Etrangere/TheStoryOfSean
The Story of Sean
It’s barely a city, the kind of town only inhabited by hunters, woodcutters and of course miners. There’s only a few shops, and just one tavern. Grisela has come here to hire some of those men and women, and she’s got almost a full team now, so she’d better leave. It’s not like the place has some kind of touristic appeal. But no, some wild impulse pushes her to stay and satiate her curiosity. She sighs. She’s used to follow her hunches, so instead of leaving, she makes the road to the town’s one tavern.
The man she’s looking for sits alone at his table, an invisible barrier of ostracism pushing the crowd of customers as far from him as possible. He doesn’t seem to mind. He’s a quiet, silent man, drinking his beer with the determination of someone’s aiming to be drunk by midday.
Grisela sits down right in front of him and smiles. "Hello Sean."
Once more she wonders why this man intrigues her so. She met him here barely a week ago. Noticing his heavy built and muscles, she proposed him a job in the ship. You always need big, strong men to carry things around and for intimidation value on long trading ships.
"Grisela", he acknowledges. He’s got a surprisingly cultivated accent for someone with his allure. Maybe the first thing that surprised her. That and the wry humor possessing his eyes. “Not gone yet ? I though you only needed to replace six ship members ?”
"We do. But I’d like to have you on board as well."
"I’m not interested. I told you that already."
"I think you’re wasting your talents here. This is a daring mission of exploration on the fringes of the Creation. And it’s going to be very rewarding..."
"So ?", he says, looking bored.
She changes her tactic.
"You know some people here tell strange stories about you..."
"Aye. Aren’t you afraid of me ? What is it this month, that I eat babies ?"
She studies his face.
"They say you sold your family to the Fair Folks in exchange for inhuman powers."
He can’t hide his flinch, and tries to dissimulate it by raising his beer to his mouth.
Feeling like she found the good lead, she strikes again. "Maybe it’s not such a good idea you stay with them, if they’re so close to the truth."
The cup is put down on the table with a stark noise. He looks at her with narrow eyes. "You can’t know much of the truth. Or you wouldn’t be there."
Oho, she thinks.
"On my ship you could leave those nasty rumors away."
"Yeah, that’s what I was supposed to do here in the first place, it seems they catch me back anyway."
She says, with sincerity. "Some things can’t be escaped, you just need to face them down."
She can feel she touched something in him with that.
"You’re from Cherak, aren’t you ? A Ferem loyal to the Realm’s wealth and power ?"
Of course, many people are suspicious of Dragon Blooded in the first place. She’s got to explain to him there’s nothing he can be afraid to tell her.
"Actually, I work for the Oligarchy now. I’m no more welcome among… my family." He doesn’t need to know her last name isn't Ferem but Peleps.
He nods. "I’ve done that myself when I was young. Didn’t feel very welcome in my family so I decided to do the trip to Icehome and spent some time in the Hashlanti League. It was… interesting. I was their pet savant barbarian."
She smiles inwardly : victory ! she’s got him to talk !
"What was the trouble with your family ?"
"If you think I’m a strong, you should have seen my father and my brother. I spent my childhood being the weak and smaller one. My village was on the Ice sea coast, and tributary to Icehome, though they considered us mere barbarians. In truth, we were mainly fishers and hunters, selling them mammoth and whales furs, bones and fat. Farming and gathering was spare. We were poor people, but very prideful. My father would never ask for the Hashlanti’s help despite the tax we paid them, that was his undoing in the end… but I’m going too fast.
My father was the village’s chief. Strong and a great hunter, he had nothing but contempt for the curiosity that plagued me in my youth. I had bothered the village’s witch until she would accept to teach me to read, and any time some faraway peddler ended in the village I’d harass him for a few books. I loved the old time stories, and the First Age philosophical treaties, as well as the more recent technical ones from Icehome. I would devour any kind of knowledge with a greedy need. My father would try to beat this bad habit out of me and make me at last a good hunter, but he never succeed. When I was fifteen, he once came in the shed I took refuge in to read and threw me away in the snow and burnt it with all the books I cherished. For me it was the last straw, I ran away from home, took my canoe, and left for a more civilized place. That’s how I came to Icehome."
Sean marks a pause. Recollecting the memories, he makes a weary smile. "You should never underestimate the effect of relativism. If in my village I was an unmanly scholar, among the Hashlantis I was a stupid brute. I tried to find myself an apprenticeship in an engineer shop, but people told me I was too old, and lacked the fine touch. In recollection, I think they were intimidated and afraid of me. It’s funny really.
Since I became fast needy of money to feed myself in a city where I couldn’t hunt my living, I took a job as a miner. That was bringing me as close as the wonderful machines and feathersteel as I was ever likely to be. Making the trip to the ruins Crystal was actually quite fascinating, and I annoyed the pilots and mecanicians of the airboats that came to take the cargo with endless questions too. Well, I spent three years that way when I got news from home. My village’s region was under siege of some terrifying Wyld beasts. I came back there as fast as I could, which wasn’t very much so. When I was home, I found my home in chaos. There were no welcome for the prodigal son, both my father and brother had been killed by the beast. The villagers were panicked and wanted to ask protection from the Hashlanti League, which my father had adamantly refused before he was killed fighting. Me, I was furious, but I had been away so long, and nobody would have listened to me.
So, I gathered information about the beast’s appearance. I had read about southern Tyrant Lizard, of course, but I had never heard of one with ice scales and whose breath freezes the flesh of the livings. Still, I asked the old with to give me poisons according a recipe that kills lizards, and put my javelins in it. I prepared traps, took my weapon, went alone in the tundra to wait.
Soon enough the Ice Drake arrived. It was enormous, fast, and terrifying. It had also an odd compelling beauty to it, and when it felt into my trap, it was so big it was only half buried in it. It roared from pain as the pointy wood spikes penetrated its icy skin and started to struggle to escape the gap. Without coming too close, I threw to it the poisoned javelins, and when I had no more, and the beast seemed at last a big welcome, I came to finish it with an axe. As a boy, I had been fond of tales of heroic deeds. But this… it was disgusting, a butcher’s work that was needed to do. As I looked inside the dying reptile’s eyes, I saw madness disappearing to bring back an almost human relief and peace in death, and I wept, without clearly knowing why.
I felt an impulse to keep something to remember it. I skinned the beast, and made of its scales a very resistant hide to protect myself. I’ve still got it, it’s a useful armor.
When I came back to the village, I told them it was over, and for some time we had peace. I became the village’s chief, and brought with me some of the methods I had learned in book and in among the Hashlantis. The villagers didn’t mind, as I had saved their life. A couple of years later, I took a wife, the girl who was apprenticed to the old witch. For a few years, I was happy. Life was still harsh, we still had to fight the Beastman bandits, the weather’s tempests and the ice wind’s bite, but we were coming through. Often I wished that the Hashlanti League would send us help against those who attacked us in exchange for those tributes, but because I had lived among them, I tried to be loyal to them. Time passed, I had a son, then a daughter. And I never realized how happy this life was."
Gently, Griselda puts a hand on his shoulder. "And that happiness can’t ever really leave you.", she says softly, "It’s a part of who you are, as they are a part of you."
He answers the warmth of her eyes by a sad smile and goes on.
"Seven years after I had killed the first beast, someone came from another village, telling us of a similar Ice Drake terrorizing their people. Since I had slain the first one, they came to ask my help. I couldn’t refuse their plea, so I kissed my wife and children goodbye, after she had given me some poison to use against the beast, and I left my home. We traveled for a few days, for it was a far away village, and I set myself as I had before to kill the creature. This time though, the villagers had received an offer from the Fair Folks. They had asked for their old and weak ones, saying that in exchange, the Drake would spare their village. What I can guess now is that the first creature was but an experiment which had maybe escaped. Now their little pet were ready to roam the North, and them to take their food from it.
In truth, this second beast moved with an obviously more focused intelligent, and it managed at the dodge the trap I had made at the last minute, charging toward me. I had no doubt I would be dead, but...
That’s when the tundra itself seemed to burn with a holy light, a wave of red, orange and purple flooding the entire plain. I felt like I had been stroke by lightening, and yet like I had never been as alive before.
I met the Drake’s assault without fear, piercing its heart with my harpoon in one blow. It fell, pushing a cry that chilled me to the bones, and a sudden flock of carrion birds fly hungrily to feast its flesh. I took a breath of relief.
Then the air was filled by the crystal sound of laughter. As I turned, I had in front of me the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. Her hair were color of snow shining and sparkling under a bright sun, her eyes where blue like icebergs are at its deepest, her skin was milky, and her shape had a ethereal grace unknown to earthy beings. She was, of course, the Fairy woman who had threatened my village asking for a tribute of men and women.
"You’ve slain my gorgeous beast, stupid little man ! You are right to weep because this time, it’s your mind I’m gonna use to make the next one’s essence." And she laughed again, as in regal of the situation. Then at last she truly looked at me."
Sean stops his storytelling again, staring at woman in front of him. Grisela’s eyes are full of fascination for the tale, something akin to compassion and no hostility whatsoever. Yet... could he tell her ? Why would she take him for anything else than a demon of little difference from the Fairy woman. Still, he is weary of loneliness and of hiding, and is taken by a strange, bold mood tonight. Maybe he’s just got enough with it all, so he tells her.
"I saw the Fair Folk’s eyes fill with fear and recognition. "I know what you are !" she said, and there panic as well as exhilaration in her voice. I think she was now as awed by me as I been by her when I first saw her.
I said the words I had once read in an old book without understanding them and suddenly my body was no more, as I had been changed into a flock of crows and reappeared in behind a hill, some dozen of yards away from where the combat had took place."
Grisela, of course, is gaping and looking flabbergasted. "You did what ? But that’s impossible ! No mortal can do such a spell..."
Well, what did he expected ?
"Yeah, I know. I can only tell you what I was told then."
She glances at him, trying to understand.
"When I became myself anew, only one bird didn’t changed back into my body. Instead, it stood in front of me, head tilted, looking at me with a bright eyes.
"Nice to meet you, Prince of the Earth."
He didn’t actually talk of course, but I heard his sarcastic voice inside my mind."
"Wait a minute !", Grisela interrupts, "WE are the Prince of the Earth. Are you a Dragon Blooded ?" she studies his features looking for the tell tale signs. "I’ve never heard of such a late Exaltation."
Sean shakes his head. "I’m not a Blooded. But my reaction was similar to yours. I asked him what he meant and if I was one of yours."
"You are way more than a mere Terrestrial", he answered, "You are one of the king of Celestial Exalted, you are a Solar Lightening, a Arrow of Heaven, a Children of Twilight."
"That’s a lot of words that do not mean anything to me."
"Look at yourself, see your face and behold the glory of the Unconquered Sun’s Exalts."
I did as he told me, finding a water-filled hole and with the light of my own anima, I saw the half-circle of gold that was on my front head, and I knew at last what I had become."
"Anathema...", Grisela whispers.
The man nods. "And I was horrified as you are now." He sighs. "Maybe you want to stop the discussion ? Run away and warn people there’s a monster among them ? They already whisper against me, but if a Dragon Blooded told them I’m one of the Unclean, I’m sure they won’t wait to burn me at a stake… if they can catch me, that is."
The Water Aspected woman takes a deep breath to try to calm herself.
"I said I wanted to hear your story, and I’m going to hear it all. Don’t stop."
"In time, I understood more of what I was. More than what the Immaculate Order’s stories tells of us. Some of it, the crow, which was named Jinn, told me. Some of them came to me in fuzzy memories and vivid dreams. With those powers, I had been given a soul of people long past dead. It’s a weird feeling, like you were your own ghost. In a way, still, I craved the knowledge of the past it brought me.
Of course I was confused by it all. I came to see the villagers after the glow around myself had faded, to tell them the beast was dead, and began the journey back. I was thinking that if I could speak with my wife, I could understand it all better. But when I came home, my wife wasn’t there anymore, nor my children.
The Fair Folks had took them.
Against Jinn’s advice, I strode at once back to the ice plains until I was walking into the Wyld, calling to them. Around me I could see ghostly apparitions, and I was almost mad with anger and pain.
Yet the Wyld spared my body itself.
At last I saw the Fairy woman looking at me with her eyes as cold as diamonds.
"Give me back my family !", I cried to her.
She laughed. "I will", she said, "But I want you to do something for me in return."
"What do you want ?"
"Your caste is famous for the beautiful things you craft. I want you to make us a nice, pretty weapon for us. With that." She raised her hand a revealed a handful of jewels, sparkling with many colors under the stars.
"I’m not a jeweller", I told her.
"You’d only need to set them on the guard and along the blade, early on. Don’t worry, nothing you can do while crafting them can harm them. They’re no ordinary jewels."
They led me to one of this Manse you sometimes found in the far North, it had a forge in it, burning with a blue fire, and I did as they told me. I set the three stones in the sword as I worked. The first one was a ruby, big like an eye shimmering with scarlet swirls, and I set it in the guard. The second was a sapphire, some times as light as aquamarine, sometimes with depth of lapis lazuli, this one I put at the root of the blade. The third and last one was an amber stone, which had bubbles of gold and sparks of topaz, this one I crafted its place on the end of the pommel.
I went out of the workshop at the seventh day, walking with the sword in my hands that I put all my knowledge and lore into creating.
"I’ve got your weapon", I said to the Fairy. “Where is my family.”
"Give me the sword and I’ll tell you. I promise you they are alive and not far."
So I gave her the sword.
"Bring them back to me now.", I asked again.
And she laughed with her glass-shattering laugh.
"You said you would give me back my family if I did this work for you ! You cannot break your promise !" My voice echoed with anger, in this place where emotion takes shape.
"And I had given them back to you ! But you just gave it to me of your own will. They are mine, now, and the promise is unbroken."
I watched her face and the sword she was holding in her arms like a prized possession and I understood I had been tricked.
I would have fought her, would have unleashed on her the full fury of my powers, but she raised the blade in front of her. "Still now, will you harm your own family ?" and I hesitated a second. In that time I hesitated, her minions attacked me and she flew from my grasp. When I finished killing the Fae warriors, I knew I would never find again my family.
I had crafted their tomb myself.”
There’s a still silence over the table where the two Exalts are sit. Sean, having told this story does not speak anymore, Griselda is shocked, not knowing what to think of this man whom she should consider a demon but who’s showing so much pain. Tentatively, she asks. "What then ? How did you end here ?"
"I never returned to the village, I figured out anyone else I’d know would be a target… or maybe I didn’t think I deserved it. So I avoided human interaction, spending most of my time alone in the tundra or the taiga. So as to be able to buy book, as I still craved for reading, I sometimes came mining as I had when I was younger. At one point, some man from Icehome asked me to guide him into Crystal, and he Exalted, like I had, but I won’t tell you who he was.
That’s pretty much it. It’s been five years I have become a Solar, and my family’s gone."
"In Crystal... you didn’t find any lore that could help you... for them ?"
"No."
"What if in another place where there’s First Age ruins you could find it ? You’re a sorcerer, and it’s sorcery which in the past fought the Fair Folk. You could find something."
"That’s what your expedition is looking for ?"
She nods.
"And you’re not afraid to have a demon on board ?"
She makes a slight smile. "Why should I ? It’s been a long time I don’t believe in the Immaculate scriptures any more. Why should I for this ? Besides, you should be pretty useful if you’re as powerful as that."
And that’s how Sean Drakeslayer was hired among of Grisela’s crew of men.
Who's going to guess which fantasy author's book I've ripped off for making this background ? ^_^.
For Sean's character sheets see Etrangere/SeanDrakeslayer
