The Tale of Kympa and Zaichrad
The waves against the shore care not what erodes away.
One:
A tale of a hawk
The damp of his cell is overwhelming, but it is such a constant that the hawk has ceased to notice it entirely. The quarters are suffocatingly tight, but he has paced as much as the cramped space will allow, his massive shadow flickering across the stones in the waning light. A single window, cut into the wall near the ceiling, allows him a small rectangle of sunlight at certain times of day; it’s conveniently eye level for him, though the view it offers is hardly rewarding.
Mostly underground, the “window” was cut into the stone strictly for ventilation purposes, and awards the bird little more than a glimpse outside – all he knows, from the view, is that his cell juts over a cruel, grey sea. He can hear the waves crashing against the rocks below, and during the summer storms the wind screams across the sea and laments like a thousand widows through the slit in the stone.
He's lost count of how many days he has been imprisoned here, petty things like ‘time’ ceased to matter long ago.
“Hoi, dust bag.” The voices here are never kind, and the weasel glowering at him through the bars has never been an exception. He likes to spit.
“Time t’earn y’keep.” He growls, clanking his spear against the iron bars. “Ge’ on wi’ it! Move!”
Of course he knows the drill. The hawk can feel the rage building against his chest, and it heaves his breath out in great, rolling rumbles. Earn his keep…The furred monsters will scream and holler from the safety of their stands, separated from him by a mesh overlay which covers the ring. Whatever piteous, lumbering creature they throw in with him will meet its fate amongst the raucous cheering; the demonic squeals of glee.
They are monsters. All of them.
He came to this place as the result of cool, murderous cunning and meticulous planning: dragged, drugged and defeated, from the cliffs he and his family had once roosted upon. His mate had gone down first; he remembers the sight of her torn body sprawled across the nest they had built together. He knew what he would find beneath that ruined corpse – but he did not know what lurked in the shadows. What would throw itself free of its cover to pepper him with drugged darts and tie him in nets… He was stubborn like his mate, who had also been unwilling to abandon their hatchlings; and amid the rain of projectiles she had thrown herself over them.
Tears building behind his eyes, he had lifted her, gently and found resistance. The spears and the arrows pinned her to the nest and rock and soil beneath, but something else…
“Move, y’great, dumb, brute. Get on wi’ya, c’mon!” They usher him up the stairs, his wings tied to his sides and his talons shackled together. An iron collar is clasped around his neck, and he is led by a chain attached to it while the spears prod at him from behind. It takes five beasts to move him, even now that he has succumbed to the inevitability of it all. He goes without much of a struggle these days, only snapping at those who get too close or grow too overzealous in their ‘encouragement’ – but he can see it in their eyes.
They all know that he will be the death of them, one way or another.
Every time he enters the ring, every time he is untethered, every time he rips into his ‘opponent’ he remembers his mate, remembers their brood.
He remembers lifting her body with great, heaving sobs. Remembers the bodies of the chicks her sacrifice was meant to protect; but the the spears had gone through her completely, and skewered them all where they lay.
All but one had died immediately.
Cradling his last chick, his only daughter, gently in his talons, he could feel the light and sanity within him snapping. That soft down, all stained red… They came at him, then, while she was still gasping and trying to form words. He would protect her, this time. He would protect all of them.
But he did not.
The gleeful screams split the air all around him as the hawk rips into the wolverine. Gargling at him in some foreign tongue, the beast goes down. It sounds like pleading, but there is no mercy to be found in this ring – and nothing at all to be found in the hawk. The killing is not enjoyable, but nor does he shy away from it – the hawk welcomes it with open wings, embraces his new purpose: he once failed as a father, but he excels at this “sport”. There is little thought in his actions, only the rage and pain that have become the bird’s center – crammed into his cell, those shackled talons yearn for the flesh of his captors, but will settle for what they can get. There is some peace in his psychosis.
The vermin let him savage the poor creature enough to please the audience before he feels the familiar stab of darts along his back, feels the weight of the darkness dragging him from the air. He crashes to the ground as the chaotic cheering becomes more muffled. He collapses forward; he would have crushed the wolverine, had he not already been dead. He can feel fur and blood and dirt…
And then silence.
“Don’ know if ‘ell ever be tame ‘nuff t’keep ‘round…” A strange streak of orange light would periodically flash across his vision, though his eyes were still shut.
“Yeh, well th’idjits got too cocky. Skewered th’young through th’fat lady one. Boss was furious – bu’ we told ‘im everyone who done it got th’proper punishment already – thanks t’papa over there.”
“Did they?”
“Did they what?”
“Did all th’ones what killed th’dumb little fluffs get killed ‘emselves?”
“Nah, I think Cragsnout ‘n Hookblade was part’a th’first charge.”
“Hookblade died in’the hold an hour ago.”
“Well Cragsnout is damn lucky, then.”
“Y’think it wise t’keep sayin’ ‘is name so close t’…Y’know.”
“What? Oh, ‘im? Don’ think ‘e cin even understand. Guess they wanted this’uns kin ‘cause they foreign or summit. Plus, y’never know with birds – seems like some of ‘em got nothin’ but squawks an’ shrieks f’brains an’speakin’, an’ some got proper tongue. Doubt it even speaks proper common like we’s does.”
“Still think y’ought be careful, f’Cragsnout’s sake. What if ‘e tracks ‘em down?”
“Lookit ‘im! Does ‘e look like ‘es goin’ anywhere? Trackin’ anythin’?”
“Well ‘e could.”
“Why don’t y’go give ‘is bloody beak a kiss an’ see how far ‘e moves.”
“Wha-“
“Y’heard me! That’s an order from y’superior, that is. Give ‘im a kiss.” Something was causing the hawk terrible pain in his stomach, but he couldn’t roll or move at all… There was pain all over, actually – but nothing worse than the reality, once that set back in. He remembered all at once in a groggy, half-drugged haze: the blood, the feathers, his daughter, and…
“N-Ni’kah…” He groaned, trying to move.
“’E spoke! You ‘eard it! ‘E spoke, an’ I don’ wan’im comin’ after me, we gotta –“
“So what, ‘e speaks? Don’t mean I don’t wanna see them lips’a your’s pursed and peckin’ ‘is pretty face.” The hawk felt breath on his face, and bloodshot, golden eyes shot open. His pupils dilated, and hovering within inches of him was a grimy weasel – he looked like a pirate; one of his snaggleteeth was gold, there was a bandana wrapped about his head, and his clothing was faded and smelled of salt. He tried to lunge for him, but couldn’t move enough – his beak was even wrapped shut.
“Hah! See? ‘Es ‘armless, give ‘im a-“ His scream, silenced by its inability to escape his throat, went unheard, but even with all the binds and ties, these corsairs must not have been prepared for a beast of his size and caliber.
After all, it was his young they were after, they could not have banked on containing him.
While the bonds held, the entire apparatus that he had been lashed to gave way as he rocked and lunged his massive body forward, and hawk, chains, straps, and the great wooden block he had been attached to all went rolling over. The nervous weasel was trapped beneath him, unable to draw the breath the scream as the superior weight crushed him to death.
Screams, panic, more darts, and more darkness… That was the only stand he would be making that trip.
“Hoi! Wake up.” He can feel the sneers in their voices, and one eye slowly cracks open. There are two guards, there, holding between them a kicking, shouting, swearing, spitting… thing. It’s a doe – a little slip of a girl, he would have had no trouble plucking her from the ground and bringing her to his young in another life.
“Got y’a friend – figure you cin… Calm ‘er down a bit, yeh?” There is laughter as they stuff a key into the adjacent cell. The thing continues to carry on in an entirely unnecessary and obnoxious manner – lashing, struggling, and calling her captors a whole array of colorful and inventive titles. Her paws are bound behind her back, but they should have gagged her.
What a tiresome creature.
She is thrown, quite literally, into the cell to the right of his own, and she is flinging herself against the door immediately after, spitting after the guards. They don’t bother to remove her binds, and leave her to wander the cell with them tied, or figure a way out on her own. She shouts after them, long after they are gone, screeching curses into the deepening darkness until her voice goes hoarse. He stares at her in silence, until she finally collapses, exhausted, to the dingy ground.
Because of his volatile and violent reputation, this damp and bleak prison block has always been one that he alone occupies, despite the presence of cells on either side of him. He had grown accustomed to the solitude after his last dungeon mate had met an unfortunate and entirely accidental demise – his bewilderment at this loud, ratty, uncivilized hare is understandable.
He dislikes her immediately.
“So what’re you in for, then?” She is slumped against the far wall. He doesn’t even register that she is addressing him, he is used to being greeted with cowardice, distaste, hatred, fear… This girl has done none of these, despite the defeated position she has deposited herself in.
“Hoi – you. Uh, bird thing? You hear alright?” He stares at her. Never before have one of the beasts here – prisoner or otherwise – addressed him directly outside of insults and grunted demands. He has appreciated his solitude, the time spent brooding in silence, waiting for his next meal… Why is this furry little monstrosity intent on ruining that?
“What, you mute or somethin’? That’s okay, silent companys’ certainly a step up from no company t’all. Would y’care to help me out with these binds?” As she speaks, she struggles to her feet and stumbles forward, pivoting to present her bound paws and back to the dividing barrier.
The hawk lunges forward, snapping and screeching at her – approach him on the pain of death. She gets the message loud and clear, and nearly falls over her own feet scrambling away from him.
“Rude! Alright, alright… Have it your way.” With a roll of her eyes and a sigh, the doe sets about to trying to wiggle and scrape her way loose of the binds on her own; she accepts his behavior without the fear and loathing that such advances typically earn. Her lackluster acceptance of his demeanor is an additional annoyance to him; the little monsters should fear him… They should cower in his shadow, shudder when his name is mentioned.
It's the least they can do.
“Well then. First off: rude.” She manages to step through her own arms and bring her bound wrists in front of her, but the majority of this time is spent berating the hawk on how much easier the whole process would have been had he taken two seconds of his own precious time to help her out.
“S’not like I’ll even be in here long. Just an… Unfortunate setback. M’mate will have me out of this in a jiffy – we’ll let you out too, of course! Long as y’don’t pull that whole scary ‘I’mma eat you’ nonsense again. How long you been in here, anyway?” She is treated to nothing but the silence of his cold glare.
“Hoi, Scary Larry, we’re goin’ t’have a bit of an issue if we can’t pass our incarceration peaceably –“ Her voice becomes muffled as she gnaws at the ropes, and her paws come free with a soft ‘snap’ of the binds.
“-and then we’re just in a dark, dingy, smelly place an’ on top of it being ugly and uncomfortable, we’re stuck with bad roommates. Nobody wants that, so if we cin just be civil -“ Her answer is nothing but the crash of flesh against iron and a screech from the hawk; he is not interested in civility, he is interested in silence. That is his peace.
Silence.
“There’s a good beast, eh? Nice’n quiet. Now, tell me agin… What’s y’name an’ where y’from?” The hawk was unable to move - ropes bound his wings to his sides, shackles bound his talons together and to the ground while a great iron collar at his neck kept him tethered to the wall behind him. The fox paced back and forth in front of him, slapping the whip against his palm.
“My – name…” The hawk tasted, blood. “…It is Le’kran Zaichrad I am –“
“WRONG!” The bite of leather against his cheek ripped a scream from the hawk as his skin split away from itself.
“YOU ARE NOTHING!” Again and again – more blood in his beak.
“The day will come when I am eating of your flesh – I will pick the brains from your head and -!” Something grabbed his head from behind and stuffed him forward. There was a trough there, for drinking once his “training” was up, but it served another purpose while they conditioned him.
Gagging, spitting water, he struggles in vain. By the time they let him breathe, the water is pink.
“Way I see it –“ The fox was still pacing. Every once in a while, his tail would twitch and flick behind him with excitement – he loved his work. Loved the challenge of breaking the mighty hawk. “- You’se nobody. Y’ain’t got no home, ain’t got no family – whose there t’know y’name? Havin’ one is only goin’ t’make y’life more sad. Y’don’t want t’be sad, do ya?” He stepped forward, hovering just outside of the range the chain allowed.
“Cause y’see, hawk: when y’sad y’don’t fight as well – an’ that’s what we need y’to do. You need t’fight – you need t’fight what we tell ya an’kill what we give y’to kill. That’s y’life now, that’s all y’meant for an’ it’s th’only thing y’ever were meant for an’ y’know why?” His voice continued to grow softer, even loving, but with a harsh darkness to it that made the hawk’s feathers ruffle at his neck. Evil – he was in a place of pure evil…
“Anyone who y’mattered to is just bone now, bleachin’ in the sun… An’ no one cares ‘bout a couple’a brainless savages what can’t even talk, do they?”
“I will tear the face from your skull while you -“
“YOU’LL BE SILENT!” The whip caught him across the face again, and the hawk tried stumbling backwards and away from it, but only goes as far as the wall at his back. Wiping the blood from his paws, the fox sighs and clicks his tongue before nodding to his assistant, a stoat standing nearby.
“If it speaks again, drown it. Keep on drownin’ it till it stops talkin’. It’ll learn.”
Two
A tale of a housewife
“I was a little… Y’know, a little wisp of a thing. Always angry, always runnin’, couldn’t mind my parents if I tried – they got sick of it, after a time.” The doe is leaned against the wall of her cell, facing the hawk in his adjacent hold. She sighs.
“They tried, though. Got me into school – I never went – even sent me away to go help out this ol’ fuddy duddy and his granddaughter. Thought the hard labor would teach me respect and gratitude, but, well…” With a smirk, she shrugs. “Here I am.”
The hawk grumbles as he stirs, one eye opening to glare at the talkative hare. Hadn’t they been over this, already? He doesn’t want her life story – he doesn’t want her voice nagging at him every second of every day. A fortnight has passed since she was dragged to the cells and he was starting to grow accustomed to her wretched way of carrying on.
“Now, don’t give me that look. You know of anything else t’do in here? Anything else to talk about? You got much to say? Hm?” She leans forward to regard him. “Hm?” The hawk remains silent.
“That’s what I thought. Now, where was I? Oh, right. So, my folks send me off t’live with this old hare but it never happened ‘cause I ran off. I figured, hey, I’m old enough t’lie and cheat and steal, so I’m old enough t’live on my own.” She taps a finger against her temple as she shakes her head. “My head was empty save for wicked thoughts, back then - but that all changed! I met this bloke named Rowan – older feller, but not – y’know - creepy old? Jus’ a little more mature than myself.” Her smirk becomes something of a genuine smile, misty and nostalgic, and she lets her head fall back against the wall behind her.
“Ah, y’never met a bloke like that one, Mr. Hawk, I can tell you that.” The bird rolls his eyes and shuffles his great form around, putting his back towards her. She keeps going. “I was on the run – apples, I think. Little sack of ‘em. Anyways, I come careenin’ around this one corner an’ -”
“STOP! THIEF!” The call rang out, echoing off the grimy bricks and stones. Kympa could only let out a great whoop of laughter as she clambered over a stack of crates, leapt for a gutter, kicked against the bricks for leverage, and hauled herself up onto a rooftop. Halyard really was beautiful at this time of evening; the sky was painted with fire and glazed with sea salt – she breathed it all in.
“She’s on the roof! Get her!” She doesn’t get the chance to meditate on the beauty of the Village for long, and the skinny teenager was soon running once again. “All this fer bloody apples?!” She shouted over her shoulder, vaulting the space between two rooftops and ignoring the sickening drop beneath her. She would just be one more mess in an alley collecting flies. No one pays much attention to one more dead street-urchin, these days, do they? And Kympa certainly looked the part: dirty, torn clothing, bare paws, matted headfur, wild eyes – even mud smeared across her left cheek.
No one would miss her much.
“Where’d she go?”
“Damned if I know, how y’lose ‘er?!”
“I dinnit lose’er y’fool, she –“
“THERE! She’s ‘eadin’ West – no, East!”
“Tha’s South y’bloody –“
Kympa threw herself from the rooftops and crashed into a vendor’s stall; theoretically, she would use the rain tarp above it to break her fall, gently, but she wasn’t counting on simply busting through it like a furry cannonball.
More shouts. More running. Pain in her rump - she had a proper mob after her, by this point.
Another alleyway opened up before her, and she twisted and turned around every corner – but the indistinct shouting behind her was growing more distinct. She was running out of alley and she was running out of breath – she was going to lose her paws over apples! The humiliation – the other kids would never accept her back into-
“OOF!” All at once, the world was inverted, and Kympa found herself sprawled on her back on the alley floor. A tall buck was standing there, rubbing at the back of his head; startled, but otherwise unmoved.
“Are you alright?” He quickly bent to help her up, but the doe was already scrambling to stuff her apples into the bag… Apples and – something else? A strange object had come rolling out of the sack, where it had been hidden amongst the fruit.
“Bu’ I wasn’t payin’ much attention to the weird… Wooden canister, thing. I’m tellin’ you, hawk, it was like in th’stories gran would tell – I look up an’ see this… beautiful example of flesh and blood in front of me an’ the whole world went still.” The prisoner sighs, shaking her head. “You’ll know what I mean when y’meet him, he’s just so… good.
“Well, I am now.” The doe breathed, halting in her quest to collect all of her stolen goods to just stare at the buck. He was about a head and a half taller than herself, with a wide chest and strong shoulders. He was built for dock work, or a forge, or playing harps for the gods – she didn’t know, didn’t care.
“You’ve gotta be th’most beautiful beast I ever seen.”
“You’re covered in mud.”
“Y’covered in gorgeous.”
“That is mud, isn’t it?”
“Jeez, I ‘ope so – but least I don’ gotta stick up m’arse.”
“…Fair enough. Are you alright?” Kympa finally accepted the offered paw and allowed him to haul her upright. She stuffed the foreign canister back into the bag with the apples, and only dimly registered that it could be the reason her pursuers were so intent on her capture – but she was more focused on something much more tall, dark, and handsome than a funny piece of wood.
“Y-yeh. I gotta go, though, these crazy beasts is chasin’ me! I think they’s –“
“Ah, so you’re a thief, then.” His voice was soft, kind… It was like listening to velvet. It was like elooking at velvet – his fur was a soft, clean black but his eyes…
“Uh those eyes!” She muses, thunking her head against the stone wall. “Y’get lost in them, I swear… Gold like th’sun an’ deep as the sea. Anyway –“
“I ain’t a thief! Look, I’m not ‘posed t’tell this, but I’mma princess, see? But I’m on th’run ‘cause these blokes killed m’da an’ overturned m’kingd-“
“My apologies! I didn’t know I was in the presence of royalty'', Princess Thief.” He smirked at her, and the thief’s frown deepened.
“Y’mockin’ me.”
“You’re right, that was rude of me. Almost as rude as stealing.”
“Chargin’ so much f’apples is what’s rude.”
“Maybe if you got a proper job, the price would not seem so steep, hm?”
“What are ya, a priest?! Look –“ She shot a panicked look over her shoulder. “I-if y’help me, I’ll share m’apples with ya!” The din of pursuit was growing louder – she had lost all chance of escape, by this point.
“A tempting offer.” He actually chuckled at her before he sighed and shrugged those strong, wonderful shoulders. He was toying with her, watching this wretched girl squirm and panic as those chasing her neared.
“Well, I suppose I can’t say no to royalty. Come this way, your highness.” Kympa didn’t question her luck, nor was she going to turn down the chance to watch him walk. He led her through an adjacent door and into –what? She didn’t know what to call the place: it was a strange little shop, like a forge, a gallery, and a leather shop (eel leather - for the most part) had an eclectic baby.
“I like to work with my paws.” He explained, airily, as if this whole ordeal was just a light afternoon conversation. “You can hide in the basement –“ At the back of the room, there was a rug that covered a door below. “I’d be very grateful if you refrained from further thievery while you’re down there, though.”
