morgane-cassidy-blog - Tumblr blog

morgane-cassidy-blog · 7 years ago

Text

Portfolio: poem & short story - Lady in the Water

It belongs to a series of short (and not so short) stories.

LADY IN THE WATER

Where the grey wisps kiss over the lake

And the weighty clouds dance with the moor

As twilight burns

As night falls

As dawn breaks

At the river’s bend

At the heart of the marsh

In the deep fen, under the boughs

Where the waves don’t crest

Where the tide don’t rise

A black horse by the stream

By the brook

By the creek

Mane of waterweed, pebbles for eyes

Coat from the abyss, hooves as knives

Enchanting, alluring, captivating

The lovely, deadly Lorelei

The child she let go

A morning years ago

Now floats down the river flow

Carried by melting snow

Life’s afterglow

The river’s bends, her beloved domains

The heart of the marsh, where she reigns

Monarch of the fens, sovereign under the boughs

Against the waves

Against the tide

Twilight burning

Night falling

Dawn breaking

A pale rider on his dark mount

Water for blood, revengeful heart

Limbs of stone, anger sharp

The Drowned Prince and the Lady of the Still Waters

At first, the watchers didn’t recognize either the horse or the one riding it; in the grey light heralding dawn, through the thick fog that always covered the hills in the morning, they could have looked like any rider and any horse enjoying a morning stroll.

Still, half the watchers armed and raised their crossbows without needing to be told as soon as the spotter gave the alert; the others gripped their spear or their sword, made sure that the fires were still burning strong. Horse and rider coming out of the lake, rather than walking around it…

Beside, this part of the world wasn’t keen on morning strolls; people tended not to get out of the city walls before the sun had completely chased the fog away.

“Steady,” the Captain of the Watch said in his calm voice, soothing his soldiers’ hackles. “Hold your iron until I tell you otherwise; let’s see what kind of spirits has come to greet us.”

“It’s war, sir,” one of the newest recruits protested. “We can’t afford to let an enemy come this close to the walls!”

Trusting his spotter to keep an eye on the approaching rider, the captain turned his head slowly to look at the young soldier. The boy didn’t budge, keeping his chin straight, grip tight on his spear. Despite himself, the captain was a bit impressed by the boy’s guts; if he could break the young fool of his most troublesome notions, he would make a good watcher out of him.

“It’s war, recruit,” he echoed him, keeping his voice calm despite his annoyance. “We can’t afford to turn an ally away.”

The boy frowned. “Creatures of the night can’t be our allies, sir!”

The captain barely restrained the urge to roll his eyes, but his lieutenant did not, snorting disdainfully and turning away. “City dweller”, someone else muttered, disgust clear in their voice, and the boy reddened, grinding his teeth.

The captain sighed, rubbing the root of his nose to soothe an oncoming headache. “What an interesting opinion, recruit. You’re right, of course. How remiss of us, not to have realized that sooner. We must tell the king immediately!”

The boy blanched under his angry blush; not a flattering combination. Someone snickered again.

“I’m sure he’ll be happy to send the Prince of Wolf and his pack back to their mountains, Lady Fay back to her cave and the trolls back to their forest,” the captain added, injecting his voice with a heavy dose of irony. “And let’s not forget the Black Mask and the Wild Hunt―let’s send them back to the Land-In-Between, too! After all, they only constitute a quarter of our eastern cavalry; why would we need them?”

He let the uncomfortable silence hang for a moment. “I’m sure the King will be very interested in your opinion, recruit. Very interested indeed.”

The boy didn’t have a chance to splutter an answer before the spotter gasped and the captain turned around. “What?” He barked, looking at the still-distant rider, but he didn’t have his spotter’s keen eyes.

“Sir, I think it’s the little prince!”

The captain felt his heart jump in his chest, incredulous and elated, trying not to let himself believe such an impossible pronouncement. “Are you sure, watcher?”

The youngest brother of the king was supposed to be dead, drowned and shattered in the whitewaters of the Black River during a hunting accident. The official announcement, which had finally reached them two days ago, hadn’t left any place for doubts.

The rumours who’d preceded and followed it, the captain reminded himself, hadn’t been quite this categoric; no body had been found despite a thorough research of the riverbanks.

The spotter almost toppled over the wall in his eagerness to confirm what he’d seen, while his fellow watchers burst into excited mutterings. He squinted, before rubbing his eyes and looking again. “Well, it certainly looks like him, Sir! Unless it’s a shade that’s taken his appearance, but it looks pretty solid to me!”

The captain breathed in, trying to reign in hope. It could be a shade, or a ghost, or a walking corpse. Normal horses didn’t wade through the lake, after all. “Hold your iron, boys,” he reminded them. “Keep the fire strong.”

Iron and flame were their only weapons against what lurked in the mist at dawn, in the shadows at twilight, in the darkness at night; their only defenses against nightmares made all too solid.

Then the rider drew near enough for the captain to identify him with his own eyes, and he let out a shuddering breath. It was the young prince―solid, corporeal, but grey as a corpse. Like the creature he was riding, he looked drenched down to his bone, his dark hair plastered against his pale face and neck, his clothes hanging limply from his slight frame.

“He’s riding a brook horse, sir,” the spotter hissed, much less enthusiastic that he’d been at first. “A black brook horse,” he added uselessly.

“We knew that,” one of the others said contemptuously, “They’re swimming in the lake.”

“Normal horses can swim, too,” the captain reminded him, but he agreed with them both nonetheless; this was not a normal horse. This was not even a normal brook horse―most of those were varying shades of grey.

It was tall, its belly now barely brushing the still surface of the water. Black as night, with waterweeds tangled in its mane, in its tails, both trailing in the water. It should have been ugly, but it wasn’t; it was eerie, and beautiful, and heartbreaking. Even more so because it soon became obvious that the young boy on its back wasn’t breathing.

The captain gripped the handle of his sword, swallowing the instinctive order to fire. He wouldn’t make himself an hypocrite after what he’d told the recruit. He wouldn’t. He breathed in and out several times before finally speaking, pitching his voice so it carried down the wall and over the water, “Friend or foe?”

The prince―or the corpse that had once been the prince―finally straightened its head, looking straight at him. Its face was mottled with discolorations, its eyes sunken too deep into bruised skin. It opened its mouth on a bloated tongue, then closed it, several times over before it finally wheezed and took a rattling breath.

“Captain,” it finally rasped, the sound barely carrying to the top of the wall. “Captain of the Guard. We walked those walls together. You came for me in the swamps.”

It inhaled loudly again. “Greetings.”

Its voice was toneless, without any inflection, but… it recognized him.

“Greetings,” the captain replied, shaken. “Please answer the question: friend or foe?”

The corpse tilted its head slightly to the left like a curious dog and the captain barely resisted the urge to scream. The familiar manierism was like a punch to the guts.

“I do not know,” the corpse admitted after a while. Its speech was slow and halting, like it needed to think about each word separately before enunciating them. “Do you stand with my brother… or with my cousin?”

The captain shivered, dread walking down his spine. That was the last question an humble Captain of the Watch wanted to be asked.

“The Lady of Stillwasser is my lord and liege,” he decided to answer with. As far as he was concerned, that was the sum of it: he was sworn to the Lady, who in turn was sworn to the Earl, who was himself sworn to the King. The captain himself didn’t have much to do with either the king or the earl.

The corpse bobbed its head shallowly, a grotesque, liveless nod.

“Very well. Then I must speak to your lady. Presently,” it added with a slight frown. It was the first expression to mar the utter blankness of its face since it had come up to the wall.

The captain didn’t hesitate for long; he knew his lady well enough to know she wouldn’t appreciate him keeping her out of this. “Very well.”

He turned slightly to the left, addressing his lieutenant. “Go to the lady and explain the situation. Tell her His Royal Highness, Prince Aymar, is requesting her presence at the watergate. Take the youngsters with you.”

He wanted the newest recruits out of the way; the one who’d argued with him earlier was looking at their prince’s talking corpse like he was an instant away from spearing it. That wouldn’t do.

~*~

The Lady of Stillwasser had known the royal princes all their lives, each and every one of them, but the oldest and the youngest had always been her favorites. They were the most alike to their mother; not so much in looks, though they had both inherited her dark hair. Rather, they had her spirit, her stubbornness, her heart.

Under his mother’s care, the eldest had grew up to be more Kantal than Farey, an unpopular irony for the heir to the Fareylian throne. After the Queen’s death in childbirth, he’d looked over his youngest brother and raised him in turn. Aymar had followed in his footsteps without hesitation, kind and sweet and brave. For the Lady of Stillwasser, who still mourned her dear friend, seeing the Queen in the Princes was a blessing like no other.

The news of Aymar’s death had been a terrible blow. Yet, somehow, looking upon his animated corpse was worst. His face was blank and pale, his voice flat, his eyes too deep and empty of emotion.

He remembered her, and her name, and her brave Captain.

He’d come to Stillwasser knowing he would be met with fire and iron.

Above all, he was still the Queen’s child.

And so despite her captain’s fretting, the Lady of Stillwasser had the watergate’s portcullis raised and went out to meet the drowned and its mount in her swanboat. The brook horse turned to meet her eyes with its own, dark and liquid under its long forelock. Like all water spirits, it was eerily beautiful despite―maybe because of―its deadliness.

But it wasn’t just any kind of brook horse, of course.

The Lady of Stillwasser swallowed down her instinctive, visceral fear and looked the Lady Lorelei right in the eyes.

“Have no fear,” her drowned prince suddenly declared, a whisper only for her ears. “Lorelei has no bone to pick with you. She far prefers you to your predecessors.”

Then he smiled, a horrible expression on his pale, bloated face. “And I do not, either, as long as you are loyal to your legitimate king.”

The Lady of Stillwasser looked at the prince, at the horse, then at the mountains in the distance. She was sworn to her Earl, but… She took a sharp breath. “Why did the Grey Lady let you go from her grasp? Did you bargain your soul in exchange for revenge?”

Again, he tilted his head like a curious dog, and the Lady of Stillwasser swallowed down her grief. Aymar had learned the gesture from the werewolf who’d practically raised him from eight years old onward.

“I didn’t… bargain… with the Grey Lady. Lorelei did, I think.” He let go of the brook horse’s mane to place a hand on its neck.

“Why?”

He smiled again, a bit less creepily this time, caressing the long black neck. “We are old friends, her and I. Aren’t we, my lady?”

The horse snorted in answer, and by all the Gods, she sounded fond.

“She let you go.” The Lady of Stillwasser blinked, the realization having struck her like a slap in the face. “That time when you were seven and got lost in her swamp. You didn’t escape her; she let you go.”

The corpse frowned, and she could practically feel irritation radiating from him. “That’s what I told you all. I clearly remember telling you that.”

“We didn’t believe you,” the lady confessed uselessly. He’d probably catched that.

He snorted, a crackling, contemptuous sound. “Of course you didn’t.”

The lady felt this was a bit unfair, but refrained from saying so. “Did you come back to life to seek revenge against the Earl?” She asked again, because he hadn’t answered that part of her question―which was arguably the most important.

“I am not alive,” he rasped, once again answering beside the point. He continued before the lady had the time to tell him so, “I have come to warn my brother against the deceitful, treacherous craven he trusts to guard his back.”

As low and breathless as it was, his voice still carried an impressive amount of roaring anger and the lady was reminded once again of his parentage. His father’s fiery temper and his mother’s cold fury, thunder and fire and stormy waters; he was the last scion of two royal houses who could trace their respective bloodlines back to divinity, and it now showed in him like it never had before. Lorelei wouldn’t have bargained for any weaker soul, the lady pondered abstractedly as she made her decision.

Truly, it was the only decision she could make in her heart and conscience. “What do you require of your vassal, Your Highness?”

His expression didn’t change, but his shoulders slumped and she knew he was relieved by her answer. “Loyal souls and brave hearts,” were the breathless phrase that came to his mouth. “Fire and thunder.”

Words from the past, carved into his bones by his royal blood. The Lady Lorelei snorted softly, wet and sweet and loving.

The Lady of Stillwasser only nodded, already preparing herself for the war to come. “Fire and thunder.”

Please tell me what you think about it in the comments!

#short story #lady in the water #portfolio #concordia university

0 notes

morgane-cassidy-blog · 7 years ago

Text

Portfolio: Short story - Midnight Harvest

Eventually, I think it will belong to a series of stories as a sort of prologue or opening sequence. For now it can stand well enough on its own.

Ekun spotted the Reaper the moment she crossed the threshold of the lounge. Her black robes were spotless, her hands clean and empty, and yet he could practically smell the sharp, iron tang of blood wafting inside in her wake. Had he been a shepherd dog, his hackles would have risen, his ears flattened, his chest resonated with a bone-deep growl as he showed his teeth at the preying lioness. But Ekun was no shepherd, no dog, and he kept quiet and motionless as she prowled through the lounge, waving between frozen patrons and waiters.

They’d all fallen silent within moments of her entry, tense and immobile, shaking in their seats or trying to fade in the shadows, looking at her from the corners of their eyes when they didn’t divert their gaze entirely. It was an illogical and useless instinct; refusing to look at the lion never made it go away.

Had he dared to make a sound, Ekun would have snorted at the ludicrousness of his own metaphor. Reapers were to lions what cobras were to common earthworms: not related in the slightest, and all the more dangerous for it. And contrary to the big wild cats of his birth land, Ekun knew that Reapers never went after cattle.

When she turned her dark gold eyes on him, his breath froze in his lungs, threatening to choke him.

“Greetings, kamarei.”

Reapers rarely spoke to their preys except to list their crimes, and Ekun forced himself to breath. It came out in a wheeze and he clenched his teeth against it, humiliated and furious and scared shitless.

“Greetings, Lady.” Miraculously enough, his voice didn’t waver.

She walked to the counter, her gait loose and unhurried, her hands still empty, nowhere near any of her visible weapons. Of course, she probably had a hundred knives and needles hidden in her sleeves, so this didn’t mean much.

He thought again of the lioness stalking her frozen prey, circling it, patient and confident, knowing it couldn’t get away.

Looking at her face, however, he doubted the accuracy of his analogy. Her blood didn’t hail from Eurenica like his own; under her tattoos, she had the naturally tanned skin and sharp cheekbones common across most of the Altarian North, and her golden eyes and long, pointed ears spoke of even stranger origins. He’d never met one of the forest spirits made flesh who prowled the great northern woodlands, as they rarely came this far south, but he knew of them.

There wasn’t any lion so far north. Ekun had heard of nebulous panthers hunting in the morning fog, of black matagots crying at sundown, but most naturalists agreed that wolves were the true carnivorous kings of the northern lands. Wouldn’t it be more correct, then, more appropriate, to compare this particular Reaper to a predator she would be more familiar with?

Strange, the useless things that came to your mind when you were about to die.

She stopped at the edge of the counter and looked at him for a short moment that seemed to stretch for much longer. She was slightly taller than him, which was no small feat, and he entertained no illusion regarding her ability to kill him with her bare hands. It was curiously freeing, to know that your chances of escaping alive were slim to none. That there was no point in fighting the inevitable. It was almost… relaxing.

Ekun felt light-headed, oddly serene. He’d been so tired for such a long time.

“Do you have Levensaft?” She asked, finally taking her eyes off him to look at the shelves he was standing in front of. “Word is on the street that you are the only one who carries it this side of the Dawn.”

It took him a while to process the question. He blinked, then blinked again. “Wh -- what?”

She raised an eyebrow and he blinked again, off-kilter and disoriented. “Levensaft,” she repeated slowly. “Sap of Life. Sylvan Water. Boreal Spirit. Wat...”

Annoyance shook him from his confused daze, and he snapped, “Yes, I do have Levensaft. Svarthundberg, Castelle de la Sorgine or Silverzauver?”

This time, both eyebrows shoot up toward her hairline and… Ekun almost recoiled, because that expression, right then, gone in a spark, had looked disturbingly like a pleased smile.

He’d never seen a Reaper smile before. It was terrifying.

“Four fingers of Castelle,” she said, pushing a silvery coin toward him with a long tattooed finger.

This… really wasn’t going like he’d thought it would when she’d turned her attention on him. For one, he was still standing, still breathing, still alive. But however disconcerted he felt over his continued state of existence, he’d been a barkeep long enough for his work ethic to win over his bewilderment. “Four, seven or fifteen years of age?”

Again with the impressed eyebrows, but a sudden scraping sound interrupted her reply and Ekun barely had time to shift his eyes to the left that she was already across the room. He didn’t flinch when he heard Hadriella Severina cried out, angry and scared, before she was thrown to the ground like a rag doll. He didn’t flinch when her knife was kicked from her hand with a sickening crack, and neither did he when the Reaper knelt on her back and pulled on her elaborate bun to expose her face.

He did flinch when Severina’s husband tried to lunge out for her with a battle cry, but he was quickly restrained by the other patrons. Felicios was an old gladiator, massive and strong and arrogant, but a nerve-pinch dispensed by quick fingers did the job. Severina started to sob and plead when he crumbled on the ground, her beautiful face distorted and wet with tears.

The Reaper hadn’t even looked at Felicios. Maybe she’d trusted in her audience to keep him from interfering with a Reaper’s harvest; more than likely, she’d felt confident that she could neutralize him if he’d reached her.

Luckily for him, he hadn’t.

“Hadriella Karenisa Severina,” the Reaper called in a toneless voice, “You have been convicted of many crimes, by many courts on both side of the Dawn, but none more foul, more monstrous, more inexpiable, than the abaitting, kidnapping, enslavement and trade of children. On your orders, many of those children were starved, beaten, tortured and raped, and then sold like cattle, amongst other atrocities that were carried on your order or by your own hands.”

Ekun had never seen a Reaper lose their shit quite this thoroughly before. Her voice was still toneless, even, her macabre recitation audible by all in the complete silence who’d fallen over the room; her hands didn’t shake, nor did the rest of her, and yet violence was coming off her in waves, barely leashed and about to slip its collar.

“You should have been quartered and tortured accordingly to your crimes,” the Reaper reminded Severina, “But I was the one to find you, and I always carry my executions quickly and cleanly… however tempted I may be to make an exception for you.”

Without further comment, she moved her hands on each sides of Severina’s jaw and twisted. The sound of her neck snapping made several persons cringe and whimper, but Ekun wasn’t one of them.

He’d known that Severina and Felicios had their hands in several illicit trades, but he’d never suspected anything quite this wrong, this depraved, this evil. When had he become this blind and deaf, too mired in his own misery to spot the signs?

Surely, there must have been signs.

Ekun looked at Felicios’ still crumpled form through narrowed eyes, then at the rest of the lounge’s patrons. Amongst them, who had known? Who had said nothing? Who had participated?

He didn’t realize he was speaking aloud until several patrons tried to bolt at the same time. Most of them attempted to rush past the Reaper and toward the door, but another opted to try and go directly through the bay window―the stupid cretin crashed against the checkered iron reinforcements and fell back down, bleeding and concussed. One down.

Trusting the Reaper to take care of the thugs running for the door, Ekun lunged to the right and intercepted Severina’s and Felicios' children as they tried to run in direction of the kitchen. If Ekun hadn’t been there, maybe they would have managed to escape the distracted Reaper… for a time. But he was there, between them and the kitchen, and they didn’t go further than the counter.

Felicia was crying and screaming hysterically, throwing herself on the ground when her brother let go of her wrist to better fight against Ekun. But Felicianos was young and slow, unused to defend himself with his own fists, and was quickly knocked out. Shaking his hand, Ekun eyed the hysteric pile of skirts crumbled at his feet and decided to simply keep an eye on her. The girl was only thirteen, and he sincerely hoped she’d had nothing to do with her parents’ sordid dealings.

Meanwhile, the Reaper had managed to subdue the other potential fugitives and gave Ekun a sharp, grateful nod. He swallowed, feeling exposed and nauseous, and nodded back.

Then he looked on, grim and cold, as the Reaper slowly went through her fallen harvest. She lifted their heads, one after the other, to take a look at their faces and their soul. Most of them, she killed after reciting their crimes and announcing their sentence, snapping their neck with practiced ease. Felicia wasn’t the only patron who’d broken down and started crying by then, and a disconnected part of Ekun wondered if any of them would ever come back to the lounge. His boss was going to be furious, and this, more than anything else, made him irrationally angry.

He’d never pretended to be a particularly good or selfless man. Not in a long time.

By the time the Reaper broke Felicios’ neck and sent his soul to join his wife’s in Hell, only three of his thugs had been left alive, kept frozen by glowing runes traced upon their chest. Maybe their crimes weren’t worth a Reaper’s time; maybe they hadn’t been convicted by a court yet. In any case, they wouldn’t die today.

After she finished her business with their father, the Reaper rose gracefully to her feet and walked toward Ekun and the teenagers he’d kept from fleeing. She looked at Felicianos, unconscious, and Felica, still crying in a heap on the floor, and sighed. “That’s the worst part of my job.”

Ekun blinked. He’d never known a Reaper to sound quite this tired.

Then the night patrol finally arrived, trooping through the door, and he had other things to worry about.

~*~

Later, much later, after he’d talked himself hoarse several times, with the guards, with his patrons, with his neighbours, he finally managed to close the door on a rapidly emptying street. It was long past curfew, and once they’d gotten over their shock, the guards had started herding curious passersby home.

Ekun didn’t jump when he turned around, but it was a close call. He’d thought the Reaper long gone, maybe to the casern with the guards, but there she was. Sitting at the bar, she was still surrounded by an aura of anger and sadness, like a grey cloud hanging over her head. It was a disconcerting scene, but Ekun was too tired and heartsick to be surprised by much of anything right then.

He dragged his feet behind the bar, where his fingers instinctively reached for a bottle of Castelle de la Sorgine and his favorite flask of rum. He handed the whole bottle of Sap-of-Life to the Reaper, who looked at it blankly for a moment before accepting it. She twisted the cap off with her sharp-nailed fingers and closed her eyes, inhaling its strong woodsy, sweet smell as it escaped the bottle.

“That’s the fifteen years old bottle, isn’t it?”

He hummed an affirmation, too busy taking a long sip from his flask to answer more clearly. The rum was dark, deep and spicy, just the right amount of sweet, and its heat gradually seeped into his veins and started warming him up. It wasn’t a cold night, but he felt tired and old, down to his bones―and ridiculous, because he knew perfectly that twenty-five years of age wasn’t old.

“I am too tired to appreciate that properly,” the Reaper grumbled, which didn’t stop her from taking a long swallow from her bottle. “It is such a waste.”

Ekun wasn’t sure she was only talking about the liquor any longer, but he couldn’t mobilize the will to care, nor the energy to fetch her a cheaper drink.

“I thought you were coming for me,” he confessed several minutes later, a good portion of his flask already gone. The Reaper was already halfway through her bottle, which was all kinds of terrifying, and only just starting to get calmer, less vibrantly furious.

“I was,” she answered after a while. “But not to kill you.”

He raised an eyebrow, now sufficiently warmed up to feel intrigued.

“I was not there for them,” she said, not exactly answering his question, but since he’d also wanted to know about that… “This is not my harvesting field. I am not from around here.”

“Never would have suspected,” Ekun drawled.

She waved a hand, not even irritated by the interruption. “I did not know they would be there; I did not even see them until the bitch bolted. I wasn’t there for them,” she repeated, in a lower voice.

But she’d found them nonetheless, and did what needed to be done.

“Tough luck.”

She hummed. “Indeed.” Then she looked at him, her eyes sharpening a bit despite liquor and weariness. “I can come back tomorrow, when you will have had time to sleep.”

Ekun snorted. “If you think I’m going to sleep anywhere near peacefully after tonight, you’re delusional. Out with it, Lady Reaper.”

She didn’t protest the ridiculous appellation, even seemed dispassionately amused by it. “I need your help. With a hunt.”

She sipped again from her bottle, rolling the liquor in her mouth with a thoughtful expression. Ekun had never exchanged more than three words with a Reaper before; he wondered if they were all like this, surprisingly human under their grim, stoic, merciless masks. Somehow, he doubted it.

“Information?” He asked.

Some bar keepers were terrible gossips, it was true, but the Reaper was out of luck with Ekun. He was there to serve alcohol, not to chat.

He told her as much.

She looked amused. “Not exactly the kind of information I’m searching for, Your Highness.”

He was very careful not to freeze or drop his flask, however pointless the deception. She already knew: there was no speculation in her eyes, only a calm, curious insight.

“Whatever you want,” he told her, voice as flat and cold as he could make it, “you won’t get it if you call me by that title again.”

The Reaper stared at him for half a minute, blank-faced, before inclining her head. “My apologies. What form of address would you prefer, in that case?”

He took a deep breath to calm himself, letting it out slowly and evenly. “Ekun. Because that is my name,” he added, daring her to contradict him.

She only nodded. “That is fair, Ekun. In light of your reaction, however, I fear that my questions may… distress you.”

He glowered over his flask. “I’m not fragile.” He took a sip before gesturing in her direction with his free hand. “Go ahead.”

“Very well.” She straightened up, finally getting down to business. “What do you know about the man who stole your mother’s shield?”

Talk about getting straight to the point. Ekun swallowed his mouthful of rum, resisting the impulse to slam the flask on the counter. To his dismay, his hands were shaking.

“Both more and less than I wish I did,” he said, before looking at the Reaper: her narrow, tattooed face, her scarred hands.

His own long hunt for revenge, years ago, had yielded next to no results. He’d finally abandoned his quest in the city of Callestane, two hours of camelops riding away from the medium-sized village he now lived in. He couldn’t stand to go home, or even to another Eurenican country where people looked or spoke like him. The disgrace was easier to bear while surrounded by a foreign culture.

But Ekun wasn’t a Reaper.

“What do you want to know, exactly?”

She smiled, but there was no humour, no joy in the expression. Only white, sharp teeth. “Everything.”

He nodded, drank again, then started talking.

Please tell me what you thought about it in the comments =D

#short stories #midnight harvest #the reaper #portfolio #concordia university

0 notes

morgane-cassidy-blog · 7 years ago

Text

Portfolio: Does it count as a poem? -- Allegiance

I’m not sure it counts as a poem.

My lord, through this blood I entrust my life to you

I will suffer for all your hurts

Your wounds will be like cuts in my flesh

For the gift of your life shall sanctify my throne

My lord, through this blood I entrust my breath to you

I will cry for all your sorrows

Your tears will be the reason of mine

For the gift of your breath shall forge my crown

My lord, through this blood I entrust my soul to you

I will laugh for all your joys

Your happiness will bring mine

For the gift of your soul shall build my kingdom

My honor on your word

My path to your goal

My crusade for your faith

Your loyalty, my treasure

Your trust, my fortune

Your love, my wealth

Neither time, nor space shall separate me from you

Neither war, nor peace shall make me turn my back on you

Neither life, nor death shall come between me

And you

For I am your lance

For I am your shield

For you are my guide

For, in truth, it’s you

Who is my master

My breath

My life

My soul

#poem #or is it?#portfolio #allegiance

1 note · View note

morgane-cassidy-blog · 7 years ago

Text

Portfolio: Story excerpt - Starlight Hall

Short excerpt from my story-in-waiting, Starlight Hall, part of the Tower Light Harbour series.

Tower Light Harbour, built around the main port of Makwi Island, was an old city by Isonadian standards. While not quite as ancient and stately as Soleris, Ocara or even Stormhaven, it had its own character born of an eventful history. Damned by its strategic emplacement right at the convergence of crucial sea lanes, it had changed hands far too many time until the Accords of Shrimp Cove made it an independent and neutral city-state, sovereign of its own island, the surrounding waters, and not much else.

Through the centuries, the seemingly eternal cycle of conquests and reconquests had gifted a decidedly eclectic personality to the city and its streets; the perfectly straight alleys bisecting the rigorously symmetrical gardens so favored by the Alpanceans often led to the winding trails of wild, sacred groves planted by Tokape sorcerers and Northlander priestesses, or to the tortuous backstreets typical of Kerrian urbanism. The Ocari’s love of fountains and golden stone was surrounded by the walled houses of Pastoria, built in red bricks from Stormhaven and roofed with slate tiles like the noble dwellings of Ondeverte.

Even now, several years after the Accords’ Centurial Anniversary, architectural tastes from all over Isonadia still influenced the ever-growing city. Itari merchants had brought their love of vivaciously colored walls and their Guléan counterparts their preference for curved roofs; it wasn’t rare to see both styles competing against Alpancean tallhouses on the very same streets, curving around the gloriously lush communal gardens still favored by the Tokape communities.

Qersaan Riusavielle had travelled all across Isonadia, studied old and new building trends for many years; and despite all that, Tower Light Harbour still held the first place in her heart. No other city was quite this discordant, this uneven, this oddly, incongruously charming. Not in all the portion of the world sheltered behind the Isonadian Shields, and this was all the world she knew of.

“The Harbour is the most alive city I’ve ever visited or lived in,” she said to her companion, standing silent by her side, “but I guess that decay and death are parts of life, too.”

At first glance, Silverpond Cycle was a good example of this saying. The surrounding neighborhood, built centuries ago by the last surviving nobility hailing from Old Sarria, had fallen derelict and neglected these past decades. Power and class now belonged elsewhere, and the unevenly cobbled alleys and inexistent street lightning made it a dangerous place to wander, especially at night.

Silverpond Cycle was even worst than the surrounding area, however, its once stately terraced houses now turning grim and dilapidated facades toward the round garden that gave it its name. The garden itself was a sad thing to look at, its pathways overrun by wild vegetation and its fountain silent at the heart of the pond. It was sad, and bleak, and yet still infinitely preferable to the house that stood at the exact center of the eastern crescent.

“But that,” Qersaan admitted in a lower tone, “is worse than death. It’s evil.”

Her companion made a noise of agreement, watching the house in question with narrowed eyes. Her face looked as grim as their surrounding, and momentarily just as old and dangerous, despite her apparent youth. Qersaan blinked, and barely resisted the urge to step back. She must have made a sound or moved, however, because her companion turned toward her with a eyebrow raised in mocking inquiry.

Qersaan swallowed her disquiet, and answered with a look of her own.

Nali Salk smiled, and the atmosphere suddenly felt much less dangerous. “So… this is the house.”

Qersaan nodded. “It was once called Silverlight Hall. It was built by and for a powerful family going by the name of Luthell. They’ve been gone for a long time, now.”

She trailed off, hesitant.

“Go on, please, Councillor” Miss Salk encouraged her, her attention still half on the looming townhouses.

“Nothing I read or heard about the Luthells, or any branch of their family…” Qersaan hissed, annoyed with her inability to find the right words. She was usually so good with words.

“They don’t have the reputation, or the history, of people who do that kind of things to the houses they inhabit,” she finally went with.

“Indeed, they do not.” Miss Salk’s expression was wry when she looked at Qersaan. “And while some people hide terrible natures behind upstanding facades, I do not think this is the case here. I think this was caused by… subsequent inhabitants, for lack of a better word. The Luthells have always been powerful magicians, and not always inclined towards selflessness and kindness, but they never dabbled in the kind of magic that could corrupt an house to quite this extent. Not that I know of, at least.”

Again her expression went wry, as if to admit her distaste for the notion that she could be wrong. Qersaan knew the feeling.

“What does the City Council want me to do about it?” Nali Salk asked after a moment. The inquiry was a polite courtesy; she already knew the brunt of it.

“We left it alone for years, hoping it would… dissipate,” Qersaan explained nonetheless. It was her job, after all, the entire reason why she was here in the first place. “Calm down.”

“But it didn’t.”

“Indeed. It’s worst than it was. Its shadows, its darkness... it is spreading. There has been many efforts, in the last decade, to revitalize this district. The foundations of those houses are solid, their walls built to last. It’s such a damn waste, you know.” A city built on such a small island as Makwi couldn’t afford to waste space.

If only this was the only problem.

“None of the restoration work done here ever endure, and we think… no.” She frowned. “We know that it also influences the minds, the acts, of the people who work here, or still live around here. It pushes them to violence, to despair, to committing despicable acts. It’s like a collective disease of the mind, a madness with deadly consequences. And still, it spreads,” she said again, trying to keep the despair at bay. She was better equipped than most to resist the grim influence of the place, but she was no magician.

Which was probably a good thing, considering what that light-forsaken place turned sorcerers and priests into.

“That house has a contagious disease, and it must healed.” She swallowed, still grieved by what she was about to say. “And if it can’t be healed… then it must be put out of its misery, before it manages to push the entire city to madness.”

***

As a child, Nali hadn’t destined herself to house-whispering. Despite growing up in an half-sentient mansion, the possibility had never even come to her mind. One week she’d wanted to become a surgeon, the next a princess, a gardener or a knight. Sometimes all of that at the same time. Polyvalence, she’d believed, was the better part of valor.

Then life, in that brutal way it sometimes had to turn dreams to smoke, had made sure to narrow down her fields of interest to survival. For a long, long time, the animal instinct to survive at all prices had been the driving force behind Nali’s every decision.

Relearning the most basic of sentient wisdom had been a painful process, made even more so by how late in life she’d started it. Many old dogs could and would learn new tricks; it still didn’t come to them as easily and as fast as it did to young pups. Age brought experience, but it also brought a rigidity of the mind Nali wasn’t all that fond of.

Still, on her best days, she was willing to admit that she’d come a long way indeed. As for what she thought on her bad days, it wasn’t worth mentioning. Bad days were pains in the ass, and agonizing over them on good or not-so-bad days was counterproductive. Nali prided herself on being a very efficient person.

She took three days to prepares herself before entering Silverlight House, because this was going to be a tough one, and you didn’t go to war without a battle plan… unless you wanted to lose it.

And that was the most inefficient state of mind of all.

What did you think of it? Please tell me in the comments!

#story excerpts #story snippets #starlight hall #tower light harbour #nali salk #portfolio

0 notes