Suggested Listening

As the men went out to deal with the "monster" which Elruin made up, which would lead them straight to the other "monster" which was very much real, she remained with Mother and a couple of her elder sisters. Mother shook like she was crying, but no tears came.

"Are you hurt?" She touched the back of Mother's hand, cautiously, and looked at the smudge of dirt she left behind. "Can I help?" She didn't know how; her magic was anything but good for healing, but she felt she was responsible for Mother being hurt, and wanted to try.

"N-no, I'm okay." Even Elruin wasn't fooled by that lie. "You're a good girl, let's look at where you've been hurt." She didn't have strength enough for a blanket healing spell, so she'd have to focus on the worst damage before treating the wounds in the mundane fashion. It wasn't perfect, but they didn't have the luxury of perfection right now.

With Othsa's assistance, Elruin was stripped of her soiled, bloody blouse whilst Saria, one of the triplets a couple years older than her, went for some water from the cistern. Kasa and Inoin, the other two of that trio, gathered around to help check Elruin.

When it became clear Othsa wasn't going to ask, Kasa did. "Elruin, I can't find where you were hurt."

Were it anyone else, Kasa would suspect she'd lied about the attack, but Elruin was... unique. She'd personally seen the girl, then only five years old, get kicked in the face by a horse, and walk away without so much as a cut or bruise for the experience. Then there were the Reclaimers, one of whom she watched rip a tree twice as wide as a man out of the ground with his bare hands, and heard rumors of others who could summon a storm with a gentle sigh, so it was easy to think of Elruin as a child who might one day grow up to be like them.

Coming away unharmed, or healing, from an attack by a monster strong enough to kill Father when he had the Minotaur shard confirmed suspicions, rather than challenged them. Powerful without question, perhaps even inhuman, but not unbelievable.

"Uh, Father did something with his magic stone?" Elruin said to her, more as a question than a statement.

Now she was suspicious; Father was a hard man, and Kasa doubted he'd risk his precious magic artifact to save any of his children, let alone Elruin, who he apparently believed wasn't his. He might be right about her, too, as Elruin looked nothing like him. Then, she looked nothing like Mother, or any of her siblings, or indeed anyone whom Kasa had ever seen in her life.

"When?" Kasa asked. "If he was being attacked, when did he have time?"

"I..." Elruin knew she was caught in the lie, but she behaved as a normal twelve year olds would have for once, and doubled down. "It was the same time as he said he knew I wasn't his." Which may have been the least believable thing said by anyone that day.

"You're lying!" Othsa grabbed Elruin's shoulders, gripping her as hard as her trembling hands would allow. "Tell me what happened to my husband you freak!"

Elruin barely felt the pressure, but having Mother scream in her face upset her, as did having her lies fall apart so quickly. She went to the next default behavior of a little girl in such a scenario. "I don't know." Another child might have screamed or cried, but Elruin remained calm. Inside her head, however, she remembered when Father gripped her, and a little of how she had to defend herself crept forward.

Her eyes went from deep purple to solid black as she began to tap into her power. She saw her mother, the flaws in her health, and depleted life force. Mother had little choice but to tap into her personal life energies in order to use magic, while Elruin had a special reserve that would allow her to use her magic without hurting herself, though she saw no reason why she couldn't draw on life force to empower her magic if she needed. It wasn't all that different from what her skeleton did to destroy her father's magic stone and save her, as well.

Kasa again acted. "Look, it's been a stressful day for everyone. We should rest, wait for the men to get back. Elruin, take a bath, you're covered in filth. Mother, maybe you should lie down and try to get some rest? When they bring Father back, he might need your help." She crossed a line of propriety by giving instructions to Mother, but it was clear Mother was in no condition to make good decisions.

"You're right." Othsa relaxed her grip. She made no effort to apologize for her outburst, but a parent was not meant to apologize to a child. Besides, it was clear to everyone that Elruin was hiding something. They would just have to trust the men to discover what it was and report back before confronting the girl again to get the truth.

Elruin went to the bath house to clean herself; if she wanted to take the time, she could have perhaps heated some water, but the cold never bothered her, so she began to scrub herself of the dried mud and blood on her body, allowing the dirty water to spill on the ground. She was happy enough to be away from Mother and Father and their bizarre, irregular behaviors. It was better to follow the routine, safe and predictable as it was.

Still, she had something else to do. Going to the house, she picked out one of her nicer blouses, a hand-me-down that had been gifted to one of her eldest sisters before Elruin had even been born, and now had made its way to her. She couldn't remember that sister's face; she got married and moved away long ago. A new dress was needed as well, and so Elruin was in a fresh change of clothes when she went to the barn to play with the rats and test her new song.

Suggested Listening

The rats died as they always did, hiding in holes where they believed themselves safe until the reaper came in the form of a young girl with more power than any child should possess. The difference was that death was usually content to leave its victims alone afterward, while Elruin sang to the creatures.

Around her, the hay dried and cracked under the necrotic power she radiated. There was no scent in the decomposition; decay was a natural process brought on by mold and insects, while Elruin's power cleansed those hapless organisms as thoroughly as it did all life.

The rodents twisted, twitched, stumbled to their feet, then fell again. She could use her power to force the body into motion, but no matter how she tried she could not create a motivating force in them. Every step, every act, had to be guided by the notes of her song. Their small size didn't help matters, either, as they burned up in mere minutes of exposure to her magic.

Having given up on the rodents as worthless, she turned her attention to the one dolly she knew she could rely upon, out rebuilding the wall as a good worker should. Her song echoed throughout the barn, upset the animals outside, but she could not sing loud enough for her dolly to hear her from so far away.

She need not have worried, for her dolly came to her. She first saw it through her life sight; two people retreating back to the farm on the back of one of the horses. Not far behind them, her dolly pursued. One was healthy to her sight, though exhausted and depleted of magic, the other looked to have received a wound that would be fatal without magical aid. The horse was on its last breath, mere seconds from collapsing under the strain of running for its life.

Once she stepped out of the barn to see with her own eyes, she could see the dolly was missing an arm, what was left of the left side of its skull had been smashed in, and its leg was broken in half. It could only run thanks to the necromantic power holding it together. It was bathed in so much blood that it was hard to find a color other than red on it.

On the horse was Carob, and a farmhand Elruin had never talked to. Her brother was the one who was fine.

"It's coming!" He shouted. "Get indoors! Hide!"

Elruin knew on instinct and experience that hiding would be impossible; the undead did not see light, nor did they hear sound. Their senses were not all that different than her own, and if her sisters hid then they would be hunted down the same as the rats Elruin hunted.

She didn't want anyone else to see her sing, but it appeared that was her only choice aside from letting her dolly kill everyone.