Orphan’s Story
The Meeting
Keriss’ hand was suddenly filled with small needles and she released the child. Where a hand had been was now a bed of spikes, a sadistic smile came to the mother.
”Your powers are progressing well, Orphan. Now come, again.”
Without protest, Orphan got back up, raised her fists and went again.
Keriss has been gone a few hours now, almost five, so Orphan thought. She had yet to leave the spot where Vestec had taken her mother, just in case she would return, but it was getting late and the sun was setting on the horizon. It would probably be a good idea to find shelter to rest for the night. Making her way to a nearby tree, the child heard a stick snap and she whirled around to face the source of the noise.
She saw nothing but shrubbery, but something was watching her, she knew it. Her ashen arm morphed into a blade and the child waited, before she heard the lease of an arrow. Her cloak cut the arrow in half long before it could make contact, but that didn’t stop massive wolf-like forms to charge out of the brush. They indeed looked like wolves but the stood in their hind legs and had massive hands, Pack-minds.
Orphan dodged out of the way of the wolf that charged her, feeling her blade effortlessly slice through the beast’s leg, severing it from its body. It let out a howl of pain. Others came forward, throwing their spears but and running forth. The spears were all but sticks by the time they reached Orphan and the child ran forward to meet the beasts in battle. She morphed her hand into a mace and jumped up, her hand hitting the wolf upside the head. As it went down, Orphan used him to jump further, her arm becoming long and thin as she wrapped it around another’s throat.
She slammed that wolf into the ground and she heard a yap of pain behind her, one of the pack minds was skewered on a wall of spikes. There were a lot of these thing, and they were surrounding her, no longer so keen to move in to fight.
Then she heard sound, loud rattling followed by strange singing. Apparently it was bad enough that the wolves were sent scurrying away.
Orphan turned towards the location and saw a small frame on the cliff, resembling a bird somewhat. She stood there. The form moved off.
Confused, the child ran forward to find out what the form was and if it was the person who had drove the wolves off. She climbed to the top of the cliff, scaling it quickly with her enhanced strength, one of many perks that had been bestowed upon her by the divine. As she looked down the slope of the cliff she saw a fire at the bottom of it. The same bird form set next to it, along with a tent and several spears with something tied to them near the the blade. She could see the form turn to gaze upon her, but she didn’t move.
“Well? Are you going to come down or am I going to have a find a place where you won’t stare at me like a child?,” the being called to her, speaking the same language as Orphan but with a strange accent to it.
”I am a child.”The form dropped some food out of shock and stood up, he began to walk towards Orphan, slowly and cautiously. The child waited.
She could see him clearly as he got closer, he was about her size and had a cracked skeleton over him, she thought he was an undead.
”What are you?,”the child asked softly, not having seen a hain before.
“I guess I’m a hain. At least the last time I checked. Could’ve been turned into a talking frog though, stranger things have happened,” The hain said, inspecting Orphan with his eyes and seeing blood running down her ashen arm which she had tried to hide in her cloak. He tilted his head and chirped out a question, “I saw you fight the pack-minds. How were you fighting them off so well?”
”I trained“By who?”
“Whom.”“What?”
“I think you mean ‘by whom’.”“No, that’s not how you use whom. You use ‘whom’ when the answer calls for subject such as ‘him’ or ‘her’.”
”Oh.”“Now I ask again, who trained you.”
The child went into her standard greeting, bowing to the hain in front of her,
”I am Orphan, student of Keriss.” She looked up at the hain, his expression made him look like he had seen a ghost.
“Keriss?”
”Yes.”“The demi-goddess of pain, Keriss?”
”Whom other?”“Stop using whom like that.”
”I’ll try.”The Hain crouched down and stared at the ground, he didn’t know what to do in this situation other than to let memories come back to him. Terrible memories of a terrible time that he wanted to forget. Yet, it seemed like his last would catch up with him on this night as Keriss protégée stood before him.
”What’s your name?”“Kri’Tral,” he answered hollowly, still staring at the ground.
”Nice to meet you. Do you live around here?”Kri’Tral looked up at Orphan before standing back up, allowing her to distract him from the memories that had previously been overwhelming him. “No. I’ve been traveling… Want something to eat?”
”Sure. I’m tired too. Fighting those things made me tired.”So the two walked back to the small camp in silence then proceeded to eat in silence followed by more uneasy silence.
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