Post by Kit on Feb 2, 2014 21:47:52 GMT -5
The sun flew high above the clouds but it brought no hint of cheer to the abandoned ranch. The once lively place was now silent now except for the occasional cawing of a crow. Bodies lay where they had fallen, canine and human alike, untouched, as if the whole place was held fast in a state of decomposing limbo.
Walking through the remains of the whelping barn, Kit hardly knew what to focus on first. Her mind was scattered, as frayed as the carnage that surrounded her. Another step forward and something crunched beneath her boot.
Curious, she crouched down and freed it from the blanket of ash with a brush of her fingertips. Then she held it up to the light. A skull, small, so young that the soft spots hadn't fused together yet. Poor lil guy didn't even make it 6 weeks. Kit's head slumped forward and she shut her eyes tight.
Gone… It was all gone.
The quick impressions the huntress had gotten before escaping with Kari and the pups left her suspecting the damage was bad but to see it all now… to really see it, was crippling.
Every happy memory she'd ever made, reduced to nothing but bones and ash.
So many lives were brought to an end just to serve the greed of one man. One. Single. Man.
D, that sorry, good for nothin just couldn't handle the competition so instead of upping his game, he got rid of us. How many other breeders had dropped out of sight without explanation?
The idea was a new one but the more she thought about it, the more it rang true in her mind. Kit had not suspected a thing when the Dollis's decided raising cattle was better business. She had not blinked an eye when Casen and his crew had gone into farming. How many others had gotten too close to beating him? How many others had he intimidated or run out of business?
It explained why he was so surprised when she fought back. So surprised that he ran away, left his own men to die. Yet somehow he still managed to convince the law that he was innocent of any wrong doing. Maybe the others had been too scared of him to come forward.
The thought of him getting away with it again, maybe even doing this to someone else brought on a rage that got her feet moving forward again.
This wasn't about her own revenge anymore. D would use Kit as an example of what happened to those who didn't listen, make them all so afraid of loosing their lives that he would keep getting away with it. Unless of course, someone with no life left to loose put a stop to him.
Squaring her shoulders, Kit set her sights toward what remained of the main house. Determination propelled her forward with new purpose, though she paused every so often to kneel down and collect the bones of the fallen. Big D would get his due. “Were gonna make him pay for what he done… with interest.” She muttered to the remains.
Most of the walls had crumbled in the fire but it just didn't feel right to enter her home any other way but through the front door. The wood barrier promptly fell right off the frame. Undaunted, Kit stepped across the threshold and carefully lay what was left of her friends down. "Just keep yer mind on what yer here for.” she whispered.
Staying focused was not so simple a task as she told herself it would be. Everywhere she looked brought waves of memories crashing back. Haunting reminders of how much life had once been sheltered within these walls, of how much love they had held.
Mama at the kitchen table, slapping a piece of cold meat on the black eye she had given Pa the day he tried to teach her how to throw a ball. Dogs surrounding them by the hearth while Papa retold some story they’d all heard a million times before, his thick gravely accent making it seem interesting all the same. The bed she had cried herself to sleep on the first time her heart got broken.
"Throwin yerself a pity party aint gonna get the job done." She reminded herself sternly, fighting the undertow with a bitter shake of her head. Slowly, the memories faded and in their wake she found what she had been looking for.
A blackened corpse lay curled up beneath where the window should have been. From the frame’s half risen position, even an idiot could see that she was trying to climb out. Why hadn’t she made it?
Kit bent down to have a closer look. The hole in the back of her skull was apparent the moment she rolled the corpse over. It’d been caved in, probably happened fast. “Least ya didn’t suffer much.” She consoled the corpse, gathering it into her arms as gently as she could. “Rest easy now, I've got you.”
There would be a time to mourn but now was not it. Kit returned to what was left of the kitchen and got to work. All her practice working bones back at the cathedral had paid off and so there she stayed, hour after hour, lovingly crafting her tools of retribution.
Days might have passed without her notice.
Kit had just added the finishing touches to everything when the sun began to sink. She would lose the light soon but it hardly mattered. The night was her friend now. The huntress donned her new armor, flexing her body this way and that to make sure everything was as it should be. The gruesome material was almost silent compared to its metal counterpart. Spinal columns and ribs, skulls and sinew, all of it molded to fit juuuuust right.
Now, her friends would never be forgotten. A piece of each and every one of them would remain with her… forever.
Kit released a long breath as she crossed over the threshold and into the fading light, feeling the weight of the past ease a bit. Blood rimmed eyes scanned the landscape briefly and then she fetched an arrow. It was time to test the bow.
As if hoping to slay the sun, she took aim at the horizon and sighted the last slivers of light through the eye socket on her newly made instrument of vengeance. Clavicle, scapula, radius and ulna flexed as she drew back, sinew held by metacarpals and flanges pulled taut, the bones all bent but they did not break.
This was a bow she could trust.
A dark look descended across her features as Kari materialized at her side. Then as silently as the grave, the two of them began stalking toward the city-state looming in the distance. Whispered words drifted out like a warning on the wind. “Time to hunt.”
Crickets chirped and the fire crackled softly. D was laying on his side, wrapped snugly in a blanket, snoring away without a care in the world even though he traveled alone. The man may have been a decent dog breeder in her fathers time but age had made him slow. Greed had made him fat and fear of becoming second rate had turned him into a killer.
Kit weighed her course of action from her perch in the tree branch above him. Every fiber of her being wanted to rain down arrows till she bled him dry. Kill the man who'd hurt so many and leave him to rot. Was it so wrong? Demacia would have killed him for his crimes if they knew the truth.
Then again, what would keep someone else from rising up to take his place and doing the same thing he had done? The huntress sighed and shifted her weight to the other foot. There was only one way to end this.
"It ain't the vengeance we hoped for but it’s the right thing ta do." She whispered the resigned decision into the air, as if speaking to the spirits of those she lost. D would try to use her death to send a message to the others. I think its high time we send a message of our own.
As the words left her mouth, D snorted and heaved his great bulk over, rolling till he lay on his back. For a moment she feared he would wake. Kit sucked in a nervous breath and waited. and waited . Finally she exhaled, satisfied he was still fast asleep. With a nod to herself for good measure she knocked an arrow and then motioned Kari over to stand guard next to his head.
-Thunk-
The arrow left her bow and embedded itself into a corner of his blanket. Six more followed, pinning down the sides of the covering, she put the last one between his knees for good measure but the second it hit, the man sat bot upright and screeched in pain.
The huntress cursed under her breath. Blasted thing must have caught his porker of a thigh by mistake. "I didn't have ta miss." She called down, quickly covering her mishap with bravado.
D's panicked eyes searched the darkness as he strained against the blanket he was trapped by. "Who are you? I... I only have a little gold... Y..You can have it! Please! Take what you will! Just leave an old man be!" He responded in a voice several octaves higher than it should have been.
Transparent and looking all the more vicious for it, Kari brought her face close to his and growled. D halted his struggle to get free almost instantly. "I'll be damned D, looks like you do have some instincts left in that fat ass of yer's after all." Kit taunted as she jumped down and came around to face him.
The huntress could see quite well in the dark, much better than before but to him, her form was likely just a black outline against the moonlight. When she realized this, she tossed a log onto his fire and waited for its added light to reveal her identity. "You and me got ourselves some unfinished business." The flames climbed higher, illuminating her face.
"No... You're dead. Y...You cant possibly be here! Your dead!" D cried out and shook his head in denial, refusing to believe the bone clad, decaying nightmare his own eyes showed him.
Kit laughed softly before responding. "Yer right on at least one point there. I am most assuredly dead as dead can be." She got in close, letting the putrid breath that carried her words confirm the truth. "I just didn't much care to stay that way!"
Maybe it was her breath or maybe it was her proximity but D redoubled his efforts to escape the confines of his blanket, whimpering barely coherent no's. Kit watched for a moment, amused at his fear. "No?" No no no?" Bone encrusted fingers gripped his face clamping his jaw shut and digging bloody marks into his skin without mercy.
Raising her voice over his frantic garbled plea's she added in a sing song voice, "We all have to go sometime!" Then, grinning with fiendish glee, her free hand flew back, caught hold of an arrow and brought it down like a knife.
At the last possible second, she stopped short. The point dug into his tear duct and from the smell, he was now sorely in need of a change of pants. This was good, disgusting... but good. Kit let her head fall to one side, as if listening contemplating some new thought.
"How many folks have ya done this too... What you done to me and mine?" She didn't give him a chance to respond before continuing "Now you gotta pay one way or another but since I am feeling just a might nostalgic, I think ill let you pick yer own poison. You can answer to me, or you can answer to them." Kit nodded toward the road.
His brows drew together in confusion but by Kits estimation, a small patrol would be passing by within a few minuets. "Tick tock D. Which is it gonna be? Do ya want Demacian justice... or mine?"
The last thing the three Demacian guards expected to see when they came around the bend was a woman in the middle of the road. They called out a greeting but their smiles died when they got close enough to see what they were dealing with. Horses balked and weapons were drawn.
Kit held up her hands in a gesture of surrender. "Now hold on, I aint lookin fer no trouble. There's a man back that way who needs ta speak to the law. Y'all looked pretty authoritative so I figured you'd do."
Clearly, this was not at all what they had expected. Helms twisted back and forth as they looked at one another. This went on until one of them finally took charge. "The un-living are not welcome here." The one on the right told her sternly.
Again Kit held up her hands, showing them to be empty. "I hear ya and I understand. Y'all have my word as a Dawnstar that ill be out of yer hair with no harm done 'fore ya know it." Kit had hardly taken a step before the soldier shouted. "Don’t you move an inch! Don't. You. Move." The other two reacted by moving to either side of the road, trying to flank.
Kari growled, ready for a fight but Kit silenced the hound with a glance. The dog was right though, this was getting dicey. Before the soldiers could get close enough to make use of their blades, Kit darted back into the tree line.
They followed her, giving chase as expected. Kit slipped between trunks, pushed in and out of bushes and hopped over rocks, giving them a way to keep track of her as she lead them onward.
Kit lost them on accident more than a few times. It wasn't their fault, the horses were a hindrance in this terrain and it was dark. Had she been alive she was sure they'd have cut her down by now. A merciful end to her condition in their minds no doubt.
After a few failed attempts to lead them in the right direction, the soldiers finally stumbled upon D's camp.
Kit looked on from a distant vantage point, hiding once more in the boughs of a tree. Would he go through with it? If he didn't she supposed she could always hunt him down later.
Too far away to hear the exchange of words, she could only watch and hope.
The guards rushed to aid D, pulling her arrows from his blanket and tossing them aside. The female covered her mouth, and walked away but the other two stayed. One of them began to bandage the portly man's thigh up. While the other appeared to be trying to get a straight story from him.
D seemed to be doing as he promised. The man's arms flailed around, gesturing excitedly from the moment they freed him. Words were exchanged and after what seemed like ages he fell to his knees in what looked like a plea for mercy.
Eventually they bound his hands and put him on the back of a horse. With a few wary glances back into the woods, the soldiers and their prisoner set off toward the city. D would surely change his story once he was safe, that was the nature of liars. Pulling the wool over the eyes of the authorities would not be so easy now that he had confessed.
"Casen, Briarthorn, Dollis, Montock..." Kit repeated the names D had given her, the names of all the other people he had ruined. They would be her testimony now.
The closest ranch was 6 miles out.
The moon acted as a beacon, lighting the way as she turned and started walking. An old country song whistled happily on dead lips drifted up through the trees as she passed by, the sound getting lost in the moonlight like so many dreams.
Walking through the remains of the whelping barn, Kit hardly knew what to focus on first. Her mind was scattered, as frayed as the carnage that surrounded her. Another step forward and something crunched beneath her boot.
Curious, she crouched down and freed it from the blanket of ash with a brush of her fingertips. Then she held it up to the light. A skull, small, so young that the soft spots hadn't fused together yet. Poor lil guy didn't even make it 6 weeks. Kit's head slumped forward and she shut her eyes tight.
Gone… It was all gone.
The quick impressions the huntress had gotten before escaping with Kari and the pups left her suspecting the damage was bad but to see it all now… to really see it, was crippling.
Every happy memory she'd ever made, reduced to nothing but bones and ash.
So many lives were brought to an end just to serve the greed of one man. One. Single. Man.
D, that sorry, good for nothin just couldn't handle the competition so instead of upping his game, he got rid of us. How many other breeders had dropped out of sight without explanation?
The idea was a new one but the more she thought about it, the more it rang true in her mind. Kit had not suspected a thing when the Dollis's decided raising cattle was better business. She had not blinked an eye when Casen and his crew had gone into farming. How many others had gotten too close to beating him? How many others had he intimidated or run out of business?
It explained why he was so surprised when she fought back. So surprised that he ran away, left his own men to die. Yet somehow he still managed to convince the law that he was innocent of any wrong doing. Maybe the others had been too scared of him to come forward.
The thought of him getting away with it again, maybe even doing this to someone else brought on a rage that got her feet moving forward again.
This wasn't about her own revenge anymore. D would use Kit as an example of what happened to those who didn't listen, make them all so afraid of loosing their lives that he would keep getting away with it. Unless of course, someone with no life left to loose put a stop to him.
Squaring her shoulders, Kit set her sights toward what remained of the main house. Determination propelled her forward with new purpose, though she paused every so often to kneel down and collect the bones of the fallen. Big D would get his due. “Were gonna make him pay for what he done… with interest.” She muttered to the remains.
Most of the walls had crumbled in the fire but it just didn't feel right to enter her home any other way but through the front door. The wood barrier promptly fell right off the frame. Undaunted, Kit stepped across the threshold and carefully lay what was left of her friends down. "Just keep yer mind on what yer here for.” she whispered.
Staying focused was not so simple a task as she told herself it would be. Everywhere she looked brought waves of memories crashing back. Haunting reminders of how much life had once been sheltered within these walls, of how much love they had held.
Mama at the kitchen table, slapping a piece of cold meat on the black eye she had given Pa the day he tried to teach her how to throw a ball. Dogs surrounding them by the hearth while Papa retold some story they’d all heard a million times before, his thick gravely accent making it seem interesting all the same. The bed she had cried herself to sleep on the first time her heart got broken.
"Throwin yerself a pity party aint gonna get the job done." She reminded herself sternly, fighting the undertow with a bitter shake of her head. Slowly, the memories faded and in their wake she found what she had been looking for.
A blackened corpse lay curled up beneath where the window should have been. From the frame’s half risen position, even an idiot could see that she was trying to climb out. Why hadn’t she made it?
Kit bent down to have a closer look. The hole in the back of her skull was apparent the moment she rolled the corpse over. It’d been caved in, probably happened fast. “Least ya didn’t suffer much.” She consoled the corpse, gathering it into her arms as gently as she could. “Rest easy now, I've got you.”
There would be a time to mourn but now was not it. Kit returned to what was left of the kitchen and got to work. All her practice working bones back at the cathedral had paid off and so there she stayed, hour after hour, lovingly crafting her tools of retribution.
Days might have passed without her notice.
Kit had just added the finishing touches to everything when the sun began to sink. She would lose the light soon but it hardly mattered. The night was her friend now. The huntress donned her new armor, flexing her body this way and that to make sure everything was as it should be. The gruesome material was almost silent compared to its metal counterpart. Spinal columns and ribs, skulls and sinew, all of it molded to fit juuuuust right.
Now, her friends would never be forgotten. A piece of each and every one of them would remain with her… forever.
Kit released a long breath as she crossed over the threshold and into the fading light, feeling the weight of the past ease a bit. Blood rimmed eyes scanned the landscape briefly and then she fetched an arrow. It was time to test the bow.
As if hoping to slay the sun, she took aim at the horizon and sighted the last slivers of light through the eye socket on her newly made instrument of vengeance. Clavicle, scapula, radius and ulna flexed as she drew back, sinew held by metacarpals and flanges pulled taut, the bones all bent but they did not break.
This was a bow she could trust.
A dark look descended across her features as Kari materialized at her side. Then as silently as the grave, the two of them began stalking toward the city-state looming in the distance. Whispered words drifted out like a warning on the wind. “Time to hunt.”
Crickets chirped and the fire crackled softly. D was laying on his side, wrapped snugly in a blanket, snoring away without a care in the world even though he traveled alone. The man may have been a decent dog breeder in her fathers time but age had made him slow. Greed had made him fat and fear of becoming second rate had turned him into a killer.
Kit weighed her course of action from her perch in the tree branch above him. Every fiber of her being wanted to rain down arrows till she bled him dry. Kill the man who'd hurt so many and leave him to rot. Was it so wrong? Demacia would have killed him for his crimes if they knew the truth.
Then again, what would keep someone else from rising up to take his place and doing the same thing he had done? The huntress sighed and shifted her weight to the other foot. There was only one way to end this.
"It ain't the vengeance we hoped for but it’s the right thing ta do." She whispered the resigned decision into the air, as if speaking to the spirits of those she lost. D would try to use her death to send a message to the others. I think its high time we send a message of our own.
As the words left her mouth, D snorted and heaved his great bulk over, rolling till he lay on his back. For a moment she feared he would wake. Kit sucked in a nervous breath and waited. and waited . Finally she exhaled, satisfied he was still fast asleep. With a nod to herself for good measure she knocked an arrow and then motioned Kari over to stand guard next to his head.
-Thunk-
The arrow left her bow and embedded itself into a corner of his blanket. Six more followed, pinning down the sides of the covering, she put the last one between his knees for good measure but the second it hit, the man sat bot upright and screeched in pain.
The huntress cursed under her breath. Blasted thing must have caught his porker of a thigh by mistake. "I didn't have ta miss." She called down, quickly covering her mishap with bravado.
D's panicked eyes searched the darkness as he strained against the blanket he was trapped by. "Who are you? I... I only have a little gold... Y..You can have it! Please! Take what you will! Just leave an old man be!" He responded in a voice several octaves higher than it should have been.
Transparent and looking all the more vicious for it, Kari brought her face close to his and growled. D halted his struggle to get free almost instantly. "I'll be damned D, looks like you do have some instincts left in that fat ass of yer's after all." Kit taunted as she jumped down and came around to face him.
The huntress could see quite well in the dark, much better than before but to him, her form was likely just a black outline against the moonlight. When she realized this, she tossed a log onto his fire and waited for its added light to reveal her identity. "You and me got ourselves some unfinished business." The flames climbed higher, illuminating her face.
"No... You're dead. Y...You cant possibly be here! Your dead!" D cried out and shook his head in denial, refusing to believe the bone clad, decaying nightmare his own eyes showed him.
Kit laughed softly before responding. "Yer right on at least one point there. I am most assuredly dead as dead can be." She got in close, letting the putrid breath that carried her words confirm the truth. "I just didn't much care to stay that way!"
Maybe it was her breath or maybe it was her proximity but D redoubled his efforts to escape the confines of his blanket, whimpering barely coherent no's. Kit watched for a moment, amused at his fear. "No?" No no no?" Bone encrusted fingers gripped his face clamping his jaw shut and digging bloody marks into his skin without mercy.
Raising her voice over his frantic garbled plea's she added in a sing song voice, "We all have to go sometime!" Then, grinning with fiendish glee, her free hand flew back, caught hold of an arrow and brought it down like a knife.
At the last possible second, she stopped short. The point dug into his tear duct and from the smell, he was now sorely in need of a change of pants. This was good, disgusting... but good. Kit let her head fall to one side, as if listening contemplating some new thought.
"How many folks have ya done this too... What you done to me and mine?" She didn't give him a chance to respond before continuing "Now you gotta pay one way or another but since I am feeling just a might nostalgic, I think ill let you pick yer own poison. You can answer to me, or you can answer to them." Kit nodded toward the road.
His brows drew together in confusion but by Kits estimation, a small patrol would be passing by within a few minuets. "Tick tock D. Which is it gonna be? Do ya want Demacian justice... or mine?"
The last thing the three Demacian guards expected to see when they came around the bend was a woman in the middle of the road. They called out a greeting but their smiles died when they got close enough to see what they were dealing with. Horses balked and weapons were drawn.
Kit held up her hands in a gesture of surrender. "Now hold on, I aint lookin fer no trouble. There's a man back that way who needs ta speak to the law. Y'all looked pretty authoritative so I figured you'd do."
Clearly, this was not at all what they had expected. Helms twisted back and forth as they looked at one another. This went on until one of them finally took charge. "The un-living are not welcome here." The one on the right told her sternly.
Again Kit held up her hands, showing them to be empty. "I hear ya and I understand. Y'all have my word as a Dawnstar that ill be out of yer hair with no harm done 'fore ya know it." Kit had hardly taken a step before the soldier shouted. "Don’t you move an inch! Don't. You. Move." The other two reacted by moving to either side of the road, trying to flank.
Kari growled, ready for a fight but Kit silenced the hound with a glance. The dog was right though, this was getting dicey. Before the soldiers could get close enough to make use of their blades, Kit darted back into the tree line.
They followed her, giving chase as expected. Kit slipped between trunks, pushed in and out of bushes and hopped over rocks, giving them a way to keep track of her as she lead them onward.
Kit lost them on accident more than a few times. It wasn't their fault, the horses were a hindrance in this terrain and it was dark. Had she been alive she was sure they'd have cut her down by now. A merciful end to her condition in their minds no doubt.
After a few failed attempts to lead them in the right direction, the soldiers finally stumbled upon D's camp.
Kit looked on from a distant vantage point, hiding once more in the boughs of a tree. Would he go through with it? If he didn't she supposed she could always hunt him down later.
Too far away to hear the exchange of words, she could only watch and hope.
The guards rushed to aid D, pulling her arrows from his blanket and tossing them aside. The female covered her mouth, and walked away but the other two stayed. One of them began to bandage the portly man's thigh up. While the other appeared to be trying to get a straight story from him.
D seemed to be doing as he promised. The man's arms flailed around, gesturing excitedly from the moment they freed him. Words were exchanged and after what seemed like ages he fell to his knees in what looked like a plea for mercy.
Eventually they bound his hands and put him on the back of a horse. With a few wary glances back into the woods, the soldiers and their prisoner set off toward the city. D would surely change his story once he was safe, that was the nature of liars. Pulling the wool over the eyes of the authorities would not be so easy now that he had confessed.
"Casen, Briarthorn, Dollis, Montock..." Kit repeated the names D had given her, the names of all the other people he had ruined. They would be her testimony now.
The closest ranch was 6 miles out.
The moon acted as a beacon, lighting the way as she turned and started walking. An old country song whistled happily on dead lips drifted up through the trees as she passed by, the sound getting lost in the moonlight like so many dreams.