Post by ۞ KAT ۞ AKA Red Viper on Jun 30, 2008 17:45:17 GMT -5
((
And i am very proud and pleased to present the winning story of the writing contest held by Morolooma
< The Bureaucracy >, as written by the very beautiful and very talented player of Sonechka.))
The Holy Temple, Draenor, Many, Many years ago
A Draenei child sat near a pool of shimmering water. Her horns were barely budded, dark shadows against her skin and only hinting at their future wave-like form. A beautiful little girl, her silver hair was pulled back in a pair of tight braids behind her ears to keep it out of her eyes, though the unruly little whisps had already broken their bonds and floated around her head soft as spider’s silk, tangling into knots that would give her caretakers fits when they combed them later. Dressed in a simple grey smock, she was mostly unremarkable, just another orphan child of a war-shattered race.
She played alone, a child’s game of fantasy and magic augmented by little sparks of holy fire that flittered from her fingertips to dance across the water’s surface. The watchful eyes of an Anchorite were on her from nearby, though the look in them was less than friendly. The priest gazed at the child with open loathing in fact, the dark skin and silver hair of the little girl stirring a righteous zeal in his breast. She was an abomination, everyone knew it- it was in her blood. The fact that the Light accepted her was no credit to her, only a sign that the Light and the Naaru were truly all-powerful and all-knowing. Surely, they would mold her!
The girl looked up and back at him with a child’s knack for knowing when they’re being thought about. He sneered at her and made a rude gesture in her direction which she accepted without a word, quietly going back to her games. It was unnatural, the way she accepted it all. A clear sign of the taint in her soul, that she would not protest her innocence when wrongly accused or punished, even when her black blood ran in rivulets down her back from the lash. The Anchorite shuddered and tugged at the sleeves of his heavy robes, secure in his estimation of the so-unnatural child. His time with her would end soon and he would go and sit with the others and compare notes, devising increasingly complicated ways of proving that she was man’ari’s-spawn.
Lost in her games and secure in the safety of the Anchorite, the little girl did not hear creeping a small rag-tag band of older children made up of the sons and daughters of Draenor’s Council of Elders. The priviledged few, their fathers and mothers were those who had managed to keep their gold despite the war- or who had profited from it. Perhaps ten or so of the Draenei children watched the little girl that their parents called “Unnatural” and “Legion-Tainted”. Conditioned hatred is rarely a rational thing and the sight of her set their teeth on edge. One of the eldest, a young male on the edge of puberty and the ringleader of the little gang, gathered them into a small huddle.
“Look, we all know she’s got demon’s powers, right?”
The chorus of rights was a little too loud, prompting him to smack the back of a few heads. Wincing, the other children hushed and giggled, listening for his plan.
“Well, let’s make her use them! Then, when she uses them, we can throw her out and our parents will reward us for finally getting rid of the Man’ari. We just gotta do something that’ll make her really mad…”
He looked around expectantly and the other children stumbled over themselves to pipe up with suggestions.
“Let’s hit her!”
“Let’s tie her up!”
“Let’s push her in the water and hold her down!”
“Let’s tie a torch to her tail!”
He shook his head, dismissing them all, until one of the girls said with a smirk, “Let’s call her names until she gets angry, then throw rocks at her. My father says you can tell a –real- demon cause they don’t get hurt.”
The young male looked at the girl with admiration, which she basked in, and nodded firmly.
“Right, you get the girls to start calling her names and me and the guys will get the rocks.”
Given authority, the girl puffed her chest out and began to bully the other little females, telling them what they would call the solitary child. The ringleader took the boys, slipping outside and gathering small, palm-sized stones that they could slip into their pockets and small belt pouches without being obvious. They moved with the coordination of a young army, their single-minded purpose of misery lending their little hooves speed and their young minds depths that they would lose when adulthood gave them a measure of compassion.
As the gang of troublemakers went about their plans, the young girl sat by the little pool of water and day-dreamed. Her bright eyes were clouded and far away as she thought of a mother that tucked her in at night and sang her songs, a father that would swing her onto his broad shoulders and show her the world. The fantasy was an oft-visited one, warm as an old blanket, and she wrapped it around herself between lessons every day. Her mother was kind and truly beautiful, with dark blue skin that was soft and silver hair like the child’s own. Her mother would tell stories with animated joy in her face and her voice would be like a lark’s- bright and happy and free. Her father would be big and strong, but kind, and he would always smile at her and never, ever, ever strike her. He would put her on his shoulders when the Great Prophet Velen came to speak so that she could see and he would scare away the monsters with a big roar when they frightened her in the night.
And her mother and father would make the Anchorites be nice to her. They’d come home from the adventure they were on- the one that was too dangerous to take her with them, which was why they’d left her- and they’d hear about all the horrible things the Anchorites and everyone had said and they’d make them say they were sorry and everybody could be friends.
The thoughts gave the little girl a small, sweet, half-smile as she gazed into the distance, the imagined mother and father so clear before her eyes as they held her in warm, loving arms. It was so…so…perfect.
The first rock struck her between the shoulders hard enough to spill her forward into the shallow pool she sat beside.
“GAH!! We’re not supposed to throw yet mud-for-brains!”
The girl staggered to her hooves, disoriented by the suddenness of the attack and her shattered daydreams. The voice was familiar- the young male and his gang were tormentors of old, but they had never actually hurt her before, just yelled nasty names when the adults weren’t looking.
She stared at them with the wide, frightened eyes of prey and they grinned to each other, young noses filled with the primal scent of fear. Big “innocent” eyes were filled with ugly hatred and the same lips that kissed their mothers goodnight were curled into sneers of utter contempt. Humiliated, she felt her body betray her, the hot feeling of fear making her bladder loose itself, contents running down her legs and into the water of the pool. The scent was clear and the children began laughing harshly.
“Some demon you are!”
“What’re you gonna do, peepee on us?!”
“Oooo, scaaaary!”
Their high-pitched cackling caught the attention of the Anchorite who glanced over from his post. He was a good twenty yards from the children, seated at a table with a book on mysteries of the Light. The band of children was known to him- their parents the movers and shakers of the Dranei world- merchants and warriors, hunters and mages of great reknown. Putting it down to a child’s matter and nothing to do with the world of grown males, he looked back to his book, ignoring the pleading look and outstretched hand of the girl-child he’d been set to care for. Unconsciously, he echoed one of the children quietly,
“Some demon you are…”
The little girl’s hand was still outstretched to the adult when one of the girls hurled her rock. The stone flew through the air and struck her full in the chest and she staggered backwards, pulling both arms in to cradle her ribs. Her head came up, expression confused and angry and full of tears. Her voice was soft and shook.
“Why are you hurting me? I didn’t do anything to you!”
The oldest boy sneered and ran towards her, making her stumble backwards.
“Stupid Man’ari, you did too do something! You were born!”
With his words, the dam in the children broke and stones filled the air, whistling flight punctuated by delighted shrieks of laughter as they struck their target and taunts when they missed. The victim of their vicious fun fled through the halls of the Temple, tears and blood running down her cheeks, small scratches on her face and arms leaving trails of black blood droplets that marred the clean white marble floors and served as spoor for the pack that hunted her down.
It was inevitable that they catch her- they were older, faster, and had the benefit of the adults pointing out her erratic flight. Cornered, she pressed her back to the wall and shrieked at them.
“LEAVE ME ALONE!!!”
The vehemence of her scream startled them, the younger dropping their last stones and taking a step back. The elders- chests heaving from the chase and the hunt and the knowledge that they had her- only advanced. The girl lifted her hands and tried to cast the magic the Anchorites had pressed upon her- trying to send the Light to smite her enemies. The concentration needed to cast the spell was shattered by a stone hitting the wall near her head and making her jump out of the way. The children laughed at her, amused by the sight of her small body leaping like a frightened rabbit on a string- here and there and getting nowhere.
She pointed at one of them and yelled wordlessly, anger pouring out of her broken heart and shattered dreams. A child’s rage at a life that would never be flowed out of that small body, through her outstretched finger, manifested as shadowy tendrils of magic that struck the forehead of one of the children that surrounded her. To her shock, the young male let out a scream of pain and clutched his head, falling to the ground as if struck by a stone himself. He curled into a fetal ball and shrieked.
“It burns it hurts it hurts it burns Oh Light her pain it hurts!!!”
His words tumbled over each other and left the other children staring at her with suspicious terror. She looked no less frightened, gazing down at her hand then at the gang who hovered around her and the now- whimpering youth. She managed to get out the words, “I didn’t mean to-“
The stone struck her on the horn, just above her temple, barely missing a killing blow. The eldest boy, chest heaving and eyes wide with fear, screamed, “SHE KILLED HIM! GET HER!”
Stunned with the blow, the little girl slumped against the walls that held her surely as shackles and watched as her death approached on children’s hooves. Her eyes looked down at the now-still figure of the young male she had inadvertently killed with her word of pain and she started to cry helplessly, knowing mercy and justice were words her executioners would not know for many years.
Time slowed down, so she felt every blow, and she wondered if they would think of her in the future, when they were all grown up. Would this be a story they told when they were drunk and melancholy, when the dark was too close and the wine flowed too fast? Or would it be one of those stories that was always just behind their eyes- so that when the gang met in the future they would look at each other and look away, the weight of memories too much to share in their gaze. A hard kick landed between her eyes and her thoughts exploded into starbursts.
The adults stepped in before they killed her, but only just. Her still form was dumped on the Anchorite’s doorstep, a terse explanation given by a witness who was duly thanked. The girl-child was reminded every day of her part in the child’s death and the one set to guard her was reassigned. Life went on.
But she never forgot the sound of death coming for her on children’s hooves.
And i am very proud and pleased to present the winning story of the writing contest held by Morolooma
< The Bureaucracy >, as written by the very beautiful and very talented player of Sonechka.))
The Holy Temple, Draenor, Many, Many years ago
A Draenei child sat near a pool of shimmering water. Her horns were barely budded, dark shadows against her skin and only hinting at their future wave-like form. A beautiful little girl, her silver hair was pulled back in a pair of tight braids behind her ears to keep it out of her eyes, though the unruly little whisps had already broken their bonds and floated around her head soft as spider’s silk, tangling into knots that would give her caretakers fits when they combed them later. Dressed in a simple grey smock, she was mostly unremarkable, just another orphan child of a war-shattered race.
She played alone, a child’s game of fantasy and magic augmented by little sparks of holy fire that flittered from her fingertips to dance across the water’s surface. The watchful eyes of an Anchorite were on her from nearby, though the look in them was less than friendly. The priest gazed at the child with open loathing in fact, the dark skin and silver hair of the little girl stirring a righteous zeal in his breast. She was an abomination, everyone knew it- it was in her blood. The fact that the Light accepted her was no credit to her, only a sign that the Light and the Naaru were truly all-powerful and all-knowing. Surely, they would mold her!
The girl looked up and back at him with a child’s knack for knowing when they’re being thought about. He sneered at her and made a rude gesture in her direction which she accepted without a word, quietly going back to her games. It was unnatural, the way she accepted it all. A clear sign of the taint in her soul, that she would not protest her innocence when wrongly accused or punished, even when her black blood ran in rivulets down her back from the lash. The Anchorite shuddered and tugged at the sleeves of his heavy robes, secure in his estimation of the so-unnatural child. His time with her would end soon and he would go and sit with the others and compare notes, devising increasingly complicated ways of proving that she was man’ari’s-spawn.
Lost in her games and secure in the safety of the Anchorite, the little girl did not hear creeping a small rag-tag band of older children made up of the sons and daughters of Draenor’s Council of Elders. The priviledged few, their fathers and mothers were those who had managed to keep their gold despite the war- or who had profited from it. Perhaps ten or so of the Draenei children watched the little girl that their parents called “Unnatural” and “Legion-Tainted”. Conditioned hatred is rarely a rational thing and the sight of her set their teeth on edge. One of the eldest, a young male on the edge of puberty and the ringleader of the little gang, gathered them into a small huddle.
“Look, we all know she’s got demon’s powers, right?”
The chorus of rights was a little too loud, prompting him to smack the back of a few heads. Wincing, the other children hushed and giggled, listening for his plan.
“Well, let’s make her use them! Then, when she uses them, we can throw her out and our parents will reward us for finally getting rid of the Man’ari. We just gotta do something that’ll make her really mad…”
He looked around expectantly and the other children stumbled over themselves to pipe up with suggestions.
“Let’s hit her!”
“Let’s tie her up!”
“Let’s push her in the water and hold her down!”
“Let’s tie a torch to her tail!”
He shook his head, dismissing them all, until one of the girls said with a smirk, “Let’s call her names until she gets angry, then throw rocks at her. My father says you can tell a –real- demon cause they don’t get hurt.”
The young male looked at the girl with admiration, which she basked in, and nodded firmly.
“Right, you get the girls to start calling her names and me and the guys will get the rocks.”
Given authority, the girl puffed her chest out and began to bully the other little females, telling them what they would call the solitary child. The ringleader took the boys, slipping outside and gathering small, palm-sized stones that they could slip into their pockets and small belt pouches without being obvious. They moved with the coordination of a young army, their single-minded purpose of misery lending their little hooves speed and their young minds depths that they would lose when adulthood gave them a measure of compassion.
As the gang of troublemakers went about their plans, the young girl sat by the little pool of water and day-dreamed. Her bright eyes were clouded and far away as she thought of a mother that tucked her in at night and sang her songs, a father that would swing her onto his broad shoulders and show her the world. The fantasy was an oft-visited one, warm as an old blanket, and she wrapped it around herself between lessons every day. Her mother was kind and truly beautiful, with dark blue skin that was soft and silver hair like the child’s own. Her mother would tell stories with animated joy in her face and her voice would be like a lark’s- bright and happy and free. Her father would be big and strong, but kind, and he would always smile at her and never, ever, ever strike her. He would put her on his shoulders when the Great Prophet Velen came to speak so that she could see and he would scare away the monsters with a big roar when they frightened her in the night.
And her mother and father would make the Anchorites be nice to her. They’d come home from the adventure they were on- the one that was too dangerous to take her with them, which was why they’d left her- and they’d hear about all the horrible things the Anchorites and everyone had said and they’d make them say they were sorry and everybody could be friends.
The thoughts gave the little girl a small, sweet, half-smile as she gazed into the distance, the imagined mother and father so clear before her eyes as they held her in warm, loving arms. It was so…so…perfect.
The first rock struck her between the shoulders hard enough to spill her forward into the shallow pool she sat beside.
“GAH!! We’re not supposed to throw yet mud-for-brains!”
The girl staggered to her hooves, disoriented by the suddenness of the attack and her shattered daydreams. The voice was familiar- the young male and his gang were tormentors of old, but they had never actually hurt her before, just yelled nasty names when the adults weren’t looking.
She stared at them with the wide, frightened eyes of prey and they grinned to each other, young noses filled with the primal scent of fear. Big “innocent” eyes were filled with ugly hatred and the same lips that kissed their mothers goodnight were curled into sneers of utter contempt. Humiliated, she felt her body betray her, the hot feeling of fear making her bladder loose itself, contents running down her legs and into the water of the pool. The scent was clear and the children began laughing harshly.
“Some demon you are!”
“What’re you gonna do, peepee on us?!”
“Oooo, scaaaary!”
Their high-pitched cackling caught the attention of the Anchorite who glanced over from his post. He was a good twenty yards from the children, seated at a table with a book on mysteries of the Light. The band of children was known to him- their parents the movers and shakers of the Dranei world- merchants and warriors, hunters and mages of great reknown. Putting it down to a child’s matter and nothing to do with the world of grown males, he looked back to his book, ignoring the pleading look and outstretched hand of the girl-child he’d been set to care for. Unconsciously, he echoed one of the children quietly,
“Some demon you are…”
The little girl’s hand was still outstretched to the adult when one of the girls hurled her rock. The stone flew through the air and struck her full in the chest and she staggered backwards, pulling both arms in to cradle her ribs. Her head came up, expression confused and angry and full of tears. Her voice was soft and shook.
“Why are you hurting me? I didn’t do anything to you!”
The oldest boy sneered and ran towards her, making her stumble backwards.
“Stupid Man’ari, you did too do something! You were born!”
With his words, the dam in the children broke and stones filled the air, whistling flight punctuated by delighted shrieks of laughter as they struck their target and taunts when they missed. The victim of their vicious fun fled through the halls of the Temple, tears and blood running down her cheeks, small scratches on her face and arms leaving trails of black blood droplets that marred the clean white marble floors and served as spoor for the pack that hunted her down.
It was inevitable that they catch her- they were older, faster, and had the benefit of the adults pointing out her erratic flight. Cornered, she pressed her back to the wall and shrieked at them.
“LEAVE ME ALONE!!!”
The vehemence of her scream startled them, the younger dropping their last stones and taking a step back. The elders- chests heaving from the chase and the hunt and the knowledge that they had her- only advanced. The girl lifted her hands and tried to cast the magic the Anchorites had pressed upon her- trying to send the Light to smite her enemies. The concentration needed to cast the spell was shattered by a stone hitting the wall near her head and making her jump out of the way. The children laughed at her, amused by the sight of her small body leaping like a frightened rabbit on a string- here and there and getting nowhere.
She pointed at one of them and yelled wordlessly, anger pouring out of her broken heart and shattered dreams. A child’s rage at a life that would never be flowed out of that small body, through her outstretched finger, manifested as shadowy tendrils of magic that struck the forehead of one of the children that surrounded her. To her shock, the young male let out a scream of pain and clutched his head, falling to the ground as if struck by a stone himself. He curled into a fetal ball and shrieked.
“It burns it hurts it hurts it burns Oh Light her pain it hurts!!!”
His words tumbled over each other and left the other children staring at her with suspicious terror. She looked no less frightened, gazing down at her hand then at the gang who hovered around her and the now- whimpering youth. She managed to get out the words, “I didn’t mean to-“
The stone struck her on the horn, just above her temple, barely missing a killing blow. The eldest boy, chest heaving and eyes wide with fear, screamed, “SHE KILLED HIM! GET HER!”
Stunned with the blow, the little girl slumped against the walls that held her surely as shackles and watched as her death approached on children’s hooves. Her eyes looked down at the now-still figure of the young male she had inadvertently killed with her word of pain and she started to cry helplessly, knowing mercy and justice were words her executioners would not know for many years.
Time slowed down, so she felt every blow, and she wondered if they would think of her in the future, when they were all grown up. Would this be a story they told when they were drunk and melancholy, when the dark was too close and the wine flowed too fast? Or would it be one of those stories that was always just behind their eyes- so that when the gang met in the future they would look at each other and look away, the weight of memories too much to share in their gaze. A hard kick landed between her eyes and her thoughts exploded into starbursts.
The adults stepped in before they killed her, but only just. Her still form was dumped on the Anchorite’s doorstep, a terse explanation given by a witness who was duly thanked. The girl-child was reminded every day of her part in the child’s death and the one set to guard her was reassigned. Life went on.
But she never forgot the sound of death coming for her on children’s hooves.
Founded April 26, 2005