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Post by Lerris on Jul 27, 2007 0:36:14 GMT -5
There was no time to react, the elf tumbled and fell over the edge, the world was a blur, Lerris saw nothing. His head ricocheted off of the hillside, his mind started to slow, he wasn’t able to think. His hands became loose, his arms weak, his son began to slip.
Lerris bounced face first into a jagged rock in the mountainside, suddenly, through his right-eye there was only darkness to be seen, it had been sliced open diagonally. He landed with a resounding thump as he finally lost all grip upon Grayson.
The small child, who had only known life for such a short time was already about to meet his fate. The child slid, and tumbled, the elf tried to yell his name, but no voice came. He tried to reach, but no strength came. He wanted to jump over after him, but the father already knew, his son was dead.
Blood streamed from his right eye, tears streamed from his left.
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Post by gluey on Sept 22, 2007 23:43:34 GMT -5
No. No. No, no, no.
What had he just seen?
It wasn't possible.
They'd gone over.
The father and his child...over the edge.
Grohn imagined the child, falling onto the jagged rocks. He imagined those hideous, disgusting, evil spikes piercing the baby's heart. He thought he heard crying but how could he ever be sure in any recollections?
His body was plastered to the rock. The sun was setting directly opposite him beneath the mountains. His arm was outstretched, hoping for the possibility that he could still save Grayson. Still save his son.
He finally built up enough strength to look over the edge. A small ledge was supporting the dead-weight of the apparently knocked out elf. It looked as though it were the deteriorated entrance to a mine-shaft leading deep into the mountain. Perhaps at some point a wooden bridge connecting the upper portion of the cliff to the lower - Grohn, at this point, didn't care. This elf had killed his child. For that, he must pay.
Grohn managed to find his way down to the lower ledge. He found just enough standing room to bend down and pick the elf up (who had apparently hit his head, and lost conciousness). Both of their faces were soaked with tears, but the elf also had blood streaming from his eye.
Grohn took no notice. His face was contorted with a rage that would make a god cower. It was as if the atmosphere around him was filling him with all the anger he had ever felt in his life, concentrated into one moment. He held the elf by his collar.
And then he saw it. The child's eyes. Only, they weren't Grayson's eyes. They were the elf's.
The elf, though unconcious, had one eye open. It was the same shade blue as Grayson's had been.
He was going to throw the elf over. He was going to do it.
But he was the reason the child existed. This elf, this creature, whom Grohn had loathed for so long. Grohn would never have known that pleasure of happiness which Grayson filled him with, had it not been for Lerris.
He could have thrown the elf over in a heartbeat.
But the eyes were the eyes of the child, and Grohn could never harm the child.
So he started climbing back up. The entrance to the mine shaft was blocked for what appeared to be many years. Somehow, Grohn managed to carry the elf and pull himself up at the same time.
But just at the last moment, something very strange occurred. Grohn had nearly reached the upper level, when he felt his hand slip. He closed his eyes, expecting to feel the pain of a skewer through is body at any moment. However, when he opened them, he was safe.
He stared into the eyes of his father. His father did not stare back, however. His father stared at the setting sun, and when Grohn turned back, it seemed that an angel flew across the surface.
He looked back to his father. Behind him was every person who Grohn had ever hurt. Every person whose life had been affected by him.
At the forefront, his father. They gazed into each others' eyes for a moment, and Grohn could hear the wind blowing on the mountain. He could not help but think that the wind was so ignorant, so blissfully unaware of the events that had just taken place, and for that, he despised it.
It was the wind, however, that seemed to remove his demons from his mind.
At last, they were gone. He laid the elf down gently.
He knew that from that day forth, he could exist for only one purpose alone. No more innocent lives could be taken. He would have to deal with obstacles as they came. There was one reason why that child had died. And he wanted to finish what he had started. It was his sole reason for existence:
to kill Rowen Blackhawk.
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Post by Lerris on Oct 1, 2007 0:27:00 GMT -5
This thing that lay upon the mountainside which could of once been called an elf made no movement. Here, his mouth agape, one eyelid lay open, though no eye was there to see the clouds pass over-head. In a torrent of white-hot agony sat this being, and although he lay motionless, he had not yet fully succumbed to his wounds and let the sweet bliss of comatose oblivion take him.
No, the pain his body had endured was nothing, nothing compared to the pain his heart had to bear. His son, the son of not just an elf, but human, half elf, one named for his father…lay dead.
There would be a time to weep for his lost son, later, after he had found that killer…Grayson’s killer. He would go home first, recuperate, heal up and then come back here, follow his trail. Hunt him like the beast he was…
Home…The elf’s heart sank, how could he tell Rowen that one of her children had died, that it was his own fault? No, Grohn’s fault, he would promise her his head…even if his death could never make up for something such as this.
The wind blew, a hawk called forth in victorious rapture….he had made a kill that night. Darkness came, slowly the elf faded out from existence. He hoped for his last thought to lay with his family, his wife, his….only son. Yet, the chrisom child could not be forgotten so easy, only death found it’s way into Lerris’ mind that night. His last and only thought, of how he would end the life of a killer.
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Post by Lerris on Oct 6, 2007 14:41:27 GMT -5
Morning came, he did not know which morning, but one did indeed come.
It was a sickening feeling, that after so much darkness, so much evil that had happened in the days previous, the sun could still shine out as if nothing wrong had ever happened. He wanted to shield his eyes…or at least the one he had left…from the sun, he tried to lift his left arm, but was unsuccessful as red-hot pain shot from shoulder to elbow, from elbow to wrist. Something was broken, a lot of something.
Lerris pushed himself mentally to roll to his right, had to force himself to not give up and let himself die on the mountainside. Shakily, the elf stood, blood still spilled from his right eye socket, he spat, even that hurt to do. His shirt hung from his body, ripped into shreds by the fall, he was weaponless…but he knew that Grohn thought him dead, and by rights he should be.
He stumbled towards the edge of the mountain, the climb down could not be accomplished by a one-handed, one eyed elf. It struck him that he was going to have to find a way down this mountain crippled, or die upon it. He made his way slowly, limping, sometimes falling flat on his face, towards a fissure in the hillside. He peered in with his good eye, and saw only darkness.
But, if he was lucky, the goblins or dwarves were smart enough to carve a way down, without him having to climb. He squeezed his body into the fissure, he barely fit, he caught his left arm as he squeezed through, and the pain brought tears to his eye as he let out a growl of frustration.
He pulled, and heard a loud pop as his arm came free and he stumbled inside falling to his knees. He wiped the tears from his cheek, and stood trembling. He tried to focus in the little light that the crack in the hillside let in.
He saw a bridge, and below it, stairs.
* “Eglerio Norn-noegyth”
Lerris squinted in the light as he emerged out from the mountain, he did not know how long he had traveled down those twisting stairs, he fell to his knees, it was sunrise, he had been inside for at least a day. His gaze shifted, down, and fell upon a small lifeless body.
The elf cried out in agony.
He dare not look again as he ripped what remained of his shirt off from his body, and wrapped his son inside it. Still, Lerris pressed forward. He had already figured out his plan as he walked the stairs. Home, he would go home rest, then we he found himself ready, he would hunt. Not animals for food, nor sport, but a different kind of beast…the one who slaughtered his son.
Yet still, he must move forward, towards his home, his other son… and Rowen. It would make his heart weep all the more when Rowen would find her son dead, in his arms. Darkness came, he did not know how far he had walked, or if he was even going in the right direction, but he kept walking, until he sunk to his knees, his son still clutched to his chest, and passed out from exhaustion.
The elf awoke the next morning, if you could called the lull his mind was in awake. He had no purpose but to keep moving forward. His body ran on empty, no food, no water, and his breath came in deep gasps. He thought he saw home ahead, or was it just an illusion he was using to help himself keep going?
Someone screamed, this was no illusion
Lerris did not know what they screamed at, perhaps his bloody face, disfigured by the fall he had took. Or perhaps it was that he stood there, clutching the dead body of an infant. The scream came again, the elf did not care, he fell to his knees as he heard someone shout out his name.
Darkness, it came again, and this time, the Elf wasn’t sure if he was going to fight to wake up from it.
*Praise the dwarf folk
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Post by Rowenna on Oct 28, 2007 19:41:23 GMT -5
A/N: I interpreted your ending a little differently; thought it would be more interesting if the screaming was an internalized manifestation of everything, but if that's not kosher, I can change it. Yeah.
Byron was waiting. A dying leaf touched the black of his doublet, drowned by the onset of rains, and he stood like a part of the earth, and the grass, and the leaf on his shoulder. He watched as Lerris collapsed to his knees, shivering as though a voice unheard pressed on him in the silent wood. There he was, with his shredded clothing and matted hair; there he was, with his grime-smitten face and eyes of one he no longer knew. There he was, with black agglutinated blood congealed around his face and eye like a black soup and smeared. There he was, a bundled infant in his beaten arms.
Byron had been waiting.
He came, he tread, quiet strides and a wide gait, the stuff of earth lightly crunching beneath his boot-steps and his arms swung wide and long at his side. It was running as fast as he could walk, as fast as he could move without the ruckus, the tearing of ground, the stumbling over branches and roots. It was a run-in-sneak, like Lerris would disappear—no, fall—no, die.
He gripped the front of Lerris' clothing, searching his face as he hoised him up, limp and bloody. Byron's eyes darted, dark and scattered, struggling to absorb everything at once—the hair, the eyes, the blood, microcosims of skin, how it worked, how it moved, how it lived. No. No good. Still supporting him with one hand, Byron roughly wiped over his face with the other, the arm of his clothing scraping over the elf's changed face, blood smearing on his sleeve, clearing the stains like woven straw on a burn.
“Your wife is inside,” he said. “Go to her.”
A pause. He couldn’t look like this--had to look better, he had to look better for Rowen. Byron stammared.
“You should be proud of her," he said. He could waver in voice, but not in feeling; waver in the memory, in the change, strange courage in stepping forward into the future, looking back in nobility and pride. "There were times, whe she thought she was alone, when she thought I wasn’t looking--she’d find an unopened wedding bottle of wine. But before she drank it, before she had the chance, something’d happen, the baby’d cry, and she’d put it down and go to him.”
His eyes trailed down to the infant in his arms. A bundle, it was impossible to tell what lay inside, if it lived, if it breathed, if neither and none. Byron met his eyes again.
“Let me take Grayson,” he said, offering the cradle of his free arm. “You should see her first. I’ll wait here.”
It was never said, but in his eyes, he knew. He knew that Grayson was dead.
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Post by Lerris on Nov 3, 2007 13:36:18 GMT -5
NO
If there was one thing Lerris knew right now is that he was not giving his sons body to anyone, not even Byron. The elf stared for a long time down at Byron’s arms, offering to hold the child while Lerris went to find Rowen. He was silent, everything was silent, it seemed like the normal busy streets of the small town were all but empty save an elf, his fallen son and a former thief.
It was all inside the elf’s head of course, people walked by and even some stopped and stared at the mangled bloody face that used to belong to Lerris Saphire. The elf could barely stand, and it felt like something made him slide the child’s body into Byron’s arms. Like a puppet being controlled by a master the elf stumbled towards his home without a word to Byron.
He stumbled, people looked on and when someone offered to help he pushed the arm away with a growl. The door to his home was heavy as steel, yet made of wood. He stumbled through the small hallways, blood still dripped from his face, staining the floors with each step.
He heard a cry, his other son, he heard movement, his wife, he made towards the sound and found her standing over Samuel. He leaned through the door, he tried to catch himself on the doorway but missed by inches. The elf fell to his knees with a thud, and looked up to Rowen with one good eye.
He tried to speak, but only creaked words escaped his mouth. “Rowen….I’m sorry.” A cry rang out, his sons cry, the child no longer knowing the elf before him as his father. His face, no longer recognizable. The Elf tried to speak, with a mouth that would not talk, he tried to take a breath with lungs that would not let it come, tried to blink away the tears from an eye that would not blink.
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Post by Rowenna on Nov 12, 2007 2:24:20 GMT -5
A/N: end?
The chip; the crack. And from the chip of the glass, the fissure spiderwebbed across with the sounds of the spike of ice, the break of the brittle surface of her pale, white face. Such were her eyes, her lips, her arms as she embraced him around the neck, holding herself and he. The cries at her back; the man in her arms. Lost, lost, lost; nothing, nothing and naught.
Byron’s eyes trailed his trail as the elf staggered over to the house, and his black eyes watched like eyes might watch the trail of a dear, old friend leaving down the beaten path on horseback, like eyes might watch the path once it was empty, like eyes might watch the path once the dear, old friend was gone and gone forever. And then his eyes came to his arms, and his hand swept over the cloth to expose the child’s face; sweet, sleeping child curled in the cloth with tiny fists and creamy skin.
With the mourners in the home at his back, with the twin inside, safe, tearful and safe and nestled in his handmade crib, with the trees overhead and circling; the silence all and around, he cradled, like a living babe, the chrisom child and tearlessly watched, listening for the stilled tongue of child’s laughter.
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Post by Lerris on Nov 12, 2007 19:30:17 GMT -5
Yes, I think that is a very good place to end it. I'm ready to start the next one whenever we figure out exactly what the next one is.
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