Stories Untold
IV. Oh, These Violent Delights
Visuals: Kaitlyn Vallieres
Author: Claire Bosnich
I. Communing With the Gods of Old
0:00 - 1:37
She can’t believe it. The day she prayed for, worked for, bled for, screamed for. It’s here. It is here.
The sentries on the wall see her first: a single, hooded figure, with what appears to be a walking stick. They call down to the gate guards, who approach with arrogant ease, for their armour is steel, and their spears are strong.
She does not answer when they call for her name. She does not answer when they demand her business.
It begins to rain. One of the guards, angered by the wet, the cold, this strange traveler, lowers his spear. He cannot know that far above the clouds, the far-flung stars have come into alignment. But she does. She feels their power, roiling in her veins.
She raises her hand. A pulse of starlight and shadow and blood materialises above her palm. The guards cry out; one stumbles back, but the other one, the angry one, thrusts forward with his spear. She throws out a finger, sends the magic rushing forth, and where it touches, the world unravels. Metal point, then wooden shaft, then flesh and blood and bone. The guardsman screams as long as he can before he falls to ribbons.
Oh, yes. The day is here.
She lunges forward, whipping her magic towards the second, fleeing guard. Rippling colours catch his cloak, unstitching threads as they surge for his neck.
Shwiffft. She swings her staff in time to catch an arrow through the wood. The archer on the wall cannot see her eyes, but no doubt he feels their presence as he fumbles for his quiver.
He never gets the chance. It’s playtime now, delightful, childlike play. She unmakes his bow, then unmakes him, dancing, weaving, refashioning the world wherever she steps. Stones melt into stairs; arrows sag against their strings. She skips up her newfound path, unimpeded, up, up, up until she reaches the top of the wall. The archers who still live are falling back, making way for a surge of swordsmen. She giggles like a newborn babe. Humans are such fun!
The first reaches her, swings his sword—swings it through her as the blade unforms. She bops his helm with her staff, and then he unforms too, all of them unpeeling into each other like a mess of apple scraps. The furthest ones balk and run, but there is no escape, no escape, she’ll find them, every last little one, and if she doesn’t, her master will. She can hear Its whispers, Its glee, as It feasts on the blood of the fallen. MOREMOREMOREMORE.
A hand grabs her staff. She whirls to find a soldier, coming apart at the seams yet still holding on, determined to fight. He’s lost his sword, but he swings his shield for her head, and it surprises her, it does, enough to knock her aside, throw off her hood. But she’s suffered worse, oh she’s suffered, so she slams her palm into his chest, spearing magic through his heart, undoing him from the inside out.
Because of this, it’s his armour that disappears last. His helm. His gauntlets. His shiny, silver shield.
She stares down into it. And she sees . . .
She sees . . .
. . . she sees her.
II. The Oracle
1:37 - 3:20
Her name was Mer’ayth. Once.
She was an Oracle. Fourth Eye to the Order of Ohr’dyn, Shaper of Currents, Weaver of Futures. It was an Eye’s job to interpret those currents, steering the elf-folk towards a brighter morrow.
But then, the humans came.
They were weak, at first. Lacking magic. The elf-folk disdained them, but she and her sisters preached compassion. They met with the human king, trading resources for both their people.
They did not see the danger until it was too late. When their gods abandoned them, when magic curdled in their veins, the humans no longer had a use for them. They were cast out. Or slaughtered.
But were they all so bad? Every last one?
There . . .
There was a girl.
The king’s daughter. A princess. She was entranced by the elves, especially Mer’ayth, with her pointed ears and clouded eyes. It was an Oracle’s burden to never see the world as it was—only as it could be. But Mer’ayth could still hear the princess’s voice, eager and musical, begging her for stories of elven life. They would walk among the gardens, or sit on a stone bench by the pond. The princess would describe the frogs and lilies, and Mer’ayth would smile behind her veil, reciting their names in the elven tongue.
And her name? What had it been?
It didn’t matter. When the visions soured, when the predictions of the Eyes no longer came to pass and the king lost battle after battle, he turned his blame on them. The princess could not, did not stop the deaths. Not for the First Eye, or the Second, or the Third.
. . . and the Fourth?
What had the princess done for her?
* * * * * *
The wind tugs softly at her cloak. She looks over the city, to the castle on its hill.
Strange. She’d forgot that once she could not see. Her plain-sight returned when she fled her homeland (when the princess helped her flee). After today, will she lose it, to be re-blessed with visions of the future?
She has never seen the princess’s face.
But you can. You still can.
. . . no.
She draws her hood over her head. What has come to pass has passed. She is no longer Mer’ayth.
This day cannot be stopped.
III. Self-Acualisation
3:20 - 5:22
A shadow presses at her back. She turns . . . and watches the rise of a great tentacle.
It writhes above her, flesh-coloured and muculent. Another peeks over the wall; a third snakes across the stones. When it finds blood, it surges forward, plunging and rolling until its end is soaked in crimson. More tentacles race over the battlements; she can hear their thoughts, Its thoughts, like a second heartbeat. FEASTFEASTFEASTFEAST.
She steps towards the wall’s edge. The road she had just traveled bucks and seethes, like a cauldron on the fire. Pustules of rock grow, burst, each birthing a new tentacle. The sky turns red and raging; raindrops sizzle where they fall.
CRACK. The earth splits, fissures zig-zagging through grass and dirt. Twelve tentacles rise from the thickest chasm. She can hear their pulsing suckers ooze as they press against the land, forcing the gap to open wider, wider, wider. Something glows within the dark; at first she thinks it is a lake of fire, ringing ‘round a long, black isle.
Then she realises. It’s an eye.
A giggle slips from her lips. It becomes a chuckle—then a snicker—then a full-on fit of laughter. She flings out her arms, her staff, throws her head back to the sky and cackles in the rain.
She has done it. She has twisted the divine to flesh. Now, It will cleanse the world.
Behind her, the city fills with screams. Tentacles erupt into homes, shops, dragging humans down into the hidden jaws beneath the earth. The non-voice is so loud—FEASTFEASTFEAST—she cannot hear own laughter, and so she laughs harder.
The world thrums. The gate collapses. She has to skip back a few paces as the wall crumbles beneath her feet. The creature in the earth is strong now, gorged enough on blood to free itself. Beneath the eye, thick, limb-like tentacles haul out a colossal abscess of flesh, still transparent in parts, stitching itself together from the fabric of those it has consumed. She looks at It, looks into It, and there is something about watching a god’s heart pulse that cracks her mind in two.
She bends double, clutching her staff for support, laughing and laughing and laughing. The god-thing slorps towards the city, every shift of its fat ringing with the wails of those whose form it stole. The single, enormous eye rolls in its tentacled socket, searching out for more, MOREMORE. Those who witness It are lucky; the sight brings them to madness, and so they feel nothing when their bodies fall to pieces.
“Ohr’dyn!” she cries between her mirthful shrieks. “Ohr’dyn!” She does not know if it is meant as a prayer or a war cry. All she knows is It must continue, must suffocate the city, and the castle, and the king that lives within. “Ohr’dyn!”
MORE.
“Ohr’dyn!”
FEAST.
“Ohr’dyn!”
FEASTONALL.
She falls back atop the wall, exhausted, elated, as the first tentacle curls around the castle’s southern turret.
IV. Darknes Falls Upon The Kingdom
5:22 - 6:11
She lies there, still chuckling, letting the rain spatter her fevered cheeks. The screams seem distant now. As though the city is fading away, and she is spiralling into the clouds.
No. She is not moving; it is her sight, sinking once more into the mists of an Oracle. Her forehead burns where the emblem of Ohr’dyn was inked so long ago.
The vision forms within her fractured mind, and finally, finally, she sees.
She sees a pond. Lilies. Frogs. And a woman, floating in the water. Blonde curls frame her rounded face. Freckles dot her upturned nose. There is a small scar through her lip, where a clumsy prince once elbowed her while dancing.
And her eyes . . . her eyes are closed.
She has chosen —she will choose — to flee the god-thing. The only way she can.
Anna.
Her name was Anna.
Then the vision unravels, and all becomes dark.
