roseleaf320
Creative!
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No claw, nor ink, nor streambed stone,
Our lives are writ in root and bone.
Ulvenne will protect us both.
The further you get from me, the less I can do so.
I know.
The old exchange echoes within the resounding thunderclap of Radiance’s shot, within the shrill buzzing that circles Marrow’s ears like flies circling carrion. Across xyr chest, withered root splinters through flesh. Deep within xem, the Favoured feels something tighten around xyr heart, squirming desperately, digging like fingernails into Marrow’s core. Until it, too, shatters. Marrow feels each shard as they pierce xyr heart, a betrayal of the roots that once held xem so tenderly. Darkness surges from the wound, a swarm of insects fleeing a tree once it has fallen, and a guttural shriek rips from the Favoured’s throat. Xe knows that once xyr voice, too, leaves xem, once xe is bereft of breath, of blood, of Night, of Ulve, xe will fall like a discarded doll into the sands, broken and hollow.
Within the last moments of xyr breath, the moments when scream hoarsens and consciousness falters, Marrow’s mind floods with the scent of soaked bark and leaves, the sound of bone-chimes clinking viciously in a storm, and the acrid taste of blood.
Dully, the Favoured realizes xe is feeling Ulvenne’s panic.
The Favoured wakes into lightless night. Xyr chest shutters in a breath; xyr fingers flex around a crossbow that is not there. Is this the Blessed Rest all in xyr world were promised? It feels like the last moments between waking and sleeping, when the mind is suspended, waiting. It feels like nothing much at all.
No-- that’s not quite true. As Marrow’s thoughts search outward, xe catches the slightest twitch of earth beneath xyr feet. Xe flexes xyr toes, but xyr mind is still foggy, and catches instead on a flicker of light to xyr left. The Child of Bone turns xyr head sluggishly, xyr hood rustling against xyr hair. The light moves again. A single dot, warm and golden. A willow-wisp? Or… a firefly. Two fireflies. Four. They do not make a sound as they flit around Marrow’s face, drawn to it as if to a flame. Marrow squints xyr eyes, tilts xyr head, the slightest hint of curiosity rippling across the clouded surface of xyr mind.
Then, as if from towns away, a low growl ruptures the silence. It is the first hint of a thunderstorm, or of a predator preparing to pounce. One of scales and lightning.
The realization is a bolt down Marrow’s spine that steals xyr breath. Light, Dark, Earth, Energy…
The Favoured knows exactly where xe is.
“Make me a god.” The words stumble over themselves like they’ve been yanked. Xyr eyes fly wide despite the dark, xyr body frozen in place.
Sparks crack around the lobes of xyr ears, a thousand tiny shocks, a thousand quiet cracks that almost form speech, whispering in a language Marrow understands to mean bold, like a judgement, like a threat.
“No,” Marrow speaks quickly, xyr head shaking tightly beneath xyr cloak. “Not like that.” Not to their level, not to their power, not to count xemself among gods this primal, this encompassing. “I would not dare.” Yet softening the degree of xyr blasphemy does not make it suddenly unblasphemous. The Paragon already spoke; and though xe hid xyr hatred in the smallest cave of thought away from Ulvenne, there would be no hiding anything from gods such as these.
The crackling fades as a female voice rises to replace it, barely audible, unplaceably familiar. For a breath, the wind rises with it, the first signs of a storm; it quiets, and Marrow hears the invitation, the grace. Then tell us.
Marrow takes a breath and grasps xyr hood with shaking fingers, letting the last breaths of wind guide xem as xe lowers it from xyr head and tips xyr chin upwards. “There is a god I serve. Ulvenne.” His name tastes like syrup on xyr tongue, and it curdles as xe speaks it aloud, like divulging a lover’s secret to another. I came here to kill him.
The earth rises beneath xyr feet in acknowledgement, and Marrow feels the slightest shifting of dirt. A root, thin as a sapling’s, slips out from beneath the soil to scrape against Marrow’s ankle. Xyr chest pangs. The scrape of root against flesh whispers Ours, not of Marrow but of Ulvenne.
Marrow stifles the panic that beats fast against xyr withered and shattered heartroot, that threatens to rip xyr very chest to pieces. Ulvenne’s roots consumed the Favoured’s entire world. They beat like lifeblood in Marrow’s veins, in the foundation of every house. They stretched beneath xyr people’s feet even on their furthest hunts. Yet here, he was tiny.
Bright maroon streaks across the Favoured’s sight-line, a flickering line like a flowing lock of hair that steals Marrow’s attention in the blackness. When xe does not speak, it flashes again, closer, flaring impatient heat across Marrow’s face. And?
Xyr voice is hoarse as xe forces out a response, as if fighting through smoke. “His power was not enough to defend my people.” Marrow squints xyr eyes shut and raises xyr voice. “We face a new threat, a new breed of werewolves we do not understand. They bear mouths too wide, limbs too jagged, and claws kinked like barbed vines.”
The echo of a shot follows xyr voice, one so familiar Marrow winces, clutches at xyr chest. But it does not come back wet with blood, with shattered root. Instead, small patches of brightness erupt together in xyr vision, only to abruptly go out, like dozens of tiny lives. An offering. We could kill them all.
No. Marrow’s breathing quickens, feeding the swarm of panic that thrums in xyr chest. I am killer, protector, creator. You need nothing else. Xyr love’s words, xyr love’s lies, sear at the Favoured’s throat and xyr chest, until xyr breathing speeds to a gallop. Kill the werewolves, and Ulvenne will be praised, and he will bask in it as a dire cat basks in the sun, and then a stronger enemy will come and he will not be enough, and the people of Ulve will die because every step the gods take into Ulve strengthens the people’s faith and weakens their bones, and--
The call of a nighthawk cuts through Marrow’s thoughts, steals xyr shaking breath. Though Marrow cannot see it, xe feels the rush of air as it dives in front of xem. Around xyr feet, the root snaps. We could kill the god.
“No!” The word comes more like the snap of a bow than the hum of voice. No longer held by the tiny root, xyr leg buckles, although xe is certain the root hadn’t been holding xyr weight. The Favoured stumbles; the withered roots in xyr core jab into xem at the sudden movement, and xe falls to a ground xe cannot see. The exchange is slipping from xyr grip, each word xe speaks more misunderstood than the last. It would be so easy for them to kill Marrow’s god. Like trimming a flower. Like snapping a twig. And then their boon would be granted, and they would send their Champion on xyr way, and Marrow would not make it even one step from the Arenas because life was not worth living without Ulvenne.
A strange sensation tickles at xyr forehead, and Marrow realizes in xyr despair xe has placed xyr forehead to the ground, and the ground has reached back. It is not Ulvenne’s root; it does not hold the same warmth, the same endless flow of thought and memory that washed through Marrow like a gentle river. But it is gentle; reassuring. Ask, child.
Marrow allows xemself two slow, shaking breaths before xe rises from the dirt and sits back on xyr ankles. Xe reaches one hand to xyr tattered cloak, and the other to the deer clasp that hangs there, ripped askew from the earlier fight. The symbol of an Ulve hunter. An animal of prey.
With a tug, it rips free of the cloak, its silver flickering as if in moonlight. Gently, Marrow places it on the ground before xem and pushes, feeling sharp metal sink slightly into cool dirt.
“There is a forest, a moon’s boat away.” The Favoured feels xyr voice growing stronger, each word more certain than the last. “My people live at the heart of it, and we call this heart Ulve, and my god’s control reaches out to its borders.” The Child of Bone takes a breath, and speaks the words xe has chosen. “Give me the Night and Root of Ulve. Two slivers of your power, small enough they will be barely noticed by your vast reach. But they will be enough to save my people from those that threaten them.”
As the last word leaves xyr lips, Marrow feels the Darkness surrounding them thicken, like fog within the densest parts of the forest. As you wish. Pinpricks circle around the Favoured’s skull, not quite painful, and xe reaches up to find the stretch of bone, the curve of root, sprouting from xyr very skin. Champion. God.
Panic seizes xem. “Wait!” The growth pauses, and pain darts across xyr scalp, like a dislocated bone. “For a single year. When the time comes to choose your next Champion, take the power back, and leave the people of Ulve to fend for themselves.”
Marrow feels the Darkness encircle the root within xyr chest like a second heart-- it beats once, twice, and then stops. The Favoured can almost make out the roundness of the vowels, so close to true speech Marrow can translate the words, not the feeling, in xyr head. Your god is only his power. If you wish to become the same…
Xe would die. And Ulvenne would, too. But at the end of a year, Marrow may no longer be able to resist the power faith offered. This was the only way.
“I know,” xe says to the Darkness. The roots and bones around xyr skull burst forth, tangling together in the shape of a crown. Two reach outwards like malformed antlers; two merge together, at the center of the Favoured’s forehead, and stretch downwards. The Child of Root and Bone feels them cover xyr face, feels the heat of xyr own breath, as they form the skull of a wolf over Marrow’s own.
Then Darkness burrows inside of xem, leaving naught but cloak and crown.
Xe is the moon, the cricket, the first sprout of a seed. Xe opens xyr eyes, and the stars flicker; xe draws breath, and the ground above xem rises and falls. Xe can feel each bone in the ground, each shard of moonshed silver, each footstep that pangs like a heartbeat across xyr chest.
Despite the air’s stillness, an oak branch rustles, and xe is aware xe is being spoken to. The voice is the same, but different-- like recognizing a lover’s voice through water, or through a message stone. Marrow, he names, and though the being recognizes it as xyrs the name feels foreign, feels wrong. Xe will need a new one. A pine’s thickest root twitches under the earth as the speaker continues. What have you done?
Xe speaks back, and xyr voice is undeniably different, for though xe thinks in words, xe feels it spill from xyr thoughts as the flicker of moonlight across a wooded roof. I have done what is needed for my people.
The snap of a branch. You have killed us both.
So he knew.
The God of Night and Root searches xyr consciousness until xe feels what Ulvenne means; the slow drag of the moon across the sky, and the sense that one day, it will stop.
I have given us a year. An apple moth flutters across the moonlight to land on a thick Margrot root. A year to save our people. A year to spend together.
And after that, we will be nothing. A poppy sags abruptly as its roots shrivel.
Xe focuses xyr energy into the poppy; its roots swell, and its head rises, scarlet petals grinning to face the moonlight. After that, we will be naught but root and bone, and the people of Ulve will write the rest of their lives upon us in their own hand.
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