Sanguine Sacrament
This wasn’t how Acuta wanted to spend her 13th birthday. Actually she didn’t want to spend any day like this. Chained to a wall in her underpants in the middle of winter. She took a deep breath and tried not to look scared or cold, even though she was both. Being chained up wasn’t scary on its own, she trusted the people in the room enough to think they wouldn’t hurt her while she was helpless. The scary thing was being unable to escape with a Kremok in the room, that was terrifying. The horrible little monster was chewing mindlessly on the metal cage it was in, that fact that it was making progress was high on her list of things to be worried about.
She went over things in her head, just to calm herself down. she needed to be calm. Calmness was what her family did, that was why she was chosen for this honor.. though, really, it wasn’t an honor she ever asked for.
‘Ok, facts.. facts.. 2 years ago, the Ellnas, my family’s boss, gained family rights from the Allirana. Why was that?’ Silly to ask herself, she’d been told enough. ‘They had impressed them because of what they were able to do with the Rateli family.’ Okay this wasn’t working yet… think more.
‘The Ratel had been a lesser badger family relegated mostly to bodyguard work.’ Much like her family.
‘The Allirana contracted the Ellnas to ‘improve’ upon them.’ Or as she was lead to believe.
‘Improve by way of enhancing their natural skills with magic rituals.’ And, other than purely cosmetic mishap of inverting their colors, it had worked.
‘They now called themselves ‘honey badgers’.’ A name that was purely ironic she was sure. She was old enough to get irony, she just thought it was stupid.
‘That process started long ago, but now the Ellnas wanted to try something new, in order to keep up the Allirana’s faith in them. Or maybe the Allirana just commanded them to ‘beef up’ another loyal family.’ Okay that was conjecture on her part. It was all grown up talking and her not paying as much attention as she should have.
‘With the Rateli they focused on strength, aggressiveness, fearlessness, all the things they had been known for. With her family, a family of assassins, they were going for speed, lethality, cunning.’ She’d been trained from an early age how to fight and handle a knife and sword, even though she was a girl. She was below average for her family’s standards, but what she lacked in skill she made up for with calmness and patience. ‘So I was picked to be the first ‘test’ of the new spell. Yippy skippy.’
Acuta closed her eyes and cleared her mind, feeling a bit calmer reminding herself this worked out just fine in the past and no one was going to let the Kermok loose on her.
So why was she still so scared? But she could smell the stupid thing, and whenever it paused in its metal eating it looked at her like it knew she was helpless.
She actually felt better when the Ellnas people started chanting. It gave her something to listen too besides whispers and scraping metal. She watched the rune circle around her slowly light up with magic. It was really pretty, she’d never seen magic and didn’t know it would be so lovely and warm. She found herself humming along with the chant. it was so nice she almost didn’t notice them opening the kermok’s cage and some brave soul reaching in to pull it out by the ears. No one lost a limb, miracle! She giggled to herself at the silly image in her head of the man’s hand just popping right off for no reason. Okay don’t laugh too hard thats not funny…. pop! hehehe.
They held the kermok out toward her and for half a second she thought she was done for, it would surely eat her face right off her skull. And then they slit its throat. It thrashed and scratched up the air as its life drained out of it before her eyes. Better it than her, she had no sympathy for the horrible monster, as it would have none for her had it gotten free.
The blood dripped down into the circle and things started to go a bit hazy.
The edges of her vision slowly turned red, her head was in pain and numb at the same time. Her arms and legs suddenly felt like overcooked noodles and she thought for sure she’d fall down.
Then she felt… ichy? And then something was in her mouth. She spit it out, but there was more.. was that her tooth… where all her teeth falling out?! Oh no! That was panic worthy! She hacked and coughed and spit out all her cute little teeth while most of the adults looked on in horror.
She couldn’t focus on it to hard though because now her eyes felt funny. Like they were dilating out.. and out..and out. Her whole eye felt like a giant pupil! The dark candle lit room was suddenly bright as day, but not painfully so. And she could see the heat everyone gave off. Track the flow of blood from their hearts. Now she could hear them beating.. all of them. And smell.. she could smell it. The life.. the blood.. the fear.
She pulled at the chains, trying to lunge at the chanting man and rip his throat out with her teeth. She still had teeth? No they were new. Sharp, deadly. Her jaws felt stronger. It would take one bite, just one and she’d get to feel his life soak into her. She fought the chains harder, wanting so bad to rip his the delicious meat right out of him.
Then the spell ended, the magic light faded, the red in her vision turned to black, and she went limp.
Vincent watched in horror as his cousin went through her transformation. If this worked he was next… and if it didn’t.. he was next. He shuttered, it didn’t look fun. It might be a few days before they knew if it worked, and then on top of that who knew how long to fix the spell if it was messed up. Even though it was terrifying to watch it was nice knowing ahead of time what might happen to you, also he felt he owed his cousin to stay with her on her turn. His mother placed a hand on his shoulder, seeing him shudder at the sight. It was unsettling for her as well, she wasn’t sure she could go through such a thing herself if she was truthful. She still was uneasy at her husband's decision to have their son go through this transformation as well. Even if this one went right it didn’t mean that Vincent’s would be any better, mistakes and accidents happened all the time. He thought for a moment, when she stopped moving, that she was dead. It was just so sudden that she fell down. He bit his lip and was glad for his mama’s comforting presence. He watched as the Ellnas chanter slowly got up and the others got to cleaning the area. No one really seemed to want to check on her. He couldn’t really blame them after she grew razor teeth and tried to eat the chanter’s face. Her huge black eyes staring creepily. Still though, he wanted to know if she was alive…
Several months later... Dante Ghoti pressed his back into the tree he was hiding behind, hoping it would make him less noticeable. He didn’t know what was following him, but he couldn’t shake the feeling he wasn’t alone. He knew he shouldn’t have wandered so far away from the caravan.. it was just asking for trouble in the wilds. But it was summer, and it was so nice out, he just wanted to look around a bit before everyone else woke up. It was pretty clear he’d taken a wrong turn when he noticed the charms and strange objects hanging in the trees. The Raiders had been here.. he didn’t know how long ago or if they would still be around. But the flower chains looked pretty fresh to him.. He held his breath, trying to hear what was after him, but there was nothing, just the wind in the leaves, the strange things in the trees hitting each other and making little tinkling sounds. Sounded sort of like icicles.. but more musical. Maybe it was all in his mind. He was just paranoid. Maybe his brothers were playing a trick on him.. Well.. maybe it had only been his imagination after all, he didn’t hear or see anything after waiting for what felt like forever. Okay, he needed to head back.. if only he could remember what way that was.. he’d gotten a bit turned around when he’d thought something was after him. Best to find a place that wasn’t clearly the remains of a raider camp and wait for his family to start calling for him. Just to be safe though he moved slowly, trying to stay quiet. He hadn’t gotten very far when a cry of some sort rang out not to far ahead. Dante froze in terror listening as the cry was answered by some whooping and cheers. He should go back the other way, right now. Quickly. But instead he found himself inching forward, curious to see what the Raiders were like. He’d never seen one before, only heard stories. Now he could hear music like no music he’d ever heard before. It was loud and fast and full of drums and all other sorts of noise making. But something about it was appealing. It wasn’t noise for noise’s sake, it had a rhythm to it. An insane rhythm, but a rhythm nonetheless. ‘Alright Dante, really, head back now while you can.’ He told himself as he inched forward some more. If he hadn’t been moving so slowly he’d have fallen as foliage hid a sudden drop. The land sloped down suddenly into a little valley with a stream and a horde of Raiders. They were dancing the strangest dances as flashing lights swirled all around them. They were more like regular Ara than he’d pictured. Though they did have strange markings and even stranger colored hair.. or he assumed it was hair, it was doing some odd things. The dancing and the lights and the music, it was all so mesmerizing. But not so much they he didn’t notice a few things. Like several of them were wearing normal clothing, piled on in strange ways. One was wearing a Violli flag as a shoulder wrap, another had about three Allirana Military coats as a loincloth, and the same amount of skulls hanging from said loincloth… In the middle of the dancing was a topless Raider female holding a snake high above her head. She shook the snake and shouted out again, then used the poor animal as a whip, smacking its head on rock with a loud cracking sound. The dancers all cheered as she took a bit bite of the snake, ripping its head off. He gagged and looked away, unable to stomach the idea of eating something like that raw. When he turned away he caught a glimpse of something moving about in the woods to his left. Oh seven, he really was being followed. Was it a raider scout? Where they going to smash his head on a rock, rip his throat out with their teeth and where his skull on a loincloth? What was he ever thinking wondering off on his own. He didn't want to die. He didn't want to be eaten like an animal and used as crotch accessories. He turned hoping to leave as quietly as he could And his foot slipped. His breath caught in his throat as he started falling backwards down the slope. He caught sight of a strange pair of dark eyes, and then he was falling. Branches scratched at his arms and he barely had the sense to cover his head as he tumbled down the sloap and right into the middle of the horde or raiders, the rock knocking what wind he had left out of him. He lay there stunned for a moment trying to make sense of everything, as strange shapes moved around him. Flickers of light and shadow swirling unnaturally. Slowly he sat up, scooting along the ground away from a raider that was getting in close for a poke at him. He was surprised to see that most of them had darted away when he had fallen and were now creeping back in with strange dance like movements. He couldn't imagine he'd frightened them, they were the scary ones. One of the closest had a lacy handkerchief covering the lower half of his face. Around his neck he had a bunch of keys on a necklace which jingled and swayed to his movement. He hand no shirt and instead had painted designs on his chest. He pulled his hand back a little then came forward again trying to poke at him. The one crouched next to the lacy handkerchief one made a sound sort of like talking and laughed, reaching forward as well. She was squatting oddly and wearing a pair of very expensive looking pants around her neck. The legs dangled over her shoulders and covered her chest, the ends tucked into her loincloth. Dante scrambled back some more but he was surrounded, there was nowhere to go. He tried to get to his feet, stumbling a bit and putting his hands up to protect his face as he did. All the music and movement seemed to stop at that, and he peeked out to see all the raiders had closed in more and all paused in mid dance positions along with him. He swallowed and straightened up and they started moving again, getting in close pulling at his clothes and poking at him. He flailed his arms and froze again, and they all moved back slightly, pausing in strange positions. Was this.. Was this a good thing? He wasn't dead yet.. So.. Maybe he could keep playing this game with them and look for a chance to escape. The lacy handkerchief stood up from his odd crouch, he stood in a pose waiting it seemed on him. Tilting his head he did a little dance shuffle then stopped. Waiting again he said something to the woman next to him, his eyes crinkling. Whether his eyes crinkled in amusement or anger it was hard to tell. Behind him one of the other he couldn't see barked out something, there was a hollow jingle and he assumed it must be the Allirana skull belt man. He was so going to die. Dante swallowed and did a little half spin, trying to slowly make his way out of the ring of them, and paused again. Now he could see the ones he'd been facing away from, the closest being the topless woman with the dead snake still in her hands, the skull man, and Violli flag wearer. He focused on the closest ones, not wanting to remind himself that the whole valley was filled with them. The skull one stomped heavily and slid to one side before pausing, making the skulls jingle against each other again. The flag sashed one did some fluid motion with their arms and stopped while raised up on one foot. Lacy made a inward circling motion with his hands and kicked up his leg, saying something to the people in front of Dante. From the crowd another woman appeared doing a stomp slide and paused. Her arms were covered all the way to her elbows with bracelets and her top half was only covered by weaved together necklaces and rope. Waiting she stepped towards him, stomping again. As he tried to move away they seemed to be moving the circle with him so he was always in the center. He wasn't going to escape this way.. He spread his arms out and made a downward motion with them, running out of dance ideas. Snake woman yelled out at him, getting an agreeing guttural sound from lacey. They started in getting closer to him with their dancey movements. Donte whimpered and covered his head again, His adrenaline based cleverness and resolve was leaving him fast and panik was going to take its place any moment now. Hands came upon his person and came in to grab his face from his hiding spot. The snake lady held his head as the other started in with looking at his teeth. Hands pulled on his clothes and arms and tail from all directions. They were making noises at each other and moving around strangely. "Please don't eat me." He whimpered trying to get his face covered up again, sinking to the ground to curl into a little ball. Lacey said something to the Snake lady, then louder to the others. He did a half stomp and grabbed Donte by the back of his shirt, pulling him to his feet then was thrown over his back. There was a chorus of sound and movement and the whole lot of them started to move across the forest floor away from their camp, and away from his caravan. He struggled to get down but his family wasn't really known for their physical prowess.. And he was no exception. Being carried like that wasn't what he'd call comfortable either.. In the woods behind them he saw something move again, a flash of too large black eyes. Then it was gone and he was suffering a bumpy ride in the middle of a mass of barbaric raiders.
Vincent watched in horror as his cousin went through her transformation. If this worked he was next… and if it didn’t.. he was next. He shuttered, it didn’t look fun. It might be a few days before they knew if it worked, and then on top of that who knew how long to fix the spell if it was messed up. Even though it was terrifying to watch it was nice knowing ahead of time what might happen to you, also he felt he owed his cousin to stay with her on her turn. His mother placed a hand on his shoulder, seeing him shudder at the sight. It was unsettling for her as well, she wasn’t sure she could go through such a thing herself if she was truthful. She still was uneasy at her husband's decision to have their son go through this transformation as well. Even if this one went right it didn’t mean that Vincent’s would be any better, mistakes and accidents happened all the time. He thought for a moment, when she stopped moving, that she was dead. It was just so sudden that she fell down. He bit his lip and was glad for his mama’s comforting presence. He watched as the Ellnas chanter slowly got up and the others got to cleaning the area. No one really seemed to want to check on her. He couldn’t really blame them after she grew razor teeth and tried to eat the chanter’s face. Her huge black eyes staring creepily. Still though, he wanted to know if she was alive…
Several months later... Dante Ghoti pressed his back into the tree he was hiding behind, hoping it would make him less noticeable. He didn’t know what was following him, but he couldn’t shake the feeling he wasn’t alone. He knew he shouldn’t have wandered so far away from the caravan.. it was just asking for trouble in the wilds. But it was summer, and it was so nice out, he just wanted to look around a bit before everyone else woke up. It was pretty clear he’d taken a wrong turn when he noticed the charms and strange objects hanging in the trees. The Raiders had been here.. he didn’t know how long ago or if they would still be around. But the flower chains looked pretty fresh to him.. He held his breath, trying to hear what was after him, but there was nothing, just the wind in the leaves, the strange things in the trees hitting each other and making little tinkling sounds. Sounded sort of like icicles.. but more musical. Maybe it was all in his mind. He was just paranoid. Maybe his brothers were playing a trick on him.. Well.. maybe it had only been his imagination after all, he didn’t hear or see anything after waiting for what felt like forever. Okay, he needed to head back.. if only he could remember what way that was.. he’d gotten a bit turned around when he’d thought something was after him. Best to find a place that wasn’t clearly the remains of a raider camp and wait for his family to start calling for him. Just to be safe though he moved slowly, trying to stay quiet. He hadn’t gotten very far when a cry of some sort rang out not to far ahead. Dante froze in terror listening as the cry was answered by some whooping and cheers. He should go back the other way, right now. Quickly. But instead he found himself inching forward, curious to see what the Raiders were like. He’d never seen one before, only heard stories. Now he could hear music like no music he’d ever heard before. It was loud and fast and full of drums and all other sorts of noise making. But something about it was appealing. It wasn’t noise for noise’s sake, it had a rhythm to it. An insane rhythm, but a rhythm nonetheless. ‘Alright Dante, really, head back now while you can.’ He told himself as he inched forward some more. If he hadn’t been moving so slowly he’d have fallen as foliage hid a sudden drop. The land sloped down suddenly into a little valley with a stream and a horde of Raiders. They were dancing the strangest dances as flashing lights swirled all around them. They were more like regular Ara than he’d pictured. Though they did have strange markings and even stranger colored hair.. or he assumed it was hair, it was doing some odd things. The dancing and the lights and the music, it was all so mesmerizing. But not so much they he didn’t notice a few things. Like several of them were wearing normal clothing, piled on in strange ways. One was wearing a Violli flag as a shoulder wrap, another had about three Allirana Military coats as a loincloth, and the same amount of skulls hanging from said loincloth… In the middle of the dancing was a topless Raider female holding a snake high above her head. She shook the snake and shouted out again, then used the poor animal as a whip, smacking its head on rock with a loud cracking sound. The dancers all cheered as she took a bit bite of the snake, ripping its head off. He gagged and looked away, unable to stomach the idea of eating something like that raw. When he turned away he caught a glimpse of something moving about in the woods to his left. Oh seven, he really was being followed. Was it a raider scout? Where they going to smash his head on a rock, rip his throat out with their teeth and where his skull on a loincloth? What was he ever thinking wondering off on his own. He didn't want to die. He didn't want to be eaten like an animal and used as crotch accessories. He turned hoping to leave as quietly as he could And his foot slipped. His breath caught in his throat as he started falling backwards down the slope. He caught sight of a strange pair of dark eyes, and then he was falling. Branches scratched at his arms and he barely had the sense to cover his head as he tumbled down the sloap and right into the middle of the horde or raiders, the rock knocking what wind he had left out of him. He lay there stunned for a moment trying to make sense of everything, as strange shapes moved around him. Flickers of light and shadow swirling unnaturally. Slowly he sat up, scooting along the ground away from a raider that was getting in close for a poke at him. He was surprised to see that most of them had darted away when he had fallen and were now creeping back in with strange dance like movements. He couldn't imagine he'd frightened them, they were the scary ones. One of the closest had a lacy handkerchief covering the lower half of his face. Around his neck he had a bunch of keys on a necklace which jingled and swayed to his movement. He hand no shirt and instead had painted designs on his chest. He pulled his hand back a little then came forward again trying to poke at him. The one crouched next to the lacy handkerchief one made a sound sort of like talking and laughed, reaching forward as well. She was squatting oddly and wearing a pair of very expensive looking pants around her neck. The legs dangled over her shoulders and covered her chest, the ends tucked into her loincloth. Dante scrambled back some more but he was surrounded, there was nowhere to go. He tried to get to his feet, stumbling a bit and putting his hands up to protect his face as he did. All the music and movement seemed to stop at that, and he peeked out to see all the raiders had closed in more and all paused in mid dance positions along with him. He swallowed and straightened up and they started moving again, getting in close pulling at his clothes and poking at him. He flailed his arms and froze again, and they all moved back slightly, pausing in strange positions. Was this.. Was this a good thing? He wasn't dead yet.. So.. Maybe he could keep playing this game with them and look for a chance to escape. The lacy handkerchief stood up from his odd crouch, he stood in a pose waiting it seemed on him. Tilting his head he did a little dance shuffle then stopped. Waiting again he said something to the woman next to him, his eyes crinkling. Whether his eyes crinkled in amusement or anger it was hard to tell. Behind him one of the other he couldn't see barked out something, there was a hollow jingle and he assumed it must be the Allirana skull belt man. He was so going to die. Dante swallowed and did a little half spin, trying to slowly make his way out of the ring of them, and paused again. Now he could see the ones he'd been facing away from, the closest being the topless woman with the dead snake still in her hands, the skull man, and Violli flag wearer. He focused on the closest ones, not wanting to remind himself that the whole valley was filled with them. The skull one stomped heavily and slid to one side before pausing, making the skulls jingle against each other again. The flag sashed one did some fluid motion with their arms and stopped while raised up on one foot. Lacy made a inward circling motion with his hands and kicked up his leg, saying something to the people in front of Dante. From the crowd another woman appeared doing a stomp slide and paused. Her arms were covered all the way to her elbows with bracelets and her top half was only covered by weaved together necklaces and rope. Waiting she stepped towards him, stomping again. As he tried to move away they seemed to be moving the circle with him so he was always in the center. He wasn't going to escape this way.. He spread his arms out and made a downward motion with them, running out of dance ideas. Snake woman yelled out at him, getting an agreeing guttural sound from lacey. They started in getting closer to him with their dancey movements. Donte whimpered and covered his head again, His adrenaline based cleverness and resolve was leaving him fast and panik was going to take its place any moment now. Hands came upon his person and came in to grab his face from his hiding spot. The snake lady held his head as the other started in with looking at his teeth. Hands pulled on his clothes and arms and tail from all directions. They were making noises at each other and moving around strangely. "Please don't eat me." He whimpered trying to get his face covered up again, sinking to the ground to curl into a little ball. Lacey said something to the Snake lady, then louder to the others. He did a half stomp and grabbed Donte by the back of his shirt, pulling him to his feet then was thrown over his back. There was a chorus of sound and movement and the whole lot of them started to move across the forest floor away from their camp, and away from his caravan. He struggled to get down but his family wasn't really known for their physical prowess.. And he was no exception. Being carried like that wasn't what he'd call comfortable either.. In the woods behind them he saw something move again, a flash of too large black eyes. Then it was gone and he was suffering a bumpy ride in the middle of a mass of barbaric raiders.
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