Her red flaming hair was soaked, and she was protecting something against her chest like a small treasure. The water had already washed off the blood in her hair and face, but there were still red spots in her old cloak.
Lynette had been a servant in the Circle Tower since she was old enough to wash a dish, as her mother had been before her, and surely her mother’s mother. She had no magic powers at all, and she never needed them, but she was fascinated by the young students and liked to go to their quarters to spy their practice lessons.
That was where she met him.
He had flaming hair, like her, and his eyes were golden fire too. He found her behind the curtains and gifted her with a smile which was burning like a fire blast. She thought she was lost, that he would report the head of the servants, but he just lent her his hand and helped her up.
“Didn’t expect to find a treasure here”, he said, charming.
Her legs trembled and he just held her without asking. But she knew she was in love.
They met several times, each one braver than the previous. She knew he was the only one, and she gave herself completely. He swore eternal love and she believed him. But love was forbidden in the Tower, and they knew it. So they made plans to run away and be together eternally. And she believed him.
One stormy night, he came to her. She had just finished her tasks at the kitchen, and she was preparing herself to go to the servants’ quarter, when he arrived panting. He had something in his hands. A small flask, with something red inside.
“Take this”, he said. “Protect it with your life. We need to have it with us until we come away from here. It must not be broken here, they can’t get even a drop of my blood. Never. Never…”
His eyes were crazy, and she was scared, but she would do it. She kept the flask in her cleavage, where nobody would look for it, and looked at him.
“Are we running away tonight?”
“Yes. We must. Don’t ask. The storm will hide our tracks.”
She nodded. She led him to the kitchen and took a bag where all the things she wanted to carry were packed, and a cloak. She had always been prepared; she knew it was going to be like that.
There was a small door in the kitchen the servants used to go to Lake Calenhad’s docks for supplies, leading to a small wharf with a couple of wooden boats. She had a copy of the key and opened it. It was a good hour, the elder servants were already in bed, the younger ones were having fun somewhere. Nobody would see them.
But nothing ever goes as planned.
Stupid, stupid Heather and her lover Glenn decided to get back to the tower in that very moment because of the rain. They met almost nose to nose when Lynette opened the kitchen back door. They were drunk and wet, but they recognized him. And it was their death sentence.
The elf student stepped ahead and sank a knife in Heather’s stomach. She didn’t see it coming, just a faint “gasp” and she fell on the ground. Glenn opened his mouth, but he didn’t give him time either. Heather’s blood flooded magically and entered his mouth, his eyes, his ears, inflated him from the very inside and suddenly he burst up like a bladder.
Lynette might not be the brightest one but the way Heather died made her understand what had happened. Covered in Heather and Glenn’s blood, seeing her lover’s golden eyes injected in red and his ferocious, demonic expression, she knew there was only one thing she could do.
Run, run, run. Run away from this monster who owned her heart, and hope he would never find her again.
Raphael found her soaked and trembling under some bushes on Lake Calenhad’s shore, some miles south of the tower.
He was returning home after having brought some supplies from the shop in Redcliffe where he was an assistant to the Spoiled Princess tavern, and had got up very early in the morning because he wanted to get back soon. So the horizon was already bright but the sky was still dark when he felt a soft movement in the bushes. For a moment he feared it could be a wolf or other wild beast, and he drew up his dagger. But nothing jumped at his throat, and then he heard a soft sob coming from the bushes. So his curiosity was stronger and he found her. Short, curly red hair. Huge warm brown puppy eyes begging for her life. Soaked, and not only from the rain. Gripping like crazy a small flask full of a red thing he didn’t want to know what it was. And lost… oh, so lost!
Raphael took her soaked cloak and gave her his, which was warm from the tavern fireplace. Forced her to get out of the bushes and have some of his food. And gently and reassuringly, led her back to the tavern where he helped her to dry her clothes and to calm down a bit.
He didn’t ask questions. It wasn’t his style. It was clear the girl was running away from something, and that she needed help. Probably from the tower. He didn’t care. If she was a running student, or something else, it was not his business. She was just a scared girl. And he was going to take care of her. Forever, if she allowed him. That was the magic of those big brown eyes.
She never told him all the story, but she made clear Redcliffe wasn’t a safe place to stay. He didn’t argue. So they moved to Denerim’s alienage, a crowded place in a crowded city, where nobody knew them and nobody would ask questions. Never got too attached to people there, never got too trusted. But they both got jobs in Denerim, got married and started a normal life there.
Some months later, the twins were born.
If it was too soon for being his, Raphael never cared. The girls had her mother’s flaming hair, even if it was straight instead of curly. And her big brown warm puppy eyes. They were Raphael’s life, his joy and his pride. And he didn’t need to know more.
Time passed and the future brought the past back. Lynette thought they would be safe, but they had already been found. And somehow she knew.
Somebody knocked the door. Lynette had just bathed the twins, and Raphael came to open it. A deep voice made Lynette’s heart jump both in fear and desire. He was back.
“Hello there”, said the voice. No need for more. Lynette heard Raphael’s gasp, so similar to Heather’s, and even before hearing it, she was already pushing the twins to the wardrobe she had just taken her clothes from. She begged them to stay silent, but they were clever girls, and they had already read it in their mother’s terrified face. Their family had always been a silent one. She locked it and let the key slid under the wardrobe, and rushed to face her destiny.
Raphael was already on the floor, eyes empty, blood flowing from a deep wound in the stomach. And he was there, flaming hair… No, not flame… Blood. All in him was blood, even the eyes, which shone red like rubies. Lynette’s desire died when she saw her husband lying like a broken doll. She had been so unfair to him. He asked nothing, but gave her his life. She would repay him somehow.
“Where is it, Lynette? Where did you hide it?” said the thing she had loved once. But there was nothing left under that demonic face. Not anymore. Lynette touched the locket she had kept all these years and felt stupid and guilty.
“You will never find it”, she said. If she had had any hope that he was here for her, it was over now. He only wanted the phylactery. Nothing else. And she wouldn’t give it to him. She couldn’t, anyway.
He didn’t wait, didn’t give him a chance even to lie. Blood vines rose up from Raphael’s body and went to her throat. She was going to die, a terrible death like the one she witnessed, but she didn’t mind. She would be with Raphael again. She only wished he would never find the twins.
Her last thought flew to them.
The twins were silent in the wardrobe. Lynette had always prepared them for something like that. “If you must hide, never, never let them know where you are. Don’t even breathe if you can, because they can hear you. Don’t sweat, because they can smell you”. Evelyn was curled in the bottom of the hideout, trembling. Marilyn, braver, was looking through the lock’s hole, trying not to sob. She didn’t allow her sister to look, and she was glad she didn’t. Because she saw her mother die. And it wasn’t a pleasant death.
The thing that had killed Lynette was not an elf anymore. It was a huge flaming thing with red eyes which roared and yelled while searching frantically amongst the family’s scarce furniture. Mari had to bite her lips not to scream. She saw it looking for something, and not finding it was making it furious and furious. It was a matter of time that it would realize the wardrobe, and then… what? The elf child was looking through the hole and wondering what to do.
She saw the thing rising what seemed to be its head and for a moment it looked directly to her eyes… those red, flaming, scaring eyes. She was sure of that, it had seen her. She didn’t dare to move, any sudden movement would attract it to the wardrobe. But the thing was actually looking at the wardrobe … slowly walking towards it… Mari covered her mouth with her tiny hands because she was about to call her mom, and she remembered her mom wasn’t there anymore… She was just a corpse, at the feet of the flaming thing.
Suddenly the monster turned its head back to the door, as if it had sensed or heard something, and after a moment of hesitation, it just slid out of sight. And zap! It was gone. Mari could see nothing for a while, but didn’t want to move yet. Not until she was sure the thing wasn’t coming back.
A few minutes after, she heard people rushing into the house. Probably the door was open, because they entered without problem. From the noise they seemed to be heavily armoured, more than the city watch. When one of them got into Mari’s vision range, she saw bright, shiny armours, with Andraste’s flaming sword engraved on the chest. She didn’t know the meaning of that yet, but they made her feel better.
Anyway, she followed mum’s advice. Don’t trust anybody. So she looked at Evelyn, who had fallen asleep, and continued watching.
The templars focused more on the corpses of the dead elves than on searching the house. One of them knelt in front of what was left of poor Lynette and looked at the locket around her neck. He opened it, compared what he had seen inside with the two corpses in front of him and pocketed it. Then, he closed their eyes and covered the corpses with sheets to let them keep some dignity. Some of the alienage elves started to congregate in front of the door to find out what had happened, and when the templars removed the dead bodies, gathered enough courage to enter and loot the house. Because that was the only thing left to do, wasn’t it?
If anyone remembered that the couple had children, nobody said it aloud. And Marilyn finally fell asleep, like her sister. Too many emotions for a couple of five year old little kids.
When they woke up, the house was empty and sort of cleaned, even if the blood spots on the floor would stay there for ages, getting brown and undefined with time. Mari easily opened the lock from the inside, after all it was just a wooden bar blocking the doors. Then got out and looked around. There was nothing left for them. No family, no belongings, no life.
Art by Pham Ngoc Trinh
They got out of the house, trying to hide their eyes from the sun’s bright light. Someone realized they were Lynette and Raphael’s daughters, those weird people whose family name they didn’t even recall, and some other said aloud “We should do something with those poor girls” and a third one said “Well, we have an orphanage, no? Let’s take them there”. And strange hands grabbed them and led them there.
The orphanage was a big, empty, sad building. The twins knew their lives wouldn’t be attached to it. They looked around and then at the other and they agreed. They were fighters. They would survive.
No comments:
Post a Comment