Who: Ekaterina Davor Where: Planasene Forest, Nevarra When: 3 Eluviesta, 9:41 Dragon Summary: Ekaterina Davor's life is gutted by flames and hatred...
My Maker, know my heart Take from me a life of sorrow Lift me from a world of pain Judge me worthy of Your endless pride
Ekaterina tasted the smoke before she saw it, a bitter dryness to the cool morning air that coated her tongue. The sun had been up for hours, but the midwinter day was still frigid, the sunlight thin and watery where it splashed between the heavy tree cover. The brief glimpses of sky she snatched between the towering treetops were a clear icy blue, without a hint of smoke to be seen, and the discord confused her. It was too early in the year for Vitel to be burning back the saplings that encroached on their clearing, and concern sped her footsteps as she closed the distance between herself and their small cabin.
Her traps had been full that morning and the luxurious stringer of mink and otter hung heavily over her shoulder, bouncing with her long strides. The thick pelts were still wet, and they dripped a chill rivulet down her back as she jogged along the deer path, worry plowing deep furrows into the smooth skin of her face. Confusion and a vague sense of unsease pressed down on her and sped her steps, until her feet were flying across the hard-packed earth as she burst from the woods into the small clearing of their homestead.
She had trouble recognizing what she encountered at first, her eyes seeing the pieces but her brain unable to form the whole. Flakes of ash floated lazily in the air, a grey snowfall that obscured her vision and settled in colorless drifts against the ruined furnishings of their home where they sat, bared to the harsh daylight by crumbling walls of cinder. The smoking bones of their house jutted half-heartedly skyward, the occasional tongue of flame still lingering to lick at the pillars and broken beams. The soot and the stench burned her nose and stung her eyes, and she froze inside the treeline, the furs sliding forgotten from her shoulder to puddle on the greyed grass at her feet.
The names of her husband and daughter fell from her tongue over and over, slipping between her lips like the beads of a prayer strand, but her only response was the popping hiss of burning pine. She picked a path amongst the fallen cinders, black lumps like barren islands in the sea of ashen grass. Her fear was a living thing, perched on her shoulders and flaying her back with a whip of anxiety, drying her mouth until her tongue felt thick and furred, her words sliding into incomprehensible croaks.
She might have missed the body if she hadn't stumbled over it just outside the fallen doorway. From a distance it looked like any of the other blackened beams that had crumbled to the ground, until the toe of her boot had caught on it and sent her sprawling to all fours. Her head was shaking with denial, unable to cease the side to side motion as she crawled around towards its side, her hands fluttering uselessly over the charred surface. The reek of burnt hair and flesh rose from it still, souring her stomach and she swallowed back the bile that rose in her throat. She refused to soil Vitel's corpse.
A small scrap of color caught her eye, trapped between Vitel's curled body and the hard earthen doorway she had just swept the day before. Carefully she rolled his crumbling corpse over, a numb sort of detachment in the mechanical motions as recognition sunk in. The red wool was mostly burnt but she knew the warp and weave of what remained by memory, had spent many winter evenings stitching it herself by the dim fireside, humming happily over her growing belly. Her shaking fingers reached for the small bundle, and the breeze of their passing flaked the charred cloth into ash, crumbling aside to reveal the sooty, silent face of Zakia.
Her smooth cheek was cold as Ekaterina brushed a smudge from it, the lips blue and motionless. The tiny form was perfect, nothing amiss but a slight singing of the tender brown curls atop her head, looking almost as if she were simply sleeping. But what small spark of life had flickered inside the babe had been snuffed out, smothered by the smoke and the heavy weight of her father's corpse atop her. Ekaterina sat back on her heels, blinking dry eyes, unable to do more than bow beneath the waves of shuddering breaths that rocked her small frame. She was broken from her stagnation by a wink of polished steel, ground into the dirt beside Vitel's body. Plucking it up and rubbing the dirt of it off on her pants, she stared at it with a detached curiosity, her mind immediately placing the distinctive shape of the arrowhead.
Dalish.
Hot rage flooded her veins, snapping her to her feet, her bow unslung from her own shoulder and an arrow nocked at the string before she could blink. She dragged gasping lungfuls of breath deep into her chest, her eyes wild as she peered into the trees around their small clearing for any sign of movement. But there was nothing stirring, no motion but the drifting sparks and ash that still floated in the air. Whatever elves had eviscerated her life had long since moved on.
The bow and arrow fell from her nerveless fingers, clattering softly on the packed dirt. Gathering Zakia's tiny body in her arms the ruined cloth flaked away, leaving her as exposed and naked as the day she was born. For long minutes Ekaterina could only rock the small cold corpse, her face a dry rictus of anguish, her sorrow so hard and sharp she couldn't cry it out. Purpose and clarity returned finally, forcing her to set the limp babe down, carefully arranging the tiny limbs atop her father before Ekaterina set about dragging what timbers had not burned completely into a tight circle around the two bodies.
She had been watching her makeshift pyre burn for some time when she saw the flash of white, light reflecting off bone in the roaring flames. Her first thought was that it was merely a part of Vitel's arm thrust through the crisped skin of his arm, but a closer look had her on her knees, heedless of the searing heat that blew against her face as she plunged an arm through the flames, wrapping her fingers around the glint and pulling hard enough to shower embers over the thick leather of her clothing. The blisters rose immediately, fast and vicious on the flesh of her hand as she unclenched her reddened fist from her prize. Vitel's bow...unmarred, shielded from the fires by his own body. Even the string was unsinged, and she gazed unseeing at the smooth familiar bone and horn as it lay awkwardly across her lap, tendrils of her hair swaying in the hot breeze of the flames. With a grim finality she slid her own bow off her shoulder, tossing the cherished weapon onto the pyre atop Vitel's corpse, standing and hoisting his own heavier bow onto her slim shoulder as she walked away from the inferno. Not even the sharp twang of her bowstring snapping in the heat moved her to turn back.
She was a few miles into the woods when the first wave of grief hit her, crumpling her to her knees with the force of a blow to the gut. The wordless scream that clawed its way out her throat echoed back from the tree trunks that stood in solemn witness, the sound of her own heartbreak bouncing back to slap her in the face. Pitching forward, she pressed her forehead to the cold impassive earth, her fingers digging deeply into the rich loam as she sobbed against the skeletal leaves of last fall, gagging on her own sorrow as the tears tracked black trails through the soot on her cheeks.