[Flashback] Lhex's Writ of Malediction

[Varessa]

85 Spring, 511 AV The wicked roiling of the clouds in the cauldron the of sky over the Sea of Grass could mean only one thing, and Varessa Thunderhoof, in a streak of gold and gray upon her Strider, raced against disaster. Spring was a time of celebration and renewal for the Drykas, but also a time of violent tempests that ripped across their Cyphrus homelands. With the ominous sight of surmounting anvil-shaped clouds, the skies declared their intent. In the back of her mind, Varessa knew her family's pavilion in Endrykas would be preparing for the assault; within the expansive, open lands, there was never a question of whether a storm was coming, only whether or not the tents would withstand the elements once more. The young Drykas woman drew her knees inward and crouched low against her Strider's neck, her balance upon the yvas wavering at the horse's top speed. The beast was an uncoiling of sinew and grace as his hooves pounded against the ground, the tall grass snapping against his mottled gray coat with a sound reminiscent of the rainfall that would surely come in his wake. Not even pursuit by a glassbeak could have driven the steed to greater quickness as he drew power from the web that ensnared Cyphrus, and on the horizon of the darkening sky, Varessa saw the lightly colored pavilions of Endrykas set aflame with sunset hues. The clanswoman closed her eyes tightly, a silent prayer scrolling though her mind in thanks to the litany of gods and goddesses who were a part of the culture of her kin. She had arrived safely, but Varessa still dreaded answering to the Ankal, her grandfather, a gnarled old man who had survived countless Runs to obtain the rare, gray tresses that marked the the very skillful, and the very prudent, of the Sea of Grass. His gaze was withering as he looked upon the young, golden-haired woman who arrived with already known tidings of the coming storm. <“Varessa,”> he said in Pavi, his voice airy as the wind, his leathery, wrinkled skin boasting windmarks faded to a cobalt blue, <“where have you been, child?”> His gestures punctuated his words with great effort, the weight of age settling upon him like the frost of morning on the grasses that continuously surrounded him in his native home. <“I have worried for you as I watched you through the web.”> Varessa's heart sank. Her grandfather had not been so busy in his preparations for the storm that he did not look in on her. The wind hastened, yanking at the adornments upon her family's pavilion, and the first drops of rain foretold the advent of the storm. <”Father of my father,”> the woman began, her mind whirling with excuse after explanation after edict, and her hesitation was enough to answer the old man's question. He wearily shook his head, holding up a crooked hand that cast a twisted shadow against the supple cloth of the tent-wall behind him. The crackling fire was not merry but revealing, a light against that which Varessa would rather keep in shadow. <“Daughter of the Drykas,”> he began, a distant peal of thunder vibrating through the cloth of the tent, as if the very voice of Zulrav condemned her, <“I know well enough what you have been doing. To your credit, you would not lie. Still, to defy your Ankal carries with it the penalt...”> The sad, old man hunched over, his hand drawn to his chest, clutching in pain. For an unsteady moment, Varessa hesitated, the weight of the air around her like clay as she watched her grandfather sag; however, when he fell from his seat, her stupor was broken and she sprang forward to lift his frail upper body from the indignity of the ground and rest it upon her lap. His breath came in ragged spurts, and each time it halted the woman thought it was his last. To her solemn pride, he seemed ready to defy Death itself; Varessa's grandfather drew breath anew, though each was more weak than the last. His eyesight fading, the Ankal reached out for his granddaughter. <“Pa-pa, I am here,”> she said, her eyes filling with tears, her hands guiding his to her cheeks. <“Varessa,”> he whispered, cupping her face gently, <“your mind is busy enough to last you an eternity, and your stubbornness matches it... but your determination,”> he laughed, the light of love in his eyes as he shook his head, giving her hope, <"I pray it will be legendary. Gods hear me."> His weary laugh was interrupted by a grating, stricken cough. The golden-haired child's tears spilled forth onto his weathered hands. <“Do not... waste... waste it on...”> The woman waited for him, begged him, and as the fury of the storm struck, screamed for him to finish, the howling of the winds masking the unbridled sounds of her despair. However, no more words broke the barrier of his lips, nor did another breath. Varessa, through tear-blurred vision, unsheathed her knife and carefully cut a wrapped strand from his long, gray hair and tucked it safely out of sight. The Ankal of her pavilion was dead, and his heir, his firstborn son, would take his place. With a heavy heart, she went to find her father, who was surely already aware of his father's passing.

[Varessa]

<“May you return to us in a younger and stronger form,”> Varessa said quietly. The grasslands around her were pristine, scrubbed by the previous night's storm, except for a large circle surrounding a cairn. The grass lay broken and trampled into the mud, a testament to where many of Endrykas' resident nomads came to pay their last respects as her grandfather's body was lain to rest. A new origin was anchored there and tied into the already magnanimous web that was so vital to the lives in the Sea of Grass. Varessa's father, the new Ankal, had set the origin himself as she watched. The crowd had dispersed, last of all the members of her pavilion within the Sapphire clan, the Thunderhoof family. They, too, soon returned to their tents, leaving the girl alone with her guilt and the sailing sun. Varessa had been the apple of her grandfather's eye, a blue-eyed child of the Cyphrus, sun-bleached, golden hair the color of the grass in late summer, and a spiritedness that threatened to cross into delinquency in the batting of her long, dark eyelashes. Varessa had made good on that threat, much to the chagrin of her proud family, and she had broken her grandfather's heart. The burden of his death rested squarely in her hands, as far as she was concerned, and erected before her was a memorial not just to his life, but also to her shame. Death was common in her world. Murder was not, and the weapon she wielded against her Ankal was love. His grief had been the end of him, because he would not punish his only granddaughter, which, by all Drykas custom and law, she deserved. The vibrant blue of the ley line, Varessa knew, stretched from the cairn into endlessly intersecting channels and paths, brimming with... Life, she thought, as she reached out to touch the web; the woman recoiled her hand almost immediately. It was no secret her grandfather had begun her mentoring in webbing several seasons ago, and her father hand made it no secret he would not continue it. “Come with me, Varessa,” a masculine voice beckoned her; she had marked his approach and was not startled. “This is our doing,” she replied sadly, fresh tears stinging her eyes. “He was old, older than most who live here, and you know he will return as surely as every creature here,” the man said as he took a knee beside her. He encircled her with an arm and offered what comfort he could. “Chase,” Varessa said, finally tilting her head to look into his hazel eyes, “this is madness. Hopeless.” “No,” he urged, placing a hand under her chin. “This is life. And if you miss it, it's your own fault. How long will you continue to deny me?” The breeze ruffled his long, dark hair, bound with leather straps at the nape of his neck. “What would you have me do?” she asked angrily, standing abruptly and taking several steps away from him. “What can I do? There is nowhere to hide, no way to avoid all the eyes, in all Cyphrus...” “They don't have to be watching. We don't have to stay in the Sea of Grass,” he said, following her, whispering the last sentence in her ear as he rested his hands on her sun-kissed shoulders. “You are a criminal in the eyes of my family, an outcast.” Her words stung the man; he clenched his fists and walked away from her, crying out into the empty lands. “And for what, Varessa?” Chase spread his arms wide, looking side to side for an answer that, for him, did not exist. “For a simple misunderstanding.” “It was more than that, Chase, and you know it,” Varessa said quietly. “And you side with the Ankals now?” he asked, his voice low and menacing. He spat at the ground. “It was years of mischief, years of 'misunderstandings,' and someone finally got hurt,” she said. “But no, I don't side with them. You know that I love you.” She turned to the man, her eyes brimming. “If you could just follow the rules-” “Remember what was said of Arin Drivankali? He broke the 'rules,' but he's the one who created the web that is so important to us now!” Chase sighed as he walked to the blue-eyed woman, and embraced her as she stood limply. If all we ever do is obey the rules, then,” he sighed heavily, shaking his head. “Oh, Varessa... the power.” The quality of his voice sent chills up the woman's spine, and she backed away slowly. The man seemed to grow in size, and as Varessa watched in horror, Chase lay a hand upon the cairn, and from it oozed a substance that quickly danced with tongues of orange, yellow and red. “Stop it!” she screamed. “That is my grandfather!” “Was!” the man growled. “Chase!” Varessa whispered, “please...” Her feeble voice cracked, and when the man sensed the brokenness in it, he relented from his display. In his anger, he expelled his djed in a mist from his mouth and it flared at his unspoken command, sending a plume of flame that rode the harshness of his breath. “The sun's going down,” he said, a wisp of fire consuming the last of the djed in a flicker up his downcast cheek. He whistled loudly, a raven's caw against the serenity of evening, and moments later his Strider was at his side. Varessa's jaw dropped. “When?” she asked, moving to stroke the beast's muzzle. “Not two days ago,” he said, throwing a leg over the horse's bare back. “But somehow I think getting my windmarks isn't going to make a difference now.” His laugh was humorless and his eyes black. “Why is it, do you think, that the Striders aren't killed on sight for using the web's djed as they run, but we would be? Goodbye, Varessa.” She watched as they sprinted into the fading horizon, without so much as a pause for her to respond before flying at top speed across the gently rolling landscape. “Because,” she said softly to his shrinking silhouette, contrasted against the brilliant sunset, “they don't know any better. And it doesn't change them.”

[Varessa]

The familiar, yet odd, sensation, which she likened to being poured out, gripped Varessa as she touched the web, and she was poured from her body, leaving it an emptied, clay vessel. Her awareness, however, existed within the djed of the web, and while Varessa could not begin to process all the information that pulsed from its farthest reaches, she could tell what was happening in the lands around her. In the northern quadrant, a group of glassbeaks were stalking their next meal, a reckless youth who ventured into the tall grass that easily camouflaged the bright plumage of the man-sized birds. The grass whispered against the neck of his Strider, who broke through it as easily as water, in a comfortable trot. Two of the beasts were on each of the boy's flanks, another following, and a fourth closing in from the front. It was their way; the net was cast behind the intended prey, and a single beast would present itself from the front, causing the prey to flee in the opposite direction. Reeling and frightened, the prey would land itself securely within the eviscerating grasp of a group of the carnivores. Should the prey stand firm to fight, the others would cinch inward and attack from behind, with little variation in the result. It was not that the glassbeaks needed to resort to such strategy; in a ground race, the birds were the undisputed champions, even against a Strider on his own terrain. Additionally, with their size and formidable, natural weapons, a single glassbeak could stand against any other creature it might meet upon the plains. Rather, it was the echo of an instinct deeply ingrained within them from before the Valterrian, when they were smaller and weaker, roving and hunting in bands for greater success. However, the beasts of Varessa's age were the villains of nightmares, the terrors of the Cyphrus about which mothers warned, and by which threatened, their children. A large party of riders, twenty or so, were immediately alerted through the web, and running a race for the youth's survival as their great-hearted Striders pushed themselves to their limits. If not for the chest-rumbling sound of their approach, the riders and their horses would have looked like tiny sailboats in the lightness and smoothness of their union. The approach of the cadre of Drykas did not go unnoticed by the boy. The youth extended his legs, standing upon his yvas, and squinted against the sun; he hailed the party just as the glassbeaks struck. His Strider reared suddenly as it caught sight of the approaching predator, tossing the boy down, who tumbled in a shocked heap to the side. The Strider, in terror for its life, backed away and spun, falling nicely into the trap that was set; the remaining glassbeaks were on the beast in seconds, ripping and shredding the horse's skin and flesh. The thundering party began its assault at range, with those who could firing arrows at the thrashing mass of brilliant plumage, flying fur, and spurting blood. As the life of the Strider returned to the web, Varessa felt its presence; she breathed a sigh of relief as she sensed one of the party approaching the boy. The grim-faced man leaned from his yvas, his arm extended, and the boy clasped forearms with him. With great strength, the party's leader heaved the boy behind himself on his horse and sped back to his fellows. Varessa turned her web-sight from the grisly scene, taking a moment to mourn the loss of the beast and to give thanks for the good fortune of the tattooed boy. Her exploration took her further into the Sea of Grass, beyond the familiar landmarks she had seen with her physical eyes, and out into the rolling green few had experienced, with the exception of those who could traverse it via the web. Varessa's limit was roughly a hundred miles, yet she pushed the magical tether of it regularly. An uneasy sensation assaulted her wandering mind; Varessa was being watched as she herself watched. The tender embrace of love encircled her, its physical limitations stripped away and left as an empty vessel in the world beyond the djed of the web. “I'm sorry,” came the feathery whisper, tickling her ear through the odd harmony of countless other voices. Chase was indeed a talented webber. Too talented, Varessa thought, and too undisciplined. He's caught himself in his own web. Yet, the woman did not recoil; she released a breathless, mental sigh as she clumsily returned the embrace. She had not the skill to speak with him, but Varessa was able to convey simple, loose impressions, and Chase's good-natured chuckle was crystal clear in her mind. “I'm going away for a while,” his ethereal voice thrummed, and the spike of emotion in Varessa's thoughts took him by surprise. “Varessa, I will be back, but I want to make things right, if I can. At least gain back some of the respect I threw away.” “How?” Varessa asked, the result a muffled moan. “I am joining the Underwatch,” Chase said plainly. He felt her immediate rejection of the idea, yet he pressed on. “I can't live as an outcast among my people, and what's more, to you. I'd rather die, and I might, but with this, at least I have a chance.” Varessa hung her head, and had her form in the web been capable, a tear would have streamed down her smooth cheek. The young woman knew they were being watched, and resignedly decided it was better the conversation was one-sided. Varessa bid a solemn farewell as the two retreated to their waiting bodies. “Don't worry!” Chase called, his voice beginning to fade. “May Leth guide me!”

[Varessa]

Leth, the god who changed. His presence sailed loftily above the clanswoman as she regarded the silvery, mottled disc, nestled among the constellations she had ignored in her family's fireside lessons. Of the moon she had been most curious, changling in its appearance during each cycle, at times breaching its boundaries and entering into the day, faint in the presence of the sun. Was it the sun, she wondered, who chases the moon, or the moon who chases the sun? There was no answer she could surmise, so Varessa sighed into the void of night, perched upon a monolithic stone outside the edge-most ring of Endrykas. Leth was her constant companion in those long, soul-searching hours, and the woman spoke to him often, her words riding a breath between still, barely parted lips. Why he loved her, the woman could not understand. Syna brought illumination to all Leth preferred dark, exuberance to the things he would rather contemplate. However, why she loved him was all too clear to the golden-haired woman. He gave her purpose. Varessa stared down at the late summer grasses surrounding her, blue-gray in the moonlight; below them somewhere, her lover patrolled, keeping safe the ancient ways where her kin had survived so long ago. Her own Strider, his name rendered 'Buck' in the Common tongue, still carried the telling luminescence of a generation of fathers of horses whose hunger was satisfied in those caverns throughout the years of the Valtarrian. Varessa had retained little facts like that, as they related to her, but much of the time, her mind had wandered giddily, an unfenced foal upon the grasses of knowing. What she had payed attention to, as her Ankal spoke, the family in a loose circle around the fire, were the tales of action, of heroics. Not lost on her were the oral traditions passed down through the generations of resting in the bosom of Semele awaiting rebirth of one sort. The sort Varessa sought now was different, and not for herself. Leth, she breathed, I love him. In those halls, where surely your gaze fell as great change came upon the world, watch over him. The woman said her other prayers with haste before retreating to the comfort of her cloth-walled room in the family pavilion.