Disclaimer: I don't own Fable, I wish I did. I'd be making $millions$……
A Word from the Author:
This is my first fiction for Fable. I hear that the new game coming out will be awesome. I hope it is. This is just one of my little flashes of writing inspiration that will more than likely turn into a whole story. Read and review, it lets me know what you people think.
Resurrection of the Guild:
Life at Home in the Suburbs
The weather was dreadful and the air surrounding the Darkwood trees was so dense it smothered their barren branches. The rain sprinkled down into the cool foggy air, penetrating the most vile parts of the soggy earth. There, sat a small abandoned cabin on the edge of a ring of dead oaks.
The candlelight warmed the fogged windows and pierced the darkness. The leathery face of an old medicine woman peered out the window, waiting for any signs of a person passing by. She squinted her eyes and spotted some poor dreadful trader limping along the side of the darkened mud path.
She snatched her money pouch up hastily and slung her wool cloth over her hair and darted out with her ivory cane. Her bony fingers dug into the jet skull ornament on the top of the luminous white cane. She wobbled along as fast as her old legs could carry her. The trader was limping away, with shallow breathing and blood running down his legs. Trouble and hard times shrouded his very demeanor and existence.
She stopped the trader by the arm, but he panicked at the old woman's touch and struggled to free himself of her grasp. Her hands untangled around his cold arm and he fell to the mud.
She opened her pouch and offered him silver in exchange for herbs and other healing items. He gathered them out of his pack quickly and handed them to her while she tossed the coins in return. The not so distant howling of a wolf cracked into the sky, halting their trade for a second. The old woman's pearlescent eyes pierced the trader's in an all knowing gesture for a brief moment and she turned and scuttled back to the cabin, leaving the helpless trader to fend for himself.
She closed the door and locked it behind her. The day was almost over, and soon, night would encroach upon the solitude of all those living in the confines of Darkwood. The deadliest creatures would be venturing out into the night. The old medicine woman sat down in a rickety chair next to the straw mattress. She laid her gaunt fingers on the hands of her only daughter. The chances of her surviving this unpredicted childbirth would be grim.
Her cataract eyes traced the gold and red strands of her daughters beautiful long hair. Although the old woman looked blind, she could still see, and much better than any normal person. There was one other woman in the cabin with them, the nurse midwife. The old woman took her place in the seat of her rocking chair and started using the pestle to grind the herbs in a bowl and mix them. The midwife was weary of the old woman because she was mysterious, while the old woman was skeptical of the midwife because she seemed like an open book.
The daughter, Selena was her name, cried out in agony as the contractions worsened. The midwife looked questioningly at the old lady. She shook her head in sorrow and said, "Dese be dark times young girl. The shadows be movin' 'cross Albion tonight. My daughter not be dah one tah make it trough. Wait an watch for dah baby. Make sure it come trough. I be watchin' for da wolves an hobbes, right? I be makin' da medicine for my girl. Watch ova' her while I work, right?"
The midwife nodded her head and looked back at where the baby was coming through and grimaced at the sight of the blood.
Hours had passed on to blend into an eternity. The darkness outside was enshrouding the small cabin. Glowing eyes from dark creatures peered through to examine the unusually safe house. The old woman sat out on the porch in her chair and continued to grind the herbs in, and the occasional disgruntled mutter passed her thin lips.
Her house was protected from the creatures by the bones of the evilest demons in Albion themselves. At one time, the miniscule old woman had been part of something great. However, it was taken away from her when a once great hero had become a demon possessed by the sword of Aeons and destroyed the guild of heroes.
That had crushed her once youthful dream of becoming the greatest female hero Albion had ever seen. She looked up from her work and spotted the glowing eyes of one of the curious creatures and she smirked knowingly. "You be tinkin ya can get trough, eh? Not by my watch, ya filthy demonic rodent! Be away wit ya! An don' be comin' back," she croaked as a bolts of lightening flew from her eyes to strike at the retreating form of a hobbe. She waited till it was gone and continued grinding. The only sound was silence.
It was broken suddenly when Selena cried a most haunting howl of anguish that shattered the old woman's ears. She hobbled into the cabin and saw that the baby was stuck and couldn't be delivered the conventional way. The old woman grabbed a double edged dagger from the side of her belt and was preparing to cut the womb open, but the midwife stopped her. "No," she screamed, "You'll kill her!" The old woman replied, "An if I don' da baby will die! Da baby or da mother? Which one do ya tink is more important?" The midwife backed away and let the old woman work.
The old woman tried to use every herb and magic she knew of that could heal her daughter, but it was to no avail. Selena opened her eyes and whispered with shallow breaths, "I wan' ta see my baby. I need ta hold her now." The old woman conceded and gently placed the baby into the arms of her struggling daughter. "She be beautiful." Selena stroked the baby's head gently. "I wish dat I could see her grow up." A silent tear filtered its way down the side of her face and fell onto the head of her newborn daughter.
"She be Arcana." The old woman took the baby from Selena's arms, eyed the baby and replied, "Dat be a good name." Selena smiled. Her eyes widened slightly and she let out her last breath of air.
Arcana looked around the corner of the dead tree and unsheathed her bow. The doe was the most unusual demon Arcana had ever seen walk along the paths of Darkwood. She gingerly placed an arrow in and aimed. Her grandmother had given her this bow when she was only four and taught her how to use it.
The bow was the first gift she had ever received in her life that was so amazing and mystical. It was gracefully cut out of a strong, but flexible metal that provided the greatest tension and speed that made even the dullest arrow shoot straight through a tree.
The handle was wrapped in red velvet and runes were inscribed along the length of the bow. Her grandmother placed it in Arcana's hands when it was her fourth birthday and said, "Ere, now don' go losin' it. Dis be da most valuable ting I give ya in ya entire life. It be meant ta help ya in time of need or danger. You be usin' it wisely, or else." Arcana drew the arrow back and readied the aim.
A dark wolf (Balverine) burst out of the bushes and snatched the doe up and started to run off with it. "Oh no ya don'. Dat be mine," she grumbled and ran out of her cover. She aimed and shot at the wolf (Balverine), causing it to crash to the ground and loosen its jaws on the doe. It looked back at Arcana with piercing red eyes and the limp doe hanging out of the edge of its mouth.
It neglected to drop the doe and charged at Arcana. She loosed another arrow, and another and another until it became an endless stream of arrows. The balverine was getting too close for comfort and she was about to run, but the massive creature staggered and dropped to its knees. It fell face first into the soggy mud at Arcana's feet.
Just as Arcana looked down, her grandmother came into view. "Arcana, what you be doin' out here now?" The old woman paused and took in the scene. Her young little granddaughter had just killed a balverine that had been charging on her without getting a scratch on her.
Nothing like this ever came from a young seven year old girl. She gazed into Arcana's dark green eyes and moved along to her fiery red hair and back to her golden brown face. "Oh the gods be praised! A new hero be in da midst," she exclame joyously and hugged Arcana.
Arcana dragged the balverine's carcass along behind her grandmother and grumbled in her thoughts. "Anyting ya kill, ya eat," her grandmother said. Damn ya old woman. It be hard enough ta be getting away wit not eatin' my food, now da woman forces me ta eat it all. As soon as Arcana got back to the cabin, she was forced to skin the balverine's black fur off and separate the meat from the bones.
Arcana was hard at work peeling off the skin when her grandmother came up to her and said, "Ya can keep da skin darlin', make a nice dress outta it or someting."
Arcana smiled and hacked at the fur with more precision and enthusiasm. She set the fur out to dry on a bone frame she had prepared and proceeded to hang the meat out to dry. She spotted her grandmother sitting in a rocking chair on the porch of the cabin and sat down next to her.
The old woman peered out at the dark forest and whispered mysteriously in her harsh raspy voice, "You be destined for great tings young child. You be da greatest hero Albion has eva seen when you leave 'ere. But, I don' want ya ta leave. I be growin' fond of ya. I like ya around 'ere. I teach ya da way ta bein' a hero child. Come wit me."
The old woman lead Arcana to a clearing surrounded by dead trees and pointed at the ground. "Sit 'ere," she ordered. Arcana sat down curiously. She wondered what her old grandmother would be teaching her now. The old woman sat cross legged in front of her. "dere be tings ya need ta know 'bout dis world. One, noting comes free. Two, dere always be more battles out dere dan worth fightin'. Tree, honesty an virtue can get ya inta a lot of places, even inta trouble, so sometimes it be good to tell a lie. But ya have ta know how ta say it, else ya land in more trouble. But always remember dat da one person you be telling' da truf to must be yaself, always."
And so, it began with the vigorous training of morals and ethics. Eventually, it moved on to physical training, then came the magic. The old woman was astonished by Arcana's fervent thirst for the knowledge of magic, and decided that it would be best to teach her every consequence to using and abusing magic. Only seven years had passed by, and Arcana already knew more about magic than her grandmother had learned in a lifetime.
The Darkwood day started off dismally, which Arcana had learned to accept as excellent weather. The sky was black with rain and there wasn't a sign of sunshine to behold. She inhaled the dark foggy air gratefully and donned her black were fur. She cherished this outfit, since it was her first official kill, even though she had destroyed other things. It just seemed natural that it used to be the hardest thing to kill at first, then it got easier with practice. The once coarse fur had become soft and silky over time.
Over the years, she had to adjust the outfit to her development by adding on more fur. Her fingers treaded slowly along the edges and seams of the soft short fur. She donned laced leather pants that barely went past her knees and pulled on her fur lined boots. The tassels fell from the lining and hung gingerly around the bottom of the cuffs. She struggled and forced on her leather tunic, which was also lined with fur. She rummaged around her room and searched under her straw mat for her gloves.
Once outside, she took to the trees and sprinted around parts of the Darkwood forest where even the evil creatures avoid. She trotted her way up to the mountain by nightfall. This was the time of the month where her grandmother sent her out to hunt for food. Arcana always wondered why the old coot couldn't do it herself, but she did enjoy getting away from the lodged up woman once in a while. She made camp for the night in the branches of a nearby tree to avoid getting torn to shreds in her sleep.
An echo blasted throughout the forest and startled Arcana awake. She opened her eyes and found she was loosing her balance in the tree. Her feet slipped and she began the fast and deadly descent, but she stopped herself by latching on to the branch quickly with her arms. She pulled herself up and examined the forest below and spotted billowing clouds of smoke coming from her grandmother's cabin.
"That be more 'an just one of her little experiments," she whispered to herself. Arcana gathered her stuff up in haste and darted down from the tree. She skittered through the woods demonstrating her agility and balance. However, no matter how hard she pushed, she knew it would be too late when she returned to find her grandmother burnt to ash by one of her own experiments.
Or, at least that's what she assumed it was.
That's it for this