Red-Eyed Raven Options

[Thomas Kaira]

All: It's been an extremely long time since I poked my nose in here, but I do so having (hopefully) triumphantly cured my writers block. I've decided that to do so, I would need to start from scratch and apply a few things I have learned, including:

1. Keep your story coherent, don't twist and turn for the sake of it.
2. Know what makes a good description and what is purple prose, one is good and the other is pretentious.
3. Backstory. Use it.
4. Make it your own, use your own imagination.

As for keeping up with everyone else, I pretty much need to start over. I will do my best, and hopefully get into commenting on everyone else's stories as time goes on. In the meantime, here is a brief taste of I am working on now.




Prologue: Cloaked in Ash

“Mommy, where are we going?” asked the young Dunmer girl.

“Wherever the road might take us, little Raven.” The mother replied.

Ash choked the midday air as the two journeyed westward. What little light could break through offered little solace to travelers; a gray, cheerless light that served more to remind them of the dangers ahead than to cloak them in warmth and comfort. Only barely visible ahead were the snowcapped peaks of the Velothi Mountains. Beyond them, the mother hoped, they could finally escape the hellish world they had come to live in.

The days of peaceful living in Morrowind were done. Gone were the times when the sun shone bright and the marshmerrow grew tall. Now there was only ash, and death, and more ash to bury the dead.

“Do we have to go, mommy?” The child continued, “Why can’t we stay at home?”

“There’s nothing left for us there, little Raven,” the mother replied, her soothing tone failing to hide her deep inner sadness. “It’s all we can do now to just find somewhere else we can make a life for ourselves.”

Little Raven, she thought. Such a shame she had to be born into a world like this. She was barely even five years old now and already she carried inside her a fire to rival the Red Mountain. How ironic it was that the great tempest that now turned her away from everything she ever had might instill itself in her only child. A stark reminder of how even a small bit of light can shine through the darkest curse.

She looked back at her home, the Ravenloth plantation. It was nowhere near as large and opulent as, say, the former Dren plantation (or so she was told), but it was enough to live comfortably. At least, until the recent flurry of constant ash storms sucked all the life away from her beloved mashmerrow and saltrice. Now, her fields cloaked beneath a solid foot of ash, which was seeping its way through every gap in her house’s walls it could find, there was no good to come of staying anymore. She couldn’t bear to watch the life choked out of her fields.

The child was overcome by a fit of coughing, she fell to her hands and knees, unable to move. Terror gripped the mother’s heart as she ran to her little Raven, tearing her cloak asunder.

“Here,” she said, wrapping a piece around her child’s head, covering her nose and mouth. “You can’t breathe this air, little one. This will keep the ash out.”

Covering her face with what remained of her cloak and grimacing as she felt the rough, gray snow pelt at her light inner tunic, she held her child as close to her as she could, praying to the ancestors that she it was not too late for her.

Ever since the ash storms came, her little Raven’s health had deteriorated quickly. She was much too young to survive like this. Every night before she slept, she’d hear her coughing, each rough crack piercing her skin like an ice-cold dagger. No matter how many windows she boarded, how many gaps she stuffed with old clothing, still the ash found a way to her little Raven, trying to choke the life out of her the way it did her livelihood. Last night was the worst she’d ever had. No matter what she tried, pans of water with flames lit beneath to fill her room with steam and help her breathe, fashioning masks to wear while she was awake, still the ash found its way to her. Last night, the coughing started and wouldn’t stop. She’d spent the entire night curled up beside her, holding her close, listening to her labored breathing as fresh tears rolled down her nose. It was then she said to herself, they had to leave.

The child’s breathing steadied. Slowly she got to her feet again, and her mother, smiling meekly, grabbed her hand, and they continued west.

“So where are we going, mommy?” The child asked again.

“Across the mountains, my little Raven,” the mother replied. “Away from here. Anywhere the air is clear.”

This post has been edited by Thomas Kaira: Mar 26 2014, 10:01 PM

[Thomas Kaira]

Acadian: Thank you for the warm welcome! Indeed, ash is a deadly thing, especially from a mystic volcano created from the heart of a god. Little Raven is, of course, the protagonist, so she does make it, but time will tell what happened to her mother. There is a hint in the next portion, though.

SubRosa: You never know, she might be...
Good to see the ash is having the effect I wanted on the readers.

McBadgere: Thank you for the kind words! What was mainly going through my head writing that bit was "what would my mom do if I was deathly ill and there was so little she could do to help?" The reaction here is ultimately what I came up with.

hautee: Ouch, I did not know that. Lung diseases suck. I had problems myself when in middle school that made it almost impossible for me to run, so I can definitely sympathize. I am quite glad that I, like you, managed to get through it, and now there is no trace, but it was still a tough couple of years.

jack cloudy: Desperate indeed. What else would drive someone to abandon their home?

All: It's good to be back at it again. I don't want to give a definite update schedule, basically the segments will be done when I feel they are done, but I will try to shoot for at least once a week.

In the meantime, we now fast-forward to the present.



1-1: Lost

Diressi’s eyes flung open.

Her head felt as if it had been cleaved in two. Not the first time, but she couldn’t remember when it smarted as bad as it did. A wet trickle meandered past her ear; she didn’t need to think twice to know what it was. She quickly brought her hand to her scalp and found it wet with blood.

How did I get here, she thought, what am I doing in the dirt?

Rolling over, her eyes narrowed as the bright blue sky and honey-gold sun came into view. She could also make out a few small treetops, though her vision was much too blurred for her to distinguish what exactly they were. It was also warm, far warmer than home.

She tried to rise, but was met only with a searing pain across the back of her head. Gasping, she collapsed back to the ground.

Damn, this isn’t good, she mused. Fear began to well up inside her. She had no idea where she was, what she was doing, and how she had ended up face-down in the dirt with half her head feeling like it had been bashed in.

All she remembered was she had taken on a job to protect a small caravan of “sensitive goods” being shipped to the city of Riften. They had been moving south, out of Windhelm and out across the volcanic plains beyond. After that, her mind was blank.

Slowly, grimacing as her head protested, she brought herself to sit upright. The bleeding had slowed some, but it didn’t help that if she tried to do any more than sit her skull would split in two.

Must’ve been bandits, she thought, who else would leave you for dead like this?

Her heart skipped a beat. She quickly felt at her back for her bow. It was gone. As were her daggers, her backpack, and her coinpurse. Her fear was quickly overshadowed by a fierce rage.

“FETCHERS!” she shouted, pounding her fist back to the ground and rousing a racket from one of the trees as a flock of birds took to the air. Her shouting cost her dearly, though. Her vision swam and it took all she had to not collapse back into a heap, but what did it matter? That was her livelihood they stole; everything she ever had.

Her heart skipped again. Again her hands flew to her waist, but this time not searching for her dagger….

They came to rest on a small black doll. Exhaling her relief, Diressi unbuckled if from her belt and brought it up to her eyes. It was for all intents worthless, doubtless that’s why those ruffians didn’t pilfer it along with her coinpurse, but not to her. It was made in the image of a raven, its wings spread wide as if to fly away, its beak open to echo an eternal caw. The body, while made of simple linen, was crafted to look like the feathers of the bird it was fashioned of. Every inch of it was pitch-black in color, save the eye. It was a pure, fiery red. Just like hers.

Holding the doll close, she turned it over. The other side was mostly identical to the first, save a tiny inscription sewn into the body.

“I am always with you, my Red-Eyed Raven.”

Her eyes stung. Clasping them shut, she hugged the doll tightly. This close to her, she could almost feel the warmth and love of the hands who spun it.

Almost.



---




She opened her eyes. Her vision, and her anger, had cleared. The dull throbbing pain in her head had subsided, as well. Gingerly, and with one hand still firmly clasping the raven doll, she got to her feet.

It was now the full force of her predicament hit. Diressi was alone in the wilderness, unarmed, unarmored, unequipped, and her hair was no doubt a mess. Lank, matted with dirt and blood, it would be a miracle if she could fix it up, let alone clean it.

And then there were her weapons, the ancestral weapons of her family.

Mother would kill me if she found out I lost them, she thought. Although she never told her where they came from, Diressi made out (eventually) that they were of great significance to her. After all, they were the only possessions she had that she felt worth carrying over the mountains so long ago to escape the ash.

Ash… the tempest of death, as she had come to know it. Though safer here in Skyrim than across the mountains, it still found its way to her feet every so often. Here it was often mistaken for snow, until you took it in and doubled over unable to breathe for coughing. A fair few died in Windhelm every year. Ash Sickness, they called it. It got inside of you, did things…. Within days a fit and healthy man would be flat on his bed, unable to move, or breathe, coughing up blood by the mouthful. It was such a terrible way to die.

Mother always knew when it was coming, she reminisced, shivering in the warm breeze, she would see the cloud approach, send me inside, and wouldn’t let me out again until it was over.

Not the time, she thought, shaking her head (her vision swam again and she nearly doubled over). Right, so, how am I going to get out of this?

Once her vision cleared, she could make out the surrounding landscape. It was anything but a quiet picture of peace, though at the same time it really didn’t feel all that dangerous. She appeared to have been left on a small island surrounded by a shallow pool. The water, slightly greenish-yellow in color, lay nearly still, save for several small columns of water bubbling and frothing playfully in the midday sun. She bent down to touch it; it was quite warm, and she immediately felt the tension in her hand vanish as her fingers brushed the surface.

Soon after, without thinking, she had removed her shirt and leggings and jumped in. The effect was immediate; it felt as if all her troubles were washing away in the heat and steam of the hot spring. She shut her eyes, savoring the feeling of relief. Not even her pounding head seemed that bad anymore. Opening her eyes, she looked down at her reflection. She could almost feel reality crashing back down on her shoulders at the sight.

A small stream of dried blood ran down the right side of her delicately angular face, just behind her long, pointed ear. It continued all the way down to her chin, which ended in the typical Dunmer point. Dirt was spattered across her cheeks and nose, obscuring the otherwise uncanny ash-color of her skin, and hiding the chain of pale freckles just beneath her brilliant, almost glowing lava-red eyes. Even more blood stained her forehead, spilling down to her angular brow, which when paired with her eyes, gave her an elegant yet highly aggressive stare. But none of that mattered, not compared to her hair. It was lank, it was matted, it was bloody, it was everything she feared, and she would not be seen dead with that mess of a mop atop her scalp.

Breathing deeply, she dove in as deep as she could (the water only came up to her waist). The expected twinge of protest from the back of her skull was quickly vanquished by the soothing warmth of the spring. She vigorously scrubbed the dirt and blood out of her hair as best she could.

I really wish those fetching bandits had left me my soap, she thought as she pulled her hair out of the spring. She looked back once the ripples were gone, and she could see her hair, while still not great, was at least better off than before. It would have to do; no soap and no styling potion meant that was about the best it was going to be.

She plunged in again and washed the blood off her face, then let her legs slide out from under her, sighing deeply as she sank into the rich warmth all the way to her neck.

At least I’m here, she thought, managing a meek smile, and not up on a glacier or a mountaintop.

She drank in the rest of the scene as she bathed. The ground was spattered with cracks hither and thither, steam gushing out of every one of them. Trees were sparse, though thankfully she was far enough to the north that the sun was peaceful and the shade was not needed. But even the steam vents and bright sunlight didn’t quite mask the nip of a chill in the air. All around her were great mountains, their tops rising to pierce the heavens, and covered in a blanket of white. The crater offered some shelter from the frigid winds blowing off the peaks, but not completely. Few trees meant few obstacles for the wind. One peak, however, was smaller and closer than the rest, rising out of what Diressi could make out as the center of the crater. Many jagged rocks jutted from it, like teeth in a dragon’s maw, and a great jet of steam issued ceaselessly from the top: the lava dome.

Diressi frowned. The best place to get her bearings would be there. But it didn’t look very inviting at all. She didn’t like the steam either; it meant the volcano hiding beneath her feet was stirring. But the Eastmarch crater had been like this for decades, and it’s never blown its top. And like it or not, she was stuck here. Ascending the dome was her best chance of finding her way back to Windhelm with no road in sight and the blanket of steam in the air obscuring the distant view.

Grudgingly, she rose out of the water, took a few minutes to let the sun dry her off, and redressed. She was only left her undershirt and burlap trousers, but it was enough to make do for now. She ran her hand across the back of her head one last time. The bleeding had stopped and though it still throbbed uncomfortably, it was more annoying now than it was painful. With one last glance at the steaming dome, she tightened her grip around the small raven doll, leapt the channel in which she had lounged, and set off into the depths of wild Skyrim.


post-script: Diressi's face is my new avatar.

This post has been edited by Thomas Kaira: Mar 29 2014, 06:05 PM