esp_dragon (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
esp_dragon) wrote2011-11-15 09:23 pm
esp_dragon) wrote2011-11-15 09:23 pm
Chosen [Part 15]
Fandom: Original
Summary: Ras has just been chosen by the Gods to protect humans from geists, beings that prey on people's souls. Sent by Them to aid her is Aldran, a psyven; through the bond forged on their first meeting, Aldran can pass his magic to Ras for her to use against the geists. Only those bonded with psyvens can fight the geists, as a psyven's magic is the one magic that is truly effective against them.
But stories are told to children to placate fears and soothe nightmares. Ras has to learn that Aldran and living as a khertan are not what she expected and that the danger is very real.
While she adjusts to her new life, she and Aldran begin to discover all is not as it seems; however, realising and accepting the truth is not easy and ultimately, in the end, is it worth it?
Rating: PG-13
Notes: You can find my commentary on this part here.
Genre: Fantasy/Friendship
Word count: 2,584
Total word count: 38,510
Status: Work in progress
What did Aldran's sex have to do with her? She'd noticed that most khertan and psyven tended to be the same sex, but hadn't thought that it meant anything.
Farrick looked at her as if she were a young child, saying, "You don't know? A psyven is a reflection of a khertan's soul - they are very similar to each other, which is why they were chosen to fight together."
Ras stared warily at him, not trusting his words. Why should she believe anything he said, if it were said specifically to hurt? "If we can get going now?" she said stiffly, not keeping her eyes off him or Penran, just in case he did something she had to react to.
With an airy wave of his hand, his hard smirk not leaving his face, Farrick sauntered over into the circle, Penran not one step behind.
Ras and Farrick were both given a bag of coins, and Ras frowned slightly at it, before pocketing it. She already had surplus, and she begun to wonder what she was going to with it all
"...Be careful," the mage that Farrick had been speaking to said quietly, and the way he looked, Ras knew it was for her and Aldran.
Farrick harrumped. "We don't need it, and I don't see why you insist on saying that every time we depart." There was a pause and while Ras eyed Farrick and Penran from the corner of her eyes, she would not back down by taking a step away from them. "On the other hand, they will need it in all their confusion, so I'll assume it was directed towards them.
Oh, Ras knew exactly how she wanted to deal with Farrick: strangling him with her bare hands, but she wouldn't because they had a job to do, and she wouldn't resort to slinging insults back at him. Only because she didn't know what she could say to cut him down, she had to admit to herself, disgruntled.
The main circle under them flickered, and Ras braced herself for the sudden start and the sudden stop.
Once they were on the other side, Ras feeling a lot better and steadier than the previous times she had travelled using the circle, Ras found the person who was there to greet them, his head bowed, a piece of cloth that Ras couldn't quite tell what it was being wrung in his big hands. The man froze, as if he could feel the weight of her gaze on him, and stepped forward quickly, his hands moving even faster.
"G-greetings," the man stammered, his gaze firmly to the floor. "I'm-"
"Not interested in pleasantries," Farrick cut in, and Ras glared at him for interrupting when the man was clearly nervous. Farrick merely lifted an eyebrow at her. "Any living relatives or friends?"
"I - yes. There are - there are living relatives..." The man's breathing shuddered. "They don't know want to talk about what happened to their daughter. And-" The man had to pause, his hands clutching tightly at the cloth.
"The last khertan and psyvens, they - they were lost in the forest to the south of us. That's why we didn't know if they were alive or not."
And Ras realised that she had absolutely no idea where she was, too distracted and angered by Farrick and Penran's words.
"Hm. Good to know." Without any sort of acknowledgement, Farrick and Penran swept out of the room.
How in all the Gods' hidden names did he become chosen by Them?
Ras shook her head at their actions, frustration resonating in her. The entire reason they had been sent together was so that they could work together and not be caught off guard by the geist!
"I apologise for their actions," she couldn't help but say, her voice clipped, because who wanted to be greeted like that?
"N-no, it's quite all right."
It wasn't, and Ras really shouldn't have apologised for them -they would probably expect her to do it always for them if they found out- and she would not pave the way for them.
"I'm Ras," she said, introducing herself, and Aldran did the same.
The man still didn't look up, swallowing. "Ballistar," he said quietly.
Ras put his name to her memory before nodding, still watching him. "Is there anything else we need to know?"
Ballistar shook his head. "You can go anywhere you please."
Which meant no guide, which Ras supposed was appropriate - if his people had been attacked while with the other khertan and psyven, on top of being already attacked by geists...
"Thank you," Ras said quietly, before she and Aldran left the room.
It was only after they had left that Ras realised that she hadn't been worried about saying the wrong things, or not knowing what to say the entire time. So maybe her anger was good for something.
* * *
Ras huffed, trying her damnedness to not scowl, not when they were in the public eye. That didn't stop her from gritting her teeth, however, so she did that as well. But probably the only thing that would truly make her feel better was if she were able to wipe that Godsdammed smirk off of Farrick's face. With her fist, but that was not how a khertan was supposed to be, was it?
Except as Farrick had shown, he could be as opposite as possible from what a khertan was supposed to be like and still be chosen.
And Ras had already learned that that how a khertan and psyven were 'supposed to be like' to the public was not the same as it was in reality.
She stepped even closer to how she normally did, nudging Aldran's elbow gently. "Are you all right?" He hadn't said a word since they'd arrived at the teleportation room (introducing himself didn't count), and Ras hoped he wasn't sliding back into himself.
"Hm." He was frowning, his brow creased. "How...does myself being male affect things?"
Ras blew air through her teeth. "I don't know. I don't see it myself, and I don't really care - I won't be asking them."
Aldran's face smoothened out, and he smiled. "Oh, all right, that's good."
It was the way that Aldran said it that Ras had the feeling they had had different conversations. "What's good?" she asked, not wanting to make an assumption, not after everything else that she had thought to be true, not be.
"That you don't see a difference between males and females."
Ras paused, confusion spreading in her. They had definitely not had the same conversation. "But, there are," she protested. Ras hushed her voice, in case her words carried further than their own ears, though she had already been modulating it. "Our bodies, for a start and-" Ras tried to reach for her explanations, her assumptions that she'd grown up with, and she stopped, realising what she was doing. She had always assumed that there was a difference, because that was what everyone said – but everyone thought they knew what khertan and psyven were like, from the stories and word of mouth that passed by, so who was to say that this set of assumptions were any different?
"We… We think differently from each other," Ras said slowly, frowning.
Aldran tilted his head at her. "But how does that make you male or female?"
"Because it does," was Ras' answer, and it was far too simple, unfair to Aldran, because he just looked at her in confusion. But how didn't he understand this?
"Don't you…feel male?"
The confused look deepened. "…No? I…feel like me." The look gave way to one as someone who was lost. "Should I 'feel' male?"
And this was not helping in any way. Guilt churned Ras' stomach, and she shook her head. She had started the conversation to make sure he was all right, but she was doing the opposite! "No. No," she repeated firmly. "If you don't, then you don't. Don't-" She stopped, feeling the words to be meaningless, but she continued on regardless. If that was what she wanted to say, and it didn't make things worse, then why not say it?
"Don't change, just because you think you should. Do it because you want to."
Aldran's expression turned thoughtful, and he nodded slowly. "I… All right." He ducked his head, and gave her a little smile, which Ras gladly returned.
"Now," Ras said, looking around the village again (they were in the shadow of a mountain, which didn't really help Ras' guess for where they were), "we should try to find that geist."
* * *
"When we return to Winolock," Ras said, continuing down one path, "I think we should do some reading on geists. I'm becoming tired how much we're getting surprised by…everything." They had yet to go near the library, which made Ras realise something she hadn't thought of.
"Can you read?"
"Read?" Aldran repeated, his tail swinging easily side to side. "Yes, I think I can."
And Ras shouldn't be surprised, seeing how Aldran was able to talk since he had been created.
"We can read up on khertan later," she added. It would be good to know what else she was wrong about, but the geists were far more important.
Just then, a group of children no higher than Ras' waist clamoured into view, and the children grinned at them, hurrying to their side.
"Are you going to fight the geists?"
"Are they going to go away now?"
There were more questions but they were lost as the children attempted to drown each other out.
When there was a lull in the barrage of questions, Ras stuck a smile on her face, hoping it looked somewhat natural. "We're going to – we'll try." The previous khertan and psyvens had possibly said the exact same things to them, and if they were disappointed for a third time…
There was a raucous cheer from them.
"Where are you going?" another child asked, his eyes shining.
"We're…not really sure," Ras admitted, glancing at Aldran. "The forest to the south."
At that response, the children pointed to the direction that Ras and Aldran had been going in. "It's that way!"
"Ah, thank you," Ras said, not sure what else to say.
The children grinned, and then dashed away, whooping and yelling.
Ras sighed and tugged at her pendant, a habit she had started to develop after finding out what it could do, just to make sure it was there.
She wondered briefly what Farrick and Penran were doing, but she shook her head. So long as they weren't dead, she really couldn't care about them. Still. She sighed again, letting go of her pendant. "We should hurry," she said, looking towards where they should be going.
"If Farrick and Penran have gone on ahead of us…"
She wanted to find out what had killed the previous khertan and psyvens with support, because if the geist or geists had been successful in killing them and Farrick and Penran went on by themselves…
Aldran nodded, and they hurried on to their destination.
* * *
Farrick and Penran were, surprisingly, waiting for them on the edge of the forest, their arms crossed, impatience obvious in their tense shoulders, creased brows and Penran's tail whipping around.
"Did you find anything?" Farrick asked, his tone snide.
Ras took a deep breath. She had rushed towards this. "Nothing." There had been no time to – Farrick and Penran had not that that much of a lead on them leaving the church.
Farrick snorted, his lips twisting into a superior smirk. "We found lots of information!" he declared.
Ras doubted it, but the longer she spent arguing with him, the longer she would stay in his presence; she'd prefer to use the time to gradually get away from him and Penran.
"You can stay here," Penran said dismissively, his tail twirling, Ras frowned at him. "Why?"
"I'll make this simple," Farrick said. "How many times have you been sent out?"
Ras pursed her lips. "This will be our third time."
"Penran and I," Farrick started dramatically, "have been fighting the geists for over three years." He sniffed. "I think you'll find we have far more experience than you two."
Ras gritted her teeth at his tone, clenching her hands. "And the only way we can gain more experience is by fighting the geists, not hiding at the back!"
"Don't you know?" -Ras never wanted to hear that phrase or patronising tone again- "There are a lot of khertan and psyven dying-"
"Which is exactly the reason why we should go with you!" Why did it sound to Ras like she was asking permission to work with them? "We're going with you," she growled, broking no argument.
Farrick and Ras glared at each other for a few heartbeats before Farrick huffed, shrugging his shoulders. "As you wish. Don't become a spirit and haunt me and Penran when you die."
Just – Ras was going to ignore everything either Farrick or Penran said because it was complete malicious drivel, and she hoped Aldran would do the same. She glanced back at Aldran, who was watching the other pair cautiously, but he didn't seem cowed. Good.
Together, they entered the forest.
* * *
Ras quickly became used to feeling as if every shadow was hiding a geist, but Aldran was by her side, watching her blind spots, and now that Farrick and Penran weren't trying to needle her or Aldran, she could see them doing the same, keeping up a conversation at the same time. It grated on her nerves, because she wanted to hear if a geist was coming also, and they were giving their presence away by chatting so nonchalantly.
That had earned her those smirks again and comments about how they were able to do it because they were more experienced.
They were following a small track, one that seemed to have been used by humans on an infrequent basis and that lead them to a clearing, a clearing that had obviously been the ground for a fight between khertan and psyvens and a geist. The trees at the edge had holes blasted from it, splinters dusting the foliage, and Ras was sure there was some dried blue blood on a number of the trees.
So they knew for certain it was a geist now, but where-
Ras froze, feeling her skin tingle. Where? Where was it? There was movement ahead of them, and Ras would have looked sharply at Aldran when he didn't open the link between them but she couldn't be distracted. Not when-
She saw the khertan pendant swinging around the man's neck, and then really looked at him. He was stumbling, shuffling his legs like he didn't have the strength to lift them properly. But where was his psyven? Ice developed in the bit of Ras' stomach as that realisation formed. Had his psyven died in the fight?
Ras started to make her way towards the other khertan, scouring her mind for the names of the khertans she had heard.
"Don't." Farrick's tone was soft, but it had underlying steel to it and it was so different from how he had talked before that Ras did as she was told, suddenly feeling more apprehensive.
"Why?" she asked, glancing back at the khertan, who was starting to make his way towards them.
"Because he's been dead for over a week."
Summary: Ras has just been chosen by the Gods to protect humans from geists, beings that prey on people's souls. Sent by Them to aid her is Aldran, a psyven; through the bond forged on their first meeting, Aldran can pass his magic to Ras for her to use against the geists. Only those bonded with psyvens can fight the geists, as a psyven's magic is the one magic that is truly effective against them.
But stories are told to children to placate fears and soothe nightmares. Ras has to learn that Aldran and living as a khertan are not what she expected and that the danger is very real.
While she adjusts to her new life, she and Aldran begin to discover all is not as it seems; however, realising and accepting the truth is not easy and ultimately, in the end, is it worth it?
Rating: PG-13
Notes: You can find my commentary on this part here.
Genre: Fantasy/Friendship
Word count: 2,584
Total word count: 38,510
Status: Work in progress
What did Aldran's sex have to do with her? She'd noticed that most khertan and psyven tended to be the same sex, but hadn't thought that it meant anything.
Farrick looked at her as if she were a young child, saying, "You don't know? A psyven is a reflection of a khertan's soul - they are very similar to each other, which is why they were chosen to fight together."
Ras stared warily at him, not trusting his words. Why should she believe anything he said, if it were said specifically to hurt? "If we can get going now?" she said stiffly, not keeping her eyes off him or Penran, just in case he did something she had to react to.
With an airy wave of his hand, his hard smirk not leaving his face, Farrick sauntered over into the circle, Penran not one step behind.
Ras and Farrick were both given a bag of coins, and Ras frowned slightly at it, before pocketing it. She already had surplus, and she begun to wonder what she was going to with it all
"...Be careful," the mage that Farrick had been speaking to said quietly, and the way he looked, Ras knew it was for her and Aldran.
Farrick harrumped. "We don't need it, and I don't see why you insist on saying that every time we depart." There was a pause and while Ras eyed Farrick and Penran from the corner of her eyes, she would not back down by taking a step away from them. "On the other hand, they will need it in all their confusion, so I'll assume it was directed towards them.
Oh, Ras knew exactly how she wanted to deal with Farrick: strangling him with her bare hands, but she wouldn't because they had a job to do, and she wouldn't resort to slinging insults back at him. Only because she didn't know what she could say to cut him down, she had to admit to herself, disgruntled.
The main circle under them flickered, and Ras braced herself for the sudden start and the sudden stop.
Once they were on the other side, Ras feeling a lot better and steadier than the previous times she had travelled using the circle, Ras found the person who was there to greet them, his head bowed, a piece of cloth that Ras couldn't quite tell what it was being wrung in his big hands. The man froze, as if he could feel the weight of her gaze on him, and stepped forward quickly, his hands moving even faster.
"G-greetings," the man stammered, his gaze firmly to the floor. "I'm-"
"Not interested in pleasantries," Farrick cut in, and Ras glared at him for interrupting when the man was clearly nervous. Farrick merely lifted an eyebrow at her. "Any living relatives or friends?"
"I - yes. There are - there are living relatives..." The man's breathing shuddered. "They don't know want to talk about what happened to their daughter. And-" The man had to pause, his hands clutching tightly at the cloth.
"The last khertan and psyvens, they - they were lost in the forest to the south of us. That's why we didn't know if they were alive or not."
And Ras realised that she had absolutely no idea where she was, too distracted and angered by Farrick and Penran's words.
"Hm. Good to know." Without any sort of acknowledgement, Farrick and Penran swept out of the room.
How in all the Gods' hidden names did he become chosen by Them?
Ras shook her head at their actions, frustration resonating in her. The entire reason they had been sent together was so that they could work together and not be caught off guard by the geist!
"I apologise for their actions," she couldn't help but say, her voice clipped, because who wanted to be greeted like that?
"N-no, it's quite all right."
It wasn't, and Ras really shouldn't have apologised for them -they would probably expect her to do it always for them if they found out- and she would not pave the way for them.
"I'm Ras," she said, introducing herself, and Aldran did the same.
The man still didn't look up, swallowing. "Ballistar," he said quietly.
Ras put his name to her memory before nodding, still watching him. "Is there anything else we need to know?"
Ballistar shook his head. "You can go anywhere you please."
Which meant no guide, which Ras supposed was appropriate - if his people had been attacked while with the other khertan and psyven, on top of being already attacked by geists...
"Thank you," Ras said quietly, before she and Aldran left the room.
It was only after they had left that Ras realised that she hadn't been worried about saying the wrong things, or not knowing what to say the entire time. So maybe her anger was good for something.
Ras huffed, trying her damnedness to not scowl, not when they were in the public eye. That didn't stop her from gritting her teeth, however, so she did that as well. But probably the only thing that would truly make her feel better was if she were able to wipe that Godsdammed smirk off of Farrick's face. With her fist, but that was not how a khertan was supposed to be, was it?
Except as Farrick had shown, he could be as opposite as possible from what a khertan was supposed to be like and still be chosen.
And Ras had already learned that that how a khertan and psyven were 'supposed to be like' to the public was not the same as it was in reality.
She stepped even closer to how she normally did, nudging Aldran's elbow gently. "Are you all right?" He hadn't said a word since they'd arrived at the teleportation room (introducing himself didn't count), and Ras hoped he wasn't sliding back into himself.
"Hm." He was frowning, his brow creased. "How...does myself being male affect things?"
Ras blew air through her teeth. "I don't know. I don't see it myself, and I don't really care - I won't be asking them."
Aldran's face smoothened out, and he smiled. "Oh, all right, that's good."
It was the way that Aldran said it that Ras had the feeling they had had different conversations. "What's good?" she asked, not wanting to make an assumption, not after everything else that she had thought to be true, not be.
"That you don't see a difference between males and females."
Ras paused, confusion spreading in her. They had definitely not had the same conversation. "But, there are," she protested. Ras hushed her voice, in case her words carried further than their own ears, though she had already been modulating it. "Our bodies, for a start and-" Ras tried to reach for her explanations, her assumptions that she'd grown up with, and she stopped, realising what she was doing. She had always assumed that there was a difference, because that was what everyone said – but everyone thought they knew what khertan and psyven were like, from the stories and word of mouth that passed by, so who was to say that this set of assumptions were any different?
"We… We think differently from each other," Ras said slowly, frowning.
Aldran tilted his head at her. "But how does that make you male or female?"
"Because it does," was Ras' answer, and it was far too simple, unfair to Aldran, because he just looked at her in confusion. But how didn't he understand this?
"Don't you…feel male?"
The confused look deepened. "…No? I…feel like me." The look gave way to one as someone who was lost. "Should I 'feel' male?"
And this was not helping in any way. Guilt churned Ras' stomach, and she shook her head. She had started the conversation to make sure he was all right, but she was doing the opposite! "No. No," she repeated firmly. "If you don't, then you don't. Don't-" She stopped, feeling the words to be meaningless, but she continued on regardless. If that was what she wanted to say, and it didn't make things worse, then why not say it?
"Don't change, just because you think you should. Do it because you want to."
Aldran's expression turned thoughtful, and he nodded slowly. "I… All right." He ducked his head, and gave her a little smile, which Ras gladly returned.
"Now," Ras said, looking around the village again (they were in the shadow of a mountain, which didn't really help Ras' guess for where they were), "we should try to find that geist."
"When we return to Winolock," Ras said, continuing down one path, "I think we should do some reading on geists. I'm becoming tired how much we're getting surprised by…everything." They had yet to go near the library, which made Ras realise something she hadn't thought of.
"Can you read?"
"Read?" Aldran repeated, his tail swinging easily side to side. "Yes, I think I can."
And Ras shouldn't be surprised, seeing how Aldran was able to talk since he had been created.
"We can read up on khertan later," she added. It would be good to know what else she was wrong about, but the geists were far more important.
Just then, a group of children no higher than Ras' waist clamoured into view, and the children grinned at them, hurrying to their side.
"Are you going to fight the geists?"
"Are they going to go away now?"
There were more questions but they were lost as the children attempted to drown each other out.
When there was a lull in the barrage of questions, Ras stuck a smile on her face, hoping it looked somewhat natural. "We're going to – we'll try." The previous khertan and psyvens had possibly said the exact same things to them, and if they were disappointed for a third time…
There was a raucous cheer from them.
"Where are you going?" another child asked, his eyes shining.
"We're…not really sure," Ras admitted, glancing at Aldran. "The forest to the south."
At that response, the children pointed to the direction that Ras and Aldran had been going in. "It's that way!"
"Ah, thank you," Ras said, not sure what else to say.
The children grinned, and then dashed away, whooping and yelling.
Ras sighed and tugged at her pendant, a habit she had started to develop after finding out what it could do, just to make sure it was there.
She wondered briefly what Farrick and Penran were doing, but she shook her head. So long as they weren't dead, she really couldn't care about them. Still. She sighed again, letting go of her pendant. "We should hurry," she said, looking towards where they should be going.
"If Farrick and Penran have gone on ahead of us…"
She wanted to find out what had killed the previous khertan and psyvens with support, because if the geist or geists had been successful in killing them and Farrick and Penran went on by themselves…
Aldran nodded, and they hurried on to their destination.
Farrick and Penran were, surprisingly, waiting for them on the edge of the forest, their arms crossed, impatience obvious in their tense shoulders, creased brows and Penran's tail whipping around.
"Did you find anything?" Farrick asked, his tone snide.
Ras took a deep breath. She had rushed towards this. "Nothing." There had been no time to – Farrick and Penran had not that that much of a lead on them leaving the church.
Farrick snorted, his lips twisting into a superior smirk. "We found lots of information!" he declared.
Ras doubted it, but the longer she spent arguing with him, the longer she would stay in his presence; she'd prefer to use the time to gradually get away from him and Penran.
"You can stay here," Penran said dismissively, his tail twirling, Ras frowned at him. "Why?"
"I'll make this simple," Farrick said. "How many times have you been sent out?"
Ras pursed her lips. "This will be our third time."
"Penran and I," Farrick started dramatically, "have been fighting the geists for over three years." He sniffed. "I think you'll find we have far more experience than you two."
Ras gritted her teeth at his tone, clenching her hands. "And the only way we can gain more experience is by fighting the geists, not hiding at the back!"
"Don't you know?" -Ras never wanted to hear that phrase or patronising tone again- "There are a lot of khertan and psyven dying-"
"Which is exactly the reason why we should go with you!" Why did it sound to Ras like she was asking permission to work with them? "We're going with you," she growled, broking no argument.
Farrick and Ras glared at each other for a few heartbeats before Farrick huffed, shrugging his shoulders. "As you wish. Don't become a spirit and haunt me and Penran when you die."
Just – Ras was going to ignore everything either Farrick or Penran said because it was complete malicious drivel, and she hoped Aldran would do the same. She glanced back at Aldran, who was watching the other pair cautiously, but he didn't seem cowed. Good.
Together, they entered the forest.
Ras quickly became used to feeling as if every shadow was hiding a geist, but Aldran was by her side, watching her blind spots, and now that Farrick and Penran weren't trying to needle her or Aldran, she could see them doing the same, keeping up a conversation at the same time. It grated on her nerves, because she wanted to hear if a geist was coming also, and they were giving their presence away by chatting so nonchalantly.
That had earned her those smirks again and comments about how they were able to do it because they were more experienced.
They were following a small track, one that seemed to have been used by humans on an infrequent basis and that lead them to a clearing, a clearing that had obviously been the ground for a fight between khertan and psyvens and a geist. The trees at the edge had holes blasted from it, splinters dusting the foliage, and Ras was sure there was some dried blue blood on a number of the trees.
So they knew for certain it was a geist now, but where-
Ras froze, feeling her skin tingle. Where? Where was it? There was movement ahead of them, and Ras would have looked sharply at Aldran when he didn't open the link between them but she couldn't be distracted. Not when-
She saw the khertan pendant swinging around the man's neck, and then really looked at him. He was stumbling, shuffling his legs like he didn't have the strength to lift them properly. But where was his psyven? Ice developed in the bit of Ras' stomach as that realisation formed. Had his psyven died in the fight?
Ras started to make her way towards the other khertan, scouring her mind for the names of the khertans she had heard.
"Don't." Farrick's tone was soft, but it had underlying steel to it and it was so different from how he had talked before that Ras did as she was told, suddenly feeling more apprehensive.
"Why?" she asked, glancing back at the khertan, who was starting to make his way towards them.
"Because he's been dead for over a week."