After some eight months of build-up, I've hit my "cheese limit break" and need to unleash a hellstorm of fanfiction upon the internet. I blame Wolf Brother.
This story (if you're the type who likes to know what they're getting into when they look at a fic) is slated to be less than 100,000 words, and to be completed sometime before the earth is vaporized by the sun, the crack of doom, etc. I'm conceiving it as a Japanese style, "youngster goes on an adventure and meets interesting people" type story, with darker overtones.
Chapter One - Nightbreak
The camp was quietly rousing itself as the five priests of Rathma attended to their various duties in their politely impersonal way. Arram Nightblade, the wizened leader of the camp was foremost in packing their belongings, as one of the younger members of the priesthood, Nyelun Viltower, was scouting ahead.
All was going according to the routine, as it had for the six previous nights of the journey. The group was becoming increasingly vigilant, corresponding with the probability of their facing a roving pack of demons in the continuing trek northwest through the plains of Khanduras.
One of the group, however, had other concerns than these.
"Insolent wretch! You dare speak so to like of Clegorn Wraithwind?!"
The apple-cheeked and somewhat overfed boy of 12 had more lip than brain, as the rest of the Murder was well aware. The so-called 'Wraithwind' had adopted an Agnoma several years earlier than good taste would dictate in necromancer society. Having yet to grapple with many of the fundamental precepts one must learn prior to their coming of age or rite of rebirth, he had not yet earned his own name to use among the necromancers proper. His unruly behavior remained largely unchecked by his elders however, as they had more important things to worry about than a petulant brat getting out of line.
Zahara Bonerend, an adept of respectable skill and seven years his elder, was not at all inclined to take that kind of crap from a witless neophyte. Exhausted from a long, sleepless day of study, she regarded the younger boy contemptuously, thinking of a suitable retort. Her gaunt figure and usual pallid complexion were exaggerated by fatigue, lending her a fearsome (if unbecoming) aspect. Moreover, the sneer she wore belied her actual thoughts and motives regarding the boy- she was indeed becoming a fine specimen of the all too rare priestess of Rathma.
"Okay." She sighed heavily. "First of all, I didn't address you. Second, try raising a skeleton without it trying to kill you before you go threatening anyone. Third, if you ever grow a brain, you'll learn that even if you were able to hold your own in battle, being a loudmouthed little barbarian will still get you killed in the real world."
She walked toward her tent on the other side of the camp muttering about common sense and gesticulating to the sky, as if to invoke the wrath of the heavens upon young Wraithwind, who was now obliged to bother someone else.
Zahara disappeared behind the flap of her tent to change into the last of her fresh linen, over which she donned her adept's vest, made of studded leather from the skin of a Hell Bovine. As the ceremony goes, the adept herself must kill the bovine for it to be skinned, thus signifying the aspirant's transcendence of the neophyte rank. It is easily the most significant rite of passage in a necromancer's life, and generally the last until extreme old age.
Her fingers played along the steel edging on the shoulder pads and her mind wandered back to the battle. How chillingly close she had come to being gored and hewn by that monstrous, bipedal cow. Her breath came in tight gasps as she recalled in nightmarish detail every aspect of that battle. The earth shaking as the bovine charged her, raising its halberd in its misshapen hooves, that guttural lowing that still resonated in her ears, and the frenzied rage in its eyes. She froze. What could she do against such a beast? It was all over.
"Zahara?" It was Wraithwind, looking the very image of penitence (despite having just entered a woman's tent during the morning routine without first announcing himself.)
She cocked an eyebrow and raised her chin imperiously, eyeing him with mock distrust before addressing him. "Yes?"
"I'm sorry for what I said before. It was mean, and I didn't mean it at all."
In a heartbeat, she caught her breath and her countenance unconsciously softened, but couldn't put aside thoughts of mortal combat, the death struggle, and all the things the Murder would soon face in this foreign country. She approached the lad who, despite being more than half her height, still seemed disturbingly younger than he actually was.
"And you promise not to act like a smelly barbarian anymore?"
"I won't. I'm really sorry," he reiterated.
Her eyes welled with bittersweet tears, at once touched by the saccharine simplicity of the moment, and filled with dread at what was yet to come.
Not knowing what else to say, Zahara mussed the silvery bowl of hair on the boy's downcast head.
"I'm sorry, too."