Riven Wight

Sacred Sacrifices

Despite the fairly early hour of the day, the town was alive with people. Here, the earthiness in the air fell away, replaced with both the pleasant aromas and stench of people.
But Nikita paid none of the townsfolk any heed. She nearly barreled into a bakers’ apprentice delivering a basket of goodies. She bumped into a few others, but didn't bother with apologies. A couple of them shouted after her, some jeers about wearing ‘man’s’ clothes, others with expletives from nearly being bowled over. Others, even some who simply recognized her as she streaked past, cross themselves, hoping her family’s curse wouldn’t pass on to them from her proximity.
Cursed indeed.
She sped down the familiar paths, turning from a main cobblestone road onto an earthen backstreet. Penelope would be home at this hour, not at the shop.
The houses were packed together like gossiping crones. The houses were narrow, but two or even three stories tall. She skid to a stop in front of one of the doors. Panting heavily from the run, she pounded on it desperately.
It was only a moment before someone opened it, but to Nikita, it felt like hours. A girl a couple years older than Nico stood in the doorway, her dark hair piled atop her head in a tight bun. The skirts of her plain dress were hiked up so they didn’t brush the ground, and an apron protected its front.
Her blue eyes widened as she took in Nikita. “Mom!” she called over her shoulder before Nikita could speak. “It’s Kita! Something’s wrong!”
A woman who looked exactly like the girl, but somewhere in her late thirties rather than thirteen, rushed to the doorway.
“Kita!” The woman stepped out and grabbled the panicked girl’s shoulders with a firm gentleness. The scent of fresh herbs wafted from her. “What’s wrong?”
Nikita managed to tell her what had happened between huffs.
The healer wasted no time. She disappeared inside for a heartbeat, reemerged with a satchel slung over her shoulders, then raced off down the street. Nikita hurried after her. The younger girl hesitated, but then followed, too.
Nikita fought against telling the slower Penelope to hurry up.
“Should I… get Dr. Ashdown?” she asked instead, passing the older woman. She hated having to deal with him, but his sciences did have their useful moments.
“Not yet!” Penelope puffed.
Nikita took the woman quickly to Nico’s room. To her relief, he was still breathing.
Though sparsely furnished, the room wasn’t lacking its own spice of décor. Dried herbs hung from the ceiling, some half-plucked and others still leafy. Different stones Nikita had found and brought back to him decorated shelves their father had put up long ago. Books and stray papers piled high on his nightstand and small desk.
Penelope hurried to his bedside and placed a hand on his forehead. Her daughter hesitated at the doorway, shifting her weight and glancing about nervously.
“He doesn’t have a fever,” Penelope muttered. She tried to lightly shake the boy awake. This time, Nico groaned softly, but still didn’t open his eyes.
“I tried that!” Nikita snapped, fingers tangling in the short spikes of her hair.
“I’m aware, love.” Penelope said, her voice calm and soothing. She took his wrist and checked his pulse. “It didn’t hurt to try again.” She leaned down to him to better listen to his breathing. After a moment, she straightened and reached into her satchel. “Walk me through your morning with him. Leave nothing out.”
She told the woman every detail as Penelope pulled a bundle of herbs from her bag. She went to the desk, uncovered a singed plate, and lit the bundle on fire. Blowing it out, she sat the smoldering herbs on it, then brought the plate to the nightstand.
The scent of rosemary, cinnamon, and minty sage filled the room. The smoke coiled and spun in a gentle breeze from the open windows on either side of Nico’s bed.
She scowled as Nikita mentioned the child’s insomnia. “I’m only hearing about this now, why?” She gave Nikita a parental glare.
Nikita blinked at her. “He said he’d mentioned it to you already.”
She pursed her lips and shook her head. “Hasn’t said a thing.” She dug back into her satchel. “It’s quite likely his body is just forcing him to catch up on his sleep. Everything seems normal enough for him.”
“Besides not waking up, you mean?” Nikita growled.
Penelope sighed, then stood. Her gaze flicked to her daughter, who had begun to fidget nervously, glancing frequently toward the front door. “Celest.”
The girl stopped fidgeting, and focused on Penelope. “Yes?”
“Can you handle the shop today?”
Her face lit up with excitement. “Yes! I can do that!”
“Good. If anything comes up, I’ll be here.”
“What are you talking about?” Nikita asked as Celest rushed out of the house, spurred on by more than just her eagerness to show her independence.
The woman placed a gentle hand on Nikita’s shoulder. “I’ll stay here with him today, love. Keep an eye on him, so you can do what you need to do. There's else you can do for him right now. If anything changes that I can’t handle, I’ll fetch Ashdown.” The name came out laced with bitterness.
Nikita looked to her slumbering brother, and tried to swallow down the lump in her throat. “But don’t you have—”
“The only appointment I need to worry about today is Mrs. Woodsworth, and she won’t be by until after sunset. Celest can handle the rest until then.”
Nikita took a deep, steadying breath, then nodded reluctantly.
Penelope’s expression softened, and she pulled Nikita into a tight, motherly hug. Nikita returned the gesture, burying her face in the familiar scents of the woman who had become like a mother to her and Nico.
“He’ll be fine, love.” Penelope squeezed her a bit tighter. “Go, check your traps. Feed the chickens. Whatever you need to do. And”—she released Nikita to pull a compressed, earth-toned pellet from a hidden pocket in her skirts—“give this to Oscar for me.”
Nikita took the pellet. About half the width of her palm, a few stray bits of grass poked out of it. “What is it?”
“A special sugar cube mixture.” Penelope smiled, then went to a rocking chair in the corner, its seat stacked with spare blankets.
Nikita left, habitually closing the door half-way. She hesitated outside on the back porch. She gripped the rails hard, taking deep breaths. Her teeth clenched in her fight against her tears.
Just sleeping, she told herself. He’s just sleeping!
She took another deep breath, squared her shoulders, then made her way to the caravan-shed. She’d taken care of the animals already before the sun had fully risen, but Penelope was right; while she didn’t have any paying work today, she did need to check her traps. She had a few simple ones set up about the woods. It had been a couple days since she’d last checked to see if they’d caught anything.
Over the years, she’d managed to shove her fear of the forest and the elves it concealed to a nagging echo in the back of her mind. All the same, all but two of her traps were just barely far enough from town for smaller animals to abandon some of their caution.
A part of her had always longed to venture further, had missed the roaming freedom when she'd lived in the caravan, never knowing what kind of magnificent view she would wake up to next. She wished that Nico could've had the same. But the chains of the town's "common sense" tethered her closer to home.
She strapped both a dagger and a machete to the belt of her pants, then grabbed a sled from where it leaned against one of the walls.
She dragged it toward a path her boots had worn down between the trees. She stopped at the stables to give the tablet to their horse, Oscar. They greeted each other as old friends, the horse the last living creature from a past perhaps best forgotten.
She patted the side of his neck, then headed into the woods. Though it was a bit warmer between the trees than out in the open, she shivered as she entered the shadows.
She took up another song, this one in a language she didn’t know. Her mother had always worn a secret smile when she’d sung it, though, and claimed it came from across the oceans. Now, its sorrowful drone would hopefully alert any potential hunters in the area that she was not wild game romping about.
With the sled dragging noisily behind her, she made her way to the first of her traps.

Sacred Sacrifices

'Kay 'kay! Got that edited in my first paragraph! :-D I think that was the only spot that needed it.

Say, in case you didn't realize it (I know that different electronics load things differently), the site doesn't automatically add any spacing with paragraph breaks. That has to be done manually on here with a double return. Hope it isn't rude of me to say anything! I know that a lot of other writing sites/documents will add that extra space automatically, but here it winds up being just shy of a giant block of text without it. Well, when read on my electronics, anyway. Might be your intention, might not, but thought I'd point that out!

Should have my next IC post up in... let's say half an hour-ish, distractions allowing!

Sacred Sacrifices

The air always smelled of brine and earth. It was an odd combination, but one that Nikita had long since grown to consider as the smell of home. She opened the last of the windows in their three-roomed cottage. Summer's heat had been teasing them lately, but the cooler weather of spring wasn't quite ready to let go yet. A chilled wind blew in off the sea, staving off the waiting summer and flooding the stuffy cottage with its freshness.
Penelope, the town's healer, always claimed that the fresh air would do Nico good, and the more the better. Besides, having the windows open made the heat from the stove almost bearable.
The sunlight caught in her eyes, intensifying their already vivid green. The silver specks in them glittered as if competing to outshine the sun’s brilliance.
She hurried back to the wood-burning stove. Eggs sizzled on the skillet. She’d even managed to purchase a few slabs of bacon, which already sat separated on two ceramic plates at their table.
“You up yet, Nico?” she called, stirring the eggs.
An indistinct grumbling floated from behind the half-open door of what was once intended to be a ‘nursery.’ Now, it was simply Nico’s room.
She’d gotten the same answer when she’d gone in there to open his windows.
“I’ve got to get some wood split today,” she went on. “Feel like coming out with me? You could do with getting some sunshine.”
“There’s already too much sunshine.” This time, she made out his whining answer. “Sunshine belongs outside, not inside!”
“Your windows face North.”
“Bright is bright in every direction! …Do I smell bacon?” His tone changed instantly.
“Get changed, and you’ll find out!” Satisfied the eggs were done enough, she took the pan to the table and dished them out on either plate, one more heaping than the other. “I put your clothes on your—”
“I know, Kita.”
“Then shut up and get ready for the day!” She placed the now empty skillet back on the stove. “Just because the moon’s asleep, doesn’t mean you should be, too!”
“Yeah, yeah.”
She pulled one of the four chairs out from the table. Though once a fairly fine thing, time had worn it down, and its wood glistened from the oil of many hands and meals. She paused, listening to the rustles of Nico getting out of bed. Rather, listening to make sure it didn’t sound like he needed her help.
She bit her tongue to keep from asking if he needed help. He'd been getting testy lately about her always asking. Not that she could blame him, really.
It always took him a while to get ready. She stepped to his door at the familiar tap of his crutches on the floor, then opened it wide as he reached it.
The boy limped into the main room and to the table, his weight supported between all his limbs using the crutches. He was short for his age, and, while his clothes hung loosely, his skin clung tightly to his fragile-looking form. Nico sat in the chair she’d pulled out, then leaned his crutches against the side of the table.
Nikita joined him. She sat across from him and pushed the fuller plate toward him. No matter how much she fed him, she could never get the skeletal ten-year-old to gain weight.
He reached for one of the wooden utensils in a cup at the table’s center. He eyed the food suspiciously, then poked at one of the thick slices of bacon. “How’d you afford this?”
Though having meat on the table wasn’t a surprise in itself, it was always from the local game Nikita hunted. Pork was much harder to come by here in Baxtree. The only farmer nearby with pigs for slaughter was, on the best of days, a greedy man—even when dealing with people who weren’t believed to be cursed.
She shrugged, selecting a spoon of her own. “Sold my soul to Mr. Grayson.”
“I knew he was a demon!” His coffee-brown eyes widened in exaggerated shock. His thin lips formed into an almost perfect O, creating darker shadows in his already sunken cheeks.
Nikita laughed at the ridiculousness of the expression. “Steven gave me some hours unloading cargo at the docks. Felt like celebrating.” She pointed her spoon at his plate. “Now stop complaining, and eat before it gets colder!”
He rolled his eyes, but tucked into the mound of scrambled eggs. She watched him for a moment, making sure he actually ate. The circles under his eyes looked darker than normal; he’d been having troubles sleeping lately.
As thin as he was, she could see the shadow of their late father in his features. A strong jawline, with soft, hooded eyes. His pale brown hair matched hers, though he wore his longer than Nikita’s messy pixie cut. But he was as pale as their father had been (and Nikita was) tan, as frail as the man had been burly. Though they came from different mothers, even Nico's mother’s physique didn’t explain his fragility.
When they’d finished breakfast, Nikita helped him to the bottom step of the back porch. There, the stairs were half in the sun, half out. Their plot of land stretched out from the steps, partially hemmed in by the thick forest.
“Would you grab my book?” Nico asked, settling himself on the stair in the warmth of the sun. “The top one on my nightstand. Penelope said she was going to quiz me tomorrow,” he finished through a groan.
“Good, wouldn’t want you mixing up hemlock with basil!”
Nico glared at her. “Those don’t look anything alike!”
“Exactly! You just answered question one correctly!” She winked at him, then rushed inside to collect the book of herbs the healer had given him.
A couple years back, when Nico had first begun to show interest in learning herbal remedies, Penelope had taken him on as a sort of second apprentice. Nico had shown an aptitude in learning and memorizing, and took to the title with gusto.
She returned and handed him his book. The amethysts on the ring she always wore glittered in the sunlight as he took it. Not wanting to ruin the ring by wearing it while working, she twisted it from her finger and reached for the chain around her neck. Noticing Nico watching her, she paused. "Hey." Instead, she handed the ring to him. “Keep an eye on this for me, would you?”
He blinked at in in surprise, then, with a proud smile, took it and slipped it onto his thumb. Though it snagged on his knuckle, it hung loose beneath it.
Though she felt strangely naked not having the ring on her, she fetched the axe from the old caravan that had once been her home. Now, it was used as nothing more than a shed rotting beside their cottage. She paused only to slip on a pair of tattered work gloves.
Back outside, she glanced to Nico, who already had his nose in his book. She rested the axe on her shoulder and began to sing as she headed to the tree stump turned chopping block and pile of dry wood waiting for her. The pile was a lot smaller than she wanted, but it was all she’d managed to collect last year to let dry out for this season.
She could only hope she could either find more, or make what they had last the winter. But that was a worry for later. Right now…
“O out in the emerald wilds,” she stepped over one of their free-roaming chickens as it darted in front of her. “There once lived an old man strong.” She placed the first dried, cut log onto the stump. “His axe was sharp and polished,” she heaved the axe to her side, ready to raise it, “But it sung a sorrowed song.”
Tha-crack! The axe split part of the dry wood with one hefty, practiced swing.
“For the blood of the trees, it cries out,” she whacked the log a second time in-tune, and it split in half, “It begs for life restored.” She tossed the wood into a bin opposite the log pile. “But winter’s breath was nearing;” She thumped another log atop the stump, ever in time with the song, “Time, he could not afford.”
“So chop! chop! went his sharp axe,” Nico chimed in from behind her, his wispy voice a bit off-tune amidst her sweet notes. Smiling, Nikita brought the axe down, accenting the slight pause in his words. This one split enough in one swing for her to pry it the rest of the way apart. “And the cries of nature’s skin—”
“Rang loud in the emerald wilds,” she continued with him, bringing her axe down again. “Spreading word of the strong man’s sin.”
She paused in her work, turning to Nico as they took the first refrain together:

“But warmth and light is worth the fight
Before Winter’s callous cold.
For in the blight before the light
Our hope’s worth more than gold.”

He met her gaze, and they shared a warm smile. She winked at him again, then set back to work. She sung all the while, the tale of the woodcutter long and filled with both horrors and joys. Each time she reached the refrain, she stopped singing, letting Nico take up the lyrics.
Then, as she paused for him near the end, his voice didn’t pick up the song.
“Nico?” She stopped and looked over her shoulder. Her heart jumped into her throat.
Nico had slumped bonelessly against the railing of the stairs, eyes shut. His book laid on the ground, splayed open.
She tried to swallow her panic as she dropped her axe and rushed to him. He needed sleep, and she’d been singing, after all. But still, fear churned in her stomach.
“Nico.” She shook him gently by the shoulder. “C’mon, let’s get you inside to bed.”
But Nico didn’t stir.
“Nico?” she tried again, breathlessly. She shook him harder. “Nicodemus Norman!” Panic squeezed her chest and narrowed her world to include her brother, and nothing else. “Nico, if you're messing with me, this isn't funny!”
But it wasn't a joke. He was breathing, that much she could see. But no matter how hard she shook him, he wouldn’t wake up.
She easily scooped him up in her arms, his body so thin she could feel his ribcage though his tunic. “Come on, Nico, stay with me!”
She needed the healer. And maybe the doctor, too.
She rushed into the house, kicking the door open, not caring if it damaged the jam. Not wanting to risk jarring him by running him to Penelope’s house, she placed him gently in his bed, then raced out of the cottage, praying to whatever higher power would listen that Nico would still be alive when she returned.

A Note About the Song

If you want a tune for the song, I wound up writing it with the tune to Ed Sheeran’s rendition of “Hands of Gold” in mind. xD I was listening to it being sung by Peter Hollens, and the tune got stuck in my head.

Sacred Sacrifices

Nikita Norman

Full Name: Nikita Sinra Norman

Nickname(s): Kita

Age: 21

Race: Human

General Appearance: Height: Average height at 5”4’ Weight: 150lbs—she has a fair amount of hidden muscle mass. Build: She's on the petite side. Hair: Pale brown like her father’s, she keeps it in a long-ish, spiky pixie cut, ensuring it’s short enough to not be a huge bother… but, regrettably, short enough to get her some flak about it being a “man’s hair length.” Eyes: She inherited her mother’s eyes. They’re a dark--and nearly ethereally--vivid green with silvery flecks. Anything Else: She's rather tan from working outdoors, and, though it doesn’t show unless she’s using her muscles, she’s quite strong from doing a lot of fieldwork.

Distinguishing Marks: Her hands are calloused. She has her fair share of scars from random mishaps, including one just beneath her left jaw joint that she swears itches in prediction of rain.

Clothes Wear: Never anything fancy, though she’s partial to wearing pants. You try chopping wood or hunting in a dress.

Prized Possession(s): A ring she inherited from her mother. Its silver band is inlayed with small purple stones Nikita believes are amethysts. Her mother always claimed that it was magic, though, if it is, Nikita has never been capable of making it do anything besides stay on her finger. So she’s pretty sure that that was just a fable. If it isn’t on her finger, then it’s on a chain around her neck.

Occupation: Whatever odd jobs she can get around town with having the reputation of being ‘cursed.’

Weapon(s): Depends on the situation. She has quite a few sharp pointy things around their cottage she could use, as well as a bow and arrows for hunting. And she'd be happy to use any of them in self-defense if she needed to.

Personality: She’s usually the determined sort, who has come to not take “no” for an answer. She’d always been a wild whirlwind, though that temperament has been somewhat suppressed over the years. While she tries to be positive, a weight lingers on her shoulders, and pulls at the edges of her every smile. She’s the caring sort, and, since she herself has been through so much, hates seeing others suffering.

Quirks: She often fidgets with her ring, and can frequently be heard singing or humming one of the many folk songs she learned growing up, some in languages from around the world that she doesn’t understand, but still knows the lyrics to… though, she’s sure she mangles pronunciation. And, one might add, she’s pretty good at singing. Her skills have even earned her a few coins.

Family: Parents (Deceased): Amira and Nicodemus III. Stepmother (Deceased): Marian. Siblings: Nicodemus IV. But he only ever goes by Nico. Nikita’s younger brother at age 10.

A Not So Short Bio: The people of her town call her family cursed—and she’s pretty sure they’re right.
When she was a child, she and her parents were nomads, moving wherever the wind took them, meeting new people with each turn of their head and making friends as naturally as breathing. Her house was a small, but cozy caravan pulled by two horses. Sometimes, they even traveled with others, though they never stayed together for long.
But then, when Nikita was eight, the unthinkable happened. They’d stumbled on a “small gem of a town,” as her mother put it. Known to the locals as Baxtree, it was nestled between a lush forest and the undulating sea. Back then, they hadn’t known the warnings, hadn’t known exactly how dangerous that forest could be.
But the forest didn’t let them remain naïve for long.
Having befriended the town’s healer, the woman offered to watch Nikita so her parents could have some time to themselves. Alas, instead of utilizing the time to walk the beach as the healer had suggested, they decided instead to investigate the forest.
It was rare, townsfolk said afterward, a freak happenstance; elves hadn’t ventured so close to the town in generations. Yet, it seemed, that night they had.
Though two of them had set out, that night, only her father returned, his foot caught in the reins of his horse as the half-mad creature dragged him through town. They had never been capable of getting a clear idea of what had happened, but one thing was discernable in Nicodemus’ pain-induced rantings; they had encountered two creatures somewhere on a game trail they'd followed, two creatures whose descriptions fit with the elves known to live deep in the heart of the woods.
After, her father could remember only bits and pieces. Nikita was never sure if the elves had killed the woman outward, of if it was a curst that had done her in. But they did find the mangled body of both her mother and the horse she’d been riding.
Alas, her father never fully recovered, needing a cane on his best days. Though, he’d admitted, even if he’d been healthy, he wouldn’t have wanted to leave where his wife was buried. And so, Nikita became a denizen of Baxtree.
The clergy of the town took pity on them, offering them a plot of land at the edge of town in exchange for a percentage of anything they grew on it, or anything they hunted in the outskirts of the forest until they paid off their debt.
Her father did everything he could to provide a decent life for her, encouraging Nikita and teaching her things that many of the town called “man’s work.” At first, it seemed like the effects of the curse, if that was what had happened, had ended with her mother’s death. Her father remarried two years later to a woman who had sailed in from another country. Not long after, they had a son.
A woman coming from a bit of money, he and his new wife, Marian, had a small cottage built on the plot of land, replacing the caravan. After all, as a growing family, the needed the space.
But that family wasn’t to last.
Nicodemus IV was born a sickly thing. At first, they hadn’t thought he would survive, but, through some miracle—or perhaps curse, depending on how you look at it—the child survived.
When Nikita was fourteen, Marian was struck with an illness neither the town healer nor doctor had ever seen before. The woman wasted away slowly. Then, with the earth of her grave still fresh, Nikita’s father contracted the same disease.
While some of the braver townsfolk came to help, including the healer, no one else dared come near them for fear of this curse spreading. But it never did.
Nikita’s father died before her fifteenth birthday, leaving her and Nico to fend for themselves. Though the healer kept a close eye on the children, neither of them caught the disease.
From then on, Nikita did everything she could to take care of her brother and herself. She took what odd jobs she could, though finding them was difficult. No one wanted to risk the spread of whatever curse had befallen her family.
It was her and the all-but-bedridden Nico against the world. But now, even he seems to be crawling ever closer to Death's eager embrace.

Sacred Sacrifices

... I originally put my IC post here, but forgot to swap the starting tab to IC rather than OOC. But! Here's the thread!

Man, it felt nice writing a poem! Well, song, but poem. I haven't written one of those in ages, it feels.

"Nick" decided that he'd rather be Nico on me, so name change, there. And changed Kita's age to 21. Minor thing, but realized that made more sense in her timeline.

And I forgot to ask what season we'd be starting in, so plugged in late summer. Let me know if you'd rather something else, and I'll go in and edit that!

@rise13eyond

New here

@GrimalkinI LOVE YOUR USERNAME!

Also, welcome to the guild!

Ye Ol' Name Change Request!

@LegendBegins Thank you very much! I appreciate you taking the time to do that. 🖤 Have a great weekend!

Changing Your Username?

@Wolf Mother All the same, thank you so very much for answering it here! Maybe it will help someone else out, too, since it's a bit buried. I hadn't even considered checking that particular page on my search for other requests.

Thanks again! 🖤

A Land of Wonder and Nightmare

Elayra cringed when Ghent’s knee smacked the edge of the half-wall. She had to at least give him some credit; he hardly reacted to the hit, and did, at least, manage to stay on his feet.
“Quite the acrobat, Featherhead,” she muttered, smirking, as he drew even with her. She turned to follow him. Ahead, Drust stepped into the narrow, decay-scented alleyway.
Realizing there was a last, important warning they’d forgotten to give him, she reached out to grab Ghent’s arm.
“Ghent.” She leaned in close so he’d hear her whisper. “If… if you’re not used to seeing death,” she began, a stiff solemnity replacing her playfully taunt, “keep your gaze locked on one of us, and nothing else. And use this.” She tugged at the hood on his shirt. “It’ll help.”
A low, but shrill whistle drew Elayra’s attention to the alley.
Drust, the source of the whistle, glared at them. His head jerked in gesture to follow. With a secondary twitch, his scowl momentarily twisted into something more sinister.
Elayra prodded Ghent onward. She took a deep breath, taking in a last lungful of this fresher air, then followed.
With glass shards spearing out of one side, the alleyway wasn’t large enough for them to walk side-by-side. Elayra settled on keeping Ghent in the center—though closer to Drust, from the back, she could keep an eye on him. On both of them.
The town’s stench amplified in the narrow space. A few bones littered the earthen entrance, though whether they were human or animal, she couldn’t tell.
Drust paused at the exit. He held a hand to his side in gesture for his charges to stop, then peered cautiously into the wider street beyond. Satisfied, he beckoned for them to move on, then entered the backroads of the town.
Elayra hesitated, steeling herself for what she knew awaited them. She made sure her hair would help conceal her uninfected eyes, then followed. In the wider road, she moved to walk beside Ghent, keeping as close to Drust as she dared.
A main cause of the town’s stench became immediately evident; the Cursed didn’t bother to bury their dead.
Corpses in various stages of decomposition lined the road like macabre snow-drifts. More bones and a few fleshy limbs spilled over into the cleared center of the road—some attached to bodies, others not. Blood and other things Elayra didn’t want to contemplate pooled in the cracks of the broken cobblestones.
Flies buzzed about in swarms. Startled at their approach, a rat hissed threateningly from near a pile of half-eaten bodies. The size of a small housecat, thin veins of black wove through its fully red eyes.
Drust growled down at the thing, then hissed back, his whole body twisting menacingly with the sound.
Elayra nearly tripped on the rat as it fled, scurrying between her and Ghent’s feet. It dragged something rust-colored along in its mouth, leaving a glistening trail in its wake.
Elayra swallowed back bile. She struggled to not react, to not let herself think about what they were walking through.
The Curse-ridden relished in this. The smell of death. The décor of liquid life. The cries of anguish and agony.
Violence. Chaos. Ruin.
It was a truth Drust had made sure she understood long ago. But knowing that had never lessened the impact of seeing it like this.
Outside of cities and towns, the damage was minimal. The wilds were more wild, yes, but it was open space with mostly animals to deal with. Nature did its thing there, time burying the dead itself. But here, it was condensed, trapped inside the walled streets and spurred on by the creativeness of the human minds the Crimson Curse had warped.
Even if the town center was only a block over, it still wouldn’t have been close enough for Elayra’s liking.

Ye Ol' Name Change Request!

Hello! Could I bother someone to change my username to Riven Wight?

Many pleases and thank yous!