Blood. It sets my teeth on edge, even the thought of it pricks my body with pins and needs from head to toe. This almost sickly feeling in my chest becomes an addiction, but's it's more than that now.
My needs have evolved and what it make me feel as well. Life is not just the river that flows within all of us, but who we are, what makes us whole, hard, alive.
Blood is self.
Blood is family.
My bloodline ends with me, thanks to Shang Tsung.
If Mileena was just a construct from mine and Tarkatan blood, does that mean she had no soul? What is the human soul? Does everything have one? Is soul magic stronger than blood?
Did you have a soul Mileena? Something tangible I could grasp onto and bring you back to me, my sister?
That face haunts me.
Hers.
His.
The sight of Shang Tsung using that energy within us all to tear her life from her body. It's so strange these thoughts that swim in the swamps of sadness of my mind that still find some means to disturb the already scratched out edges of my skull with images that need to drown with the little girl I used to be.
All my life, family was the thing that tortured you, killed everything you were and wanted to become, but the moment your own blood flowed into the life of another, it changed.
Is that love?
Is love hidden in the depths of our blood?
"Who were you just now?" Kotal Kahn's voice broke into the tortured caverns of my busy mind and my eyes opened to find his torn with concern.
"Sorry."
"Focus, you must put all of your energy into the magic if you're to wield it properly."
The blood spilled in my hands and stained my pale flesh red. He wasn't disappointed, but Kotal Kahn expressed through those dark orbs that this lesson could not continue. There was something in his eyes that reminded me of the little girl that scratched to climb out of mine.
It wasn't my place, but my voice cracked and and return the concern I had found in his eyes, "you miss her?"
He took in a sharp breath and his lips pinched, but he dared not reply. Beneath that warrior was a man that still felt the pain of humanity. Perhaps that is why he took me in?
"There will be no more lessons for today, Skarlet." He departed with these words, and as he moved off toward the stone gate of the keep to meet with the soldiers that waited outside, I could feel the humanity radiate from his very being. Even a king is still human.
Even a monster like myself.
Like her.
Many moons had passed since the battle at the Living Forest. Shokan and Centaur, Osh-Tekk and Humans alike all worked together under the will of Kotal Kahn to rebuild this army and society into something that could change Outworld forever.
Motaro's holdfast was big, enough to fit a small village in it, but not so much to encapsulate the city beyond the palace, or even the coliseum itself. Soon we'd outgrow this, and in fact, that was the plan.
Every other morning, Kotal Kahn would take me out to the training field within the walls of the keep and we would work on blood magic and sword combat training. As his second in command, it was now my task to rally troops and scout new ones in the nearby villages. With Motaro gone, the citizens of Outworld seemed more welcomed to the idea of a One OutWorld, but that didn't mean all of them were.
You cannot defeat fear in a day.
Rain, Kotal Kahn's third in command, also raided nearby rival villages that refused to swear fealty to Kotal Kahn, but in my time with him, it was not certain whether his loyalties truly lied with Kotal Kahn, or Edenia. The nights we had spent together, the river of his heart beat for more than just one, but today, it would beat down a rival Centaurian tribe, the last to revolt against a Clan no longer under the control of Motaro.
He was adorned in gold and royal purple, the colors of his Edenian past and position, which was hard to let go of. He traced the training field with a group of three Shokan and two Centaurs toward the north exit, and as he he concealed his face in a silken veil held by gold, our eyes met and he stopped.
This man had power. To nearly wipe out the entirety of the demonic forest that was now more of a scar than a threat, he was not to be taken lightly. He seemed to be taken with me, but my loyalties were strict. This tattered heart could not beat for anyone anymore.
It died with her.
He moved along with his troops and were let out to scout the last remnants of discontent among the four legged creatures. Soon, I would do the same with my group, but our party was meant to seek aid south of the keep toward a small Outworld village known as Sun Do. Echoes of a female warrior in that village had reached the ears of Kotal Kahn, and he was interested in having her join this army, if not convince the village to join us as a whole. If not, my orders were to extinguish all live within Sun Do's borders.
"General." The broad chest of a tall Shokan met my gaze until I traced it up to the eyes that stared down at me. "We are ready to move out."
"Good. We leave now." There was no need for trivialities. No more thoughts of the past. This was a mission that needed to be done.
Our troop was not adorned heavily in armor or weaponry. This was not meant to be a raiding party like Rain had been sent on. A dagger, vial of blood, and the clothing of a general of Outworld was all that I needed to present authority to a peasant village. The Shokan were honorable men and women, but they were not big into fashion and wore only what they needed to. Light leather armor, and fundoshi. Some wore cloth that hung over their fronts with Kotal Kahn's symbol, others had not been able to earn such cloth.
My troop was less than even Rain's. The villagers would not be much to handle if things went south. It was the woman we cared more about. Her name wasn't known, but her reputation grew throughout the villages and quite honestly, I was excited to meet her.
Sun Do is a small south eastern village that had been decimated by Shang Tsung when under the rule of Shao Kahn. They had constructed the island, and much of the regime's more prominent structures as slaves. Fortunately for them, Shao Kahn's rule was slim and Shang Tsung's lesser than even that. Their home decimated, Kitana Kahn had restored it to the best of her ability, to my knowledge, though I had never been there to confirm this. Kitana's humanitarian efforts were always spoken through her and never truly proven. We had no clue what we would walk into, an active and healthy village, or a slavers market.
It would take several moons to reach Sun Do, and the first nights went peacefully and good distance had been covered, but these lands were not safe, even under Kotal Kahn. The Li Chen Mountains had yet to be conquered by the new Kahn of Outworld, but one after the next villages either crumbled or bent the knee. This one was the last before we would enter the mountains.
Our camp was minimal each night. No fire, even as it got cold, and Outworld was always cold at night. As the stars poked holes in the sky and blinked down at us, it reminded me of how small I felt, how insignificant my life was in the city beyond the palace. Every day my body and spirit was held down and my life torn bit by bit, chewed up and spat back out something unrecognizable. The first time I drew blood, I killed my father. Inside however, he was no different than any other man, just like the stars from so far away seem like any other spark of light off into the distance, flame, ball of light, firefly, its all the same. It's not the flesh that makes us who we are, but the mind hidden away in that twisted skull.
My father made sure I could never bare children, and my mother didn't care for my life any more than him. Blood, family, that was just a taste to me, a feeling of pain, a bruise and the melted days that stuck together like hot flesh to coals. It really wasn't until I chanced upon one of the escaped experiments that would inevitably lead to the creation of Mileena that my life had truly changed.
If Kitana hadn't defeated Shao Kahn, how would things have been different? Would I still be out here on a campaign of conquest for the Kahn of Outworld, or still tied down by a monster, screaming for help and only finding the hands of death reach for me?
The stars glitter cold like funeral pyre for the fallen enemy. Too distant to relate to, but the Shokan around me, my troop, and Kotal Kahn back at the Keep, they understood, in some way, some strange way. The loss of Jade weighed heavy on Kotal Kahn's shoulders much as my forged sister's death on mine. She brought me into this world and without her it seems like I'm just struggling to find warmth in a cold, distant light.
Is this really worth it Kotal Kahn?
Can we forge a new world on the graves of our loved ones?
Once morning light touched the faces of the Shokan, they were up and we were on our way toward the gates of the village in no time. Half a fay and the pitiful attempt at a threshold welcomed us with bustle of peasant life. These men and women were not warriors, but farmers and scavengers. That didn't matter however, my eyes passed over every hovel and hut to find which structure was built with true integrity. Those buildings held people like shaman, soldiers, and a woman named Li Mei.
An old woman with more wrinkles than the fabric of time plucked from her old flesh a small story to tell us about Li Mei having protected this village from a recent invasion of thieves. From another wrinkle, she was able to pull out the direction we'd find her, down the old main road she travelled as a young child with her mother and sister toward the temple to the Fire God Liu Kang and his Goddess Kitana. Unfortunately, it wasn't in me to tell her they were much smaller and more human in person than the statues erected to worship them. Her pulse was feint and she would soon pass, barely any blood in her, but as we moved toward the center of the village, down that old main road of dirt and history, the temple and statues became illuminated by the sun and two figures stepped from the inner sanctum of the temple to greet the strangers that dared approach.
Can I inspire the flow of blood rather than pull it from flesh and bone?
Before us, as my Shokan stood behind me in order of rank, stood Master Bo' Rai Cho and Li Mei, the keys to conquering the mountains and quelling the Gods that looked down at us from the temple square.