Work Text:
What Felt Like Hell
Yasha was sitting up on the bed against the door. The swampy inn that the Mighty Nein was staying at was far from the sketchiest place she had ever slept. In fact, the swampy feel of the area reminded her of home. Yet…she couldn’t sleep. The dream that the Stormlord sent her the previous night still haunted her. Ever since she was young, Yasha hated dreams. Xhorhas didn’t really provide an enviroment for good dreams of unicorns and hamsters, like Jester’s. Her childhood was filled with nightmares of horrible monsters and blood.
Yasha watched Febron sleep across the room. She wasn’t afraid of him. As creepy as the guy was, he wasn’t a threat to someone as strong as Yasha. She killed more dangerous things than him when she was fourteen.
Soon Yasha’s thoughts were brought back to the dream that her god had sent her. “You walk the right path. Be strong. Don’t forget who you were and decide who you will become.” The Stormlord’s words rang through her head once again. She knew what he meant, but she still wished that she could forget. She was often jealous of Molly. He couldn’t remember if he had done anything bad in his time before the carnival. She could remember every person she killed for the Krynn Dynasty. If she told her new friends the truth about what she did they would never trust her. Nott already seemed convinced she was a Xhorhas spy.
As Febron continued to snore, Yasha opened up her book of flowers. Her darkvision allowed her to see the flowers easily without waking her roommate. As much as she didn’t want to remember her past, Yasha knew that she owed it to the Stormlord to listen to him. Looking at the flowers she was reminded of who she was collecting them for.
By a young age it was clear to Yasha’s family that the girl had some celestial blood in her. No one was sure of why, but they knew that her heritage had to been hidden. Throughout her childhood, Yasha rarely left her home. The few times she did, was with her older sister, Nura. She had always looked up to Nura, who was five years older and Nura knew that she hated being couped up. Over the years the two created a close bond. Sometimes at night they would find a private place and Yasha would unleash her white, angelic wings. They would spend time flying around, free.
One day their father came home with a book. He bought it from a trader who claimed it was from the Menagerie Coast. The book had piture of festivals and people, but what stuck with the sisters was the flowers. Xhorhas never had much in the way of plant life, so this was the first time they were seeing them. Nura promised Yasha that one day the two of them would leave Xhorhas and travel the world, collected all the flowers they saw along the way.
Of course they couldn’t keep Yasha a secret from the Krynn for long and she was taken away to Northern Xhorhas at the young age of thirteen. The dark elves trained her to fight for them. She was a bodyguard to the Empress and and executioner. Over the years that she worked for the Krynn, Yasha felt a light leave her. She even noticed that her wings, once white and angelic were torn. They were now dark and skeletal and after trying a few times, Yasha realised she could no longer fly. This realisation caused an immense saddnes in her and before long she was numb to the duty she had to the Krynn. Yasha would do whatever they said without question.
After 10 years of working for the Krynn Dynasty, Yasha’s world changed again. Rebels from Southern Xhorhas attacked the capital city. Yasha, of course was called in to stomp out the rebellion. The rebel army was charging towards the castle and Yahsa, with all the other guards, attacked. As she was taught, she went into a cold rage. The world around her went red and she could only think of fighting. As she got closer to the rebels she unleashed her skeletal wings. Some of the rebels froze in fear and started to back up.
Yasha took her great axe and slashed her way through rebels. Their screams were muffled in her rage.
It wasn’t long until the rebels began to retreat. As they ran Krynn archers continued to pick off more. Yasha’s rage faded and she looked down to her blood covered arms and saw the carnage around her. These people. They were from the villiage she grew up in. She knew them. She remembered them and she felt nothing. The nothingness caused some concern for Yasha and she ran off.
Getting across the border was more difficult than Yasha expected and she was caught by Krynn soldiers. As a deserter she was thrown into a prison until they were ready to execute her. Yasha was left alone in a cell to think about all she had done. She wondered if her parents were killed in the battle. Had she killed them, or Nura? A heavy guilt weighed on her whole body.
The day of her exectuion came slowly. The cell became her personal hell. The only person she ever saw was a guard that, sometimes brought her food. She couldn’t tell what day it was or what hour. By the time her execution came around, her war paint was faded and she looked like she was on death’s door. She walked up to a platform in chains overlooking a crowd of people. The clouds were grey and the wind was beginning to pick up. A storm was coming. There was a man in a guard uniform standing in front of her holding a gun, the new weapons that the Krynn were getting from Marquet. Rain started to fally gently, but quickly turned into a down pour. The guard raised his weapon and aimed it at her. Thunder boomed and lightening lit up the sky.
Just as the guard was about to pull the trigger, lightening hit the stage. Yasha was thrown off the stage and the guard was burnt to a crisp. People were screaming and running as Yasha lay on the ground, ears ringing. Suddenly a feeling of warmth flowed through her. She looked up to see a woman in robes looking down at her. “The Stormlord has found you worthy of saving. Come with me.” She said as she sent magic to break her chains. Not knowing what else to do, Yasha got up and followed the woman.
The woman took her into a closed cart and they were off. She gave Yasha a pendant that had four bolts of lightening. “Take this. He saved you for a reason child. You’ll know if he needs something from you.” Throughout the rest of the trip the woman told Yasha about the god that decided to save her. She didn’t know why this god decided to save her, but looking out the window she saw where she was being taken.
The cart was coming close to the border Xhorhas shared with the Dwendalian Empire. She was finally getting out. This was not how she was expecting to escape, but she couldn’t waste the opportunity. Her family was probaby dead, so she was going to see the rest of the world for both herself and her family.
Yasha spent a few months traveling alone. After one really rough night where some bandits stole her great axe, she was in a tavern getting some food. She was in a town called Nugvuror. She was traveling west to get as far from Xhorhas as she could. The tavern was roudy and she sat alone in the corner avoiding the curious gazes of the people.
The door to the tavern opened with the jingle of a bell. Yasha turned her head to the sound out of curiosity. A lavender colored tiefling had walked in with a handful of papers that he was handing out to people. His horns were covered in gems, his skin was tattoed, and his clothes screamed “look at me”. The tiefling seemed to relish in the attention he was getting as he went from table to table, talking with customers.
A human was sitting at the bar, near Yasha. He had noticed the tiefling enter as well. He turned to Yasha and said, “Since when to they let things like him in this town.” Yasha gave no response and she watched at the man got up and stumbled over to the tiefling. She saw him start to talk with the tiefling and walked up to the human.
Wordlessly, Yasha picked up the human by his shirt collar and walked out of the tavern. Before putting him down, she got real close to him and said, “Don’t let me ever hear of you talking about someone like that again. I will gut you like a fish.” Then she threw the man to the ground and walked back to her seat in the tavern.
As Yasha started eating her meal again she heard someone clear their throat behind her. She turned around to see the lavender teifling standing there with a huge smile on his face. “Thank you.” He said. “It’s rare to find kindess this far north in the Empire.” Yasha silently nodded and tried to go back to her meal. “I work for the carnival that is in town.” The tiefling continued. “We’ve been looking for some muscle to hire. You up for the job?” Yasha thought about the offer. This would probably be a more steady job that the hired sword work she has been doing and she needed to purchase a new weapon.
Wordlessly, Yasha nodded to the tiefling who smiled wider and held out his hand for her to shake. “The name’s Mollymauk Tealeaf, but my friends call me Molly. Welcome to the carnival…?”
“Yasha.”
“Welcome to the carnival Yasha. This is going to be fun.”
Taking one last look at her collection of flowers in the dark in in Berlben, Yasha closed the book. The only sound in the room was Febron’s snore and a light thunder and rain coming from outside. It was getting late and tomorrow was going to be a long day. She closed her eyes, focusing her ears on the sounds of the storm to send her into a dreamless sleep.
THE END