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6 Fourth Age: The Serpent Strikes; [ Closed - Ayla ]
Topic Started: 3 Oct 2008, 01:45 PM (542 Views)
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Aydin’s eyes rolled to peer up at the sweltering sun overhead. The heat was too intense for this sort of travel, even for a Bedouin. A layer of sweat soaked his clothing. The heat waves rose up around them, dancing seductive mirages. The compass pointed the true way home, however, and after two months of absence, the War Lord and Wisdom of Ateker were returning.

“Did you see what I’ve brought for Derya?” he asked, holding out a small porcelain doll with hair black as night. “The Corsairs make it in the image of the child and with her own hair. They did a fine job. I think she will enjoy it. Ilkay is too old for that, or I would have brought her one as well. Instead, she will get an amber necklace to match her eyes.”

He had bought a golden trinket for Anahera, who would not expect or want it, and would be embarrassed for anyone to know she possessed it. Aydin kept it secret in his saddle bag for that reason. Skandar, his beloved son, had earned something far more valuable than any Corsair item.

“It is time for Skandar to begin the second phase of his training,” Aydin stated, his voice full of pride. “He is more advanced than I was at his age.”

Far off, a thin vein of smoke curled up into the sky. The starkness offset by the reddish dunes made it appear like a black serpent rearing high to strike the wispy clouds with its venomous fangs.

“A brush fire, do you think?” he asked, his smile faltering. “We should hurry and see how we can help.”
 
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Ayla had to steady herself on her mount, the overwhelming scorch of the sun momentarily causing her to sway to one side before she tightened her spine and narrowed down in her determination. The lazy haze of heat mirages shimmered across the sands like broken waters and dried up all too quickly upon approach. It didn't bother Ayla, she'd know the Sunland for long enough to recognize it's nasty tricks of the senses and trusted only the water at her side in a hyde skin canister to quench her thirst throughout their ride.

Aydin's conversation was a thing of treasured moments, these few times he was free to open up and show the pride of his children freely made Ayla proud of them and him, herself. The steadiness of his tone, a beaming father on his children.

"You'll spoil them all, Aydin...and rightfully so." Ayla smiles. Content knowing that even though she had none of her own, her brothers children were smart and brave and loyal souls - worthy of continuing on the line without her help.

Beneath her, the scent of smoke disturbs the steady gait of her horse and causes it to pace nervously from hoof to hoof. Ahead, it's a clear enough day to see stain of black against the sky and the approximate location it blows from.

Whiskey shot eyes narrow and she nods with solemn agreement.
"Pray, that we not be too late to do so brother."

Her heels dig in to the sides of her mount, reaffirming her role as mistress over the beast and angles its snout into a straight line towards the fire. It takes only a moment for the black demon beneath her to reach the pace of a gallop and go racing off towards the land a smoke.
 
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As they galloped towards the smoke spire, an unsettling of dread began gnawing at Aydin until he felt that there was a monster residing within him about to break loose. Intuition proved true. Pulling on the reins, Aydin slowed his horse before the ruins of Ateker.

The wooden cover of the well lay broken in pieces, and the ring of gray stones covered in sand and dirt. Great boulders from stucco houses scattered the ground as if war machines had been unleashed. What could not be beaten down had been burned. The stables were nothing but a skeleton of charred wood, and the fences in the training ground were blackened carcasses.

Aydin said nothing for many moments. Black eyes roamed the ground where heavy boots had trampled what gardens could be cultivated in the desert. A floating sheet of paper, its edges still gleaming with red fire, danced before him and removed Aydin from his horrified reverie.

That was when he saw it: his home. It was unmolested, exactly as he had left it, except where the crest of the House of Maati usually hung, now there was a Black Serpent on a crimson banner. Aydin felt as if he had been slapped across the face. The Emperor had done this and did not care to hide that fact.

There was nothing to say except one order—the ultimate sign of defeat.

“Find what survivors there may be.”

His voice sounded as hollow as he felt.
 
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As Ayla arrived right behind Aydin, she felt her heart stop at the same point in time where the horses hooves stopped running. It stopped and it fell into the abyss of her stomach. Numbing out completely the place it had once hung beneath her breast.

In silence she dismounted. Pulling down the lip of her cowl to reveal her stunned features as she left her horse and slowly headed deeper into Ateker. She had immediately thought of Aydin's family, her own nieces and nephews, her brothers wife but hadn't had the courage to head inside the Maati house. Too stunned and blinded by the Serpent banner that hung in place of their own, over the front door and hadn't realized she'd stopped moving. That her boots had rooted to one spot with a heavy weight holding her in place as she simply stared.

Through the smoke of fire and fallen debris, one by one, a handful of survivors began to approach. Their eyes filled with terror, anguish and uncertainty that they weren't still in danger. Some of them bared minor wounds, bumps and scraps that would mend over a matter of days and a few others had some more serious injuries that would require more skillful tending.

The Wisdom of Ateker circled the ruined land of her home, collecting what people she could find and did her best to gather them up in one location. She kept things simple, doing head counts and a survey of the injured. Assigning a few of the healthiest to help assist some of the more unfortunate as she made her way back towards the House of Maati.

She did not find Anahera.
Not Derya, Ilkay or Skandar either and it made her stomach ripe with an uneasiness that soured her spirit like rotten milk and tightened her throat so much it hurt to speak.

"Aydin?" She said, returning to her brothers side and not having the courage to ask the question that cried out from her eyes.

~'Are they alive?'~
 
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They were nowhere.

It did not matter which corner he turned or who he asked. Aydin’s family was nowhere. Panic welled up and the War Lord found himself pounding through the streets. He called out their names—Anahera, Ilkay, Derya, Skandar—over and over. But he got no response.

It was not until his second-in-command, Beye, grabbed him roughly by the shoulders that Aydin remembered himself. A leader remained strong whatever his circumstances. He turned away from the growing crowd. The survivors were shifting uncomfortably at seeing their War Lord so disconcerted. Aydin was a man of few expressions, but his face was now a mask of trepidation.

“I will take you to them,” Beye said, in his thickly accented voice.

Aydin motioned quickly to Ayla. Beye led them towards the house he shared with his wife, Ayo, and her sisters. The terracotta walls had been licked by flames and the door lay in splinters, but it was otherwise unharmed. Aydin surmised that it was being used as a House of Healing. Again, his stomach dropped and heart redoubled its tattoo.

Before their approach was complete, Derya flew from the house to her father’s arms. Aydin dropped to the sand, wrapping his arms around his little girl. Relief washed over him, and he drew back to inspect her. She had a cut over her eyebrow, but was not harmed elsewhere.

“Where are your mother and siblings?” Aydin asked, still gazing into her amber eyes as if not believing he was actually holding her.

Derya began to cry, lightly at first, then with a sorrow that startled her father. Tears stained her cheeks, and sobs racked her small body. The relief vanished, and Aydin realized that Beye’s home was not a House of Healing where the injured were treated and allowed to rest. It was a House of Silence where the dead found solace before being lowered into their graves.

 
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Beye approached slowly, she watched him as she often had and noticed how the man had seemed to have the energy in his soul sucked right out of him. His eyes dull but his expression holding true to a stoicism that was needed by any leader in a time of tragedy such as these.

Ayla followed only a step behind her old brother, needing the reality of his closeness as near to her as possible thinking it was the only way to retain any semblance of strength or sanity in the chaos of it all.

Then, like a shooting star that broke through a clouded night - Derya flew out of the house and barreled into Aydins loving and smothering embrace. He held her tightly, examined her and Ayla took the time to bite back her tears of relief and pet a shaky hand through her nieces hair. There was hope, she could dare herself to believe it now with the proof of Derya's survival. Though, as most hope, it was brittle and quickly shattered as the child's innocent sobs cast a deeper, darker shadow than Ayla could have imagined.

Dead?
All of them?

It couldn't be and before anyone could stop her or tell her differently, Ayla had swept past her brother and the crying child in his arms and headed for the entry of the house. It's walls licked with a dark layer of sute and ash that had painted the house black. Ayla took that finally step from one side of the door and rounded to its face, took one step forward into its frame and stared deeply into its interior - a look of stunned agony, sweeping across her features.

At this point, she would've sank onto her knees and sobbed into the sand beneath them but the shock of their deaths shook her into immovable stone. Her eye sight glazed over, blurring in and out like off set binoculars and she realized eventually it was because of the steady stream of silent tears she cried.

On this day in Ateker, the desert would drink and run wild with the rivers of its peoples tears and sorrow.

On this day in Ateker, things would be forever changed.
 
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They walked, as if in a daze, through the open door into Beye’s home. The little girl, his only surviving child, leaned into Aydin’s side, searching for comfort. He had none to give his little daughter. The War Lord was as barren as the Harnen’s tributaries during the drought. As he fell to his knees beside the peaceful bodies of his wife, daughter, and son, he felt no stirring of emotion, but only a vast chasm sucking his humanity into a bottomless void.

So much death had come to the House of Maati. His father and brother, followed by his mother, and now his wife and two children. For every challenge they had surmounted, lives had been lost. Aydin believed it was nothing less than divine retribution. It was as if the gods themselves did not wish the House of Maati to live and exacted vengeance for every moment of survival.

The Emperor had moved against them at last. They would not live to see a new month. For a fleeting moment, Aydin entertained the idea of sitting here, unmoving, for three weeks. The Emperor’s soldiers would gladly end his life and the pain of living would be removed. Derya’s fingers clutched at his tunic, still seeking her father’s embrace.

“While there is still breath in me,” Aydin whispered to his wife’s empty body, “I will protect her.”

With head bowed and sorrow to great to speak of, he issued two orders, the first to Ayla and the second to Beye.

“Make the funeral preparations. Prepare the survivors to leave Ateker.”

 
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It wasn't until Aydin's voice broke the silence of her shock that Ayla was finally able to drag her eyes away from the fallen bodies of her family and re-focus on her brother. It was then that she realized just how small Derya truly was and how tiny her hand seemed as it tugged needfully at her fathers tunic. It was also this moment, that Ayla knew she would have to be stronger for the people of Ateker than ever before while her brother mourned his wife and children.

The Wisdom of Ateker took the steps needed to close out the distance between her and Aydin, then laid one hand on her nieces head. Gently her fingers smoothed down the girls hair and lowered her gaze to Derya's. The other hand finding home upon her brothers thick shoulder.

"...Derya, why don't you come with me and give your father a few moments."

Naturally, if Derya wanted to stay near to Aydin, Ayla would not dream of separating the child from her parent. It was her intentions simply to take what innocence survived inside of the girl, out of this place that was filled with the death of her family and loved ones. Ayla held out her hand supinely to her little niece as an offering and Aylas' tears no longer fell despite the fact she did not have the strength to feign a smile. That said, Ayla knew that Derya might have hope of attaining some small piece of closure if she assisted with the preparations for the funeral and if it was all the Wisdom could offer her niece as far as peace of mind went, she would see it done.

As all so suddenly, this little girl, this little piece of her brother seemed far, far more precious to her heart than ever.
 
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