Author's Note (updated 17/10/2011):
This is an old story; my first fanfic, in fact. It's a bit creaky, a tad rusty, and sometimes uses a cane to get around, but you know what? I love it. I love it because it taught me how not to write (and the earlier chapters bear testament to just how green I was back then). So if you fancy a good (as in long) read in the company of Mat, Pips, a deadly disease, lots of faux-18th century parlance, featherings of fluff, and a good old dollop of OC, Season of Change is your pal! And it does get better later on. Honest.
You never know - I might just get around to finishing it some day ;)
Disclaimer - I disclaim everything.
PROLOGUE
The stippled light pierced her eyes as it splintered through the leaves. Burred branches whipped and tore at her legs as she ran, ankles twisting in an attempt to keep her footing on the gnarled and knotted forest floor. Her breath hitched within her, throat rasping as she frantically strove to suck life into her laboured lungs. A thorn slashed at her cheek, whipping a razor fine tear on her pallid skin. Her tears seeped into the sliced flesh, causing a flash of pain that the searing in her breast and limbs instantly eclipsed.
Though the blur of watering eyes, she could see the pall of heavy smoke that hung over the distant village.
Through the reedy whistle of the keening wind, she could hear a steady thrum echoing though the painfully bright sky.
Through the numbing pain, she could feel the keen edge of terror burrowing within her.
But on she ran though the sun-dappled forest, towards the unnatural thunder and ominous black haze.
Towards the fear.
She burst into the scene from a nightmare. Bodies lay scattered in the village clearing. Some lay crumpled in awkward positions, as though cast aside by a raging child in the midst of a tantrum. Others lay neatly arranged on the ground, the limp fingers of every one precisely placed so each touched the hand of the next. She took in the scene with bewildered detachment.
Not this. She had never expected anything like this.
She began to move through the square, weaving between the dead on bruised and swollen feet.
The houses and small buildings she passed were blackened and charred. In places where she recalled structures, there were now none, as though they had simply ceased to exist.
The slicks of ebony ash she wandered past sometimes yielded familiar shapes; a staying comb, a knife, a finger.
Her unblinking gaze drifted over all these things without flinching.
A sound was ringing in her ears. She inclined her head so as to dislodge the irritating noise, but it failed to abandon her. She frowned. Why didn't it just leave her alone?
She tried to stilt her breathing so as not to inhale the fetid atmosphere, heavy with the stench of burning decay, but her starved lungs could not renounce the air, however vile it had become.
She began to gag, and her stomach took to heaving as she walked further into the town.
She no longer knew where she was going. It was becoming apparent to her listing thoughts that there was no one to find here. There was nothing here but death and the dead.
The keening sound was getting louder. She frowned at its intrusion.
She stopped outside a building that looked achingly familiar. Three blackened shapes lay wizened on the ground before the small structure. How could such small, pathetic remains have once been people?
She pondered this absently as she surveyed the sad tableau, until something caught her eye. A doll, with green eyes and red hair, features crudely made yet oddly endearing.
It snagged at her thoughts, caught like a barbed hook, tore the memory to her.
Menna
Such a pretty name. A pretty doll for a pretty little girl with red hair and green eyes. . . .
She caught her lip as she watched the girl enfold the doll in her round arms, eyes bright with excitement.
'Like me,' the child breathed, her small voice full of wonder.
'Yes my little one, like you.'
She had smiled at the girl before clasping her in her arms, planting a kiss on her snub nose.
'My little Menna. . . . .'
The doll was in her hands, small and broken. A black smudge marred its tiny face.
She barely felt the jar of impact as she dropped to her knees in the dust, doll clasped to her breasts and sobs threatening to rack her ravaged frame.
The world seemed to grasp for her, reality flooded her senses with the horror of what she had seen.
Stumbling to her feet, she grabbed the nearest wall to support her in her sickness.
Once the nausea had subsided, she drew a shuddering breath and straightened.
The world performed a lazy spin and she clutched her stomach once more, ears ringing. Nothing happened.
She stood more steadily this time, though her head felt stuffed with wool. The incessant whining sound had dimmed, but not entirely ceased.
With a lurching sensation, the sound finally coalesced into a noise she comprehended.
Screaming.
She jammed her fingers into her mouth to quell the sound, but the noise went on unabated. Not her, then.
Who? The sound had haunted her since she entered what was left of her village. Who was venting that unending wail?
She wandered into the nearest alleyway.
Terror was a knot in the base of her skull and a thorn in her gut. She skirted past debris, flinching at the scratch and groan of crumbling masonry.
The sound grew louder. It resonated with agony.
She increased her pace, desperate to find another alive.
The sound led her to an open flight of stairs; the door had been blasted from hinges that were now warped into lethally jagged shapes.
The stairs groaned and shuddered beneath her. Dust and ash swayed into the air as she disturbed the steps. They spun and floated before her, glistening in the muted sunlight that stole between the cracks of the building. She followed their lead, drifting up the steps on feet that now oozed blood from raw blisters.
The door at the top of the stairs was wan but heavy looking. She idly wondered if she had the strength to heft it open. As if in answer, her pale hand floated before her and splayed on the door, pushed at it tentatively.
Her breath caught. A pulsing heartbeat was the only sound that echoed in her ears.
The screaming had stopped.
She peered through the crack in the door. There was no light in the room. The window appeared to have been blackened somehow.
Slowly, ever so slowly, she opened the door to shadow.
As her vision adjusted she realised her eyes could make out dim shapes.
An overturned chair.
A table listing on it's three legs.
A figure.
Holding a hand before her, she walked further into the room.
'Hello?'
The word was barely a rasp from her scorched throat.
'Hello?'
A little stronger this time.
The figure volunteered nothing. Was this the one who had made that sound? There did not appear to be anyone else in the room.
She was about to speak once more when the figure shifted. She could feel her skin prickle, as though in response to a gaze from living eyes again.
She could see brightness in the figure's eyes, and a gleam on its face.
Tears. Whoever it was had been crying as she had. She felt a spasm of guilt at feeling such relief at another's sorrow.
Walking towards the figure proved more difficult than she thought. Her feet simply refused to move. She gave her silent companion an effacing smile, causing tiny fissures in her lips to gape and bleed.
She could see a glint in the half-light; the figure was grinning at her, full lips peeled back to reveal a pale gleam of teeth.
Her smile faltered. Something felt terribly wrong.
Stammering, she backed away from the figure, eye's wide between splayed fingers. The flesh on her arm tautened and mottled into gooseflesh, the fine hair standing keenly away from the pallid skin.
Her hand reached for the half-sword at her belt, the smooth hilt a solace to her fevered palm.
Her back encountered the doorframe, and she let out a sharp vowel of terror, spiking the air with its voracity.
The figure's smile seemed to intensify at the sound. It began to move towards her, undaunted by the weapon. Motes of infitisimal particles swirled around its shaded form. Her heels encountered to edge of the top step, and she staggered there, hands flailing the air for purchase.
None came.
She sensed the dizzying drop of empty space behind her, but barely felt the impact of the first connection with the hard wooden tiers.
She gave herself to the fall, better that than to the creature that now gazed at her from the top of the stairs, its eyes almost livid with fascination.
When the movement stopped, she realised with utter consternation that she was alive.
The ground had begun to quake beneath her. Stones and dust quivered then leapt from the floor beneath her cheek.
She lolled her unbearably heavy head, rolled her eyes to see if the figure was still there.
It had stayed at the top of the stairs. Its arms were now raised, and there was an expression of rapture on its face.
The rumbling intensified, and she felt the terrible certainty, became aware of the implacable force that surged towards them.
Closing her eyes against the vision on the stairs, she curled herself as small as possible.
Thoughts of her beloved home and family, her precious sister, came unbidden to her mind. An undulating keen came from between her clenched teeth.
I am sorry, Menna. . . .
The black, then nothingness.