Chapter 5
The broadsword flashed down, slashing across undefended flesh. There was a spray of blood and flesh, shards of bone.
"Karen!" Too late—too late!
Rage.
"Challenge."
"Accepted." The other smirked, sure of his victory. "Johanas."
An answering smirk, full of hate and ancient knowledge. "Sa't Mertseger, Daughter of She Who Loves Silence."
A glimmer of uncertainty in the other's eyes.
She cut him down.
xxxx
She was awake without more than a heartbeat's warning, startling the twin on watch. She glanced at him, then away—not willing to let him see her tears.
She stood, settling her blades in their customary position before moving off into the edge of the woods. She needed to clear her mind.
Blades flashed in the moonlight, the near-silent steps of a pattern dance coming with ease, comforting. Familiar.
Quick, flowing, easy. Easy… parry, strike, evade, spin, strike. Faster.
Sidestep, half-step, back and strike. Faster.
Stop.
Flick the blades to remove the blood, though today there was none, sheathe.
Breathe.
And she was at peace with herself again, though sad.
And Elladan was staring at her.
She ignored the stare and went into a simple tai-chi kata to cool down, though it wasn't precisely necessary. The buildup of acid that caused the sore stiffness was viewed as just another damaging substance by her Quickening, after all. Still, it was relaxing, and no matter how brief, the soreness would leave behind a sense of weariness that left her sluggish and irritable.
As soon as she was satisfied with her cooldown, Sa't returned to the campsite and settled in to stare at the fire from a slight distance, knowing that there would be no more sleep for her that night.
Elladan was still staring at her.
She sighed, glancing in his direction, knowing her melancholy must be reflected in her eyes. "If you wish to sleep… I will take watch the rest of the night."
He frowned slightly, "I am aware that your people are similar to the Elves in some ways," he said slowly,
"but even Elven children need more rest than that."
Sa't blinked. The way that her Immortality had been explained was incomplete at best, when directed to the twins. She had not been in the mood to explain and Aragorn had not pressed her too, knowing she would explain in full to his foster-father once they reached Rivendell.
"I am older than I look, Elladan," she said gently, not really wanting to explain Immortals to the Elf when she simply wanted to be alone with her thoughts. "No longer a child by my people's standards." No, she was what was considered an Ancient. But that was something to be said at another time.
Elladan's frown deepened, "Child…"
Sa't shook her head slightly, a sad smile on her lips. "I need less rest than most," she admitted. "My people's healing… wipes away the weariness of the body. While the mind still needs rest, I will find no more sleep tonight."
He did not seem convinced, but subsided, settling to watch the darkness. "I will keep my watch," he informed after a moment, "Elves need less rest then Men."
She nodded, but said nothing, watching the flames and letting some of the happier memories of her time with Karen creep into her mind. Times camping, making up tales and recounting pieces of her past for her young student.
The silence stretched long, before she heard a change in Aragorn's breathing.
Concerned on not seeing her in her bedroll—which was directly across the fire from his—he sat up and looked around. "Sa't?" he asked.
She glanced at him, noting that Elrohir had also awoken.
"… Karen," she admitted, knowing that Aragorn would understand well enough from what she had told him.
"The nightmare again?" he half-asked, half-stated. "I had hoped it had left you."
"It has become less frequent," Sa't sighed, "But… it will never truly leave. Not that."
"What nightmare?" Elrohir asked, curiosity and concern in his voice. He had not been awake long enough to know not to ask.
Sa't did not look up, though she edged closer to the fire in an attempt to ward off the chill in her soul. She let the flashback come, forced herself to watch Karen's death again, the slumping of her student's (daughter's) headless body even as she arrived.
Elrohir regretted asking before she even spoke, seeing the horror, rage, and grief flashing though her eyes.
"I was too late."
The two Elves started at her voice, having not expected her to speak after seeing the look in her eyes.
"She was my daughter in all but blood," Sa't continued, voice soft, weary. "Too young to take on the Headhunter that found us. But he did find us… her. Alone. I tried to get to them before…" she let the sentence die unfinished.
"I was too late. I got there just in time to see my only child beheaded," her voice turned dark. "I should not have done as I did. He would have sought me out soon enough, and it is considered poor form to initiate a challenge so soon after one has ended."
"But he'd killed her. She had only been ten years among our kind, knowing who and what she was. A child. And he killed her."
Elrohir and Elladan exchanged glances before chancing a look at their foster brother, who had a darkly sad look on his face. He had heard this before.
"Anger does not begin to describe the rage I felt. And… compared to me… he was the child. Barely three hundred." She shook her head, "But he'd killed so many. So very, very many."
"In some ways… it is better that he killed Karen," she whispered harshly. "If she had won… if he had been her first kill…" Sa't trembled with suppressed emotion, "His Quickening would have overwhelmed her. She was not sure enough in her sense of self… she would have been lost to what he had been. Turned Dark. And… I could not have borne having to kill her myself."
Aragorn glanced up sharply, then he remembered what she had told him of her people as a whole.
"Of course," he murmured, understanding dawning on him. "His memory would have been stronger than hers."
Sa't closed her eyes briefly, "Yes. But not stronger than mine."
"How old are you?"
Strider immediately intervened, seeing the strange flatness in her eyes that spoke of a slight 'flashback' as she called them. "Forgive him," he reached out and laid a hand on her shoulder, hoping he wouldn't get it cut off from the presumption, giving her a light shake. "He does not know of your people."
Though puzzled, Elrohir apologized even as Sa't gaze snapped back into focus. "I did not mean to offend."
Sa't sighed, running her hand through her hair. "Iie. It is…"
Aragorn stepped in again upon seeing her reluctance, "That question is considered a threat amongst her people."
Sa't nodded, "Very much so. A death-threat. But here… I suppose it does not matter. I am…" there was a slight hesitation as she calculated—the Egyptians had had a reliable calendar. "Four thousand, two hundred and thirty-two." A pause. "I think."
"Truly not a child," Elladan murmured.
She sighed, dark eyes turning back to the dancing flames. "It has been long… long since I have been in a world as peaceful as this."
"You were shot not two weeks ago facing orcs and you name our world peaceful?"
"Your world is not men facing men in battles where thousands die in a single night. Your world does not have weapons that lay waste to cities in the blink of an eye. Your world does not have soldiers who…" Sa't bit back her words, unwilling to speak of it to people who were raised so gently.
"Who…?"
Sa't shook her head. "It is… a thing too terrible to speak of." Let them imagine their worst. It could not compare to the reality.
Aragorn shook his head as the other twin opened his mouth to press, "She has told me… bits and pieces of her world," he confided. "And… much of what she spoke of was truly terrible… that she refuses to speak of this…"
"Your people are too gentle to conceive the horrors wrought by mere children in my world."
Sa't turned her attention to the steady glow of the coals, where flames had sometime since died out. "They were only children," she repeated, more to herself than her companions.
And she said no more after that.
"Let her be," Aragorn murmured to his brothers, eyeing the little one he was beginning to see as a sister. "She will speak no more of it tonight."
xxxx
Lost in dark thoughts, Sa't refused to speak the next morning, murmuring in her own mother-tongue to Mithril as she tightened the cinch, but otherwise silent.
Aragorn sighed and shook his head as he saddled Ronan, his brothers looking slightly guilty as they checked the harnesses on their own steel-grey mounts.
Sa't's hands tightened briefly on leather before she mounted in a single, fluid movement.
The other three soon followed suit and Sa't followed in her dark silence for some time. Then they passed under thicker trees and her mood lightened somewhat. She began actually looking around at where they were, listening to birdsong in the canopy overhead.
"Sa't?" Aragorn asked eventually, not really expecting an answer.
"Hai?" she replied softly, sounding subdued and weary.
Aragorn turned to look at her, mildly surprised at the response. "Are you well, little one?"
"Just…" she trailed off for several moments, searching for the correct word, "tired, I suppose."
"We can rest," Elrohir offered worriedly.
Sa't shook her head, "No, not that kind of tired. World-weary. Remembering things best left forgotten."
"You wish to keep moving?" Aragorn asked.
"Hai," Sa't confirmed, "It is… a distraction from my thoughts."
The twins understood that and they kept moving with no more protests.
"Would it help to speak of it?" Elladan asked after a few minutes.
Sa't considered that. "Perhaps… but it is not something best spoken of to those raised in a world where good and evil are so simple. You… would not understand."
Aragorn did not protest that, having found much of what she had told him baffling and knowing the truth of her words.
The twins, on the other hand…
"We understand more than you think, little one."
Sa't sighed. "What you do not realize… is that I draw comfort from the fact that you do not understand. That you cannot understand the ways of the world I come from."
"Orcs and their like, undead and demons—these things are evil. Men are sometimes foolish, sometimes greedy, sometimes ally themselves with that darkness… but the race of Men is not evil. The Elves and Dwarves—no matter how irritating you may find each other—are not evil. You know this."
Sa't sighed, "You understand this."
"But the way of this world… is not the way of my world. In my world, there are no orcs, no undead, no demons. No giant spiders that are nothing but killing hunger."
Upon Sa't's pause, Elrohir prompted her with "That does not sound as though your world is so terrible."
She smirked mirthlessly. "The lines of good and evil are not so clearly drawn in my world."
"What do you mean?"
Sa't sighed again, "In my world… it is said 'evil comes disguised'. And in my world, it is true."
Aragorn gave a slightly worried frown, glancing between Sa't and his brothers, not certain he wanted to know what she meant.
Elladan, too, frowned, but his was a puzzled expression. "What do you mean, little one?"
Sa't closed her eyes, trusting Mithril to follow Ronan as he had the past uncounted miles. "There are weapons that lay waste to cities in the blink of an eye, leave the land blighted for millennia to follow. Weapons that were used against civilians, those not trained in the ways of war."
A breath, "Weapons used by Men against Men. Mine is a war-ravaged world, filled with discontent and hatred. Men slay men, sons kill their fathers, mothers their children. There are places and times of peace, but always, war comes again… and brother turns on brother."
A smile, small and bitter, "Too often, have I seen what is left behind. No, you cannot understand my world, for it is something you cannot even begin to imagine. Could you see yourselves fighting—truly fighting? To the death? I have seen twins as close as you appear to be turn on each other, one killing the other before turning his weapon on himself in revulsion."
She glanced at their faces, smiled again at the unveiled horror on their faces.
"You begin to see," she observed. "Do you wish me to continue? I could. I could tell you of a healer-man who slaughtered women and children for nothing more than his own twisted pleasure—a man no one suspected of such a thing. I could tell you of a woman gone mad with hate who drowned her own children, then killed herself when she realized what she'd done. More. Four thousand years of such atrocities, growing greater in number and horror with each century passed. Not every crime came of war."
"Sa't," Aragorn's voice was quietly reproving.
Her bitterness faded, a breath, and there was sadness in her eyes. "Forgive me. I grow jaded, at times. My faith in mankind… falters."
They understood, a little, as to why.
xxxx
I was in a bit of a mood. Can you tell? And I've got a lung infection that has me downright cranky. That aside, I'm doing all right, and trying to get back into writing—but didn't really want to turn any of the other ones overly bitter.