Motivated by the Scars [Flashback/Solo]
Posted: Thu Jan 28, 2021 3:09 pm
The 9th of Ash, 114 Year of the Age of Steel
The Southwest Slums of The Free City of Antiris
The Southwest Slums of The Free City of Antiris
“Halt, thief!” The constable barked at the boy dashing through the marketplace. “Somebody grab him!” The officer cried out to the crowd of bystanders, most of whom seemed keen to get away from the soot-smudged child weaving his way between bodies and carts on his desperate path away from the law.
One samaritan took it upon himself to heed the constable’s call, grabbing at the boy and gathering up a handful of the fabric of his shirtsleeve. Arry spun around, a flash of golden eyes meeting the man’s brown, as he let the momentum propel him into the delivery of a reverse roundhouse kick to the man’s chest. The would-be do-gooder tumbled backwards, taking Arry’s sleeve with him on the way down, leaving the boy free to dart down an alleyway where he could accelerate and expand the distance between himself and his pursuer.
When he got back to the hovel he called home, he slipped inside, still panting from the impromptu sprint.
“Whew…” He sighed, and glanced up to check on his bedridden father’s state, but he found a strange figure seated at his father’s bedside. The figure had turned and golden eyes to match his own to peer at him from under the shadow of a silver-white hood.
“Arvine.” The voice that emerged from that umbra was deep, rich and feminine. The bearing that brought the figure to her feet was graceful… regal.
“M-... mother?” The smile of relief that he’d worn in, on the heels of his narrow escape, fell like a curtain. His eyes glistened with the threat of tears.
“You recognise me.” Cithaera’s smile was warm. Her eyes were a sunlit meadow on the cusp of Glade and Searing. Still, Arry let out a scoff.
“We don’t get many Hytori visitors…” He responded, absently hugging himself as sundry contradictory emotions flooded over and through him. “I’ve dreamt of this moment so many times, and I always ran into your arms. Now that it’s here, I-...”
“I understand.” She inclined her head, “Your father wrote to me.”
“He’s known where you’ve been all this time?” Arvine narrowed his eyes.
“Don’t begrudge him his pragmatism. He knew where I was, and that it would be dangerous to contact me- A gambit he was prepared to make, as he began to wither.” He glanced over her shoulder to his sleeping form and her fingertips grazed the faded rust of his hair.
“Can you help him?”
“He is beyond my help.” The Hytori said, plainly, but gestured to Arry. “You, however, are not.” She took a few paces toward him.
“Will you take me away from this place? Back to Sol’Valen to live with you? It’s so horrible here. I’d forgive you all those lost years if you’d just-...”
“Hush. I cannot grant you a new life, as you’d wish. I can only augment the one you have now. Sit.” She instructed, reaching into a pouch at her side and withdrawing a small tin and a slender, oaken stylus as he seated himself on the floor at her feet.
“Give me your hand.” She knelt before him and extended hers. After a moment’s hesitation, he reluctantly obliged. She took the back of his left hand in the soft palm of hers.
“What are you doing?”
“Affording you your endowment, my son.” She dipped the stylus into the contents of the tin. When she withdrew it, the tip was coated in some deep, crimson liquid, which she used to slowly etch a symbol onto her son’s gold-bronze flesh.
“That which I bequeath shall go hard, my child, but you’ll not endure it alone. I cannot remain hither for long. I cannot bring you home with me to live as the family we both dream we might be. I cannot be your family, but I will mother you in the harsh hours to come. I will remain with you until you’ve crossed the threshold and fought back everlasting night.”
“I don’t understand any of this…” The child lamented,
“Will you accept the gift of your ancestors?”
“What is it?”
“Puissance. Do you accept?”
Arvine shut his eyes tightly and took a breath. This long-sought-after moment had come and it was nothing like he’d dreamt. His mother looked much as he had imagined, but she didn’t cry or take him into her arms. She didn’t apologise or offer a sound explanation for her absence, as he’d always anticipated. There was an icy, reservedness… She looked, as he did, a creature of gold, but no- Gold was yielding. Cithaera was gold-plated steel.
“I accept.” He said, finally. The Hytori woman smiled and drew his arm toward her, leaning down over the etching and whispering- her hot breath pouring eldritch words over the liquid. Her incantation started as a whisper, and Arvine felt the liquid start to warm. As her volume rose, so too did the heat. Ere long it felt like his arm was on fire. He cried out!
When Arvine’s eyes fluttered open, he was in the bed where his father had lain and he was alone. The last thing he could remember was the touch of his mother’s hand and the searing pain that pushed all of his senses to their limit until all feeling abruptly stopped. He knew that it had been days. And he knew that he’d been awake in that time, but he couldn’t recall a single moment within that span. He sat up, realising his father’s absence could mean only one thing. And he’d never even gotten to offer him a proper goodbye. Another gift from Cithaera.
