Hello, hello - another unusual one, in terms of opening warnings. This text is tough. It contains very vivid sexual imagery, bloodshed, demon possession. Please proceed with caution.
Blessed are they who stand before
The corrupt and the wicked and do not falter.
Blessed are the peacekeepers, the champions of the just.
Benedictions 4:10
The summer doldrums hung thick and heavy over the village of Rock's Fall when the farmers tiredly hitched their oxen to the nearest post and hurried to find what little noon-day shade was available. Spring's promise of gentle showers was long broken, the cracked earth beneath plowshares' feet like the scaled growth upon a leper.
What few, shriveled wheat stalks had survived the early storms and ensuing drought were to be hurriedly snatched and counted as quickly as any stray silver, while old hands clenched worriedly and muttered of bad times to come.
Far from sight of the swirling chafe and within yelling distance of the muttering knot of the village men, twelve year old Samuel Cottington laid himself gingerly down in the wilted remnants of riverweeds, hoping that the pounding in his head would go away.
It was hardly his fault that he was too light to press the plough deep enough into the scorched soil, but his pa acted like it was his fault anyway; wasn't like clapping Samuel about the head would bring the rains back neither, but his pa did that anyway, too – was like all of them had it in for him for some reason, and he couldn't make that reason go away.
Miserable and unthinking, he swatted at bottle flies that buzzed around his head and pressed his cheek closer in to the cool earth, half way listening to occasional shouts of the menfolk.
This was an old tactic of his; he guessed when he wasn't needed, so he could spend hours hiding within the confines of the tall grass and willows of the rocky, muddy stream that snaked through Rock's Fall's steep valley. Usually, Samuel carried with him his faded, half torn copy of The Chant and its Dissonant Verses, but the book was gone; he was now content to simply lay there and press the side of his face to the still cool, softened clay of the riverbed with half a ear out for any particularly threatening rumblings. Not that it mattered, today – his pa had torn his already tattered copy of the book fully, then taken great pleasure in laying the pages in the fire, one by one – reading books didn't feed womenfolk and oxen and goats, his pa had said, making it pretty clear that there was not much difference between the three sorts of pointless animals, 'specially during a draught.
It must have been the draught going to people's heads; his ma would normally have stopped his pa from burning the only book in the house, because she'd bought it for Samuel herself, in secret, and it had cost a pretty penny. She'd normally have stopped his pa before he beat the kid bloody, and taken a few herself, but this morning she hadn't. She'd just stood there, not even looking at her man or her child, just staring out into nothing.
Samuel not sure how long he had lain there, staring through the forest of rotting and snapped cat o'ninetails. He thought that he heard his pa yelling for him, threatening him with yet another and more terrible beating, but, since he could not even imagine a more terrible beating, Samuel merely licked his split lips and found he could not summon the will to move anymore, not even if his dream came true and Andraste herself appeared now before him to lead him away from the valley with Glandivalis, her own mother's blade.
Samuel fancied he did deserve that – truth be truth, he fancied his life was as miserable as that of an elven slave. He didn't know even if Shartan had had as many beatings as he'd had; Samuel thought no one could possibly have had as many beatings as he had, 'cuz he did take notice of the fact menfolk beat their women and children, but never beat their horses and oxen quite the same, an' from what he'd read, elves were sort of like horses and oxen: no good if they were lame and couldn't work.
So, to his mind, he deserved Glandivalis a lot more than Shartan had. Yeah.
Another fly joined the first now, and began lapping at the crusted blood collected at the back of his right ear. The oven hot air continued to beat off his skin and as more flies noticed his lack of distress and joined their brethren in picking at the scabs around his ears and scalp. One particularly fat, bold one landed on his nose and seemed to stare at Samuel with alien eyes the color of beetle's wings and lamp oil on water. Samuel stared back, as a dark cloud passed over the sun the oiled colored eyes stared back. It reminded him a little of his grandmother who shared his room.
Samuel wasn't sure how long he stared at the fly who made him think of his grandmother, but he thought with a sudden start that he should have noticed when the growing darkness of early evening replaced the shade of the cloud. Stumbling upwards as stealthily as he could with his side both painfully asleep and no longer comfortably numb to its old bruising, Samuel moved backwards away along the river bed to loop back around to his house. Experience told him that, whatever his feelings, the sooner he arrived the better it would be; maybe his pa would be in the happy drunk state, and not the angry drunk state.
Samuel had just turned the corner along the main path to his house when, he stopped, arrested where he stood by the overpowering vision of the entire village dancing around a massive bonfire.
He recognized all them, but only vaguely, their features distorted by the heat so that they appeared bestial and braying in the fading sunlight. The shrieks of the villagers reached a new height when the flames transmuted themselves into a hellish woman, half goat, half human, with glittering black eyes, and twisted horns, and breasts bared. Most of the women in the village, even his ma and the blonde girl from next door he was gonna marry, because, up until this moment, he'd thought one did have to marry a girl to see their breasts, had their breasts bared.
Samuel stood paralyzed while the woman fiend crooked a clawed finger at him in open beckon; he felt the little thing between his legs, the thing that was sometimes not really little anymore, sometimes, grow bigger than it ever grown before; but at least he was not alone in this - his brothers and sisters attacked or mounted each other, like rams mounted sheep in spring. His pa put the blonde girl from next door, the one Samuel was gonna marry, down by slapping her with the back of his hand, then pulled his own thing out of his breeches, and showed Samuel what it was meant for, right then and there – and that made him think he was not gonna marry the girl after all, because she seemed to like being slapped, and, when his pa climbed on top of her and pulled her skirts aside, to show parts Samuel really had never seen before, she rose up and licked his cheek, covered in unshaven stubble and sweat as it was.
He alone had nothing to show for his thing getting really big now, but the half-woman, half goat still eyed him, and him alone, steadily. She put her finger in her mouth, then ran it between her breasts, then, lower and lower on her stomach, then plunged it between her legs, like there was an unplugged hole there, and she was telling Samuel to plug it – and then, the little boy awoke and screamed.
'I know what ya are!' he shouted; he didn't know whether she could hear him, over the grunts and sighs and other screams. 'I know, cuz I read books! You's a lust demon! Go away! Leave my ma alone!'
'I know what you are too, Samuel Cottington. A little powerless boy,' the goat-woman purred. Maybe she looked like a goat-woman-cat thing, but he still knew what she was, she couldn't lie to him. He read books.
'Leave my ma alone!' he screamed. 'Ma! Ma, come with me!'
But his Ma couldn't hear him on account of the man on top of her, so there had to be another way to make her hear him, and Samuel truly shook the daze off; he sprinted as fast as his legs could carry him back towards the refuge of the riverbed where, weeping and gasping, he grabbed a thick young willow and pulled, pulled, not caring that the tree's leaves whipped at his face and caused even more cuts.
The willow would work, he told himself, because that's how his pa got their stallion off the neighbor's mare – he whipped him, whipped him bloody, but it was skin deep and it was alright, because the stallion could still pull a cart after that. The young willow looked like a whip, and, when swung right, its thin branches left welts like a whip too – if only its roots would give, and give fast enough, but they wouldn't, they wouldn't…he was just a powerless little boy.
It was in the deepest depths of his despair that she found him, the Maker's Bride. Her appearance came as suddenly as the demon's, only it was made real by a warm, comforting hand on his back and the soft, golden glow of the Maker's light. She was more beautiful than they ever painted her or carved her in wood or stone – sometimes, Samuel had heard, they made her out of marble too; he didn't know what marble was 'except it cost more than a pretty penny, but the woman looked like even marble would be too little to show her as she was – tall and proud, and great of breast and hip, all covered in robes spun of untouched white.
She caressed his shoulders, then put her hands over his, in pulling the willow out; with her first pull, out it came, and Samuel laughed with tears of relief in his eyes, and she laughed too, warmed by his faith.
'Bearer of the Maker's Favor, never despair.' She said, sitting on the muddy ground. 'Your whole life was preparation for this moment – if you can bear the load, you will be His Champion.'
Andraste then passed her hand over the willow making it into a flaming sword. She measured it for a moment, for weight and slimness, he guessed, then held it in her holy hands, and put it on her holy hip for an instant, before taking it in her hands once more, and passing it over Samuel.
Transfixed, Samuel took the holy weapon, his innocent flesh unaffected by its most divine flames. This sword was better than Glandivalis, he thought; Glandivalis didn't have no flames.
'Thy first labour is to free thine family from the bonds of the demons that possess'th their mortal coils. In doing so, you will show mercy to those who have tormented you and courage in the confrontation, just as I once did.'
'I don't mean to give real hurt to any of 'em. Just mean to save my ma…' Samuel whispered. 'The lust demon makes folk do what they don't wanna do; they'll be fine once they wake up from the demon's dream. I 'no that.'
The woman smiled and nodded.
'Blessed are they who stand before the corrupt and the wicked and do not falter. Blessed are the peacekeepers, the champions of the just. Blessed are the righteous, the lights in the shadow. In their blood the Maker's will is written – you are the light in the shadow now, Samuel. Do what must be done, and may your light, the Maker's light, strike out all shadow.'
'Now, my Champion,' the Most Holy Bride whispered in deep tones of reverence, as the sword's flames engulfed Samuel's whole vision and devoured his fear, 'go, and fulfill the charge.'
Without another word, Samuel turned around strode back to the village of his birth, his form bright with latent magic newly awakened; he held no flaming sword, but a stick he had fashioned and sharpened out of a willow, in a waking dream.
His young, beaten face was enough to make all the villagers of Rock's Fall to open their doors; his sharpened stick was enough to pierce the heart of every man, woman, and child. In the dead of night, or perhaps he was fast and precise enough in his strikes, no house could warn another. Only when he had struck the mayor's two summers old daughter through the heart, extinguishing the last light of life in the village, did twelve year old Samuel Cottington rest.
He did not rest at home, though – his ma's blood, plastered on the walls and ceiling and, more importantly, over the oily fly eyes of his grandmother, the fact that his grandmother's body was not easily shifted off the bed he slept him, made him go down to the murky stream.
He laid back to the ground, his clothes chafing more than his skin, for the blood of the first he'd killed was drying fast. He laid down, his torn ears glued the muddy ground and sharpened stick in his hand, then closed his eyes, and thought at least there would be no beatings 'pon the 'morrow.
Beside him, the woman dressed in impeccable white stood watch, for a while, seeing the boy twitch in the mud. She smiled, and crossed her legs, her hair twisting to high, pointed horns and her white robes becoming glued to her skin, to reveal her hoofed legs and to her bare breasts.
She looked to the sky, beneath the remaining willows.
'See, Samuel,' she said, in genuine kindness. 'I gave you what you desired: you wished to be free of this village, now, you are. If anyone finds fault in that, well…Well. They won't be faulting me.'
Well, well, what else could happen in this literal pandemonium? It's not like we're going to wake up the Old Gods...
Thank you for reading :)
