/=|= The Lost Raven =|=\
14
"The Awakening of a Nightmare"
"What the hell have you done?" Zasalamel roared.
Tira spun around wide eyed. "Wha—"
The Egyptian stormed up to her, grabbed her, and threw his slave down on all fours. He slid his scythe beneath her, then stepped on her back, slowly easing her down upon the blade. "Did I tell you to throw them over the cliff?"
Less than an inch away from that blade, Tira pleaded. No, she couldn't plead. She wasn't allowed to plead. All she could do was whine like an animal in trouble, for her master forbid her from talking.
"Did I?"
Tira felt the blade poke her breastbone. She shook her head vigorously.
"Then why did you? I needed their souls to feed to the Nightmare!"
Tira gulped as the scythe drew blood, as he put more and more pressure on her, and the blade dug deeper into her skin. And being forbidden from speaking, she could not give a valid answer without angering him (possibly provoking more wrath) and they both knew it. All she could do was shrivel up into a ball, and make herself into the most pitiful sight she physically could while whining and whimpering for mercy. His foot came off her back, and she half expected the Egyptian to finish her off and violently kick her into the scythe blade, impaling her and killing her. But he didn't. He slid the weapon out from under her, and kicked her in the rear, sending her face first into a muddy puddle.
"Go!" He commanded, "I will reawaken the Nightmare before nightfall, and when he rises he will need sustenance. Fetch me souls that I may feed to him and sustain his being so this ritual will not be in vain."
Tira scurried over to her ring blade, fetched it, and then quickly disappeared out of the courtyard as fast as her legs would take her. No doubt, Zasalamel would be looking for any excuse to make her miserable. Outside the castle proper, she didn't even stop to bid Revenant farewell or wave (not that he (it?) cared, but Tira just liked to get close and marvel at the walking skeleton). Once she'd gotten into the forest, under the cover of foliage, and out of sight of the castle, she whistled and her three friends descended and flew close by. "Oh my God! Did you see that?"
Chirp!
"I know! I thought I did a good job!"
Chirp chirp!
"Thanks! Do you really mean it?"
Chirp!
"He did! All he said was 'Deal with them!' Isn't that ridiculous? If he wanted me to keep them in the courtyard, he should have said," And Tira stopped, put one hand on her hip, pointed, and lowered her voice for her Zasalamel impression (which was actually pretty accurate), "Deal with them, Maggot, don't throw them over the cliff! Keep them here! Kick their asses all over the courtyard, but make sure they stay in the courtyard!"
Tira spun and faced the other direction, hopping into a new character that saluted the first. "Aye! Aye! Captain!"
She twirled again, melting into Zasalamel-mode, "And when you're done, you can go fetch a stick or something like the mongrel you are!"
Back into her own character, hands planted on her hips, Tira glared at her invisible slave driver. "Yes, master, but one day you're going to get what's coming to you! A knight in shining armor always comes to save the princess, and bad men like you always get it good in the end!"
"Insolence!" Tira whirled into her Egyptian Master impression, "You dare speak out of turn? Let me remind you of your place! Down on all fours and clean my boots, bitch!"
Finally returning to herself, Tira sighed and dropped her head, "yes master" and she continued along the path.
Chirp chirp!
"Really? Do you mean that?"
Chirp!
"Thanks! I've always wanted to be an actress!"
Tira giggled, and skipped along the forest path, bearing down on the town at the bottom of the mountain in the shadow of the mighty castle.
After an hour's journey, her friends chirped letting her know a big something approached up the road. She stopped, and let her ring blade slide off her body and fall to the ground around her feet where it sank into the water and out of sight. Then she dug her foot a little bit into the soft muddy road, just enough to inch her foot under her weapon, ready to kick it up into her grasp on command.
Just as she finished she heard a string of Splish-splash-splish-splashes of a horses' hooves and the rattle and rumble of wagon wheels and before too long a gypsie caravan appeared on the road in front of her, coming to a stop.
What luck! Tira thought. I like gypsies. They always have neat outfits and cool jewelry! I'll be a good slave and get prizes!
"What's this about? What are you doing in the middle of the road?" The driver of the first wagon called out as he stood up. A few passengers of that wagon and the others poked their heads out the window to see what was causing the delay.
Tira waved and in a perky voice greeted, "Hi! I'm Tira!" Smiling wickedly …
…
A single carriage pulled up to the castle. Tira at the reigns. Splish-splash-splish-splash went the horses hooves into the wet road as she steered it right up to master Zasalamel's wagon, and she hopped down, waving at the unmoving skeleton. "Hey there! I got new clothes and jewelry! See!" Tira twirled, did a brief tap-dance (splash dance in water?), then twirled and bowed. "Don't worry, I got something for you too!" She hurried over and put a trinket around the skeleton's neck, and tucked it into its armor, "I wanted to get you a hat or something, but I figured our master," Tira rolled her eyes, "would throw it away."
Revenant stood still, staring straight ahead.
"I did get one for you though! I'm savin' it for later! Maybe when our 'master' is done, he'll be nice and let us both go, and I'll give it to you then. Okay? Maybe we can travel together, you think?"
No answer.
"I'll take that as a yes. Anyway, back to work. I'm gonna be spending tonight face-deep in mud, I just know it. Can taste it already. Think ya can help me?"
The silent guardian didn't move.
Tira pouted, stomping her foot (splashing in the mud) and crossing her arms, "No fair! You get the easy jobs!" She sighed and brightened up, "that's okay. You're still cool. I have to admit, you're cooler than me. Wish I were a skeleton …" she kicked a rock and it plopped into the mud a few feet away. "If I get to be as cool as you are, will I get to stand guard—uh oh, I think someone's waking up."
The girl wandered back to the carriage, kneeling down to pick up a rock out of the muddy waters. She opened the door, spotted her groggy prisoner in the pile of sleeping uglies (and beauties), bopped him on the head, then tossed the rock over her shoulder. Lastly, she started the slow process of dragging these people one by one into the courtyard and tying them up in a circle around her master's ritual. An exhausting and time consuming endeavor for which her only thanks were an onslaught of merciless insults from an impatient Zasalamel. But eventually she had dragged every last gypsy into the court yard and tied them up.
Stones had been arranged in a circle around the creepy eyeball sword and some armor remnants, and torches had been rigged to stand up along the circumference, each burning with an eerie green flame that yielded a putrid violet smoke. A smoke that seemed to linger in the courtyard, creating a faint haze, and felt like it left a thin film on her skin that made her feel yucky.
"On your knees, maggot," Zasalamel commanded, and Tira obeyed, wondering what abuse he planned to unleash upon her this time. But to her surprise, he only grabbed her by her soaking hair and pulled her head all the way back so he could talk to her. "Your first loyalty will forever be to me. You will yield to me first and foremost. But I will now leave you to do the bidding of this creature, Soul Edge" and he gestured to the freaky sword. Tira tilted her head and looked on, mouthing those two words quietly.
Soul Edge? Wasn't that just a myth? A ghost story to explain the weird plagues of late? 'Sorry, little Timmy, the evil sword killed your daddy; it wasn't that he was a fat bastard who drank himself half to death then slept with a disgusting puss-infected whore.' A boogeyman to explain spontaneous bursts of madness in people? 'No, your husband wasn't a homicidal maniac, ma'am. The evil sword made him do it!' No, there couldn't be an evil sword. That was just crazy! She wasn't the brightest person on the planet, but Tira wasn't stupid enough to believe an inanimate object could possess people. What kind of superstitious nonsense could . . .
"The Nightmare will be reborn. You will be loyal to him. You will obey him. You are mine, but I temporarily give you to him. Do you understand?"
Tira barked.
Releasing his pet, Zasalamel took one of the gypsies and dragged the unconscious man over to the ritualistic circle, slit his throat, and let the blood drip down onto the sword, onto the eye, into the heart of Soul Edge.
Slowly, the muddy waters of the courtyard began to swirl around the sacrifice. As the blood dripped steadily down, the torches flames changed from green to red. The hazy cloud of smoke seemed to darken. The body of the gypsy shriveled before Tira's very eyes as if decades worth of age and decade swept over the corpse in mere seconds.
And then, the eye of Soul Edge blinked, and looked around . . .
Writer's Note:
For this story, I imagine Tira looking like my version of her from SCIV's editor. Link to My Tira pictures located in my profile. (I would link here, but won't let me for some reason.)