Beneath the chiming of tent flaps whipping against tarpaulin she stood, arms akimbo, staring at the wasteland. Before her, around her, relentlessly, were bones. Bones of every make. Bones of metal, bones of birds, bones of horses, human and troll. There was a hunk of material ripped out of the canvas stretched above her, billowing in the wind, and she noticed with an ironic smile, the jagged shape of a heart, pure chance, but so unfit, for this trecherous place. Of murder.
She bowed her head beneath her cowl and shook it. She felt miserable. But this was her post. Her duty to stand watch and make sure it was not destroyed any further. The dragons were gone, they were not the threat. Rather, the pest, for she was not scared nor ill prepared, was the looters, the youths or the ancient scum that stole from the dead, stole jewels and carrots from the marrow of the fallen. It made her skin crawl. Made her want to retch into the puddles at her feet.
But for now, in full control, and avoiding too many indulgent, wicked, macabre thoughts, the mercenary stood tall, scanning the wasteland with those thunderstruck eyes, somewhat calmed by the sensation that drizzled through her with each rumble of the sky above her and that tent.
The circus had come and gone. Had lived and died. If now there was blood, and much mud, the rain would wash it all to clean. There would never be memory of this tragedy. Only that which she kept in store in her head. Catalogued with every other draft she'd pulled for her money. Treasuring these blanketing, heavy, horrible terrains like it was all she had. It was her way of dealing with it, with getting used to what made her her money when she began, where she left the Underplace, where she came from to know mercy, to learn the messages in the wind, to read the sky, to see the places in the books and paintings she had salvaged on the shores of Skullport Harbor.
She bowed her head beneath her cowl and shook it. She felt miserable. But this was her post. Her duty to stand watch and make sure it was not destroyed any further. The dragons were gone, they were not the threat. Rather, the pest, for she was not scared nor ill prepared, was the looters, the youths or the ancient scum that stole from the dead, stole jewels and carrots from the marrow of the fallen. It made her skin crawl. Made her want to retch into the puddles at her feet.
But for now, in full control, and avoiding too many indulgent, wicked, macabre thoughts, the mercenary stood tall, scanning the wasteland with those thunderstruck eyes, somewhat calmed by the sensation that drizzled through her with each rumble of the sky above her and that tent.
The circus had come and gone. Had lived and died. If now there was blood, and much mud, the rain would wash it all to clean. There would never be memory of this tragedy. Only that which she kept in store in her head. Catalogued with every other draft she'd pulled for her money. Treasuring these blanketing, heavy, horrible terrains like it was all she had. It was her way of dealing with it, with getting used to what made her her money when she began, where she left the Underplace, where she came from to know mercy, to learn the messages in the wind, to read the sky, to see the places in the books and paintings she had salvaged on the shores of Skullport Harbor.