Ascension

== The Good Father ==
A squalling infant from the mortal realm was bestowed by Kerrville himself unto Cynvar the Willbane, ten years ago. Cynvar pierced her skin with bones and blades, taught her power and letters and the cries of fleeing prey, fed her ash and scrubbed her with boiling tar. Cynvar the Good, they mocked him, though he'd earned his armor a thousand times. The Queer Cynvar. He called his charge Arawna, and he'd put her on Fae mounts before she could walk. She should have been raised as a hound, his peers complained. When night came and it was time for the hunt, she guarded his home, and he told her that if she grew strong enough to take it from him, it would be hers. He promised her.
The ranks of Kerrville's Terrors were rife with competition and conflict. The time came when Cynvar was cut down at the hands of Victor Prise, the Butcher, dressed in white. Victor claimed Cynvar's home as his own, and with it, the young Arawna. Disgusted by her upbringing, he kept her in the pit with other children stolen, shaped into vicious dogs and rabid wolves. Every night for weeks, he tied her to the saddle of his mount and dragged her over miles of toothed rock, through fanged trees in the parks, but she lived, refusing to eat meat with the dogs, refusing to walk on all fours. She would stand in the pit and stare up at him through a veil of her own blood. She would kill his hounds and push pieces of their organs through the rusted grate, demanding he incinerate them and give her the ash.
== Ash ==
The stench of last night's kill wafted down into the prison. He was burning it. The girl clenched and unclenched her bladed fists around the bars over her head, rocking back and forth, waiting. Children covered in fur crawled around her legs, whimpering and nuzzling against her knees. Down here, she was the Master. She was Arawna, daughter of Cynvar the Willbane. Long is the day, and long is the night, She chanted to herself, eyes bright with fever, And long is the wait of Arawna.
Burning it all the way. She lifted her head and lowered it and lifted it again, teeth clamped shut, taking in the scent. Patience, Arawna, dead Cynvar whispered to her, The house will be yours yet.
Heavy cleats clopped toward the grate, and Arawna pulled herself up off the ground, feet dangling above the heads of those stupid animals. She set her forehead against the bars and stared out, willing the force of her spite to reach out and kill the Butcher.
No such luck. Victor stalked forward, bearing a basin glowing orange in one smoking hand. "Let go."
Arawna tightened her grip, able to see the heat swirling off the pot, able to smell Victor's flesh burning while he waited for her to comply. "Let go," He repeated.
Her arms were unshaking, her legs not even twitching below her. A test of control. His mouth twisted into a snarl, and he set the basin down between the bars, resting on her knuckles and against her nose and lips. Smoke curled into her lungs from her own crisping skin. Arawna closed her eyes and let her mind bathe in pain. Her breathing slowed, her fingers relaxed, and she dropped to the ground below in a shower of ash from the tipped bowl. Arawna slept, nose and lips black like a hound's, the dust coloring her body like a wolf's.
== Long is the Night ==
The shackles clapped shut around the girl's offered wrists. Her bladed feet were already leaking red on the merciless stone.
Remember what we talked about, whispered the Willbane.
Arawna's gaze stayed locked on Victor's leather back, where a red spear was strapped.
Ignoring the hatred radiating from the whelp, her legionnaire owner looped the heavy chain around the spine-horn jutting up above his mount's pelvis. He gave it a yank, and the massive creature stumbled. The saddle creaked as the Butcher climbed it, the skins from a dozen Lost's arms splaying around his hips on a belt of intestines. The furred children yipped and howled ahead, hot on the trail of a dreamer. "Hah!" He struck the saurian with both heels, and it bounded forward.
The rock ripped down her skin as Arawna fell flat. She clutched the chain, fighting to climb it, hand over bloodied hand. She slipped once, and focused her willpower. With the strength of three men, the ten-year-old roared and hauled herself up the mount's flank, drunk on her pain and fury.
She made it to the horn before Victor's elbow smacked into her face, twice, three times. She grappled for the spear, but her gored knees slipped against the galloping beast. Her slick fingers grazed Victor's armor, red on tan. His rough hand seized her hair and whipped her forward. She scrabbled at the underside of his arm with metal nails, and was rewarded with blood. He threw her down. She slammed into the rocks and bounced, manacles biting as the monster raced on.
A poor attempt. Arawna battled for consciousness as her flesh was shredded beneath her. You're better than that. If she let her head drop, she'd be done for, so she kept up the vigil. The night didn't pity or let her rest, and neither did she.
== Promises ==
There was only one Beast in Faerie that Arawna ever revered, and that was the mighty steed Phobos.
Victor had been gone a day and a night. The demented girl had slipped out of her prison, and now bore a whole load of Thorns in her arms, careful to keep any from falling despite how they cut at her skin. She entered a tiny stable with her black curls drenched in water and shielding her face, and knelt in the barbed hay to lay his feed on a wooden platter.
The man watching her stood as straight as a king, crowned in currents of blood-colored hair. His sleek coat boiled while he stared at the fellow captive. She waited, vapor twisting off of her in the hot Wrath that radiated from the near-god.
"Together, small Arawna," Bitter froth and flames flicked out of his mouth. "We can so easily bring the Butcher low."
She was careful to breathe a little as possible. "Weakness paid back with weakness." Proximity to him was toxic.
His huge nostrils snorted sparks and smoke. Most of her hair still dripped, but the drier locks started to singe. "Our jailer cheated, and his triumph was never questioned." His tone waxed hateful. "Your worthiness of house and armor, likewise, would not be questioned."
"I must devour his power alone," Arawna stifled a cough, "Victor's ashes are mine."
Heat licked her skin. "Is my freedom also yours?" Spat Phobos. The stables shivered and spun. "I do not wish to take your vengeance, O pointed child, but tarry longer and I am uncertain whether I will continue restraining myself for your sake."
"My promise hasn't changed, Warbringer." Arawna rose and backed away from her only friend, wary of the visions he could cause. "Wait with me, and you will be set free."
The door was shut on his anger, and Arawna returned to the black pit. Her father's voice was silent that night.
== Mind ==
For the third day in a row, Arawna and the hounds were kept awake by hammering and pitiful moaning. At first, Arawna had thought the legionnaire was taking his sweet time pulverizing a dreamer, but as the first hours wore on and her eyes grew heavier, she realized that he had to be building something. The idea stuck and wiggled deeper into her mind like a parasite. Victor never built anything, never forged his own weapons. By the second day, her head pounded like she was the one being struck, and the screaming was someone else, screaming for her, because the Daughter of Cynvar does not scream. Victor was the Butcher, and butchering was all he did, so what was he up to?
While the third sun set and Victor kept hammering and the something kept crying, Arawna paced around the equally sleepless dog-children. They would follow her, trotting behind her from one end of the pit to the other. Had it been any other time, she would have kicked them senseless for their insolence.
"Aaraawnaaaw," One of them dared yawn.
She whipped around, hunching over the gaggle of Beasts. "Which of you said that?" The teenager snapped. "Which of you talked?!"
They all cowed, but for one of the older boys. He raised and tilted his head, looking up at the heavy grate that trapped them. "Ooo noo woos aapeneeeng, Aaraawnaaw?"
"I suppose you do, hound?" She snarled. He was a stupid, nameless animal, but he was older than her, and he only spoke if he had a good reason.
"Witoors ma-eeeng a mooold." His sober green eyes gazed up at her.
"Why would Victor make a mold?" Arawna cocked her head and stalked over to the dog, fists clenching and unclenching. He was pushing his luck, he was really asking for it. "Lord Kerrville did not bring any child here."
The brave creature blinked at her, his expression one unreadable to Arawna. Someday, she would learn that it was pity.
== Vindication ==
Arawna's voice was gone. Tears had left clean trails down her face, but now she was out of them.
All these years, Victor's consistency had made it easy for her to cope. At night, he did his job, and she refused to be a dog. During the day, she stared at him, strengthened herself, and refused to be a dog. It was simple.
For his part, Victor had never tried crafting a dog out of a child this old before, and it was his last resort. The other Terrors now mocked him like they had Cynvar, but for his failure, rather than his softness. He shattered her long bones with a mallet and pounded the limbs into the canine cavities of the hinged mold, but whenever he finished one, the one before it popped out and started cracking back into its human shape. He tried chopping the appendages up and arranging them that way, but some weird magic mended them all wrong, all back to normal. He sighed, disappointed by the lack of progress.
Arawna couldn't breathe, couldn't lose consciousness. Her chest shuddered and her heart battered against itself while Victor tried cutting open her forearm and prising the bones from her flesh. She heard the crunching and the tearing of white sinew from pink bone, saw the Butcher bring what was her elbow up to his mouth. He pushed the limp flesh into a more desirable arrangement, chewing the lumps of cartilage stuck at the end of her radius. His warped jaw worked, popping at the hinges.
Arawna's eyes were unblinking, unbelieving while he ate little pieces and prodded her into the canid mold with her own bones. He got her whole right arm in, and now had her shinbone halfway out of her leg. Dim satisfaction flitted across his thoughtful face. Air puffed out between the teenager's lips. The dogs in the pit, the dumb beasts she so despised, wept and screamed in her stead.
This is the end of Cynvar, they mourned. Cynvar the Good dies with you. We will have another black dog.
Bones began to regrow, just twigs in the stuffed gore. She felt a joint hold in the wrong direction, and her blood ran cold.
Another black dog.
Victor glanced up from gnawing her femur, and nodded his approval. He peeled the bladed flesh from her metatarsals.
Violent shadows danced on the far wall over the grated beast pit, flung there by the flames beside the girl. She watched them warp and twist, just like her. One shadow moved closer to the mold, the coffin she would be sealed into. She wanted it to go away. Suddenly, it planted bladed palms on the edge of her tomb. He smelled of ashes. His skin was leather stamped with Celtic knotting.
"Arawna," Bent over her was Cynvar the Willbane, the greatest of Kerrville's Terrors. His face hardened with hate. "Will you allow your perseverance to be for nothing?"
Her chin trembled, her tongue formed the silent oath. Long is the day,
"And long is the night," Her father hissed.
It was barely a whisper. "And long is the wait of Arawna."
Solemn Victor's teeth scraped at marrow while he worked at her right foot, and the heel of her left sharpened itself. Arawna prayed to the stone for strength.
Her free leg pistoned with a train's power and stamped a blade into the Butcher's throat. He reared back and Arawna reared up, her emptied arm snapping straight like a tent pole. Victor had earned his armor, though. The legionnaire ripped Cynvar's red spear from the wall and coiled to strike. The head would have sunk true into Arawna's bloodslick chest, but she rolled out of the mold and fell on a boneless right leg, muscle squelching under her, but her right arm was healing fast. She lashed at his unplated leg joint, twice, thrice. The butt of the spear collided with her face. She stabbed his groin with a hand like a katar. His cleats stomped down at her, and she shoved bladed fingers into the back of that knee.
Her hand was holy, her face anointed with the blood of both combatants. Victor was going to die tonight. She climbed him like a cliff face, tearing skin, cutting out pieces of his flesh armor while he wailed on her from above. Victor staggered, his life pumping out of the initial wound to his neck. Everything was so dream-like. He dropped. She ripped off his breastplate, and his heart sat like a fat prince, purple and oily. As her fingers closed around it, she held it over Victor Prise's doomed head, and baptized him, in the name of her father, in the name of herself.
"Die," She hoarsely commanded, eyes bright with Desire. "Die, you flesh-tasting shame-bringer."
Blood coated them both, covered the floor; in the firelight their misshapen bodies were outlined with gold. As the last life leaked out of the legionnaire, Arawna straightened her limp leg, and waited for it to heal. Her father's spear pulled from Victor's hands of its own accord, and laid itself across her lap. Cynvar's hands rested on her shoulders, and Arawna fixed her posture and looked straight ahead at the wall.
== Armor ==
To be concluded.
Characters involved in this Chronicle: Arawna
Category:Fiction