Chapter Text
Some things remain the same.
A hunter.
A city of ravening beasts.
A light in the window.
A girl.
Blood.
It starts like this.
She overhears news of a city far to the north nestled in an isolated but beautiful valley. Sitting with her back to the wall in the back east corner of the sparsely populated tavern, her handaxe within arms reach always within arms reach, a rough copper tankard sitting on the scarred wooden table in front of her. One finger gently traces over dings and chips in the tankards surface, she opens her senses and lets the atmosphere wash over her like the soft rays of a full moon over a still lake. She slips partially through the Vunua, the fragile steel strong spider silk that keeps most blind.
That keeps most safe.
Only the foolish seek to walk through the Vunua, not realising to do so is to be remade from the inside out.
Heartbeats filter through her consciousness, strong, fast, weak, human, non-human, Other. It spins and spins, echoing through the Vunua that covers her like a second skin. Molding to her so cleanly that to remove it, is to remove herself. She breathes it in.
Human only in this tavern. Not so in this town.
Words are spoken, shouted, groaned. They mean nothing. They mean everything. She collects them in some distant part of her that remains on the other side of theVunua, examines them like goblin examines xes hoard.
A city ravaged by beasts.
The words fall and spin, landing hard like an axe blow. This, this is why she came here. Why she had followed rumours and half truths. Each a shining coin laid out before her, coaxing her closer to the edge of the cliff.
This is the first step.
She brings her senses forward, closing them to around what’s here and now and moves with heavy footfalls towards where the words fell from. Her axe loosely in her sure hand.
In the back corner of the tavern, several people in dark clothes sit in a closed group. They look worn, deep creases in their downcast-ed faces that speak of loss and a certain kind of madness. One that she knows only too well. Their clothes are dark and speaks of long travel and little respite. Their skin, what little of it that shows, is mottled, cracked, and bears the slight shimmer of being touched by Vunua. Touched by something Other.
The heavy thick oak doors are pushed open on protesting rusted hinges. A tall skinny white scaled dragon half breed entering gesticulating with emphasis to their goblin companion. A human sitting at a table near the entrance by themselves waves the pair over. The dragon-born and goblin part ways. The goblin heads towards the human.
Her Prey flinch at the sight. They withdraw into themselves casting dark suspicious looks at the trio.
The dragon-born looks towards the bar and sees her.
A myth, a legend, a damnation.
Their eyes flash with instinctive fear. The presence of her kind always brings shadows. Shards of ice fall with the tinkling of bells to the floor as the temperature drops. White mist plumes from their mouth and nose gently descends downward to the floor, leaving the brown linen shirt and dusty black trousers sparkling in ice.
Humans have the luxury of being untouched. Those born with life in their veins can see the beautiful doom that her kind have drawn into themselves.
She is a Hunter and they are not what she seeks. She moves past without a word.
She makes no move to cover or hide when one of her Prey spots her. The terror and hope tells her they know of her kind. The three others are quickly informed and they stare transfixed at her approach, the foolish before the Gorgon.
Her feathered cloak is whisper soft as it brushes over tables and chairs, an ode, a blessing, a curse from the Vunua. They all have their Mark. This is hers.
The sweet intoxication of the Hunt begins to awaken lazily in her veins. Sometimes she wonders if it is the only thing that runs through her. If she by her choices, her actions, no longer bleeds the way her Prey does. She wonders when that final drop of blood will fall.
They sit frozen as she reaches their table. Trapped between horror and worship. Terror and love. Despair and relief.
She stands tall and grinds out a question about the city. Her voice is dusty with disuse and carries an implicit command.
This is where it begins.
They know what is next.
She comes for them before Dawn. It is quick, it is merciful.
It is bloody.
The Dawn sees her go as the cries of a bewildered town begin to swell.
Sunset welcomes her to the valley.
She turns her horse loose in the direction of the city long left behind. She and it have travelled far and well together. She hefts her axe in one hand and stares at the distant buildings cradled by walls like the loving arms of a mother silhouetted against the sky.
Sweet intoxication begins to flow, bringing a sharpness to the edge of her vision and the thrumming of hunger that creeps with razor edged claws through her veins. In anticipation of the Hunt, the Vunua seems to reflexively tighten over her skin in a strange pain pleasure like teeth on soft giving flesh.
She makes it to the city walls. The sun is still above the horizon, too stubborn to give in to the night, too afraid to succumb to the moon and all that belongs to her. She pays it no mind, by harsh blazing sun or by soft seductive moon all her Prey dies. The city walls are thick ancient stone, mottled with evidence of human and Other occupation over the centuries. She places one scarred hand against the stone and bows her head.
Perhaps one day these stones will see the end of this sickness as they once saw the beginning.
She pulls back, cloak swirling with her every movement, and walks towards the towering iron gates. Ensuring her hand axes are securely in place, she swiftly climbs the gate. Upon reaching a safe drop distance, she lets go landing gracefully. Hands on her axes and crouching low, she scans the wide paved street before her before dashing to the comfort of the shadows cast by a building to her left. She darts from shadow to shadow, from doorway to behind overturned carriages.
Bodies lie in the open.
Bloated, rotting, whole, parts.
Bones, rats, howls.
A smile wicked sharp.
Oh the Hunt.
There’s a small part of her, what is left of the being she used to be, that as she tracks the howls rolls her eyes and scoffs at the architecture of the city she has seen thus far. Tall sweeping grandiose buildings built with arches and stairs. Oh gods so many stairs. Tight intertwining cobbled streets interspersed with wide sweeping roads.
It is something out of a gothic horror. How ridiculous.
She catches sight of her reflection in a broken shard of glass hanging halfheartedly out of an apothecary window, long since looted. Cloak made of feathers but not the kind found on any natural animal, grey triangular cap pulled down low with its stiff almost feathered wings that flared from the back barely covering her unusual hair colouring. Another gift from the Vunua.
Her almost all black ensemble with her pale skin reflecting its multitude of scars, a stark slash of shades in a world of colour. The net of Vunua that tore and ripped and sewn her into something resembling herself rippled over any exposed skin. Her hand axes, engraved with tiny runes and enhanced with gems that seemed to be an oh so startlingly bright pop of red against such a dour figure.
And her eyes…
She tears away from the broken reflection.
The city designed like something out of a gothic horror.
But then...wasn’t she?
Shaking off the web of introspection she slides gracefully into a nearby alcove, drawing back into the shadows that linger like mourners at a funeral. She hears them, hears the grating of metal on stone, the hungry crooning of fire.
Anticipation rises, she flexes her grip on the hand axes as she waits patiently for them.
After aeons, she sees the first flickering light. She steps out casually, a smirk curling her lips. There’s four of them mere feet away. Madness had already caught them, lengthened their limbs, bubbled over onto their skin.
She darts forward, her handaxe coming up in a smooth motion to spill the leaders intestines out onto the street in a heated steaming pile. A rolling step to the left, a handaxe coming up to deflect a pitch fork, the other causing a spray of blood as it catches a towns person holding a cleaver in the throat.
Step back, a tucked roll forward under the pitch fork, standing turning, the scream as the dull white spine shows, a careless flick of the wrist, the gurgle of death.
Blood covers her.
She revels in it.
A shudder as the Vunua absorbs the life force.
The gems in the hand axes start to give a dull red glow.
She picks up her handaxe from the hapless body, blood riverlets marking her face.
She stalks forward.
It’s almost effortless. It’s concerning. She tears through the city with ease.
She watches the flames consume the piles of bodies, both human and animal. There are no beasts yet. For a city so plagued with them that rumors have spread far and wide, there is a distressing lack. A cold unease creeps into her bones. The Vunua is oddly silent even as she slips into it.
She pushes forward.
She sees a small figure dart from one side to the next. The Hunt is urging her on, whispers in her mind.
She stalks, blood dripping from her is the only indication of her passage. The alleyway is dank, the buildings on either side crowd over the neglected space boxing it in. She approaches carefully, each foot step measured.
The alleyway ends abruptly as it opens out onto a beautiful view of the city gilded in sunlight. She pauses as she takes it in. This city is confusing at best. There’s a ladder that goes down, disappearing into the shadows below, she approaches it holstering her handaxes. She grips the ladder with one hand, preparing to swing onto it.
“No! Don’t!”
A high pitched girlish voice snaps her into reaction. She throws herself forward tucking into a roll before coming up into a defensive stance both handaxes readied.
It takes a breath of eternity before she catches a fear stricken face pressed up against a barred window. A startling bright white ribbon twined through dark curly hair. A faint stirring of memory from the fragments of humanity that still holds on.
“You don’t want to go down there!” The child gestures down to the ladder. “I hear… bad things happening down there. Screaming.” The child visibly flinches in fear, “and you’re… you’re not like the others.”
She rises from her crouch. Still on alert, still waiting.
“I.. can you help me?” The child is kneeling now on something on the other side of the window. “My… my mama hasn’t come back yet.”
She stays still, an ever waiting predator.
“She went after my older sister you see, after she ran away to find my papa.” The child takes a stuttering breath. “And mama told me not to leave as it wasn’t safe so I stayed but I really miss my mama and I don’t know what’s going on and there’s these people that keep banging on the windows and shouting…” The child’s voice breaks. “I’m scared.”
She studies the child, the Hunt tightens its grip on her, cooing to her tempting her to ignore, to kill, to indulge the blood lust, the thirst.
It is with more effort than she would like to acknowledge to loosen the grip the Hunt has.
“What makes you so sure I can help child?” She cocks her head to the side, the Vunua shows this child to be a curious mix of human and Other. Her voice seems to calm the child in a strange way. A flutter of something grips her stomach. The feeling of teetering on an edge before the fall, the few seconds before a Hunt begins, the echo of fear of a barely missed attack from prey.
There’s a few sniffles before the child replies, “my papa is like you.”
Her heart skips a beat then falls as understanding, despair, and a tiny fragile shred of empathy slam into her. Her voice gentles as she approaches the window, the child presses her hands against it.
“I will try to find your mama, do you know where she went?”
For the city to be as bad for as long as it has… she shifts her grip on the handaxes. Discomfort filters through her at the inadvertent reminder of her eventual fate.
The child shrugs and rolls her eyes, “nooo, if I did I would have gone for my mama.”
She smiles at the spark of spirit from the child. In another life… the smile drops away.
“I am very glad you didn’t. It isn’t safe out here for children.” She pauses, “I will look for your mama,”
“And papa and Anna” the child interjects.
“And for your papa and Anna.” She continues, “but you need to stay here. I will be back to check on you.”
The child nods with all the gravity and seriousness that only children can possess.
She turns back towards the ladder, and has a foot on it when the child speaks again.
“What is your name?”
It is almost a visceral blow. She slips a little on the ladder barely catching herself a few rungs down. It takes longer than she wants to remember her name. Longer than that to remember the last time someone asked.
The painful pleasure of the claws from the Hunt slip further from her skin, leaving her bleeding an old-new way.
“My.. my name.. “ she stumbles over herself, “Elizabeth.”
“Mines Alice.”
With that, she descends down through the shadows lost in a haze. Memories bombard her as she dodges, swings, misses. Alice, little Ally. Her baby sister.
As the Hunt tries to sink its claws deeper into her, she remembers.
Remembers a gentle sunlit field full of flowers, chasing a young giggling girl dressed in a simple dress. Remembers grief so thick it chokes her now, promising to look after Ally to a drawn older woman in a room that smelled of death. Remembers blood, so much blood on pale childish lips. A rash desperate hunt, a gift of life for the punishment of taking life.
Remembers the bitter joy and sweet despair of seeing it work, seeing her, Ally, up and moving like nothing ever happened. Of coming home shaking traumatised, of lies bound with truth.
She remembers a letter, of coming home too late or not late enough, seeing her own town infected, infused with Prey. Of a pretty red ribbon that was never red to begin with. Fading life within beloved eyes that screamed judgement, failure… why…
Bright white pain flared hot, the heavy gush of sticky blood, the salivating growl of beasts.
She snaps back to herself in time to twist to the side and avoid a mortal blow.
Rage builds in the pit of her stomach that the Hunt gleefully sinks into it. Her vision is razor sharp as with a well placed blow she opens the beast from belly to throat - a spray of murky greenish brown covers her like a sacrament. The viscous slop of its insides falling to the floor, the smell of death, decay and madness coat her like a perfume.
It takes her no time at all to clear the sewer.
No time at all to identify the body of a young girl - a grotesque study in art. Her dull blonde hair framed as a halo around a half caved-in skull painted in thick blood and over washed with a greyish green water. Carrion ravens lay in a semi-circle - fallen victims to swift death loosely held in her hand.
The girls body lay some feet away half smothered by a rotted once human. It’s body long ago corrupted and perverted, coaxed and pulled into a failed transformation. The nails distorted into thin stiletto blades attached to deformed fingers, to wide flat palms to elongated arms. Their bodies are covered in filth and rags covering missing lower limbs.
The girls dress merging with the murky water, made the corpse white of her skin peeking through rough made tears as the rotted once human feasted.
She finds the girl's arm tucked underneath the monstrous body of a large humanoid. Unafflicted by the fur of most beasts, this one's body swollen and wrapped in bandages that seeped constant black fluid.
A bracelet of glass, covered in filth, with a simple charm of “A” hanging limply goes safely into a pocket.
She follows the winding paths until she reaches another ladder, this one shorter. With effort, she climbs to the top, bursting forth like a wave in preparation for any prey that lingers by. She slinks to a covered alcove, she can hear laughter that has the thread of mania lying underneath in a nearby home.
She studies the wounds with a detached air. Deep, possibly poisoned, and bleeding steadily. She lets her head fall back against the grimy bricks.
Her bolstered healing can only do so much. With great reluctance, she grasps her hip bag and peels back the cover.
There is her salvation and her damnation.
She grasps one of the thick glass vials, the dark liquid moves around sluggishly as she shakes it.
She pulls the cork out and raises to her lips. Closing her eyes and a quick prayer she downs it.
It is so cold it burns going down.
It hits her chest and she feels it spread through her like sinking into a hot bath. The Vunua purrs in pleasure.
She closes her eyes as the Blood begins its work. The wound on her chest closes with a prickly almost pain that gets swallowed whole by the euphoric rush as the Blood circulates and the Vunua greedily takes its due.
Another small piece of her humanity is gently sanded down.
It isn’t long until she pulls herself back on her feet, the Hunt baying for more.
She is pulling the handaxe out with a slurp when she hears it. The Vunua echoing and shimmering in recognition and joy and so much hunger.
A shudder of true fear makes its way down her spine and lodges in her heart - this is her fate, their fate, all’s fate in the end.
A howl twisted and turned by agonising longing brought about by Blood. A human scream bent and deformed by its new form like a tree strangled by a vine.
Redemption yearned for and rejected with spite and malice.
The few townhouses that shelter what remains of the mad citizens around her fall deathly silent. She can see the bent and twisted forms of the patrolling townsfolk pause, weapons lax at their sides, scarred and furred faces turn to stare at the tall church spire back lit by the moon.
She makes quick work of them.
And still she pushes on.
Wide sweeping bone white stairs lined with a rusted fence ending in wickedly sharp points frame the moon as it rises further - its pale glow casting a mocking innocence on the blood soaked dirty streets of the city of beasts.
Further back, looming over the unsettling gleaming white of more townhouses, more buildings is a monolith. She counts the many spires rising like shards of broken bones above the slate grey roof. Large dark sections of what could only be windows count off evenly on either side of a large brass clock face. It shines dimly in the moonlight and she can barely make out the minute and hour hands strangely blunt in a city full of sharp architecture.
Here, at the base of these steps, it rings clearly.
She folds back into the shadows and stares at the winding steps, the Vunua beats like a second heart in her chest.
The world slows then stills - only the torment hungry scream moves. The Vunua croons like a lover, all soft and delicate.
The tinkling of glass catches her attention. Some tiny part of her mind screaming out that she has a mission, something she needs to do.
It is not until she feels ribs breaking and hears the bell around its neck clanging that she regains control.
She turns, and ducks, and twirls and submits to control of another kind.
The spindly giant with its vacant bloodless mask like face, silent only for the rush of air accompanying every swing of its decayed axe and the unsettling dull toll of the heavy bell tied between its ribs.
She breaks its bones, watching it fall backward onto unforgiving stairs. Ashen grey blood dribbling down around dark grey bones that jut upwards like the unforgiving spires of the monolith standing silent witness.
The Hunt snarls like a living thing and so she approaches.
It waves its arm feebly in her direction, her handaxe leaves it useless.
Its face moves, perhaps in remembered pain.
She has no mercy for these creatures. Servants, slaves, of the ruling elite.
They know no mercy. And neither does she.
The Hunt still bays at the edges of her mind, but even the Hunt cannot defeat the needs of the physical body.
She slumps to the ground beside the now headless giant - blood bubbling from her lips and takes another vial.
She rests her head, eyes shut on the thick bony ribs of the giant as she feels it work. None of the beasts would dare roam in the territory of one such as this. She is safe, for now.
Something like fear lurks beneath the pain pleasure of the Blood and Vunua.
She counts her remaining vials as the ribs snap back into place. The tinkle of shattered glass alerts her to the fallen bracelet.
Anna, she remembers, Alice.
This is a warning.
The Vunua grasps at her again, pulling her under, leaving her gasping for breath
This time she grips the bracelet hard enough for another bauble to splinter into her skin.
Alice.
She takes a breath and turns away.