The Ashes Wake

Chapter 14: Romulus

ROMULUS
"There are fourteen languages used in the Realm. The most common, of course, being the creaturic script. The others belong to various species: the Death Collectors, Frozen Folk, Shadow wolves, and Pixies. As someone infatuated with vernacular, I know seven."

Passage from from The Realm's Many Tongues by Linguist Aston Hart
Published 6403 Year, Majira Season

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The foreign girl-creature was shrieking and spitting words out, surrounded by the forest trees. They were a mixture of her language and the shadow wolves', but it was jumbled and devoid of meaning. Blood not only covered her dress, but escaped from her eyes and mouth and nose as she spoke.

Then in an instant she transformed. Her limbs became branches and her fingers sproutlings. A face replaced hers, and Rom recognized the creature-a Ligna. His face had a familiar, earthy tone, and his eyes were as green as budding Eklorns. He wore brown pants and a belt of cherrywine flowers while his chest was bare, a muscled mass of intwined vines. A wide breach of trees behind him revealed a hut of twigs and caked dirt. Rom knew he was no stranger to that either.

"Who you...are?" Rom shouted at the Ligna in his newfound tongue, the words clumsy and thick.

His viridescent eyes found Rom's in an instant. His voice was raspy as he spoke, like sand reeds brushing against each other in a novus wind. "You don't belong here, kitsu. No matter where you go in the Realm, it will never be your home." The Ligna turned around, looking at the hut. The door pushed open and Alpha Alaric padded out into the snow on this thick paws.

"Do not let my daughter taunt you, pup. She was born with a snarl in her muzzle," he said.

When he had gotten his last word out, Armina bursted through the trees and sprung for her father's throat. Blood spurted onto the ground as she ripped through his flesh and fur. Alpha Alaric fell to the ground in silence, landing in the plush snow. The Ligna watched silently from the side as Armina licked her muzzle and turned her gaze on Rom. She let loose a growl and sprung, claws outstretched, surely about to end him as she did her father-

Rom awoke in a gasping sweat, the fur on his head matted and drenched. For once, he was thankful that most of his shadow wolf pack stayed clear of him. At least that way he slept alone, and didn't have to share his night terrors. This one most certainly was the worst; too many shattered memories and worries combined into one. Every time he closed his eyes the strange, basilisk creature was there with her odd words and bloody dress.

Rom was sure he knew the Ligna-perhaps before he was found by Alaric and the Shadow Pack-but it wasn't as if that answered other questions about his past. He had tried to train himself to leave his wonderings of a mother or family behind. For a horrible moment, laying in a mixture of sweat and snow as his other pack members were curled up together, he felt sorry for himself.

A Duchare's cry sliced through the icy haze of the night, making Rom start. He forced any feelings of sadness away. It was dangerous to be anything but cold and hard in the Frost Forest, and there was already enough danger with missing sentinels, an Alpha that wanted his throat, and a strange girl-creature that had stumbled into their lands.

When Rom had gotten back to camp after burying her, he half expected Alpha Armina to kill him right there with every wolf watching. Thankfully, she'd been busy speaking with the search party she'd called back, informing them there'd be no further exploration for the missing sentinels. Despite his loathing for the Alpha, the pain in her eyes at the acceptance of her disappeared love, Ash, made some sliver of Rom feel sorry for her.

Afterwards, the pack had returned to standard routine and hunted for a meal, which once again proved no challenge due to novus. Rom himself caught a small Miskat while it was feeding off berries in the brush. It was too preoccupied to see Rom's paw as he smacked it against a tree trunk, breaking its neck.