Ruhiel, I
Ruhiel should have been a Clayr. It was not a nice thing to say about one's aunt, but it was true. Ruhiel was a gifted diviner, but neither scholar nor warrior and scared to death of the Dead. She would have been far more suited, and indeed much happier, discerning the future from clear glacial ice or wandering free and aimless just because she could. Instead, she was the Abhorsen, and she is dead.
the abhorsen is dead
It was in the witching hours of twilight and dawn when the vision first came to her. This Sassy dismissed, preoccupied as she was with courting drunken oblivion in the company of certain acquaintances and associates of her medical career.
The second time, she was throwing up into a bin by the side of someone's bed the following morning, between a splitting headache and the realization that getting this drunk the night before her final exam was, possibly, a very bad idea.
The picture of the empty, age-worn bandolier finally caught up with her in the midst of her practical final and registered itself as true, real, and important, with a metaphorical slap that sent her metaphorically reeling. Afterwards, she questioned the prudence of her action. In the elated high of her moment, however, nothing could be bizarre enough, explosive enough, to suit her sudden exit from the University of Medicine South Ancelstierre, circa 1652.
She was doing so well, too, that brooding L'coste girl with the slightly bewildered, darting eyes – until, she stabbed her final examination subject in his frozen, exposed heart with her University-issue exam-use scalpel, stole his sheet for a garish cape and stalked chillingly out of the examination theatre, not a footstep sounding from her heels in the echoing, shocked silence; thereby ruining her chances of ever returning to that elite circle that is Ancelstierre's finest, and only, healthcare and subsidiaries workforce.
The possessions that she chose to keep huddled sadly in the bottom of a camp bag as she took the train to Corvere in her "I WOULDN'T BE CAUGHT DEAD ALIVE" t-shirt, depicting a zombie and a skeleton sharing a line of crack. Her Aunt Leliel sent it to her years ago and it has been her favourite since. It was what she considered her heritage shirt, although strictly speaking, Sassy's heritage raiment would consist largely of dark blue backgrounds dusted in endless silver keys.
She slept most of the way and stared stonily back at passengers who tried to glare their resentment at her lack of taste in t-shirt slogans.
At Corvere she took a cab to Bain, and from there, an ancient bus that creaked its reluctant way to the Perimeter. She left her discman on the bus since it would be pretty useless where she was going, but took the CD with her.