Sacrifices

[-.-.Lucifer.-.-]

Yellow eyes scanned the treeline, bare feet sunk into deep sand. Damien wriggled his toes pleasantly in the grains, anxiety rolling through his brain. He'd never set foot in the forest before. It was almost too much for the Viper clan member to comprehend. He began to take slow shaky breaths, slipping his newly made deer-skin boots on slowly. He wrapped a thick strip of hide around his calf to keep in in place.


Another deep breath.


"Okay. You're a Viper. Deadly and.... a-and." He trailed off, strutting quickly into the underbrush. A swarm of gnats and plants came whirling into his face, making his angrily rub his features.


He'd been outcasted. Thrown from the desert lands into the wild, only one place left for him to go. The Viper Mage had sent him to be sacrificed to the Forest Titan, the spirit of the earth and sky. His undying need to disobey burning bright in his angered cheeks. Instead, he went in search of the only other person who he thought could ever love him.


He'd have to seek his mother.


"A clan-less woman, with soft dark hair and a voice of the moon." his father had always said. The same father who was killed many moons prior, by the very same hands that trembled before him.


The thought made tears sting his eyes, his lip trembling slightly. He'd come to a clearing, where the young man wiped the back of his hand across his lids. Trying hard to clear the bitter sadness away. Trying to hold himself together.

 

[Ion]

Leila remembered the day her mother had cried, had finally told her about the Year Walk, and what really happened.


Since they were small, the Wolf Clan children had been fed upon the belief that the Year Walk was a great respectable position. A moment to mature into a real warrior, to find a place within your people. All you needed to do was enter the Forest and slay one of the beasts that dwelled in it. Bringing back the body would prove your abilities, and you'd be buried within your village with honour.


This, however, was a lie.


Leila had sat there, looking at her mother as she bled tears from her eyes, asking her for forgiveness. But what was there to ask for?


'You've already sold me,' Leila had whispered, watching as her mother sobbed even harder, 'There's nothing to forgive'.


That night, she had lain in bed, in the wolf furs that her mother had made for her when she was but a child, and stared at the moon. Bereft of all tears.


Now she was alone.


Looking up towards the sky Leila sniffed, she was gone from the village, there was no civilization, no smoke and no laughter or music. Ahead of her doomed a clearing, behind it lay the Forest.


Flipping her thick mahogany hair over one shoulder, she stalked forward, her tread steady as her boots sunk into the mushy mud. They said that the Forest Titan would only save the village if they offered her. The real issue was that her parents had sold her for gold, gold they desperately needed for her sick baby brother. On one end, Leila was furious, but on the other, she understood. And she hated that she did.


In the distance she could make out a figure, it looked like a boy and before she knew what she was doing, she was running.


Anything.


Anything to not feel so alone.


She bit back her tears as she ran.

 

[-.-.Lucifer.-.-]

The Viper Clan member searched the perimeter of the clearing he was in, the only light being the sun's small slivers that drifted in and out of the overhead canopy. The darkness around him made something gnaw at the back of his throat. Fear? Maybe it was anger, or hate, or or.....


Damien was ripped from his short haze at the sound of rushing footfalls. He could head the underbrush collide over a small frame as they launched forward.


There was a blur of mahogany and grey wolf pelts. The earth took him under, a blow to his ribs making them groan as he was knocked to the forest floor. The wind rushed from between his teeth, thick hair flying into his face. Gasping for air, the body of a younger woman weighed down on his slender form, black specks swimming behind his eyelids. He could feel the stranger's warmth, her pine-needle and campfire smell giving him the idea that she had been from a forest clan. He noted her shaking body as he struggled to breath, his heart ringing in his ears. For a split second he'd assumed death, the whole "life flashing before your eyes" being extremely literal. Small sobs ripped his attention away from the strangely hazy thoughts pounding at his skull. Was she crying?


"Hey... " he breathed sitting up and grasping hold of the stranger. Arms wrapped loosely around her small frame he pulled her quivering body close to his in order ton comfort. "What's wrong?" He asked, his brain arguing that he should run and hide, to sprint away and never associate himself with living beings anymore. He deserved to be sacrificed.


"What's your name? Your clan? Come on speak to me, crying won't solve anything." His fingers were now instinctively running themselves over her back and hair, trying every possible method he could to calm her down.