hippogriff.
     As I walked on in the direction of the sun, I saw no one around me. I did not look back. I would not. I walked on until the sun started to set, and the moon started to rise in it's place. I found a small cave in the side of a hill. I made camp in it after checking to make sure nothing else was in it. I ate a little piece of wheat bread and drank some water after making a pile of softgrass on the floor for Marmalade to sleep on. I led her outside to eat and curled up against her when we came back inside. I always slept with Marmalade at night. But right now I just couldn't sleep.
     As I lay awake for a few hours, the open space, loneliness, and night noises uncovered by my father's snore, mother's gentle breathing, and Marmalade's breathing in my ear keeping me awake, I heard rustling at the opening of the cave. I sat up and saw the segmented form of a demon, it's hooved fet clacking on the ground and it's clawed hands scissoring together I unslung my bow, nocked an arrow, and shot the demon. It died after a few seconds of struggling. I took the arrow from it's body, cleaned it, and put it back into the quiver. I raised my hands over it and concentrated, healing the hole in it's body and forcing what counted for it's heart to start beating again. I connected what little soul it had to mine in order to make it obey me. It was like stitching a piece of burlap to cotton. It always felt unpleasant to have the demons connected to me in such a fundamental way. I gave it orders to kill any other demons it saw.
     I lay back down and drifted towards sleep. A thought threaded it's way through my head. I could handle two or three demons on my own, but if there were four or five? Even nine or ten like had been attacking the camp recently? I would be killed. I could not handle more than five at the most on my own, and only then if they were slow or pretty far off where I could shoot them dead. I would not survive on my own, even with Marmalade helping me. I resolved to try and find others to come with me. We could keep each other safe, whoever I found.
     I finally fell into sleep, dreaming of a fire-breathing lion with a man's head and an icy serpent that treaded the sky.

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Hello readers. Hope you enjoyed this chapter. I will be updating on Tuesdays. (I'm never busy Tuesdays so...) Feel free to ask questions about the world the characters live in, beastias and humanarias, just whatever. I will explain in somekind of short extra chapter. See you next week!