Gaia

I'm back at the Tundra in the little hut I still call home because my ma and my older sister didn't want to go to Paradisum when the building hype was at its peak and every Tribesmen who resided there was built a home. Everything is different now and even ma is finally acknowledging that it was foolish not to get involved with the fighting and take opportunities whilst we still had them. She will never apologize for her stubbornness though, she and Aiya are both too controlling and stubborn to ever admit they were wrong to abandon our fellow tribesmen no matter what the reason, no matter the sacred calling of our family.

I look at my dusty niece playing around in the field and smile at her enthusiasm and purerity still, children are such a gift; my smile quickly fades as I remember how backwards and rural we are becoming in comparison to the world at large, all of us not residing within the walls of one of the big cities are being left behind. I've tried to convince ma that it doesn't even have to be Paradisum we move to, we could go to Hill-home, Viper's Nest or even Hill-town and start over there.

We will still be able to keep the sacred duty as the custodians of the runes there without bringing too much attention onto ourselves. To be honest I don't understand why grandma still doesn't think it's time to reveal at least to the Seers what generation after generation of our family has been custodian off to the people already.

I've told them about the Mare and their already vast knowledge of the origins of our race and the runic scripts they brand into their flesh. I've brought copies of said runes to ma who studied them and took them to grandma to compare with the ones we keep. But still apparently our sacred vigil is not at an end, I honestly don't know what to do now that I'm back.

How can I be content living in this hut watching my niece grow up in squealer after living these years in luxury myself at the Conclave Compound? How can I keep the faith of a duty I inherited not of my own choosing to the detriment of myself and my family?

I stand at the threshold of my hut and look at the remnants of our little village in what used to be the Horse - Eater part of the vast Tundra. Everything is familiar but nothing feels the same, the edges of the mud doorstep crumble under my boot. We are so remote here that even the Southerners never got this far in their most ambitious of advances. I watch ma, Aiya and grandma crest the hill as they come towards my house. I hope they took my words seriously of at least moving to one of the towns growing closer to Paradisum than we currently are so Cici has the benefit of modern education and training.

I watch them walk with growing impatients as they take their time. It's a few minutes before they are withn range so I can feel their somber auras and the air of seriousness around them.

"Gaia my boy, we have found you a mate." Grandma Questesa says without preamble sitting herself on a stool against my house.

There is an immediate smoldering fire of deep resentful anger within my chest at her words. Our family has suffered much and denied much even viewed as cowards from generation to generation of very little to no participation in raides. We have been the keepers of ancient knowledge, passed to us before the time of wondering by the the royal lines of our ancestral people. We are the Creta Nudes, the secret keepers and passers of knowledge from the time when our greatest foes where phantom creatures of the dark known as the Aave, the dark phantoms.

Our family has held the key to defeating such creatures if they ever resurfaced and we have held it for many many generations. Only for me to realize that the runic language is not lost in what was once our homeland but preserved by the Mare. My family is not the last holdout and sacred keepers of a knowledge so ancient that even the Seers don't know about.

I look at my grandma in the eyes as I hold in my bitterness and disappointment, my denial. I tell them about the Mare, about the runes the Mare have curved on their skin, I tell them we aren't alone in being the keepers of this all important ancient knowledge and all they come up with is a mate? What the fuck will I do with a mate at a time like this?

I shake my head in denial before looking at ma and then Aiya now playing with Cici. I hold my tongue, it takes a lot but I hold my tongue and bow my head to grandma before walking away from them and their folly. I walk a ways and I cover ground quickly as I flee from what I know I'm capable of doing to them.

I stop and crouch behind a boulder before letting out the rage and hurt that has been at the surface of my mind for so long now. I scream a primal scream of rage, betrayal and hurt, I scream again a scream that cuts through the air and calls the vultures to feast. I scream again as impotent rage turns into sobs that rock my body, tears and snort on my face.

"I can help you, I can set you free of this burden." A woman says out of absolute nowhere and I'm already turning with blade in hand to face any attack with precision and skill.

Before me is a spirit I immediately realize. The woman is semi corporeal and seems to be floating just above the grass.

"I could take your suffering, make you whole." It says as it projects an overwhelming aura of peace and rest, of letting go for a change, something I have always yearned for.

I'm just so tired of always fighting emotional battles, of always swallowing my pride and what I know to be true. Always being the male in a matriarchal family, the one who is least trusted with the secrets my da died to protect as his 'sacred' duty.

I give the spirit what it wants, I don't say anything but I give the part of me that's tired away and the thing takes it eagerly. I feel myself resting slowly as my body is taken from me somehow but I remain within it. I remain a passanger and as the thing is within me I realize it has no gender. As it uses my body to run back towards home with sword in hand and a bloodthirsty glee in my/it's chest I realize my great foolishness.

I try to wrestle control back but I have no leverage, the thing has me tight as I scream and billow within my head. They see me coming at speed and grandma seems to immediately realize my intent and disappears within the hut that is my home.

I'm almost hopeful for a moment that she may stop me, but I flare my aura and my ma's face is split it two with a spray of blood and brains done in a flawless move I've practiced nearly everyday back at the Den. I scream my outrage within myself even as Aiya screams her outrage out loud as she goes into the berserker Rage.

We exchange a single clash of weapons as her sword and my sword meet. But while she has been growing up learning runes and having secret meetings I have been training with da then with the Conclave to become a peerless warrior.

And so our second exchange isn't an exchange but more me hacking her arm off, then her chest open, then her head off her shoulders in a vicious backhanded strike. My nostrils flare, my body is vibrating as the part of me that is the berserker rage fights against the thing that has me controlled.

My body turns and looks towards the stunned and still stock still Cici and I know true dispair as my body takes a step towards her.

"You will not have my grandchildren creature." Grandma says and my body diverts directly towards her.

I Rage against the bars this possessing entirety has me in, I scream and cry for what's left of my family to run. I know they have no hope at all against me, none at all as the thing uses my body almost as well as I do myself. I launch forward at speed and skewer her against the wall of the hut with my sword, her feet dangle off the floor but she doesn't even go into the Rage as her old tired eyes look into mine.

I feel a slight pinch on my arm and look down noticing the fire poker in her hand. "Be gone creature." She says and the world tears like a clothe and I'm rocked back as though I've taken a blow.

My head throbs and my vision blurs before clearing again. I'm back to myself though, and I'm beside myself in grief.

"Grandma.." I say with a sob as I come back to myself, what have I don't? What have I done!

"....-pul-.. pull me down-" she says through her struggles and I immediately loose my hysteria as I pull the blade out of the wall but not out of her and I place her on the floor.

"I need to stop the bleeding." I say my training coming back to me as I try my best not to look around but remove my tunic to use as a bandage.

She struggles to breathe but I see the Rage taking her over slowly but seemingly peacefully. A gradual controlled transition the likes of which I have never before witnessed. By the time she is in the Rage I have my tunic using it to put pressure on the wound but honestly I don't know what to do.

"What do I do?" I ask my grandma with tears on my face.

"Call Cici." She says and I realise I've been a fool. I look at where I saw her last and I see her looking at the dead body that used to be her mother like she is a frozen prey animal.

"Cici," I say as I look towards her, tears in my eyes that obscure my vision.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry Cici." I wail as she starts taking careful steps further back towards where her mother's arm and sword had fallen.

"Cici, come!" Grandma shouts and the girl stops in her tracks even as I realise she herself is in the berserker Rage.

She comes slowly but there is a small dagger in her tiny 15 year old hand, a dagger I gave her when I got back to the Tundra several days ago and I want to just hold myself bare for her to curve my heart from my chest.

"Cici, Gaia was not himself. You know this to be true, you have been trained about such things, you are old enough to understand." Another sob escapes me and I shake, my Rage long since having abandoned me.

"What do I do?" Cici says in her little voice as tears flow down her face in torrents.

"You will protect the runes and learn to use them, you will grow strong and go to this land with these Mare to learn their runes as well. Then you will choose a strong mate who will give you many children and you will pass the runes to them in their entirety, even the male children, is that clear?"

"Yes grandma." She says with her own tears flowing down her face.

"And you Gaia, you are to mate with your cousin Swana from the main village. I have already spoken to her mother and da on your behalf. You will make sure Cici is safe and protected and that she gets to these Mare and she finds a man worthy of her.

"But your will wasn't strong this day so I curse you and your descendants to servitude. You and your offspring will always be servants to Cici and her offspring. You will be the protector and the subordinate to the extent of sacrificing your life for her own. Accept this curse Gaia." She says placing a hand on my head.

"I accept this as a blessing grandma, not a curse."

"So be it, it is thus given with the spirit in which it is recieved." She says then she deflates as the Rage leaves her and her body seems to shrivel as she dies in my arms by my sword.

I look at Cici, I can see the hurt there still, the shock of what the fuck just happened, the hate. But she says nothing to me as her tears flow like open facets.

"I'm so sorry Cici." Is all I manage to say, the shame I feel can not be quantified as I think of the things I've just done.

If not for my neices presence and grandma's last wishes I may just kill myself for the things I've done to the people I was supposed to protect.

I hear her sigh but I can't lift my head as my shoulders shake with important anger and shame. The worst part is that I suspect but I really haven't a clue what happened, not really.

I stiffen as I feel her small hand land on my shoulder, we both stay quiet for a moment and I hardly breath.

"It's okey Uncle Gaia, one day I think I may be able to forgive you." She says before walking away towards the woods, grabbing her mother's sword as she walks past it.

*

Albert

"That's strange." I say thinking out loud as I lounge in my Villa naked with the little girl still crying pleasantly at the corner.

"What?" Yolanda asks looking up from her book.

"Someone just banished one of my summons, that shouldn't be possible in this backwater of a continent. Especially since this one was up in the savage barbarian lands." I say with a frown but before I can chase the thought further Sus my chamberlain enters the room.

"The new batch of slave children has just been delivered my lord." He says with a bow and my cock stirs at the prospect of fresh flesh for me to enjoy.

"Excellent, the usual qualify of shipment I hope?" I ask with excitement even as I get up and close my gown to go inspect the new toys myself.

Its surprisingly difficult to get child slaves in quantity in this continent even with all the authority and autonomy awarded to the mages. Even my own pursuits in finding more seem to be being frustrated by some element within the government of this province thinking they are being clever.

But I will find out who is playing games with me and play with their children as well.

"What about the banished spirit?" Yolanda asks as I leave the room.

"Oh, I'm sure it is nothing. You know how these spirits get, it could be another one fighting this one-off from a prize." I say as I walk down the hall.

My old back of toys was getting overused and stale, this is the most excitement I've dd in months. There is no ways I'm trudging back up north to investigate a stupid spirit.