Ranger's Roundhouse

[Ranger of the North]

Wrote this as a repreive from my full-length work, Just an Ordinary Soldier

xxxxxRain poured down in great splattering heaps, plinking from puddles and springing like lambs from grass-blades and trees; its gentle murmur turned to an indignant roar as it hit the tents.
xxxxx‘These lay not in my path, last I passed here,’ it seemed to say.
xxxxxLogue sat with a steaming mug in his hands, legs curled comfortably beneath the blanket tucked around and under his body, and his trusty cloak a familiar puddle of warmth down his back. He could hear the gentle strumming of a guitar from the next tent over, chords trickling one into another and running with the sound of the rain. It was a day pulled clear from the pages of Eden. Just to breathe was a pleasure; the air was filled to the brim with smells of living green and the delicate, lacing aroma of wood-smoke.
xxxxxOut in the rain, his friend of a lifetime glared like a drowned cat, cloak hanging wet as a dishcloth from her shoulders, and hair strung in two pitifully-tangled ropes down her chest. Even from this distance he could he could see the great, pregnant raindrops rolling down her pointed nose to join her clothes. He watched, sipping his drink, mildly amused, as she rolled a stick aggressively between her palms in an effort to warm them, flakes of wood and water racing away with every turn of the branch as she glared daggers at the world. She gave every impression that she’d rather be stabbing someone than sitting out in the wet keeping guard.
xxxxxHe knew she found the situation just as funny as he did.
xxxxxLogue met her eyes through the curtain of grey and grinned fiendishly, as though it were at his command that the sky fell; as though the entire thing were running according to his plans. Raising his mug in a roguish salute, he called, “Y’look like you’re wearing a puddle.”
xxxxxAnd she smiled.

[Ranger of the North]

xxxxxThe restive sigh of the wind through grass-blades was as alluring as the cry of a gull to a sailor. It ached of home. Murph ran his fingers through the forest of stalks, seed-heads catching against his calluses, and breathed in the smell of the sky.
xxxxxAt home the house would be empty. Even little Maddie was gone, now; grown not so little. His sister, Yasmin, was never to return; nor was his brother Saylor. Yosef and Saffron hadn’t contacted him since the beginning of the war. He knew, of course, that they would if they had the resources — but somewhere deep inside, he was the same small boy pushing himself harder and further and faster for his older siblings’ approval, and he wondered. Had they heard of his captaincy? Were they proud of him?
xxxxxMaddie was, as she’d told him many times, and the thought warmed him even on the coldest of nights, when he could catch his breath on his hand before it melted and the wind howled with the voice of a dirt-wolf through his bones. But little sister’s adoration wasn’t the same.
xxxxxA risbrek caressed his hand with its thorns, bringing his attention back to the present and the slow, careful steps of his companions around him as they pushed their way forward. Wind sang across the grasslands. Murph eyed a puncture distrustfully. There was something — something he should remember about the risbrek, but he didn’t know what.
xxxxxThe scent of the flowers was intoxicating; reminded him of his mam. He could see her smile as clear as though she were standing before him. Watched as it wavered in the exact manner as the day she’d let him go. The day they’d said goodbye. The day that still haunted him.

xxxxx“Murphy.”

xxxxxThe world blurred sickeningly, twisting in his gut like a spear. His head spun like he’d risen too quickly after sitting, and he lashed out blindly for a hold on something — anything — as his balance disappeared swift as the morning dew.
xxxxxMurph caught fabric and held, hardly daring to breathe as the world spun in a mad blur of gold and blue before coming at last to a wobbly stop. He blinked, dizzily, and twisted to meet the eyes of his impromptu rescuer.
xxxxxSela.
xxxxxOnly now did he notice the vice-like grip on his wrist.
xxxxxWith a small smile, she pulled him upright. He felt like a leaf blown in the breeze, strangely vulnerable, and he shuddered in the afternoon sunlight. It wasn’t like him to become so lost in thought.
xxxxx“What happened?” he asked, relieved to break the silence; reassured by the burr of his voice in his chest.
xxxxxIn answer, she held a sprig of risbrek aloft, and then he remembered. With a dull groan, Murph dropped his head into his hands.
xxxxxRisbrek was infamously known as the pranksters’ plant; its thorns released a venom that caused victims’ minds to wander down paths of the past — forever, in cases of overdose. However, a curious side-effect was that those injected with the poison couldn’t remember the danger — or, in the case of predatory herbivores, existence — of the plant. No wonder his head felt like a bubble.
xxxxx“Where are the others?” he realised suddenly; it was unusual for Logue, in particular, to hold his tongue on a snippy quip.
xxxxxSela’s answer was to point in two opposite directions.
xxxxx“You all managed to be pricked by risbrek,” she signed, emphasising the ‘all’ with her eyebrows. “Except Tom. Nice not being the only one with a brain anymore.”
xxxxxMurph shot her a glare that would have fried the fur off a ferret — but, unfortunately, seemed to have no affect on humans — and rubbed his temples against an oncoming headache.
xxxxx“I suppose we have to find them,” he sighed.
xxxxx“Unfortunately.”

[Ranger of the North]

Small child is ChildOfThe1TruKing's.

xxxxxShe saw the little girl on the side of the road, curled around her own knees; face smothered in the too-big cloak. It was nothing unusual in this day and age; there was no reason for interest, no reason to stop. Thousands died in a similar manner. Kirke should have kept walking. But their gazes met, and recognition flared from one soul to another.
xxxxxHer mouth dried like the deserts of the West.
xxxxxShe — she knew those eyes.
xxxxxBut the remembrance in them had dimmed to nothing; ash in the wake of a flame. The girl’s head drooped. She didn’t remember.
xxxxxKirke stood transfixed, torn at the fork in the crossroads. She could keep walking. She should keep walking; leave the girl behind like she should have done in the last lifetime, and finally move on. Finally free herself. It would be hard, but it would be easy.
xxxxxKirke turned away from the forlorn figure.
xxxxxAnd came back, pulled as though by a magnet, avoiding the gaze of the one she had betrayed in another time.
xxxxx“Hello.” They sat beside each other. But it wasn’t like it had been. The girl hid her face in her sleeve.
xxxxxHowever, she didn’t run. Something in her, something deep in the core of her being, knew somehow that they knew each other — knew she could trust the stranger. Kirke understood.
xxxxxKirke also understood that she was wrong.
xxxxx“Is that your father’s?” she asked, poking the cloak draped around the thin, boney shoulders, and was answered by the revelation of a single, startled eye.
xxxxx“How did you know?”
xxxxxIsit almost missed the whisper. She smiled.
xxxxx“What’s your name?”

xxxxxBut she knew.

xxxxxAmelia.

[TheSongOfTheStars]

Seriously, you're going to infect CS, but a good piece though.

[Ranger of the North]

Seriously, you're going to infect CS, but a good piece though.

Oof, I hope not XD The relationship between the two characters fascinates me and I just had to write something on it ;-;

[Ranger of the North]

Got experimental with the formatting at the end there, hopefully it works ehehe

xxxxxShe cried when her father left (although his decision was hardly voluntary, of course). The war needed fighting, the innocent needed defending, and the reliable needed to be paid in full for their service. That night, she poured a trickle — for a trickle was all she held in herself — of worry and selfish grief into a book and stuck it there with pencil-lead.

xxxxx-

xxxxxWhen the news of his death came, the trickle became a jagged, screaming wave of words that cut and slashed and tore.

xxxxx-

xxxxxThen her mother left. For the same reasons — and more, so much more. But her decision was voluntary and selfish and she, the girl, took none of it. They parted with cold words and raw hearts, and the weight of it was heavier than she dared to admit.
xxxxxShe wouldn’t look at the book. Words could only accentuate the ugliness of the truth. She danced like a restless ghost between I don’t care (that was a lie) and I’m selfish; I don’t deserve the luxury. That was wrong.

xxxxx-

xxxxxWhen paper and ink coldly informed her she was the eldest of four orphans, she felt nothing.
xxxxxThat was a lie.
xxxxxHer head wanted to scream. Something in her throat wanted to splinter and sob. Her heart wanted to take that knife on the bench, and —
xxxxxShe did none of those things. Instead, she took the determination of her father and the broken strength of her mother, and she gripped the anger and the grief and the regret and the grief that surpassed words in the claws of a self-control that would not falter and would only die with her, and drowned it all, like an unnecessary kitten.

xxxxxThe thing is, when you kill yourself to grief, you kill yourself to healing. Happiness has no sadness to balance, so it leaves. Light and colour see no reason to stay. The world fades to the colour of empty.

xxxxxShe became afraid of feeling. She knew she’d gone too far. There was no way to ease the pressure; the slightest weakness would give way to an avalanche that reeked of death and pain.

xxxxx-

xxxxxWhen her closest friend enlisted for the death of her parents, she realised something: war is a two-headed parasite. War will not leave until one is head is cut off and stamped out like the life of a moth.
xxxxxWar had taken her mother — forever — her father — forever — and her friend. Pray to God he returns. War would snatch away her last remnants of sanity, the brothers and sisters she loved — and their small souls, revolving around her, would be snuffed out and forgotten in the rolling tide of darkness.

xxxxxShe had to go.

xxxxxTo end the bloodletting she had to feed it.

xxxxxBut she couldn’t.




xxxxxUntil she gazed into the eyes of a small motherless, fatherless boy — the smallest, the baby — and was hit by the weight of the thousand years of pain residing in his tiny frame.

xxxxxShe had to go.

xxxxxBut she couldn’t —
xxxxxNot the way her mother had.

xxxxxHorror and terror and fear and disgust writhed viper-like in her soul, but she would go.

xxxxxBut first? She would feel.

xxxxx-

xxxxxShe found the notebook again. Found the pen. Wiped the dust of a year from the cover, and gently fingered through the pages of the past.

xxxxxAnd Kay began to w F r E i E t L e.

My poor, small daughter *sobs*

[Yubel Fated]

Dang. Now I know what you meant about "I totally dont hurt my children"

Ranger you're hurting your children. Dear lordy lordy.

I'm screaming.

Its good.

[TheSongOfTheStars]

oi

my feelings

[Ranger of the North]

Dang. Now I know what you meant about "I totally dont hurt my children"

Ranger you're hurting your children. Dear lordy lordy.

I'm screaming.

Its good.

thank you so much 😭

oi

my feelings

You still have those? Mine are irrepareably damaged