Aftermath

This made me wince and cringe. I knew it was coming and I tried talking him out of it and he's been nothing but a pain in my backside.

And when I say pain, I mean he refused outright to do anything until I gave in. I also notice that already Durth is seperating Raya into two beings. Raya (whose differences will become clearer soon) and Cousin. I also noticed that Durth's starting to develop a snippity tone inside his head.

Which I do enjoy in a character.

Read, Review and Enjoy.




Raya’s first order of business, apparently, was getting the hell away from Nost. Cousin even stated as much as he threw an empty pack at Durth. The pack caught Durth upside the head, metal buckle snapping against the young man’s cheek. Durth managed to duck the pair of sandals that were thrown at him. These took several failed attempts to tie before he figured out how to lace them up properly, all the while Cousin and his woman watched and made no attempt to help.

They walked at an easy pace for two days, picking their way across paths and through the forest that grew on the eastern side of Past’s territory. As the sun set, they settled into naturally occurring hollows in logs or the land itself. The first time Durth was just drifting off when Cousin woke him and they began travelling again.

As soon as the moon came up, full and bright, to light the way, they moved on. As the moon set they settled once more and slept until the sun was fully up. The third day, as the sun began to set, they came to a cave that was off any beaten path and difficult to get to. Bramble bushes and wild rose grew between nearly every tree. To get to the cave they had to walk up a hill and then jump down into the little clearing with no seeming way out. Cousin likely new the way out, along with his woman, but there were no hand holds or paths away that Durth could see. It was a perfectly closed off little area that backed right up against a cave.

“Ah,” Cousin sighed, “home sweet home.”

Cousins had no home, Nost had said, thus Durth was quite puzzled, obviously his confusion showed on his face for Cousin’s woman spoke up.

“We come here on occasion to get away from life.”

As if that explained it.

Cousin dropped his pack by the door and motioned for Durth to hand over his. Durth did so and Cousin dropped the pack beside his own. Still empty, the pack fell into a little brown puddle.

“Take off your shirt.”

Durth did as he was told. The shirt Cousin threw into the brambles to one side, off where Durth would not be able to reach it. The air was chilly against Durth’s skin, but the shiver that ran from head to toe had more to do with the look Cousin gave him, rather than the temperature.

“I demand perfect obedience,” so did Past, that didn’t mean that the servants didn’t disobey from time to time, have a bit of fun, drink a little, “failure is not an option at any time, for any reason. Hit me.”

Durth blinked at Cousin for a long moment before it clued in. He had no problem hitting a man who said ‘hit me’ so he swung for Cousin, only to have his swing easily caught, for his feet to be swept out from under him and his body slammed into the ground. The air whooshed out of Durth’s lungs. For a terrible moment, he couldn’t breath, his chest didn’t want to work and then air flooded his lungs. Durth’s gasp turned to a choke, he rolled onto his side, certain that he was about to be sick.

Raya yanked him to his feet.

“I said hit me. Failure is never an option. What did you just do?”

“…” was he serious? “fail?”

Cousin backhanded Durth, snarling as he did so, “do not answer me in such a tone. You failed, make the statement, don’t ask me if that is what you did.”

“But-” He was going to say that there was no possible way he could have hit the other man, it was impossible, Raya had much more training than him, more muscle and was larger than he was to boot. Cousin was hearing none of that, however, and struck Durth again, this time on the back of a leg.

After a long day of walking, it was more than Durth’s poor legs could handle. He dropped to the ground, his leg giving out on him. Pain blossomed through his leg in a way that it really should not have.

“Weak,” Cousin growled, “all that was, was a flick of my hand and you go down.”

The woman muttered something that Cousin seemingly ignored.

“No excuse is a reasonable excuse. Saying that I have more training than you do is not an excuse, saying that you are weakened is not an excuse. Being bound and gagged is not an excuse. Being dead, now that I may accept as an excuse. If you want to kill that one that started this all, you will need to abandon your childish fancies. He is not weak, he is surrounded by those stronger than you are, stronger than he is, even. You will not succeed if you believe, even remotely that failure is an option.

“Either succeed. Or die. There is no middle ground,” Cousin paused, looking down on Durth, “Stand up.”

Durth stood with great difficulty. The pain in his leg was getting worse, like a yanked muscle that hadn’t been relaxed, the thigh began screaming its injury.

“Now. Hit me.”

Durth tried again, except his own body caused him to fail. Cousin didn’t even move as Durth fell forwards and hit the dust. The pain in his leg exploded as it twisted under him. He felt the snap deep in his leg and screamed in pain.

“It’s just a break, you baby,” Cousin growled, “get up.”

Get up? Was he mad? Next he would say something about only doing this to make Durth stronger. Durth clenched his hands and sat up, snivelling, but he couldn’t help it.

“My leg is broken. I can’t.”

“I told you to get up.”

“I can’t.”

“Disobedience is not allowed.”

“I can’t.”

Cousin kicked him in the side of the face, making the whole world explode a moment before everything went dark.

The bastard took obedience seriously.


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