Flashback Nightmares of a Guilty Conscience

[Azira]

19th-20th of Summer 512AV

The idea of hunting made her nervous. That was a strange thought for the young huntress to have but it was true. She loved hunting, yes, but at the moment the prospect of a trip was terrifying. The weather was fine, sweltering in fact and many citizens were out enjoying the air, something that Azira could do best by going out to bring back game for the day. Her two favourite things,sun and hunting together should make a wonderful combination except that she knew she couldn't enjoy either, not with the prospect of death hanging over her head.

Since the Djed storm things had changed. Some things had literally changed, transformed into other things, perverse things. There were creatures out in the Unforgiving that hadn't existed before. Deadly things. True, there were many dangers in the Unforgiving that she had never really feared before but this was different. The new creatures were unknown to her, she didn't know how to avoid them, didn't know what to expect. It was the simple fear of the unknown. She was scared, plain and simple that she would go out there and something would kill her. While that thought was terrifying in itself, the girl had the added terror hanging over her that no one would know if she died, that she would not be missed, that no one would care.

So when the Avora huntress stepped out the Sanikas Gate, it was with a heavy heart. Her katinu had been discarded. The article of clothing would only stifle her in the oppressive heat and she had no real need for it. Her hair was tied up and out of the way, the pale skin of her neck exposed to the sun. She had no fear of getting burned, her skin wasn't that way inclined and a sheen of sweat would soon protect herself from the worst of Syna's rays anyway. She wore her boots despite the heat, anxious to have good shoes for running should the need arise rather than sandals that she could twist her ankle in. Sandals weren't practical on the rockier mountain terrain anyway.

Mentally preparing herself for the things that she might soon face, the teen began to take hesitant steps away from the gate, leaving the shade that provided little shelter from the humidity. She was going to be edgy all day she knew but this was something that just had to be done and she was the one who'd have to do it. She just had to pray to whatever god would listen that she would come back alive.

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[Azira]

   

The trip out into the woods was uneventful. There were no creatures hiding behind trees waiting to leap out and tear her head off, or at least she didn't see any. She certainly looked for them. Her eyes moved constantly, scanning her surroundings for any sign of movement, for the approach of an enemy. The teen saw nothing but she was still paranoid, never letting her guard down. Azira was convinced that something was following her, could feel its eyes on her as she moved through the trees.

It wasn't dark in the forest so there was no way that any creature could escape her view unless it was invisible which she doubted. The space was lit with green light where  the sun had filtered through the trees, an occasional shaft of Syna's light illuminating a patch of the forest floor. It was fairly bright and at any other time she would have been delighted by the pretty light that shone around her but today everything seemed more sinister than usual.

The teen moved with her bow clasped tightly in her hands, an arrow held nocked and ready should an attack come. The weapon shook slightly in her hands as she trembled with fear and anticipation. If an attack came then she wouldn't be able to shoot straight, at least that's what she feared. Her imaginary adversary would escape the shot of her arrow because it would go wide, she was certain; she would not manage to shoot straight.

Her mind would not focus on the task at hand, she could not concentrate on hunting no matter how much she tried. She was clumsier than usual, making so much noise that any animal would know about her approach long before she got close enough to do anything about them. The girl tried to take deep breaths to calm herself and made an effort to slow and quieten her steps so that she could actually catch something. The Avora tried to reason with herself that if she caught something then she could get home quicker. After that she wasn't truly at ease but she was determined to persevere.

After a few chimes of her new focus, the teen came across a track along the ground. It was clear that animals used it regularly as the trail was easy to see despite being narrow. Rabbits certainly used the path because she could see the small round black droppings that signalled their passage. Creeping along it, she hoped that she would come across her prey quickly so that she wouldn't have to stay in this place much longer.

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[Azira]

   

It was the flies that she heard first, the buzzing a thunderous sound in the quiet of the forest. The winged creatures bred well in hot weather and there were always a few flying around under the shade of the trees. The difference was that they weren't loud, they didn't buzz like that instead winging through the air silently. That buzz signalled that something was dead. Those sorts of flies would cling to a corpse. 

The girl wasn't keen on the idea of going anywhere near where the buzzing was originating from. If something was dead then she didn't want to be near it. There were some animals that scavenged, ones attracted to things that were already dead. She didn't want to attract the attention of anything today but unfortunately the sound seemed to be coming from further along the track that she was travelling along.

The huntress crept forward, wary of any predators that might be ahead. As she moved further along she could see no sign of any predators but she could see a crumpled shape on the ground further ahead. It was in the shade of a tree, a few flies buzzing around it, whatever it was, or rather, whatever it used to be. The sight of it made her frown, the sound didn't match up with the small number hovering over the dead animal. There should have been hundreds of them around a corpse that size for whatever it was it had been a fair size.

It was only when she got closer that she could get a closer look at it. It was black, the carcass, flies crawling over every inch of it as well as moving over each other as she watched, nose wrinkling in disgust. It reeked! When she got close enough, they rose in a swarm, a thick black cloud rising up and around her head. The wall of winged creatures blinded her temporarily and it was only when she'd swatted at them and they dispersed that she saw what it was they'd been crawling over in such numbers. 

The Avora stifled a scream, the bow dropping from her hands as she stuffed her fist into her mouth and covered it. A thin, muffled sound escaped around her hand despite her efforts and then her stomach roiled, twisting and turning inside her. Staggering away from it, she bent over and retched up her breakfast, her stomach heaving until there was nothing left for her to throw up. 

It wasn't an animal at all. It was a hunter!

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[Azira]

   

When she was certain she was done, the teen moved back to the cadaver. Her stomach moved strangely at the sight of it but the throwing up stage had passed. All that remained now was the horror of what she was seeing, the thing that was lying at her feet in the state that it was in.

The body had been that of a man. Blood was pooled about his body, dark and congealed. He'd either been dead awhile or the heat of the day had sped up the process. She had no idea which it would be, did not have the knowledge to work out such things. All she knew for certain was that he was dead. She could be sure of that for a number of reasons. He would not have survived with that much blood in him. That many flies couldn't have sat atop him without being frightened away by a simple action like breathing. The last and most obvious reason however was that normally people had their heads better attached to their necks and didn't go around with the torso torn open quite so much.

The teen didn't discover that his torso was damaged until she turned him over with her foot. His head lolled sickeningly to the side, jiggling on the end of sinew and skin and whatever else was still attached to it. The huntress didn't look at it too closely in case she got sick again. His torso though was a sickening sight as well though. It looked as if something had gouged out a chunk from the man's abdomen, the chest slightly caved in. Some bones protruded from the flesh of his chest. Having been broken at the breast bone and goodness knows where else, his bones stuck out in jagged pieces.

His pack had been torn open and its contents scattered and saturated in blood. His bow and arrows had been splintered but there was a talon sword at his hip. He had probably worn it to protect himself. It had been partly drawn so apparently he had intended to put it to use but hadn't gotten the chance to use it before whatever attacked him finished him off. 

Azira had no idea why she did it but she moved forward, drawing her knife as she did so to cut his belt. The leather gave way easily under the knife, softened by the heat of 
the day. She pulled it loose, bringing the talon sword with it. The man wouldn't need it anymore do why not take it. Backing away, she crouched to pick up her fallen bow and arrow and ran from the unfortunate spot.

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[Azira]

   

So Azira now owned a talon sword. A dead man's talon sword. The memory of the butchered man made her shudder. He'd come across something out there, something new perhaps, some freak of nature created by the Djed storm. Regardless of how he died, he was now dead and so the reasoning of the huntress was that he wouldn't be needing the sword anymore so what was the harm in taking it? It could be put to some use instead of being left to rust in the woods.

The girl had been troubled initially by her conscience. She had been trying to figure out where to put the sword so that it was out of the way. The alien presence of it was enough a reminder to keep her feeling guilty until she worked out that she could probably put it in her pack. There she wouldn't have to see it and it wouldn't make much difference in terms of weight but the teen would still know that it was there.

She was fully aware of it as she continued her hunting trip, even more paranoid than before as if she was expecting the man to follow her to reclaim his sword. That was a silly thought but she tried to explain away her paranoia as being caused by the horrifying sight she'd seen. It was terrible to think that there was a creature capable of such things roaming about in the same woods as she. It made hunting seem like a terrifying activity right now. The girl did hope that there was only one out here an that it had sated its hunger with its male victim. A girl could hope, right?

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Her hunting trip was not the most successful one she'd ever had but the important thing was that it was over and that she had managed to catch something despite the odds. The teen had managed to bag two plump rabbits despite her fear. She hadn't caught any squirrels, or rather she hadn't found anything fit to bring home. Her squirrel pole had successfully hanged a number of the fuzzy creatures but something had also taken a chomp out of them. The flies had been thick there too and the scene was one of bloody violence.

Needless to say, returning to the city was a relief. Carrying her kills to the processing centre to get them tallied, the girl had still been terribly aware of the sword in the pack upon her back. She was extremely glad when she dropped the evidence of her guilt in her rooms before going off to see about a bath and dinner.

The young Avora had considered telling someone about the man that she'd found in case he had a family that might miss him but she was scared to. Supposing he did have family and they knew he had a talon sword and they asked for it? If the weapon wasn't on the body and she was the one to find it then they'd think she took it. It would be true but Azira was frightened of the possible retribution of such an action. When she'd taken it, she hadn't thought of the consequences. The young woman hadn't even planned on taking the sword, it had been a spur of the moment decision and she was beginning to regret it.

What she'd done occupied her thoughts all evening and when it came time to go to bed, she could not relax. It took much tossing and turning before she even managed to get to sleep and even then it was a restless slumber. Her guilty conscience meant she did not sleep easy; the girl had nightmares.

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[Azira]

   

In her dream, it was black. There was no light, no colour as far as she could see. There was nothing that was visible to her. She turned, or at least she thought she did but she couldn't be sure that she had moved at all. There was no way for her to tell if she had turned, no landmark to judge her position by. As she tried to turn in the darkness, she saw a darker shape, a blacker shape somehow than her surroundings. It seemed to be at ground level and some distance off. As she watched, it seemed to lighten, to grow more visible. She couldn't make it out immediately but it gradually became more recognisable.

A person, a man was dragging himself across the ground. She naturally knew that it made sound, the heavy sound of dragging although she did not hear it. She knew in that way that one automatically knows things in dreams. It wasn't like a dream to her; it seemed real. The figure was moving closer and looked solid, deceptively so. The trail of blood was not visible to her until her brain told her it was there and she did not know what the figure was until its head moved, its dead eyes gazing at her as a hand shot forward to grab her.

The huntress could not move. She stood froze as the dead hunter moved closer, his hand grasping her ankle and pulling her down. She was going to die, it was something that she knew for certain and she opened her mouth to scream, to seek some help in the darkness and he dragged her down. She hit the floor hard and...

...the screech came from her throat as she tried to crawl away from her bed, the bed clothes twisted about her legs, inescapable even after she'd fallen. It took her about a chime to realise that there was no body, no hand pulling her down. It had only been a dream and she was only screaming at her bed. The girl let out a weak, nervous laugh as she pushed her hair back from her sweat stained brow. Her body was cold and slick with sweat and the huntress began to shiver.

Disentangling herself from the bedclothes, the Avora climbed back into bed and curled up, covering herself. She was still shuddering from cold and horror and she was terrified to go back to sleep, scared that that hunter would come back for her again. Taking the sword had been a mistake, she knew that now but what could she do? She needed to get rid of it but she could not do anything with it until the morning. The prospect of waiting that long was absolutely terrifying. 

She closed her eyes hoping to sleep so that the morning would come sooner but also terrified that she wouldn't wake up.

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[Azira]

   

When the morning came, the girl couldn't believe that she was still alive. She couldn't even be sure that it was morning at all and that the never ending night was at an end at last. Her sleep, if it could be called that, had been fretful. She had jumped at every little noise, even been frightened by her own breathing as she tried to get some sort of down time. It had been an agonisingly long time. Her eyes would only close for the briefest of moments before they'd snap open in fear and she'd soon discover after a quick glance outside that it was still too early to rise.

When she heard the movement of shuffling steps outside her door, Azira cowered at first before realising that it was not the sound of the hunter but most likely a Chiet or an Avora heading off for the work of the day. Not caring how early it might still be, the girl dressed quickly and was about to run from her rooms when her eyes fell upon the talon sword.

Her gear was still piled on the ground beside her door, the huntress not having done, or needed to do, anything to organise the items. Her pack sat there with the hilt of the blade jutting out of it. The very sight of it was like an accusation, it was the only physical proof of what she'd done out in the woods. She needed to get rid of it but how? There was no point tossing it somewhere because that would be a waste but if she could find some use for it... The Avora couldn't use it herself of course, couldn't use one anyway, but what it she gave it to someone who could?

Gingerly she picked up the offending blade by the hilt and became aware for the first time of the blood that coated the leather of the scabbard. Taking some water from her basin she washed it vigorously, the liquid turning copper as she removed all trace of what the blade had seen. Satisfied that it was clean, the teen carried the sword from her rooms, determined to foist it off on some unsuspecting trader in the market.

Again the young woman found herself paranoid, this time in the Inner Warrens. She expected at any tick for someone to accuse her of holding the weapon of a dead man. There was no way that anyone could possibly tell such a thing but that was how Azira felt. She certainly felt like a criminal though but she hadn't committed a crime had she? She hadn't done anything wrong, well perhaps it was morally wrong but it wasn't as if she had been the one to kill him now, was it? Still the sooner she got rid of the thing, the better.

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