[ Another day, she might even smile. A twitch, I knew you played with me, it was never some sparrow.
But not now, rather - she tilts her head, and it is not to kiss her - not so simple as that - more than that. She leans her forehead to hers, she grips her shoulder, hard. Sinking in by the weight of all her fingers. Her eyes shut, her breath low, slow, taking a steadiness out of Magni that so often held by threads, wire-thin. But felt sure as she ever did in the sure comfort of Magni's hands, for once, of that stillness. ]
They fed on us. Not... not that they drained our resources, denied us, alone. Though they certainly did that most heartily. They fed on us. We did not know, we welcomed them as great traders, sailors. My husband had always maintained good trade with them, they supported us and us, them. We never thought they would bring with them such creatures. Men who, by night, would turn to monsters. Creep into villages. At first, it was just... a man walking alone snatched off the road. His body torn to pieces. A woman, home alone. Found mauled outside her house. We have many great beasts in my homeland. Tigers, lions, snakes. Finding someone in such a way... is never happy, but nor is it wholly strange.
It was not so long after my husband died. I would have been... twenty, not so long after I had been removed from power, if I remember it clearly. [ Her eyes stare through, that blank way she stares between here and there, a space within a space. She remembers it and she remembers it well. ] A girl, not even nine, had killed her whole family. Something had... bitten her, but not killed her. She came home and worried, her parents put her to bed. That night, she turned. Ripped her parents to pieces. Tore them, the blood - My God, I have never seen so much blood, not even when I went to battle.
[ She drops, and the bracelet serves its purpose. She begins to turn it between her fingers. A circle she makes moving it between her hands, to stare at it and look at nothing else. ] Her Uncle was all that left. He burst into my hall, begging me to come, even deposed as I was, my people turned to me before any other. We rode out. No one wanted to go in, you could smell it. That smell, when the guts sit too long in the heat. Jhansi sits on the edge of the desert. The nights do not even cool down. [ Revolting. ] I'd learn, in time, they do not even need to turn, they will still hold their bodies as men, and they would eat, just eat. Another woman, I knew, she was with child. During the siege... it did not care. The child, just... just out of her belly. Humans are cattle to Lycans. [ She swallows, remembers how she'd thrown up afterwards when the smell hit her. How she tells it, a disjointed bundle of horrors. That holds itself together at ends of a memory that at times, must put itself out of its own pain by cutting off before it went too far. ]
My men wouldn't go in, and how could I order them too? So I went. I found just... a little girl, who had no idea what she had done. I realised, what had happened, there was no undoing it, she had killed them, monsterously. How could I ask another to do such a thing? To end such a life? So I didn't. [ Shake, she notes far away, this many years, and still shaking, Manu? Surely you have done worse than that night. ] I rocked her, she sobbed even as she slept. Then I made sure at least her part of this nightmare they had brought to us was over for her.
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But not now, rather - she tilts her head, and it is not to kiss her - not so simple as that - more than that. She leans her forehead to hers, she grips her shoulder, hard. Sinking in by the weight of all her fingers. Her eyes shut, her breath low, slow, taking a steadiness out of Magni that so often held by threads, wire-thin. But felt sure as she ever did in the sure comfort of Magni's hands, for once, of that stillness. ]
They fed on us. Not... not that they drained our resources, denied us, alone. Though they certainly did that most heartily. They fed on us. We did not know, we welcomed them as great traders, sailors. My husband had always maintained good trade with them, they supported us and us, them. We never thought they would bring with them such creatures. Men who, by night, would turn to monsters. Creep into villages. At first, it was just... a man walking alone snatched off the road. His body torn to pieces. A woman, home alone. Found mauled outside her house. We have many great beasts in my homeland. Tigers, lions, snakes. Finding someone in such a way... is never happy, but nor is it wholly strange.
It was not so long after my husband died. I would have been... twenty, not so long after I had been removed from power, if I remember it clearly. [ Her eyes stare through, that blank way she stares between here and there, a space within a space. She remembers it and she remembers it well. ] A girl, not even nine, had killed her whole family. Something had... bitten her, but not killed her. She came home and worried, her parents put her to bed. That night, she turned. Ripped her parents to pieces. Tore them, the blood - My God, I have never seen so much blood, not even when I went to battle.
[ She drops, and the bracelet serves its purpose. She begins to turn it between her fingers. A circle she makes moving it between her hands, to stare at it and look at nothing else. ] Her Uncle was all that left. He burst into my hall, begging me to come, even deposed as I was, my people turned to me before any other. We rode out. No one wanted to go in, you could smell it. That smell, when the guts sit too long in the heat. Jhansi sits on the edge of the desert. The nights do not even cool down. [ Revolting. ] I'd learn, in time, they do not even need to turn, they will still hold their bodies as men, and they would eat, just eat. Another woman, I knew, she was with child. During the siege... it did not care. The child, just... just out of her belly. Humans are cattle to Lycans. [ She swallows, remembers how she'd thrown up afterwards when the smell hit her. How she tells it, a disjointed bundle of horrors. That holds itself together at ends of a memory that at times, must put itself out of its own pain by cutting off before it went too far. ]
My men wouldn't go in, and how could I order them too? So I went. I found just... a little girl, who had no idea what she had done. I realised, what had happened, there was no undoing it, she had killed them, monsterously. How could I ask another to do such a thing? To end such a life? So I didn't. [ Shake, she notes far away, this many years, and still shaking, Manu? Surely you have done worse than that night. ] I rocked her, she sobbed even as she slept. Then I made sure at least her part of this nightmare they had brought to us was over for her.