Atlantic Roleplay Community Boards

Shari Mchawipaka · Visitor Joined: 10 Apr 2010 Posts: 12

Ten years.

Ten years that felt like a lifetime away.

That’s how long it had been since she’d seen her home, a decade since the day her world became the nightmare.

The girls were all taken on the day of their Rite of First Bloods, a day should have been one of celebration, the day when their moon blood marked them as women of the Clan. She had watched her parents, her uncle, her elder brothers, all slaughtered as they tried to stop the humans from taking the Clan daughters. She struggled against magical bonds that tore into her flesh and seared the skin from her forearms and shoulders even as she called upon the beast form that never came. The humans only laughed at her struggles, and her helplessness, as if they knew the secrets of why she could not free herself, and reveled in the power of that secret.

The laughter had followed her all this time, as the men took her for their pleasure, as they cut the fruits of their desire from her womb and forced her to watch as once again the blood of her family was spilt before her. The laughed even as they beat her again and again, swearing to break her spirit.

She was a daughter of the moon, she refused to be broken.

Now as the sun spilled the last of its light over the mountains the laughter returned. She could hear it coming from within the castle. She pulled herself into a corner of the cold, metal cell, turning her gaze away from her small window high up on the cell wall, and glancing at the empty bowl near her feet. Buried in the dirt floor beneath the stone dish was the stew and water from three days worth of meals. Every day she refused what the human’s brought her, she could feel the beast grow stronger. Perhaps tonight…

Despite her determination not to show her fear, she flinched as the keys clicked in the door, and a metal and leather booted foot moved into the room, followed by a wide-shouldered man with pasty pale skin and close set blue eyes.
A familiar sneer crossed his pig-like round face and he spoke with the tone of a pompous but uneducated bully. “Did you miss me, Ani? I knew me and the boys missed you.”

She clenched her fists under her tattered cotton wrap that had long since grown loose from wear and her diminishing form. Her rich brown skin was grayed with the strain of her captivity and her crimson and black streaked hair hung limp across her chest, but she would not give in. She would not let them take all she had left, her identity. “My name isn’t Ani. I am Shari.”

The pig-faced man chuckled and turned to his three companions, who shifted together, their tense muscles and hungry expressions making her stomach churn. “We have to go over this night after night. It’s like I said. Her kind are just not as bright as real people. You have to train them, like any animal.” He turned back to her, his mirth replaced with hunger of his own. “It’s that right Ani?”

Her fists clenched tighter, and she prayed to the Mother. She couldn’t go on like this any longer. She would be free, or she would die tonight, joining her children and her people in the afterlife. “My name isn’t Ani, you filthy human pigs. It’s Shari.”

Hunger was devoured by swift rage, and suddenly he was upon her. For a moment she was afraid, afraid that the beast had abandoned her, afraid that once again she would relive her nightmare. The tearing of cloth and a gasp of surprise from the other men drew the piggish man’s attention, long enough for him to raise his head. Terror twisted his face to an almost comical expression moments before his flesh was torn from his skull and his body left to convulse upon the dirt floor.

The others tried to run but with jungle-bred reflexes she was upon them, tearing them apart as easily as a child with tissue paper wrapping. Warm, sweet blood and rich fatty flesh teased her tongue, and she swallowed hungrily, savoring the flavor and the satisfaction. She would free her clan sisters tonight and they would lay waste to any who tried to stop them. Together they would all go home.

Her dream wasn’t to be. One by one she tore the doors off the cells, finding nothing but blood stains and bones when she’d hoped to find her kin. Some of the bones were that of shifters, others not, but all the prisoner had been non-humans.

She howled and screamed in rage. She ripped through the castle and courtyard, killing every man she found, nobleman or soldier, and reveling in each death, the hate filling her with strength like she’d never known. She found the merchant lord hiding under the bed of his youngest daughter, and with what was left of her self control she ordered to child to flee. The child stood staring at the scene as the were held her father to the pink and white painted walls, her claws slowly digging into her chest.

“Where are my people, human?”

His voice trembled even as he met her amber gaze defiantly. “Why should I tell you? You’ll kill me either way, monster.”
“I’m the monster?” she laughed, reclaiming the cruel laughter that had haunted her for all these years. Her laughter would sweep the world of the humans with terror and suffering. “Yes, human. You will die for what you’ve done to my people, but the important thing is how you will die, isn’t it?” She leaned close and whispered in his ear. “I can kill you here, leaving your spawn and women untouched, or I can offer your whole house as a gift to the church of Umbra. I imagine I could get goods and safe passage even for your worthless line. Your choice.”

She received the answered she wished for, but they did nothing to ease her heart or rage. She was the last. Whoever of her clan that had not fallen the day she and the others were taken had died in raids over the next five years that proved fruitless. The rest of those taken had died either by their own hand, or as a product of the beatings and forced abortions.

In a passionless voice she thanked him for his cooperation, and took a deep breath. “Now, you shall receive your reward.”

“No, Ani! Please!” the child cried out.

The shifter grit her teeth at the hated name, said with such innocence and trust, as if the sound of the gentle name of her slave life would calm the beast.

His rib cage cracked so loudly that the sound echoed through the room. She gripped the girl’s chin in her blooded hands and stared deep into the green eyes. “My name is not Ani. I am Shari, last daughter of the Mchawi’paka clan. Remember my name…and tremble.”
_________________

Shari Mchawipaka · Visitor Joined: 10 Apr 2010 Posts: 12

Glass inkwells and delicately carved snuff boxes shattered on the marble floors, their contents coating everything they touched with spirals of black and gray. Unconcerned with the mess her search was responsible for, Shari tore a drawer off its supports and dumped the contents on the table beside her. Books, papers, and scrolls littered the table’s surface, a mountainous pile of formulaic equations and scrawled notes. Most of the documents were of similar content, sales records, personal letters, and purchase orders dating back no more than five years.

There had to be more records stored somewhere, she was certain of it, records going back further, but Shari didn’t have time to find out where. Soon as the survivors of her vengeance, the women and children she hadn’t charged as responsible for the crimes of the male’s, would return with the local authorities. She’d have to be certain she was long gone from this place before they arrived. Shari dug a pair of leather shoulder bags from the wardrobe of the bedroom before returning to the study. She gathered up the papers, loading one of the bags until it had to be forced closed. These she’d save for further perusal when time wasn’t such a valuable resource.

She had hoped to stumble upon something noting the location of the castle armory for armor and weapons, but with no success. The armor off the dead guards was far too clunky for her style of hand to hand fighting, and their weapons were mostly maces and unwieldy swords, neither useful for her fighting style. Shari also found several thousand in gold and a bag of gems in a box hidden under the desk. It wasn’t much, but it might get her passage out of here and back home. She didn’t know for sure what she’d find when she returned to her village but she had to try…she had to know.

It was getting late, and there wasn’t time left to waste on more searching. There was nothing left for her here. Not anymore. Shari loaded the last of the scrolls in the second bag and left out a rear window. Seamlessly she shifted into her smaller cat form and sprinted for the trees. Shari listened closely for horse hoofs or men’s voices over the sound of her thudding paws on the hard earth. No matter the cost, she’d not allow herself to me taken prisoner again.

Shari did not allow herself to breathe a sigh of relief and return to her more upright form until the merchant castle was far out of sight. For a few gold she was able to convince a local farmer to give her ride on the back of their wagon into the next town. She pulled one of the horse blankets around her, and kept a stack of grain bags between herself and the human driver. She might have to put up with their kind for now, but she didn’t need to sit close enough to smell them. The driver eyed her nervously throughout the ride, but she ignored him, instead reading over the papers she’d retrieved from the merchant house.

By the light of an old rusted lantern she devoured the information before her, her weariness long forgotten, overpowered for the need for answers. There was mention of a great many other “beast people” villages as the merchant called them, being raided, many of the captives being sold to mines or other high risk professions. Death of the slaves were noted under “acceptable losses”, and maps of areas within the Lost Lands and some of the Clan towns near the various virtue shrines were marked, showing the path the slavers took in their hunt for sentient commodities.

It wasn’t just the clan that was targeted. Elves, gargoyles, fae, and many other non-human races were marked for “harvest”, any creature that had special gifts or great beauty that could be priced and sold. Some of the most recent locations noted marked surveys of some of the more heavily populated areas, and dictations of planning session of how to acquired high priced slaves from Britannia, Minoc, and even as far as Umbra. Names were listed as “highly valued merchandise”, no names Shari knew, but ones she vowed to warn when she was able. For now her people came first. It was obvious from the journals and references made that this had been only one merchant house in a whole conglomeration of black market organizations dealing in the slave trade. She’d have to find allies if she was going to become strong enough to wipe out all of the houses involved.

The scent of human filth was strong around Nujel’m, making her wish her heightened senses could be turned on and off. Instead of going inside the cluster of shanties to enter the wall of the city itself, Shari skirted the edges of the poor side of town, making contact with as few of the humans as possible except for the disturbingly thin boy who sold her the travel clothing his mother, a seamstress, had made and a map of the area. The boy had told her there was a portal to Jhelom within the walls, but Shari hesitated risking the city itself. There was a port in town, that would have to do. From there she might be able to book passage to Jhelom, and from there she could reach the tunnels to the Lost Lands

A smile played over her lips as thoughts of home filled her with the first hope she’d known in ten years. No matter what happened in her nightmare, it was going to be alright, she told herself, she was going home. It was a lie, but one she wanted so badly to believe. It was the lie that brought her peace enough to rest easily within the trees outside of the shanty town, dreaming of home.
_________________

Shari Mchawipaka · Visitor Joined: 10 Apr 2010 Posts: 12

Upon the chaotic sea the ship rocked disharmoniously. Shari had long since shifted into her were form, the thick fur and resilient skin a boon in the “cabin” her stolen funds had bought her. There was no doubt the dock master had over charged for the ticket, but her unwillingness to give him information on where she hailed from, added to her obviously foreign appearance, had likely been the cause of that. There had been no choice. If she wanted to make it home, she had to pay him what he demanded. A dead dock master, satisfying as killing him would have been, would not have gotten her passage any faster.

The ship jarred violently and she dug her claws deeper into the wood hull of the cargo hold. Perhaps she was better off down here. She didn’t mind a planned swim or a hot bath, but the idea of that much water added to the threat of an unexpected dunking didn’t appeal to her in the least. When the call came out that land was near Shari was only too pleased to have her feet touch upon it and be done with sea travel for awhile.

Permanently done if she had her way about it.

With little money left for bribery, Shari found fear a far more effective way of gathering information on the location of the tunnel leading from Jhelom. While the towns folks were in a panic over the eviscerated bodies they’d discovered, the remains of those who hadn’t answered Shari’s questions fast enough, she slipped away and heading for the tunnels, the drive to return home overpowering any logic regarding what she’d find there. The denizens that infested the tunnels did little but irritate her in the delay they caused, and by nightfall she walked through the jungle, closer to home then she’d been in a decade.

A single step from the edge of the tree line into the grove that once held the Mchawi’paka clan’s tree homes dashed the last of the hope Shari had so desperately clung to. The moonlight accented the scene before her, and once she sifted into her leopard battle shape, meshed with her sensitive eyes to light the village bright as day. The grove had been decimated. Jagged, blackened wood husks and ash was all that was left of the safe haven that had housed her people for generations.

Rage clouded her mind and Shari shrieked with the maddening desire to rip apart those who’d taken everything she loved. There was no way to deny the truth. Her home, everything that had meant anything to her was gone. Shari fell to her knees, exhaustion pulling at her as the adrenalin of rage faded and she was left with the harsh reality of her situation. She had nowhere to go. No one to turn to for answers. For a time she knelt there in the rubble of her life, wondering if death would be a better path, a way to return to her people.

No. She’s not give her enemy that satisfaction. Dying the death of a coward would do nothing to ease the suffering of her people’s spirits, or the other non humans whom the merchants committed crimes against. No. It was the humans that must suffer, who deserved to pay for every life destroyed by their greed. If it took this life and beyond, Shari would make certain justice was had.

Bloody, harsh, merciless justice.

The wind shifted and the ash swirled over the cold ground. Shari found her gaze drawn to the motion. When the winded calmed not long after, a blackened statue lay in the dirt. Shari stood and crossed to the spot, halting far enough away not to step upon the pattern the ash had made. She bent to retrieve the statue, and held the figure of an abundantly pregnant woman in her huge hand. The woman lay nuzzled in the black fur, staring back with empty, accusing eyes. The Mother wanted something. Confusion tickled the edges of Shari’s mind, and then she turned away, her attention returning to the pattern where the statue had lain.

It wasn’t a pattern at all, she released, but a map drawn in the dirt with the ash. Shari held the statue close to her chest and peered closer to the drawing. She knew that map. Had seen one like it in the merchant’s house. It marked paths of acquisitions in Malas and the outlying areas. the final destination. Shari shifted once again and slipped the statue into a small pouch hinging from her waist. Using a length of leather from her tunic, Shari attached it to the belt pouch and hung it from her neck, close to her heart. Her path was clear before her. The will of the Goddess could not be ignored. She knew where her journey would take her.

Malas.
_________________