Across the Ages
AN: I might continue the past-life adventures of Alena and Lin later on… AU. Inspired by a request and a post by dubcliq on tumblr (seen here: post/39040546902/dubcliq-sleeping-warrior-au-some) I took quite a few liberties with the original legend, but Lin Siniang was, in fact, a real person and one of the first women to become a legendary warrior.
-x-
Blood burbled on her lips in a wet red froth as she grimaced in pain, casting her dark eyes towards the pale pink sky of midmorning. She clutched at her belly, the sodden cloth beneath her polished steel breastplate and coif was stained a deep crimson, and she knew that the slash of her enemy's sword had cut deep and true. The gash was deep and wide, the exposed muscle still pulsed with fresh blood that failed to clot the wound closed. The two flaps of skin, parted where the thick military axe blade had struck her, looked like two jagged coastlines in a sea of inflamed red.
Her teeth clamped tight together, choking back a whine as she carefully traced the edge of the gash with a fingertip before attempting to rearrange her ineffective bindings. She pressed her palms to the roughspun fabric bandages, gingerly adding pressure to slow the sanguine creep of crimson blood.
Breathing was a chore and the guardswoman only managed to suck precious oxygen into her lungs when she clenched her abdomen, effectively flexing and tearing the already gaping fissure wider. The sticky scent of flesh and the texture of flayed meat and muscle made her stomach roil sickly, as she fought down the urge to vomit while struggling to hold in her own intestines.
She was dying. There was no question. No one, not even the legendary battle-hardened Lin Siniang, could come back from this. She hissed a shaking breath through her teeth, trying to bight back the pain as her eyes tracked the clouds that skittered wispily across the horizon.
Lin considered all the choices that had led her to this fate. All the crossroads of her life flashed before her mind's eye, showing her the points where she had selected her path; unknowingly striding closer to her doom. The memories seemed to obscure the blazing heat of pain, at least for a moment, in a haze of nostalgia.
And in her memories, she was suddenly a child again.