Death/Rebirth

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. Even now, the place was barren of them. But stories told of a time when they filled the Valley with light and magic, bringing those from far and wide to observe and give thanks for the bounty these magnificent scaled beasts bestowed upon the kingdom. Such variety in their appearance would be a sight to behold at the peak of the summer, when dragons of opalescent hue, whose scales shone with a rainbow of color in the midday sun, and those with skin of the darkest obsidian, flecked with slivers of silver that would look like endless starlight under a full moon, would draw admiration from far and wide. They had been the center of their lives for hundreds of years, living alongside their power and in perfect balance with their magic, all together in a period known as The Great Peace.

But when the Da’Shyk came, the peace was shattered.

Long had the demons of the Da’Shyk, in their hovels deep in the Underworld, looked upon the magic and power of the dragons with boiling jealously, and they had waited patiently, preparing in darkness and silence for the day when they would take that power for themselves, and drive the dragons’ magic from the kingdom above. And when the day came, their wrath was felt in every corner, the lands scorched and destroyed beyond recognition. All that was green and good was lost, and every dragon alive was slaughtered in a merciless bloodbath that carried on for year after painful year, until each dragon only lived in stories and legends, and all traces of magic in the kingdom were a distant dream of another life.

King Orofo, the demon ruler of the Da’Shyk, took control of the kingdom, and what had been the Dragon Valley, and nothing of beauty ever existed again. The days were long, dark, and dry, and those that remained scratched out a living wherever they could, surviving under the yoke of the unyielding demon king. That was all they had the option to do: live in this world, or die. Many had chosen death over being forced to live under tyranny, some had even tried to escape it, but their bodies had been returned to their loved ones soon after, almost beyond recognition. There was a fate far worse than death awaiting any who defied the Da’Shyk, of this they knew for certain, so those that remained in the kingdom lived as best they could.

The town of Kalaba was nestled within the Valley and had once been a large, vibrant metropolis where those of all races and backgrounds would come to see the dragons and give their blessings. Once full and prosperous, the town was now half-deserted and wasting away, once-grand buildings crumbling into the dirt, nothing of nature to reclaim them aside from the dust and the soil. The children of Kalaba had never seen a tree, a flower, nor a cloud that wasn’t a shade of grey or black. Most adults now were the same, with only some of the elder elves able to recall a time when the Valley was lush and green, wildflowers and heather gathered in great clouds across rolling hills set under a blue sky.

It all felt like a dream now.

Few businesses remained in Kalaba, the taxes heavy and all wealth going to the Da’Shyk, but of those that remained, one was a tavern, a large house of grey and white stone, with a roof of dank grey slate that had once, in the times before, been a beautiful golden thatch. The shingle-like tiles were worn and had fallen off in places, but the roof remained watertight, and all of the windows, small as they were, still had glass within their panes. The tavern, The Willow Tree, was the only inn for miles around that was still in business, and while the workers at the nearby mine would come to drink and make as merry as was possible, the flow of traffic was still slight, and so the tavern offered other services to the townsfolk, as well, including a laundry service.

On one such day, where something of light shone from behind grey, heavy clouds, a young elf woman sat out on the back porch of the tavern, a large wash bucket between her legs as she scrubbed a shirt against the washboard inside of the tub. While young in her appearance, the elf was over two hundred years old, though still young by elven standards. Her hair was long down past her hip and the deepest ebony black, though kept up in an unkempt bun more often than not, and her soft white skin was frequently marred by dust, grease, and dirt, her bright blue eyes scrunched into a frown as she scrubbed furiously in an attempt to remove a stain from the shirt in her hands. She had half a mind to bash the thing against a rock if it wouldn’t put her payment at risk, and she had more than just herself to provide for.

“Sylva!” A gruff, surly-looking dwarf stepped out of the tavern, plump yet muscular, with a long brown beard down to his navel, his mustache almost covering his mouth entirely. He wore an aged off-white shirt, with sleeves rolled up to the elbows, old brown leather trousers, tattered brown boots, and a dirtied white apron which was secured snugly at his waist. Long had Dego been the innkeeper of The Willow Tree, and long he hoped to remain so.

“I’m busy, Dego!” She called back to him, wringing the water from the shirt with a small frown before applying more soap to the stained area. “Mr. Terrow really needs to stop getting into bar brawls, because the bloodstains are becoming harder to get out of his shirts.”

“I know, Syl, but you’ll have another mess to clean up before long,” the old dwarf pointed across the yard, and Sylva looked up from her washing to see Orrian, a young elf child, about to toddle his way into a sizeable bog.

“Orrian!” She cried out in alarm, leaping up with expected elven grace to rush over to the little boy, scooping him up in her arms before he could plant himself face-first into the muck, narrowly avoiding falling in herself. “Goodness! I should have known the fact he’s walking now would be a menace to my heart rate!”

“Ah, he’s a good little lad,” Dego remarked with a smile, walking over to pat the young elf on the head tenderly. He’d known Sylva and Orrian for many years, since before the little elf had even been born, and the pair defied the belief that elves and dwarves were natural enemies by becoming almost family to one another. Sylva had long been without her parents, they had both perished over a hundred years before, and Dego himself had lost his beloved wife and children twenty years prior, so the two had become dependent on one another, in a way. When Orrian was born, they formed a little family, and Dego took on a more grandfatherly role to the young boy.

“I’m going to have to leash him, or keep him indoors,” Sylva sighed, setting her young son down on the back step. “If there’s one thing that’s nearly as hard to get out of fabric as blood, it’s bog mud.”

“You and I both know Ori is an outdoor sort,” Dego pointed out, taking his pipe from the breast pocket of his shirt and the small tin box containing his tobacco. “Wait until he starts talking. Then the real trouble will begin.” Sylva didn’t want to think about it. Orrian was a handsome little boy, with a thick mess of dark hair atop his head and shining blue eyes set into his cheeky face, and every day, Sylva thanked her lucky stars that there was nothing of his father in him. He was, however, full of energy and needed a lot of attention to be kept in line.

“Do we have any new customers today?” Sylva asked, getting back to her washing with Orrian at her side, occupied with a small wooden horse Sylva had procured from the pocket of her skirt.

“Got some humans in,” Dego shrugged, lighting his pipe with flint after packing the tobacco inside, long clouds of soft smoke pluming from his lips. “Still got the halflings in. They certainly get through meals.”

“When are they leaving? They’ll eat us out of all of our food if they stay too long,” Sylva sighed, shaking out the shirt, satisfied at last that the stain was gone, and pegging it up on the washing line. “We don’t get any more ration tokens until next Friday. They need to be more courteous.”

“At least they’re paying good coin for it,” Dego sighed. “It’ll probably have to be soup for us for the next couple of days. I’ll get a good broth for Ori, though.” This had been the norm for all of the resident workers of The Willow Tree for as long as Sylva could remember. They made sure to feed their paying guests well, and ate so meagrely themselves that there were days she would go to bed hungry, but neither of them would ever allow this fate for Orrian. Both would make sure he always had enough healthy food to help him grow, even to the detriment of themselves.

“And how does Tabitha feel about all of this?” Sylva asked, her laundry work now done, tipping out the dirty water into the drainage gutter nearby.

“Ah, she’s not best pleased,” Dego let out another sigh as he continued to smoke his pipe. “She’s been kicking up a stink since they checked in.” Tabitha was a middle-aged woman who was the head cook of the tavern, whose sons both worked in the mines. She presented a far more surly image than even Dego himself did, though with how tenderly she treated Orrian, Sylva knew her to be a far more gentle sort.

“She’ll be alright,” Sylva remarked, dusting off her long grey skirt and white apron, scooping her son up into his arms. “I’ll help her if she needs it.”

After putting Orrian down for a much-needed nap, Sylva was able to carry on with more of her chores about the tavern, including cleaning vacated rooms ready for their next residents, sweeping the tavern floor, and helping to clean dishes, before her son awoke and would require her attention. Sylva loved Ori with every fiber of herself, but she swore an oath on the day he was born that she would never tell him about the nature of his conception. It was a story she could barely bring herself to recount on her own, so she knew she could never tell the boy.

The day ticked on as they all often did, and after their evening meal, Sylva bathed her son and put him to bed before going to help in the tavern, where things often got rowdy in the evening, and thus any and all support was needed to corral the drunkards as their attitudes changed with the influence of the liquor they imbibed.

Sylva found herself outside, bringing in one of the ale kegs to replenish the depleting taps when a loud shriek of alarm echoed through the heavy night. Stopping what she was doing, Sylva moved down the wide alleyway that ran alongside the tavern and went down to a small cluster of houses, all of which were as tiny inside as they appeared outside, and had become known to be a focal point of violence of all kinds in the town. Sticking to the shadows, out of the puddles of lamplight that spread across the ground in front of the little houses, Sylva could see a group of three men surrounding a much smaller figure, hooded and cloaked, who seemed to be resisting them as best they could. When one of the men ripped the hood from the smaller one, Sylva saw a young woman, she couldn’t have been any older than sixteen, with flame-like copper hair and emerald eyes filled with fear, trying desperately to get away from the three men that were bearing down on her.

“Look at this one,” one of the men cooed, his voice dripping with a darkness that sent shudders up Sylva’s spine. “Isn’t she pretty?”

“Young, too,” another remarked, sounding older than the first man. “Bet she’s a virgin. Always wanted to deflower a virgin.”

“You’ve bedded plenty of virgins,” the third pointed out tersely. “Why not let one of us claim this one?” That was all Sylva had needed to hear, a steel-like coldness descending over her as she stepped out of the darkness and went towards the three men.

“What’s going on out here then?” Sylva asked, and the three men turned to look at her, the young girl’s eyes still wide with alarm, still trying desperately to escape from her aggressors.

“Isn’t that the tavern girl?” The first man noted. “Pretty elf woman. Definitely her. Elves are always good fun.”

“Well, two women are always better than one,” the third man smiled sinisterly, the glint of his teeth visible even in the dim light afforded by the lamps. “We could have some real fun with these two. Beautiful little things.” Their desires seemed to cool incredibly quickly as Sylva reached under her skirts to pull out a pair of long, sharp blades, scimitars, and thrust their tips towards the three men.

“Perhaps the only benefit of having to wear these stupid dresses is that concealing weapons becomes a lot easier,” Sylva remarked, entirely unfazed by the three before her. “After all, who would expect a sweet young woman of being capable of anything?”

The fight started quickly, and all three men were soon thrown by just how fast this woman was. Sylva moved with a smooth grace inherited from her elven kin, and yet was able to attack with a blistering accuracy none of them had expected of her. Of course, she wasn’t attacking to kill; if she did that, it would draw unwanted attention to herself and to the area, that could inflict misfortune on those she cared about, so at least injuring the men enough to scare them off would have to do. With smooth, swift movements, she cut at clothing and weapons holsters, using her agility to her advantage as she laid blows with the heel of her weapon and of her feet. Before long, all three men were on the ground, hurting but not fatally, their pride perhaps wounded far more than their bodies. The young woman was cowering in a dark corner, watching with awe in her bright eyes.

“Why don’t you leave this girl well enough alone,” Sylva stated flatly. “It’ll be better for you, for everyone, if you didn’t try and accost any young women in dark places for your own twisted fantasies. You never know if you’ll corner a woman who can and will fight back, and it strikes me that you’re ill-equipped to rise to the challenge.”

“Bitch!” The eldest man spat venomously, scrambling back from her to try and get on his feet. “Craven whore! We’ll see you sent to the slave pits!”

What happened next came about so quickly that even Sylva, with her elven senses, couldn’t have anticipated it. The eldest man, who had just laid threats at the elf woman, soon found himself gasping and gargling as what appeared to be a hand ripped through his chest, the light of life in his eyes soon going out. As he slumped back to the cobbled stone below in a puddle of deep red blood, what stood behind him was a hooded and cloaked figure, tall and imposing, and the two other men immediately flew into a panic, moving quickly to flee. None of them got the chance, however, as this new attacker moved with shocking swiftness, ripping the throat out of one of them and the intestines from another, taking their lives from them in such a brutally silent way that there was no possible chance of the men calling for aid, or anyone even knowing anything had happened. Sylva was in utter shock, eyes wide with horror at the bloody scene before her. While she had gone to great pains to avoid killing anyone, this figure had ended all three men without a second thought and with a practiced ease that left her feeling unsettled. She raised her weapons once more, backing herself towards the girl she had moved to save, looking to shield her from this new unknown aggressor.

“I don’t know what you want, but if you think I’ll die quietly like those scumbags, you’ve got another thing coming!” Sylva spat out, ready to defend herself and this young woman, who was now crumpled with fear behind her, even to the cost of her life. She didn’t want to die, of course, she had her son to think of, but she would rather die in battle like this than any other way.

“I am not here to hurt you,” a male voice came out of the hooded figure, and he moved towards the two women. “I’ve been watching those men most of the night. They’re savage beasts, and they were killed like savage beasts. That is all the explanation I can offer.”

“You shouldn’t have killed them!” Sylva snapped. “Don’t you care about the wrath that will visit upon us because of this?! If the Da’Shyk find out—”

“We can deal with that if and when it happens,” the man stated, keeping himself still shrouded by the heavy hooded cloak he wore. “Are you not grateful for your lives being saved?”

“I am grateful to be alive, yes, but did you have to go to these extremes?!” Sylva asked, her line of inquiry stopping when she noticed the man licking the blood from his fingers, her eyes widening as she realized what he was. “You’re a vampire…” She’d met vampires before, dark underworld beasts said to be loyal to the Da’Shyk, and now she truly felt uneasy.

“I suppose I am,” the man seemed to shrug as he kneeled down beside the body of one of the men. “But I mean you no harm. Even my own kind finds me distasteful. I am an outcast; born to a vampire father and a human mother, trapped between the darkness and the light, as it were. My father was executed for the crime of falling in love outside of his kind, and my mother died many, many years ago…” The man lifted a gloved hand and pulled back his hood, revealing his face to the two women. He looked like a man of about thirty, with shoulder-length, straggly dark hair, ghostly pale skin, and reddish-brown eyes that seemed to pierce right through Sylva’s soul. She couldn’t see evil in him, which was unexpected considering what he was. She’d always had a gift of seeing the good or evil within someone by looking into their eyes, and here there was nothing of that darkness she had expected to find.

“I’m Sylva…” she told him, giving him a small nod of understanding, wordlessly letting him know that she had, of a fashion, accepted his explanation. “I work there at the tavern.” She then turned to the girl behind her, placing her hands on her shoulders and switching to a gentler, more soothing tone of voice. “Are you alright?”

“Y-yes…” the girl said with a nod, still very much huddled in on herself. “Thank you for helping me… I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come…”

“It’s alright,” Sylva told her with a smile. “Come; let’s get you to the inn and get some sweet tea into you. It’ll help with the shock.” She turned then to the vampire man in their company. “You didn’t give me your name, sir.”

“Cassian,” the vampire said in reply. “I will dispose of these three. Their deaths are my responsibility, and mine alone. You two go back to the tavern. I’ll be along when I’m done.”

“Don’t expose yourself publicly, Cassian,” Sylva warned, a protective arm around the girl. “The people of this town won’t welcome a vampire…”

“I am well aware of that, miss. Thank you for your concern,” Cassian replied, staying perfectly still as the two women moved past him and back up the alleyway, with Sylva quickly ushering the girl into the tavern through the servants’ door.

“Come along,” Sylva gently guided the girl towards the main room of the tavern. “We’ll get you some food and that sweet tea. What’s your name?”

“Vivienne,” the girl replied. “My name is Vivienne.” Able to see her better in the brighter lights of the tavern, Sylva could now see she was human, petite, and slender, but her green eyes had to be the brightest she had ever seen on a human female.

“Well, Vivienne, let’s get you settled,” Sylva brought her into the rowdy pub, settling her down on a small table near the bar, where she could keep an eye on her, but that was also away from the worst of the drunkards. As she busied herself around the bar, a watchful eye lingering on the diminutive young woman, she found herself wondering what had become of the vampire, while also quietly hoping that the consequences of his actions wouldn’t be too severe upon them.

With Vivienne fed and perking up, Sylva ushered her up into her own room, allowing her to have her bed as she took to sleeping on the couch, pulling Orrian’s crib over to herself out of the instinct to keep him close. It was an uncomfortable night, but Sylva had had a lot worse, so she wasn’t about to complain. She woke long before her infant son, or Vivienne, and washed up before getting to some chores within the room, like sorting the laundry and cleaning the small fireplace.

“Good morning,” Vivienne’s voice was so soft and gentile that, had Sylva not been an elf with keen hearing, she may well have missed it. The elf woman turned to see the girl, swimming in the nightshirt Sylva had loaned to her, the sleeves passing well over her hands. She looked even tinier now than she had the night before. “I-I’m so sorry you had to spend the night on the couch. Were you very uncomfortable?”

“I was fine, don’t worry,” Sylva assured her, getting to her feet and approaching the crib as her son began to stir. “We elves tend to sleep quite lightly in adulthood. We don’t require the deeper levels of sleep that humans or young ones do, so a short period of mild discomfort is hardly the worst I’ve experienced.” She gently lifted Orrian out of the crib as he blinked awake, holding him against her chest as he snuggled into the crook of her neck, almost trying to use it to banish the sleep from his little eyes. “Did you sleep well?”

“Y-yes, thank you,” Vivienne nodded, teeth worrying her bottom lip. “I-I hope I didn’t get you into any trouble…”

“I’m perfectly capable of handling myself; you don’t need to worry about me,” Sylva told her. “I won’t have children set on like that.”

“What happened to that other man? The vampire?” Vivienne asked, her interest clearly piqued.

“I’m not sure,” Sylva admitted. “I haven’t seen him since we left him. This time of day wouldn’t be his preferred time to be active, so if we were to see him again, it wouldn’t be until nightfall.”

“Do they really burst into flames when exposed to sunlight?” Vivienne’s curiosity rose along with her comfort level, shuffling over to sit on the couch as Sylva sat in a chair to feet her son.

“A silly rumor, I assure you,” Sylva shook her head. “They are certainly weaker in daylight hours, and far more dangerous and powerful at night, but they won’t self-combust if exposed to daylight. I’ve met a few of them before, some bad, some worse, some more self-motivated, but I wouldn’t tar them all as monsters after last night...”

“I hadn’t met one before yesterday,” Vivienne stated, flexing her toes on the dark wood floor, watching them with interest. “He was a little scary at first, but he had kind eyes.” This observation took Sylva by surprise a little. She hadn’t expected a human to be capable of making such a deep observation, but she hadn’t encountered too many teenage girls in her lifetime, so she couldn’t really account for the whole spectrum of humankind.

“True…” Sylva nodded.

Soon enough, Sylva had to start working, and when Vivienne offered to look after Orrian as payment for her help and her kindness, she eagerly took the offer. Every so often, as she went about hanging out laundry and washing dishes and pots, she would go and check on the two to make sure her boy wasn’t overwhelming the petite young woman, but each time she would find the two playing together happily, Orrian’s eyes bright with delight at having a new playmate, who seemed to naturally fall into a caregiving role for him.

“So that’s what happened, hm?” Sylva had taken to explaining the events that saw to Vivienne’s unexpected arrival at the tavern the night before to Dego as they came back from The Exchange, a store that was only open a couple of times a month for people to exchange their ration tokens for food. He had a crate full of potatoes and beets, while Sylva herself carried a few loaves of bread and parcels of fish and meat. “Typical for you to just run in and help someone like that. You’re incredibly impulsive for an elf.”

“I couldn’t allow them to do as they pleased!” Sylva insisted. “I could tell from the emblems on their cloak pins that they’re aligned to the Da’Shyk, so I didn’t feel much in the way of remorse…” It wasn’t uncommon for some to align themselves to the demon conquerors, even elves had fallen into step with them, but it always made Sylva sick to her stomach to see anyone whose race had been oppressed by the Da’Shyk aligning themselves to them.

“But it’s not just you, is it?” Dego reminded her as they started out from the cobbled streets of the town onto the worn dirt path that would take them back towards the tavern. “It’s Ori as well, isn’t it? You need to think of him, and not making him an orphan with your recklessness.” Sylva could concede that he was right, though she did it with great reluctance, letting out a heaving sigh before she inadvertently slammed into Dego’s outstretched arm. Before she could protest, though, she took note of why he had so suddenly stopped her: three Da’Shyk guards were advancing on them, and she knew their presence was never a good thing.

“You!” One pointed a milky white, crooked finger at Sylva in an accusatory fashion. “You set upon three of my men! Wretched female! You’ll pay for what happened to them!”

“Murdering three of the noble Kingsguard carries a hefty penalty, elf female,” another sneered at her, his teeth half-rotted and yellow in his wide mouth. “We will take it out of your flesh. And you, dwarf! You will stay out of it! If you interfere, the same fate will befall you!”

“Then let it befall me!” Dego boomed, letting the wooden crate in his arms drop to the floor with a loud boom, balling his fists and assuming a fighting stance. He was far more adept with a weapon in his hands, Sylva knew, but he was still fairly lethal unarmed, as well. “I won’t have you harm my friend!”

“Fool!” The third spat venomously, black eyes ablaze with fury. “How dare you stand against—”

His aggression was interrupted by the presence of fire. The flames were coming from his back and creeping quickly and menacingly around his body, causing his skin to boil, the creature letting out a guttural shriek of agony as the fire consumed his entire body, reducing him to a bubbling mess of melted flesh and ashen bone. The two other demons leaped back in alarm, but neither could respond fast enough, and soon the second was engulfed in intense flame, blue rather than golden orange, and he met the same fate as his comrade, the stench of it filling the air and hanging like a rancid cloud.

“What’s happening?!” The first was distraught, whipping his head behind himself, but soon he was engulfed, as well, and shrieked and wailed as he joined his comrades in their unpleasant fate.

“What just happened…?” Dego was agog. He had no idea what had just happened, and critically, didn’t know if the same fate would next befall them. But as the two looked to where the last of the Da’Shyk had looked prior to meeting his grisly end, neither of them felt prepared, and the horror on their faces was evident.

Stood in the middle of the road, expression calm and filled with a steely determination, was Vivienne. The small, timid, unassuming human woman had flames licking around her fingers as her hands were splayed out before her. Though there was no hint of a burn to scar her pale skin.

It dawned on both Sylva and Dego all at once and with alarm and utter disbelief. Magic. She had used magic.