A bit of writing on an old project. All you need to know to follow this segment is that sedo is a mortal race of people, and that the sedo feel that the immortal Shiiten-sa are demons.
Otherwise I've been working with this overarching story line since I've been 17, so just think back to anything else you might have seen or heard from me that was Oria related.
Updated 3/25/09
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The air was clear, and the demon was silent. So Faruhar began running.
The town gave itself over to the tree line within seconds, and then she was running steadily through the forest, a smile on her face.
She jogged on, one minute, five, fifteen. Her legs propelled her forward of their own accord. Her mind only busy enough to keep her away from human settlement.
The sky changed from gray to white to blue between the blurred branches. When darkness came, she closed her eyes, and she kept moving: instinct guiding every muscle. She dodged trees, and her other senses began to sharpen. She could sense the presence of life easier now. She felt she could go on for years like this; perhaps she has done so before.
Her mind began to wander, and she let the demon take reign of her mind. Sense of time became blurred. Perhaps she hunted, perhaps she slept, but mostly she kept moving. The air was clear when she ran.
She just wanted freedom: to be worn down, to find herself panting at her limit, hungry and tired. It didn’t happen often. She craved it, just as she craved remembering the day before. She was tired of today and it never changed.
She watched herself as an observer. Emotions shifted with every rush of hormone, ray of sunlight and breath of air. The mortal part of her mind was so quick to forget it's own contradictions. She was her own prey, eating her own dark emotions and reseating them with digested apathy. The Shiitensa filled her lungs for days, possibly weeks until she sensed a destination to the movement of her feet. No, not a destination: a man.
The leaves cracked under her as she approached a tree line. a horizon. a cliff beneath her, air under her. she slid down and grabbed a branch, twisting down to the next. She came down quickly, and smiling, rolling and grinding down to a river beneath her.
He stood a few feet away, in front of the river. She expected to surprise him, but he was looking up as if he expected her. His presence still seemed masked but not with a signature she recognized. She wasn't even sure it was magical. Was he mortal? He wasn't demon, at least like any she knew. He wasn't like Reic. His skin was pale as his hair golden, but not surreally so. He was mortal... and a little of something else.
She said nothing, but just stared him down with the yellow-green demon unsuppressed in her gaze. She stood tall, and moved closer, close enough for him to feel her breath on his face as she exhaled a strangely slow, unnatural breath. Though the wind tosses his blond curls around him, his muscles remained fixed.
She could intimidate most other men and women, not this one. She sensed no fear, at least no more than a hint of it, but one well within his control. He said nothing as well. A smile crept along the edge of his mouth as he looked her over. Mostly he just held out his curiosity, the usual hatred, although in a very small dose, and stranger yet… peace… recognition even. He knew her, or at the very least, he thought he knew what she was.
Good thing he was alone.
He smiled and spoke quietly. “Would you draw your sword?”
How strange his voice was. His request was made as if he had just asked a friend to join him for a hot meal and conversation. The meter of his voice was so human, but the implication unearthly.
. He carried no weapon. But whoever or whatever he was, she did not take him for a fool, at least not the usual sort.
She felt the weight of a bag, and she slide it from her back and tossed it to the base of a tree. She took her sword, turned it, and handed him the blade.
“I don't want you to surrender” he said.
“I'm not” she said.
He didn't take the weapon, so she dropped it and stood back. A knife dropped from her belt in one fluid movement.
“That is not your sword.” He protested.
“A knife is too much already, and only acceptable if you know how to use the weapon you request of me.” She nodded to his empty hands.
He shook his head: “I have no need of it. I’d ask that you would honor me with a weapon nonetheless.”
She shook her head politely and took a step back. “Respect is earned, not granted”. She moved to resheath her knife, but in the snap of a twig, he was upon her, knocking the knife from the hilt. The knife was in the air and headed down towards her as he kicked her squarely back.
He made contact. She couldn't help but be intrigued.
She fell back on her heel and propelled herself forward again, and grabbed it the knife in the air and kept it from it's target, holding it between them. He gave her room to do so, expecting her move and trying to block it.
She was too fast, but just barely. He had just earned her respect.
“Draw your knife then” she breathed. “I can smell it”.
He eyed her suspiciously. She kept her distance as he reached down to his boot, and unsheathed a knife. She gave him a nod, he returned it, and then she attacked.
She tried to read him but found it much more difficult than usual. He neither relished her fear nor gave her his own, and nothing on his correlated with or anticipated his movements. He would block, turn, in the direction that made sense. He would punch or kick when she gave him flirtations of open flesh. But there would always be a twist of unexpected.
She was loving this.
He fought with his own power, and it was beautifully strong, but limited. She guarded the force of her attacks, and felt him out… slowly at first, but although panting, he could keep up to an inhuman degree. Strength wasn't what made his fighting style so perplexing, although he had that potential.
He just wasn't used to meeting his match.
He read her every impulse, blocking or catching ever punch or swipe, twisting away from every kick, and his face never gave up it's challenge.
She wondered if she had done him a disservice by asking him to hold a knife. He used the knife to block as often as he swiped, leading with punches and kicks. She wasn't even sure which hand was dominant. He rolled and twisted and used every chance to use the sticks and stones around him. He seemed to know their exact location, their weight, their feel as if they were old toys, throwing each into the soft parts of her body as if he had memorized their trajectory. His limbs drove into her with every turn. The riverbed was thick with dust.
He coughed. She saw her final few moves as his movements began to tire and his blocks began to weaken. She kicked him back and he stumbled into a tree, but rebounded fully, propelled from it and kicking with one knee bent and knife forward.
She twisted to the side and let him graze down besides her… leaving herself exposed and wobbling to lure him in. He tried to grab her, but she was in control, She had his arms up and the knives in her shoes grazed down on his shins until the outward force of her heel extended to the side of his knee.
He hadn't seen it coming until she heard the crack of bone.
He tried to fall out of the way, and she smiled despite herself. His shoulder cracking out of joint as he fell and held him against her body, her knife to his throat.
His eyes were steady, too steady. He felt the pain, but made no sound. His arms quivered and twitched to her pressure, his face grew strained,his breath was labored, but only from the momentary pain, no pain ran deeper. He was a man without regrets, perhaps a man long defeated. His inappropriate smile returned. He was prepared to die.
“I’m not going to kill you” she affirmed gently as she could, feeling his heart beat quickly beneath her blade.
“I believe you” He exhaled. “But I want you to change your mind”
He was a strange man indeed. She released the knife from his throat and the arms from his shoulder… slowly… she felt him wince when she released his shoulder, popping it back into joint.
He groaned. Not for the shoulder, though. He groaned when she let him go. He was bleeding, but not seriously. He sat back down against the tree with ragged breaths . His wounds were not mortal... yet.
She stood up and walked away without a word. His eyes followed her, unprotesting… even trusting. She felt the weight of it as she scrambled toward her pack.
She rummaged through it, tossing clothing and jars on the ground in haste to reach the bottom. She pulled out several sacks of herbs, smelling a few through the cloth till she found the one she wanted. She pulled an old shirt from the pile, tearing it in strips as she walked back to him.
She looked him in the eye. “I'm going to build a fire, then I'm going to see to your wounds.”
“That’s... entirely unnecessary”. He eyed her suspiciously.
“Why? You are no enemy of mine, regardless of what you might think.” Faruhar gathered twigs as she spoke, hastily pulling materials for a fire.
“I have no enemies” he said. “And no friends. I just don’t care”.
“Then why challenge me?” she said without looking up.
He spoke deliberately: “Your a demon. I should, shouldn't I?.”
She stopped in mid-action to meet his words with her eyes, but offered him nothing. He was so empty of emotion, she was surprised he was not dead.
“Am I your death wish, Sedo-ka?”
“In lieu of something better.” He said, without a second's hesitation. “But I suppose you plan to keep me alive for a while to live off, well... pain or blood or whatever it is you feed off.”
She chuckled. “You don't know?” she didn't expect that. It was true that his emptiness was very nourishing to her demon, she never met someone like that before. It shouldn't make sense. She did not want to risk dwelling on it, but it was quite strong.... incredibly strong. Already her scratches and wounds were visibly closing themselves, and her face taking on a rosy glow of a good night's sleep. She shook her head, and tossed him the rest of the ripped shirt.
“Tend to the bleeding on your knee with your good hand”.
The man didn't move, so she did it herself. Tying a knot tightly above the point of bleeding.
She then began to gather wood, keeping his heat in her demon's mind.
She wondered what his life must have been like before then. She found herself empathizing with him, but she showed no sign of it.
But then again, perhaps this was a trap. Perhaps the Shiiten knew she would pity the man, they had sent him. It would be a very strange trap... the man seemed genuine enough, and she sensed neither man nor demon nearby. Besides, if this man could recognize a Shiiten (or at least a half-breed), it would be hard for him to be used by them.
She found herself thinking that if this was indeed a trap, it would be a fun one to fall for.
He was still breathing when she started the fire. He rested his head on the tree with his eyes closed. She gathered water from the stream, and sat with him as it started to boil. He ignored her.
She added herbs boil in a pot from her bag. She strained the leaves into a cup with the ripped part of her shirt, retaining the wet leaves into the fabric. She rubbed it together, staining the shirt and grinding the leaves to open up their medicine. She brought the cup to the man.
“What is your name?” she said, testing the heat of the liquid with her finger.
“Jesse” he said, watching her in a haze. “I suppose it's polite to ask yours”
“It's Faruhar” she said, passing him the cup. “Now drink this, it’s bitter, but it will dull the pain”.
He nodded, still a bit confused, confused those his knowledge of Shiiten might be, he did deduce correct that it was very odd indeed for a Shiiten to be in possession of painkillers. He tensed as she moved behind him and tore off the rest of the shirt with her knife.
He was covered in bruises and cuts. She wasn't aware she had hurt him so much.
“Damn” she said.
“Like what you see?” he murmured and winked.
“No, I mean... I thought I had been more careful. I'm sorry”
“Careful?” he said.
“Come to the fire. You're shivering” she said.
“I'm angry. I asked you to fight me. Why were you being... careful?” Jesse said.
“Let me help you to the fire” she said. She picked up most of his weight, and he hobbled to the river bank. She laid him down by the fire, and began poultricing his wounds.
“Faruhar is an odd name for a Shiitensa.” He replied. “But then again, you are a very odd Shiiten to begin with.”
She chuckled. “I'm not sure I am Shiiten, or at least not completely.”
His eyes grew wide. For the first time, she sensed fear… although distant… misplaced. It wasn’t her she was afraid of, perhaps the idea of her was enough. She thought she was passed being sad at this reaction, it was so automatic from one of his kind. But she did find she was disappointed... somehow. She almost never felt she wanted to earn someone's respect, but she wouldn't mind his.
“I didn't know there could be such a thing as half-breeds”
She ignored his statement and focused at his broken knee. She would have to sew his skin back together somehow, and the wound underneath was still dirty. Even if she cleaned it as best she could, she would still have to close it. Tomorrow he'd have a fever, and his leg would swell... perhaps start to decay. She shuddered at this thought.
“I need to get you help” she pleaded. “Where can I find your people?” she couldn't smell anything from here. She knew it wouldn't be close.
“I told you, I have no friends.” he eyed her carefully.
“You need more than a friend, You need a healer; a good one”.
“Whose side are you on half-breed?” he rasped.
“My own, which is apparently the same as yours. But it's easier for you to make friends”
He said nothing to that. She knew he was fighting to stay awake, the herbs would make him very drowsy, especially at the dose she gave him. Her mind raced with ugly possibilities. She wasn't sure how strongly she had felt this before, but she couldn't let him die.
Faruhar went to gather water to clean and sew his other wounds. He was asleep while he dressed them. When she had finished, night had fallen, and he was still asleep. He would be hungry in the morning. She would have to risk hunting even though he might try to leave. At least he couldn't get far.
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She returned late in the night with a gutted rabbit over her shoulder. She looked over his wounds, a few bandages would need changing, so she stoked the fire and boiled the ripped parts of the t-shirt. His heartbeat was faster than it should be. She next cooked some more herbs.
At some point he turned in his sleep on his leg and swore.
“The herbs are almost ready.” she sat down beside him.
He said nothing until an empty cup was in his hand an hour later.
“I'm sorry Faruhar” he whispered “And thank you for what you've done. But It still think it would be best if you left me here in morning”.
“You’d die.” She stated.
“Not necessarily But I wouldn’t want to obligate you” he replied.
“No, I assure you” she nodded “You would die. You might anyways”
Jessed nodded. “ I have no money to repay you, and have nothing else to offer you for your help. I don't want to be a burden to anyone.”
“And what if I have neither obligations nor need for money?” she smiled, gathering her her few scattered belongings into her bag. She had already noted hours earlier what would and would not be sufficient for two.
“You were going somewhere when I found you, and quickly” he said.
“Not at all. I do nothing quickly... or slowly. Time is not precious to me, I scarcely understand it. I can't even feel it passing unless I have something to concentrate on, something to live for.”
“So I could help you then?” he said.
“Yes. I suppose so.” she whispered.
“I was running away I think, just getting lost” Jesse said.
She nodded. “I was heading that way myself”.
He laughed. “Following a half-breed around might make for a very unique experience. What if I chose to follow you around my entire life?”
She didn't know if it was the herbs talking or not, but she smiled.
“As I said, Jesse” she smiled “A little while”.
