Collar, Lash and Chain, Caerys

DAY 60
The crescent moon rises in the night sky. Two new moons have passed, and I have performed the midnight dance of deliverance faithfully on each night- reaching out to my goddess to save me, as she saved my ancestors- though I feel as though this is my punishment for arrogance, for a desire to use the Scarlet Queen’s art for my own gain. Life as a house slave was not demeaning enough for Sylvia Monteclaire, and made me a pet, stripping me of my dignity for the ‘weekly’ amusement of her guests. I crawled and barked and did a dozen other unspeakable things. Should that continue I would have been broken into an animal.

Yet, the previous night it seemed my prayers were answered- answered in blood. A new batch of Gladiatrices in training were to premiere in the arena in a month, and one had killed herself on the field with her own weapon; I begged lady Sylvia this chance to prove myself and it was given to me. Should I fail again though, my fate would be to become something even less than a slave, to be sold to the cheapest brothels or worse.

DAY 80

Barely a week to go and I had to catch up to the training. No more dances, no more rythm- they just show them how to swing their swords for performing. These poor girls aren’t really being prepared, they’re blood offerings. Most of these slaves are gutter trash and captured foreigners, but the more I think about it the more I’ll have to care about them.

They showed us our opponents, the night before the execution- the criminals and rebels, likely they were shown us as well. They promised to do many things to us should we lose, and Sylvia rightfully promised the same- if only to motivate us to fight harder. There was one of them though, that wasn’t like the rest- a giant of a man, from Frejlord. He was old, and quiet, but his many scars showed he was no ordinary rabble. I feared perhaps we had signed our death sentences.


DAY 92

By the goddess’s mercy, or her cruelty, I survived.

It was a spectacle indeed, for the Noxians. The physicians tell me twelve days had passed. There stood Three Brides and eleven unproven novices against the Frejlordian giant and a gang of criminals and rebels. Battle was joined, but the order of combat was changed- the giant began tearing through his fellows, snapping bodies like twigs with his backfists. The girls were too afraid to attack him, but he showed no such mercy, his mind lost to madness.

The Brides there, including the previous Vermilion, fought with courage, but their weapons broke against the man’s skin. Steel! Broken upon flesh. We knew to surrender was to be crushed by his madness, and so we lured him into the maze; we climbed and fight desperately, our blows nothing but pinpricks to him, whereas his very feet crushed mortar and stone. One by one we fought and died, until only I and the old Vermilion remained. She knew me to be the most agile in the group, and in a desperate gambit we launched ourselves in the most twisted tumbling to pirouette; against the odds he focused first on Vermilion, and gave her a murderous embrace. I heard her bones snap and her death screams, as she fell to the ground in a crumpled heap.

By now the man was spent, and his defense waned- this was my christening, my moment of survival. I drove the broken blade into his eye- not even a man’s eye could be hardened like iron. As death finally dared to approach him, he spoke to me, as I too lay there with broken bones.

He spoke to me of who he was. His name was Svenfir, son of Skaldjor, second in line to be chief of the Thunder Wolf Tribe. He was husband to Elisif, who was mother to Freyj; lover to Ella, who was mother... to Elenwe. He perished, trying to survive, to see the same person I struggled to survive.

I survived, and yet more and more each day I feel something in myself dying. They gave me the name of giant killer, but more important, was that I had proven myself to begin becoming a Bride.

Goddess, Deliver me.

DAY 130

My advanced training began some time ago, as did my transformation into those unnaturally, hauntingly beautiful goddesses of bloodshed known as Blood Brides. But, there was nothing divine of their training or beauty- Red, my tormentor, was a cruel sparring mate, while Decima an even crueller teacher. Every mistake saw us the kiss of the whip, and we were forced to make many mistakes by our elders.

The Brides all formed cliques to court lady Sylvia’s favour, and my lack of camaraderie greatly spited them. Food was terribly scarce- it was some tasteless gruel that quickly caused us to lose fat and develop our bodies. Surgeons came and tucked the loose muscles of my abdomen, cruelly carving away the imperfections I could not eliminate by natural means.

My birthmark, the mark of my mother, of my caravan- was erased. My scars from my battles, erased. My skin grew pale and I grew thin and always hungry; we were beautiful outside, but the Brides are nothing but empty inside.

Day 190

The training continues. Every sound, every crack of the whip, I react with a practiced response. With regularity I participate in executions and combat with rival schools; I draw blood and drawn of blood, and each time the surgeons came, removing the scars.
Then they changed my hair. First came the bleach and the chemicals worked into my scalp- my mother’s beautiful, wild raven hair, my inheritance, was cut and straightened by hot wax and oils. It gradually turned grey, then white, over the course of the training; until I beheld a white-haired spectre- they had altered me in such a manner that I did not recognize the woman before me.

Once it was satisfactory that the hair that grew on my head was now unnatural, they gave me the dye of the one I would succeed- Vermilion. My name had not been uttered in this place for nearly seven moons; and now it would never be. I am the Blood Bride Vermilion now, not ‘Dog’ or ‘Bitch’. I am mistress of the Flail and of the Glaive, the Giant Killer.

But I must not forget... who I am, even if the goddess has forgotten me.

I am Caerys, daughter of Caera Ash’abel... and no one will know my name here.