Hello! Here's the first story I've been working on in my extended absence. I hope you all enjoy it - I probably won't be around much, still. If you need to get a hold of me, though, feel free to PM me! Anyway, I'll be watching this thread, so thanks in advance for reading it! I'll see if I can make some time to comment on if/when any comments are made.
If anyone's wondering - Yes this is pretty weird. Sorry in advance! Just sort of how things turned out, ahaha.
Word Count: 6562
Truth Made Untrue
Sava Pith, Eighthborn of the Warchief, knelt before her mother’s grave.
Today was a day of celebration. Of feasting and contests of strength. Today was the eighteenth anniversary of the day of her birth, and there was cheering, chanting, and the dull beat of war-drums echoing over the red and rocky stones all about her. For the War-Band, it was a boisterous affair. For her, it was a death sentence.
Today was the day her father killed her.
Her mother’s grave was not hers specifically, of course. It was simply an enormous log, carved with the effigies of the Wolf, Raven, and Dragon. The dead of the War-Band were cremated. It was faster. Easier. No bodies to bury, no bones to mourn. In truth, Sava had never known her mother. The woman had died long before she grew old enough to retain any memory of her. She was here because she was becoming acquainted with the earth she would be shortly scattered over.
She hoped she would find peace here. Instead, she found only anger and resentment.
She did not want to die, but she would never be able to best her father in battle.
She stood with a handful of dirt, and wiped it over the eyes of the Wolf at the bottom of the totem pole. Perhaps, if the Wolf, that Great Devourer, was blinded, she would be spared its cavernous gullet. As she stared at the Raven and the Dragon, however, she was uncertain that either held any sympathy for her plight. No doubt the Cackling Watcher would do just that - cackle and watch. There was much knowledge that the Raven could share, but it never would.
She doubted the Dragon would even notice her. The Sky Father had long been her father’s patron. And, like her father, quick to anger and difficult to amuse or impress. Sava had not known much tenderness growing up in the War-Band.
This was for the best. Tenderness would do her no good today.
She turned away from the large grave marker, and walked towards the flickering lights and echoing drums of the War-Band encampment.
She called it an “encampment” but really, she had participated in the sacking of cities smaller than this. The roar from the celebrations was deafening. Smoke from cook-fires filled the air, and shouts of merriment, surprise, and pain filled her ears. It succeeded in raising her spirits slightly. This was the life she led - wild, savage, and free, beneath the watchful eyes of the stars. It had not been a bad life. It had been enjoyable, even.
If not for the gray skin that put her above her peers, she may have even made a few friends.
But this was the burden of the Warchief’s children. They were larger. Faster. Stronger. Sava herself was a mountainous woman, with thick, powerful muscles and wild, poorly tamed black hair. Had she been anyone else, the men and women of the War-Band would have begun lining themselves up outside her tent long ago. Had she been anyone else, her strength of jaw and ferocity in combat would have attracted many a mate. Her ample chest and sturdy hips would have drawn lovers to her like corpse flies to a battlefield.
But she bore her father’s visage. And none dared brave her father’s wrath. The standard she was held to was miles above what the rest - even the most of experienced and battle-scarred of the War-Band - were held to. She was savage. She was strong. She was quick. And still, she was going to die.
She barely noticed, lost in her angry musings as she was, that wherever she went the drums slowed and the celebration dimmed. Today was a good day for all but her. A day of feasting, declared by the War-Chief. She had free rein of the encampment as well, free rein to do as she pleased. It bothered her that she had spent the day in quiet contemplation of what was about to transpire, instead of filling her final hours with food, drink, and song. Now, with the gibbous moon low in the sky, and the witching hour swift approaching, it was her time to fight.
Though she knew where she was going, she was almost surprised to find herself standing before her father’s tent - though it was more like a barely portable fortress. It took forty yoke of oxen to drag the entire building about, and several hours to set up. Granted, her father slept under the stars like the rest of the War-Band when out on a raid. Still, the Warchief’s tent was enormous and cumbersome.
If she ever inherited the title, she would do away with it. That, however, was unlikely.
There were no guards stationed - all the War-Band were enjoying the festivities, and her father’s people feared no enemy. She could hear the sound of celebration coming from within the tent, raucous and loud. It gave her pause, staring at the closed flaps. She had another hour, at most. Another hour before her father’s summons.
But she was tired of waiting.
She strode inside.
There was nowhere to sleep in the tent, though there were plenty of pelts strewn about. Men and women ate, drank, and brawled over bowls of cooked meats and succulent dried fruits. She recognized many of them, and as she entered, the din slowly died down. Directly across from the entrance sat the War-Chief. For the first time in her life, instead of bowing, Sava simply stared at her father.
He was enormous - head and shoulders again taller than anyone Sava had ever seen. Even sitting crosslegged as he was, he was taller than she. His skin was weathered, calloused, and grey. His nose was thick, his lower teeth rising above his upper lip, yellowed, long, and sharp. His brow was pronounced, his face calm and contemplative as he gazed at his child. Sava raised her chin slightly as he father scrutinized her. His large, pointed ears twitched, and a single, massive hand came up to stroke his mottled white and gray beard.
There were several moments of tense silence, only broken by the crackling of fire and the cacophonous breathing of dozens of bodies in the large tent.
“I smell your impatience, child.” He rumbled, holding his hand off to one side. It was like a signal, but not - the center of the tent was cleared out swiftly, and the Warchief’s axe was placed heavily into his hand. “...Your eagerness pleases me.”
Sava narrowed her eyes.
“I have no eagerness to die.” She growled. Her father stood.
“Then don’t.” The Warchief stated, rolling his shoulder. He nodded, and again, there was a flurry of activity. Sava found herself being offered a weapon - another axe. She had been trained in the use of such a weapon since almost before she could walk. This axe, specifically, she knew well. The weight was familiar - she had split her first skull with it. It was simple. Wood and metal. It would do.
“A boon, Warchief, before you send me to meet my siblings.” Sava said, hefting the large weapon.
“Are you so certain of your death?”
“You are ageless, like the mountains, and untamed, like the fields.” Sava told him flatly. “Within you lies all the cunning deadliness of quicksand. You are a Warchief without equal - I am a barely aged whelp. I am as likely to survive this as I am of demanding a mountain to crumble, and then having it listen.” She spat on the ground. “I was not raised a fool.”
The Warchief was silent. The atmosphere was tense.
“What is your boon, child?”
Sava licked her lips.
“When I die, leave me for the wolves.” She said. “So that I may be free of this War-Band once and for all.”
There were several surprised murmurs of outrage, but Sava did not care. Though her life had been good, it had been of her own making. So would be her death. The Warchief raised a hand for silence, and then nodded.
“You owe the War-Band nothing.” He agreed. From any other mouth, the words would have been a death sentence. The War-Band was life, and family. Life it had been for Sava. Family… She tightened her hold on her axe.
The Warchief hefted his own axe, and shifted his stance slightly.
“Show me how brightly you burn.” He demanded, and then, without further warning, attacked.
Sava had seen her father fight in many battles, and knew he had fought in countless more. Watching him fight, command, lead - it was both inspiring and terrifying. There were never any mistakes, no flank left undefended, no opponent left unkilled. Here, now, having the entirety of her father’s frame bear down upon her, enormous axe raised hey, Sava knew she should feel awe, or terror.
But there was only rage.
She snarled and raised the haft of her axe to meet the blade of his, infusing the weapon with the rocky sturdiness of her craggy home. There was an earth shaking crunch as metal met wood, and Sava felt herself slide backwards several inches, but her stance held. The Warchief’s face was all grim determination, and the muscles in his shoulders flexed as he attempted to force her to yield. Sava roared in defiance, using her superior position of leverage to heave the axe away, and aimed a savage kick at her father’s stomach. He immediately brought his elbow down, knocking the kick off-course, and swiftly back-handed Sava brutally along the jaw.
She saw stars, but she did not fall. Instead, she swung her weapon wildly and jumped back. The Warchief had respected the blade of her axe, and stepped aside - she had been able to disengage, for now. She worked her jaw - nothing broken, fortunately. But her lip had split. She spit blood onto the floor, and saw her father’s feet shift. He would charge again.
So she took the initiative and charged him instead.
This did not end well, as she knew it would not.
Her axe swung wide as he sidestepped it. Then, as though tired of the farce, he punched her once in the gut and she felt several of her ribs crack from the blow. Then, he grabbed her by the neck - as she knew he eventually would. This is how he killed all of them - her siblings. This is how it always ended, with them scrabbling uselessly at his enormous paws as the life left their eyes.
And he stared up at them, face grim and set.
Sava refused.
It took great effort to resist the urge to tear at the hand that was restricting her breathing. But she clenched her fists, and stared at her father. Let him see the life leave her eyes. Let him know what he was doing. Her younger siblings would fall next to this tyrant, and there was no escape from that… but she… would not… die… a beggar…
The world fell out from beneath her, and her last memory before losing consciousness was gasping for air.
***
Sava awoke to the sound of crackling fire, and… Wind? Some great, soothing sound… The air smelt of salt, and was heavy with water. This was not home. She had been taught from an early age about being captured by the enemy - and since she was not dead, and she was not home, that meant she had been captured. How was a question for later.
She was not bound. Mysteriously, she was also free of pain. She concentrated, and heard the deep breathing of only one other person nearby. Her eyelids were dark - there was little light, then. No weapon immediately near her-
“I know you are awake, child.” Came the rumbling voice of her father. Sava froze, then opened her eyes and sat up quickly, looking around.
She… had no idea where she was.
She had also never seen an ocean before. She gawped. There was… There was so much water. How was that even possible?
“Whelp.” Came her father’s voice again, and almost instinctively, she turned to face him. He was sitting cross-legged on the sand of this… place. Across a small, barely flickering fire. Her eyes flicked around warily. Quicksand, perhaps? They were not sinking… yet. Her father seemed unconcerned.
“...Why am I not dead?” She muttered, putting this strange place out of her mind for now.
“You are above death now.” He informed her. “You have ascended - finally. After all this time.”
“...Explain.” She demanded, and matched his posture. By all rights, she should be dead - if he wished to kill her for insubordination now, it would mean nothing to her.
“I will.” He told her. “But my words will fail me - it is better if you are shown.” He retrieved a pouch from his belt, and held it out ot her. She took it warily. It was light - there was some sort of dust or sand within. “You must commune with the spirits, child. The dust will aid you - throw it into the flames, and breathe deeply of the smoke.”
“...I am not yet of age for my first Vision Quest.” She muttered, briefly bothered by how sulky her voice sounded. Spirits, she was no longer a child! She just… had never expected to live this long. Her father’s face betrayed nothing about what he was thinking.
“Do as you’re told.” He growled, though there was no threat of violence behind it. He could not force her to partake, but… Whatever his faults, whatever his purpose here, he was still Warchief. The same respect which had caused her to face him with her head held high prompted her to follow his orders now.
She dumped the handful of dust into her hand, and then tossed it into the fire. It hissed and popped, the smoke becoming more thick, but… something stirred within. Sava leaned over the fire, and breathed in deeply.
***
She imagined she stood in a great battlefield.
The dead around her numbered far more than she had ever known to live. Far more than the seas of the shore. The causes of death were as varied as the dead themselves. Fire, arrow, blade, and hundreds upon thousands of gruesome fates that she could not name.
Behind her, there was heavy breathing, and the smell of fetid breath. She turned around.
She faced an enormous Wolf, blood dripping from its maw, teeth as black as its matted fur.
“What place is this?” She demanded of the Wolf, for she recognized the Great Devourer for what it was. Perhaps this was the Devourer’s realm, and she was visiting it during her quest. What wisdom he Devourer could grant her, or what the Wolf would know of her father, was beyond Sava.
The Wolf’s jaw widened in a yawn, fetid decay washing over Sava once more. She wrinkled her nose, but did not blink. The Wolf turned around, and began to trot away. She decided to follow.
The Wolf did not pick its way through the battlefield. It trod over corpses and weapons. Sava was more careful, but she followed the Wolf for what seemed like an age. The crunch of bones and wood beneath its paws became indistinguishable. Not once, however, did Sava tire or the wolf turn around. The battlefield shifted and changed - but always the dead remained. Sometimes they stood upon rocky steppes, or sloping hills, or other places she did not have names for.
Then, there was quiet sobbing.
Sava looked around for the source of the noise, and the Wolf finally stopped, and sat. Panting, the Great Devourer’s head swiveled, nose sniffing with purpose. Sava followed the Wolf’s gaze, and she saw a man kneeling upon the ground, cradling a body in his arms. She knew this man, because she had only ever known one man who looked like that. Tall, gray skin, thick brow, large ears…
It was her father. But he was young. This was unremarkable. She had heard tales that Vision Quests - especially those involving the Wolf - would often show visions of the past. No, what intrigued Sava was the body he held in his arms. It looked just like him.
Not exactly, of course. It was a different person, to be sure. Sava recognized the corpse as a woman, though a woman with far more pronounced features than her own. Like her father, the body had dark gray skin, not the light, washed out color of Sava’s. She was large, with wide ears and a thicker jaw than Sava’s… Her father had always looked different. He was the Warchief. He had… always been the Warchief. That’s all there was to the man, Sava thought.
Watching him cry over the body of someone who must surely be his kin forced Sava to rethink the matter.
“Orc.” A voice snarled from behind her, and she understood it was the Great Devourer without having to turn around. “Gamey. Stringy. Hard to chew, often. Difficult to kill. Your father was no different. His family was his bond. When they fell and were devoured…” Sava looked away from her father for a moment, to glare at the Wolf. When she returned her gaze, it was with the Devourer laughing like a hyena behind her. “...He became much more difficult to eat.”
Her father had vanished. The corpse remained.
“...What is an Orc?” She asked.
“Gamey. Stringy. Hard to chew.” The Wolf repeated. No answers from it, then. But a vision quest was all about answers. Answers from the spirits, answers from the past… Answers from yourself. Sava stepped over to the corpse.
She was not the only body. There were several other “orcs” scattered about haphazardly. She quickly came to understand that the cause of death was fire - from whence it came she could to guess. Several of the bodies had terrible burns that made them unrecognizable. The body her father had cradled was missing a large portion of her torso, blackened and burnt away. The stench was strong, but not overpowering. She could not readily admit, however, that she had ever smelled anything worse.
Every corpse looked similar to her father. His people… Her people? If so, why had she never met them, or seen them? Why had she never heard of them? If her father was the last of his kind, why had no one in the War-Band spoken of it? No one had ever commented on his appearance except to say that it was a sign of his strength. No one questioned his authority, for as long as she could remember…
...How long has her father ruled the War-Band?
Many questions, few answers. Her quest was far from over, it seemed.
“...I have heard the shamans tell of you, Devourer.” Sava said, folding her arms and staring at the corpse. “It is said that should you appear during an aspirant’s vision quest, you attack without question. To struggle with you is to struggle with death itself. To conquer you is the same.” She turned to appraise the massive Wolf, whose black tongue was lolling from its mouth as it stared at her blankly. “And yet, you speak with me. Why?”
“You have also become difficult to eat.” The Great Devourer said, shaking its rank and shaggy fur.
Sava pondered that. Not all spirits were intelligent, but rarely were the unwise.
“...Much like my father.” She murmured. Where had her father gone, when she looked away? A trick of the vision, or something more?
The battlefield shifted strangely. Savan stumbled, tripped, and fell.
***
When the world stopped spinning, she was surrounded by sand.
The sun beat oppressively down upon her brow… Wait. Two suns? In the sky? The Wolf was gone. The bodies were gone. The smoky darkness of the battlefield and been replaced by an endless expanse of hot, white sand. The heat was nearly unbearable - nearly. It was nothing Sava could not stomach, however. Likely it was an illusion anyway.
A shadow passed over her. She did not bother to track it. The suns would block whatever it was from view, and she had an idea what it was anyway. When a cawing laugh sounded, she grimaced.
The Raven, now. This bode ill.
She watched the shadow circle her without looking up, and then it flew off, towards the… North? She was not sure if the directions mattered much in this place.
She walked in the opposite direction. Either she would be quit of the Watcher or it would harass her every step. Either way, she would not give it opportunity to trick her willingly.
The sand stretched on for miles. She quickly became convinced it was eternal, but did not allow any doubts to claw their way into her mind. Her path, she had been informed, would be decided by how she thought. How she felt. Often, she had thought of becoming a shaman. Often, she had sat at their feet and listened to their tales and their wisdom. Often, she had regretted she would never live long enough to join them.
Many things she had thought were true were becoming untrue today. She wondered how many more truths would shatter before the quest was through.
The Raven returned, albeit this time with only a shadow and no sound. She imagined it was displeased that she refused to follow after it. Let it be, then. The creature deserved no kindness from her.
She heard a delicate flapping of wings as the Watcher alighted on her shoulder. It took great restraint not to swing at the feathered thing - attacking a spirit was unwise, even in the throes of one’s own vision quest. It said nothing as Sava trudged on, and she would not break the silence. The Raven was crafty, and could twist words into pointless meaning and confound even the most steadfast of minds. She would say little, and attempt to glean what she could from whatever riddles it spouted.
For a time, the Raven seemed content to sit upon her shoulder and clean itself.
“You look but you do not see.” It croaked. Sava glanced at the bird, and promptly ran into something large and heavy. She felt nothing but the barest hint of pain, but as she fell backwards and the Watcher flew off her shoulder, cackling madly, she had to admit her pride was wounded a little. She would not give it the satisfaction of acknowledging the pointless jest, however, and instead turned to what she had run into.
It was a totem pole - much like the one she had knelt before earlier. Skyfather. Watcher. Devourer. The carvings, however, were… different. Subtly. If she had not seen the effigies so often during her life, she would not have noticed.
A voice cut through her speculation.
“I do not understand!”
“It is not your place to understand, whelp.”
Sava did not recognize the first voice, but the second was undoubtedly her father. She rose to her feet quickly, and glanced around the totem. The scene that was before her was familiar… disturbingly so. Her father - once more a much younger man - stood on one side of a makeshift circle of… No, these were not her people. Their skin was too dark, their statures too lithe. She had never seen their like. But the display was so similar. She had seen it four times from outside the circle, and once from inside it.
Another “trial”. Another sibling dead… But the man - boy - who stood across from her father was no one she recognized, and this place was nowhere familiar. In the past, yes… But where had her father come from?
The Raven flew overhead without a sound.
“I have no desire to die, Warchief - father! What sense is this?” The boy, her wayward sibling, shouted. Sava grimaced - her father did not like being called “father”. She thought that maybe she was beginning to understand why. The Warchief’s face clouded over like a summer storm.
“You will die.” He growled like rolling thunder. “Either now, or many moons from now, or even many seasons from now. But you will die. Caught up like sand in the zephyr that is death.” Sava had never heard her father say anything like this… But then, none had asked him for an explanation in her lifetime. It was just… what was expected. To keep peace in the War-Band. That her father had ruled for so long was a testament of his continued strength. That he never tired or seemed to age was indicative of his right to lead.
...Or so she had always thought.
Many truths made untrue.
“And you won’t?” The boy screamed in frustration. This caught Sava’s attention, because she had never… thought about her father dying. It had never occurred to her, and she was certain it had never occurred to anyone in the War-Band. He was simply… infallible.
The Raven cawed once.
“No.” The Warchief said. “I won’t.”
The battle was short and uninteresting. After the boy had fallen, her father stared at his corpse, axe held loosely in his hand. Interestingly, she recognized the axe - it was the same one he always had. Had always… had. Another constant she had never questioned. But seeing it now, closely, she could not discern what it was made of as the blood dripped off the blade and onto the sand.
The strange people surrounding her father began to disperse.
“...How many more?” She heard her father mutter as a hot gust of wind kicked sand onto the corpse of his son. Something else dripped onto the sand as her father stared down at the body. Sava’s brow furrowed. Tears…
He had never wept for any of her siblings.
The Raven landed atop the corpse just as her father turned away. Sava glared at the creature as it picked idly at the body. These people may not be her people, but if they were led by her father, someone would undoubtedly be by soon to burn the corpse.
“You look but do not see.” The Watcher repeated. “Hear but do not listen.” It cocked its head to one side. “Know, but do not understand.”
“Then share your understanding with me.” Sava implored, folding her arms. The Raven cackled.
“See. Listen. Understand.”
The Raven took wing, and its shadow passed once over her before it vanished from sight completely. Sava looked around, but once more there was only desert. The corpse, totem, strange people, and her father - all had vanished.
There was only the glare of sand, the howl of wind, and the blistering of twin suns.
...This was no home of hers. Like the place of strange sand and the endless water, this was a different place entirely. ...A different world, entirely.
She shielded her eyes, and stared up at the sky. Two suns.
How had her father gotten here?
...How had she?
Another shift. Sava braced herself as the world changed around her.
***
Fire. Fire everywhere.
Sava instinctively shielded herself from the flames, before she became aware that they were not harming her… though they were hot and bright, and the sound was deafening. She squinted into the surrounding inferno. Where there was not flame, there was blackened stone. Undoubtedly, this was the wrath of the Skyfather. Sava tread forward carefully - whatever had angered the Dragon was likely just as dangerous as the Dragon itself…
Though she had a good idea who that was.
She needed only walk forward for several moment before a warrior’s bellow split the air. She put her hand to her brow and attempted to discern where the sound had come from. Then, suddenly, the flames parted before her, and a snarling form leapt forth. She had only a moment to recognize the man as her father before her instincts kicked in and she ducked out of his way. As she came up from her crouch, she attempted to track her father’s movement.
It was not difficult. He was standing at the center of the inferno, battling the Skyfather itself - an enormous dragon. Sava’s eyes widened as the Dragon’s maw opened wide, spewing forth a torrent of flame that turned the surrounding stone to slag. Her father simply screamed - silently, it seemed to her - into the flame. It looked as though he simply willed not to burn, and did not, before leaping up and burying his axe into the Dragon’s snout.
The Dragon cried in pain, and her father pulled the beast low, muscles bulging… no, growing! Her father increased in size until he was standing over the dragon, his axe head replaced by the heel of his boot.
Sava just stared.
“How many more of your do I have to kill for answers?” Her father roared, the force of his voice forcing Sava to her knees and putting the surrounding flames out. It did not appear as though the Dragon could speak, muzzled as it was by her father’s foot. “Where am I? What have you done to me? Where. Is. My. Family!”
The final word was punctuated with a brutal and cacophonous cracking noise as the Dragon’s skull exploded.
...Sava sincerely hoped this was some sort of exaggeration on the part of the vision quest, because if her father commanded this sort of power, she had been more foolish to stand against him than she had first thought.
She had a feeling, though, that she was simply viewing the past.
“Watch.” She heard a deep, tenebrous voice whisper, carrying all the weight of a being that expected to be obeyed. Sava knew the sound of this voice, the sound of command… her father had the same voice. This voice was not her fathers, but…
She watched.
Her father had returned to his regular size. He was breathing heavily, face streaked with viscera and tears. He screamed in impotent rage again - just as a shadow loomed up from behind him. Sava thought for a moment about shouting some sort of warning, and then decided against it. It would change nothing, and she felt a certain amount of satisfaction as a large, clawed hand seized him by the head and lifted him into the air.
Sava gazed at the newcomer. She thought for a moment that it was a Dragon, however, it was… not the right proportions. It stood on two legs, and was quite a bit smaller than the slaughtered creature. It lacked scales, though it had great, wide wings. Horns swept back from the creature’s head, curving back elegantly, not unlike many rams she had seen. Its - his, she decided - ears were pointed, and long, his skin was black like ebony though lacked its shine. Around each wrist was a cuff of shining gold, though it wore no shirt, and a belt of similar material adorned its waist. Flowing white cloth fell from his waist.
His face, she thought, was beautiful, though his eyes were as empty as those she had seen on a corpse. What… sort of creature was this?
“Watch.” The voice implored again.
She did so.
“Stop all that screaming.” The man told her father, who appeared to have been rendered immobile. Sava grimaced. She could… something was wrong, coming from the winged man. She felt sick, though not in her stomach… In her soul, perhaps. Dark magic, the shamans called it. Unnatural - not beholden to the Devourer.
The man dropped her father on the ground. The Warchief did not move.
“What sort of right do you have to come here and kill all my pets, hm?” The man paced over her father’s body, placing his hands behind his back. “An amatuer Planeswalker such as yourself - how newly ascended are you, Orc?” No sound from her father. “Let me guess - A day? Two?” The man stopped pacing, and flexed his wings with a look of curious speculation.
Then he snapped his fingers.
Her father writhed, gasping for breath, and Sava felt distinctly… unnerved. She had never seen him so weakened… Rendered so powerless.
“A-Answers…” Her father managed, rolling onto his front and propping himself on his elbows. The winged man grinned at the word.
“Well, that is serendipitous, because it just so happens that answers are the sort of thing I traffick in.” Her father, who had climbed to his knees, appeared to be in better control of his voice as he replied.
“...Your price, creature? I am lost, confused, and filled with things I cannot understand. I have not much to offer.” The winged man’s face twitched at the word “creature”, but he did not comment or otherwise react to it.
“Everyone has something to offer, Planeswalker. You, more than most. My price is simple. I can give you all the knowledge you seek - but you must give to me knowledge in equal measure.”
“...How.” Her father said flatly, tiredly… defeatedly.
The winged man grinned, and grabbed her father by the skull once more.
“Like so.” He said.
“Watch. Carefully.” The deep voice implored for the third time, and then Sava was screaming along with her father and the winged man.
The pain was worse than anything she ever experienced. Even as she imagined her body being torn apart segment by segment, images flashed before her agonizingly wide eyes. The winged man, bruised, cornered, battered - her father, weeping over a child freshly slain - the dark one, triumphant and with pink skin, standing over his foes - her father, leading a foreign War-Band to battle - the demon, seducing unknowing victims - Kurda, Warchief of the Countless, holding his daughters throat, feeling her heartbeat slow as she vanished from his hands.
Unbidden, words sprung from her mouth.
“Blood calls to blood! Pain reaches through time! Seed, womb, and spark mingle! Time will unite, pain will bind, blood will sing! Spark, spark, spark will burn! In time, pain, and blood!”
She fell weeping to her knees, throat raw, without the presence of mind to believe in the illusion. But she had done it - done as she was told. She watched… She… She looked up.
This was not what had happened. This was wrong.
The winged man - Demon - was staring at her, face unreadable.
“...On your way, Renan. This dream does not belong to you.” A voice, deep and tenebrous - the Skyfather. Vaguely, she felt a presence standing above her. A shadow over her. A warmth enveloping her. But her head was swimming, and she could not focus.
The Demon vanished.
Sava fell into darkness.
***
When she awoke, it was with memories that were not her own.
Her father still sat, staring into the fire. He did not react as she sat up and turned to him. He did not move, and for a moment, she was surprised. Surprised by the white of his beard. The lines of his face… Her memories… no, his memories. They did not line up. She… She was Sava Pith. Not Kurda the Warchief - not her father. Not… Not…
No, that part was fading. She remembered a darkness, and two dead eyes, but that was all.
“I have lived a long, long time, Sava.” The Warchief murmured. “Once, all I wanted was a family to share this gift with. This… ascension.”
“Planeswalker…” Sava whispered, surprised that she understood. Her father looked up at her with a tired sigh.
“...The gift is not what it was. But it was still something I wanted to share. with my family.”
Sava shook her head slowly, sifting through the foreign memories. The things her father had done… The things he knew… But these memories too, were fading.
“...How many hundreds of your children did you kill, hunting for this spark?” She managed hoarsely.
Her father did not respond. She stared bleakly at him.
“You knew.” She said. “You knew once I became like you… That I would not stay. That I would hate you.” Her voice was steady, with the flurry of memories in her head, it was difficult to feel her emotions, difficult to understand how she felt - but she knew what she knew. “Because I hate you. I hate everything you’ve done - how I was never meant to escape from your shadow. And you killed them anyway.” She searched the quickly vanishing memories, and her father’s slowly grimacing face, for answers. But all at once, there were none. “...Why?”
The Warchief shook his head slowly.
“My words will fail me.”
The memories faded, and with them, the whirlwind of thought that had cluttered her head. Now, free from the torrent, she felt rage. Hot, red, anger filled her veins. Filled her vision.
The first thing she saw after that was her father’s axe.
The second was a great deal of blood.
Sava pith seethed, and snarled, wide-eyed, at the impaled body of her father - Kurda, Warchief of the Countless. An Orc who had lost all he had on his brutal home plane, and attempted to find solace in a family he would always outlive. He did not even have the decency to look surprised.
“This was always my fate…” He muttered. He had not even moved to stop her, she saw now. He had just… sat there. “Blood… calls to blood. In time. In pain. In… blood.” And, once again, tears were flowing down her father’s face. She bared her teeth. How dare he weep! “My burden was never… meant to be mine. Always yours, Sava… Always… yours…” He heaved, and shuttered, inhaling one last time. “Find… The Skyfather… Find… The demon…”
His eyes closed.
Sava screamed.
“No!” She brutally tore the axe from his chest and tossed it aside. “No, I will not - What burden? What demon? What Skyfather? Answer me!” She grabbed the corpse by the shoulders, and shook. “I will not live the life you’ve chosen for me! I will not be a slave to your destiny!” She felt something within the body stir, and she watched in horror as blood began to ooze from the cavity in her father’s chest, towards her. She let go of the corpse with another shout, but the blood had already begun to float and flow around her, brushing against her skin and filling the air with warmth and copper scent.
All at once, it fell onto her flesh, seeping through her clothes, and burned.
She felt all her muscles flex in defiance of the whatever vile sorcery this was, and she roared in rage for a third time.
The burning subsided, however, and the echo of her scream faded into the night. The fire, she saw, was puttering out. Her father’s body was growing cool.
“Blood calls to blood…” A voice - her father’s voice - murmured in her mind. “In time. In pain. In blood.” And then, there was silence.
Sava’s entire body quivered with rage, grief, and despair. She fell to her knees, and clawed at the sand, as the culmination of everything she did not understand overtook her, and she screamed her frustration into the night with enormous, racking sobs.
Sava Pith, Eighthborn of the Warchief, knelt before her father’s corpse.
Today was a day of celebration. Of feasting and contests of strength. Today was the eighteenth anniversary of the day of her birth, and there was cheering, chanting, and the dull beat of war-drums echoing over the red and rocky stones all about her. For the War-Band, it was a boisterous affair. For her, it was a death sentence.
Today was the day her father killed her.
Her mother’s grave was not hers specifically, of course. It was simply an enormous log, carved with the effigies of the Wolf, Raven, and Dragon. The dead of the War-Band were cremated. It was faster. Easier. No bodies to bury, no bones to mourn. In truth, Sava had never known her mother. The woman had died long before she grew old enough to retain any memory of her. She was here because she was becoming acquainted with the earth she would be shortly scattered over.
She hoped she would find peace here. Instead, she found only anger and resentment.
She did not want to die, but she would never be able to best her father in battle.
She stood with a handful of dirt, and wiped it over the eyes of the Wolf at the bottom of the totem pole. Perhaps, if the Wolf, that Great Devourer, was blinded, she would be spared its cavernous gullet. As she stared at the Raven and the Dragon, however, she was uncertain that either held any sympathy for her plight. No doubt the Cackling Watcher would do just that - cackle and watch. There was much knowledge that the Raven could share, but it never would.
She doubted the Dragon would even notice her. The Sky Father had long been her father’s patron. And, like her father, quick to anger and difficult to amuse or impress. Sava had not known much tenderness growing up in the War-Band.
This was for the best. Tenderness would do her no good today.
She turned away from the large grave marker, and walked towards the flickering lights and echoing drums of the War-Band encampment.
She called it an “encampment” but really, she had participated in the sacking of cities smaller than this. The roar from the celebrations was deafening. Smoke from cook-fires filled the air, and shouts of merriment, surprise, and pain filled her ears. It succeeded in raising her spirits slightly. This was the life she led - wild, savage, and free, beneath the watchful eyes of the stars. It had not been a bad life. It had been enjoyable, even.
If not for the gray skin that put her above her peers, she may have even made a few friends.
But this was the burden of the Warchief’s children. They were larger. Faster. Stronger. Sava herself was a mountainous woman, with thick, powerful muscles and wild, poorly tamed black hair. Had she been anyone else, the men and women of the War-Band would have begun lining themselves up outside her tent long ago. Had she been anyone else, her strength of jaw and ferocity in combat would have attracted many a mate. Her ample chest and sturdy hips would have drawn lovers to her like corpse flies to a battlefield.
But she bore her father’s visage. And none dared brave her father’s wrath. The standard she was held to was miles above what the rest - even the most of experienced and battle-scarred of the War-Band - were held to. She was savage. She was strong. She was quick. And still, she was going to die.
She barely noticed, lost in her angry musings as she was, that wherever she went the drums slowed and the celebration dimmed. Today was a good day for all but her. A day of feasting, declared by the War-Chief. She had free rein of the encampment as well, free rein to do as she pleased. It bothered her that she had spent the day in quiet contemplation of what was about to transpire, instead of filling her final hours with food, drink, and song. Now, with the gibbous moon low in the sky, and the witching hour swift approaching, it was her time to fight.
Though she knew where she was going, she was almost surprised to find herself standing before her father’s tent - though it was more like a barely portable fortress. It took forty yoke of oxen to drag the entire building about, and several hours to set up. Granted, her father slept under the stars like the rest of the War-Band when out on a raid. Still, the Warchief’s tent was enormous and cumbersome.
If she ever inherited the title, she would do away with it. That, however, was unlikely.
There were no guards stationed - all the War-Band were enjoying the festivities, and her father’s people feared no enemy. She could hear the sound of celebration coming from within the tent, raucous and loud. It gave her pause, staring at the closed flaps. She had another hour, at most. Another hour before her father’s summons.
But she was tired of waiting.
She strode inside.
There was nowhere to sleep in the tent, though there were plenty of pelts strewn about. Men and women ate, drank, and brawled over bowls of cooked meats and succulent dried fruits. She recognized many of them, and as she entered, the din slowly died down. Directly across from the entrance sat the War-Chief. For the first time in her life, instead of bowing, Sava simply stared at her father.
He was enormous - head and shoulders again taller than anyone Sava had ever seen. Even sitting crosslegged as he was, he was taller than she. His skin was weathered, calloused, and grey. His nose was thick, his lower teeth rising above his upper lip, yellowed, long, and sharp. His brow was pronounced, his face calm and contemplative as he gazed at his child. Sava raised her chin slightly as he father scrutinized her. His large, pointed ears twitched, and a single, massive hand came up to stroke his mottled white and gray beard.
There were several moments of tense silence, only broken by the crackling of fire and the cacophonous breathing of dozens of bodies in the large tent.
“I smell your impatience, child.” He rumbled, holding his hand off to one side. It was like a signal, but not - the center of the tent was cleared out swiftly, and the Warchief’s axe was placed heavily into his hand. “...Your eagerness pleases me.”
Sava narrowed her eyes.
“I have no eagerness to die.” She growled. Her father stood.
“Then don’t.” The Warchief stated, rolling his shoulder. He nodded, and again, there was a flurry of activity. Sava found herself being offered a weapon - another axe. She had been trained in the use of such a weapon since almost before she could walk. This axe, specifically, she knew well. The weight was familiar - she had split her first skull with it. It was simple. Wood and metal. It would do.
“A boon, Warchief, before you send me to meet my siblings.” Sava said, hefting the large weapon.
“Are you so certain of your death?”
“You are ageless, like the mountains, and untamed, like the fields.” Sava told him flatly. “Within you lies all the cunning deadliness of quicksand. You are a Warchief without equal - I am a barely aged whelp. I am as likely to survive this as I am of demanding a mountain to crumble, and then having it listen.” She spat on the ground. “I was not raised a fool.”
The Warchief was silent. The atmosphere was tense.
“What is your boon, child?”
Sava licked her lips.
“When I die, leave me for the wolves.” She said. “So that I may be free of this War-Band once and for all.”
There were several surprised murmurs of outrage, but Sava did not care. Though her life had been good, it had been of her own making. So would be her death. The Warchief raised a hand for silence, and then nodded.
“You owe the War-Band nothing.” He agreed. From any other mouth, the words would have been a death sentence. The War-Band was life, and family. Life it had been for Sava. Family… She tightened her hold on her axe.
The Warchief hefted his own axe, and shifted his stance slightly.
“Show me how brightly you burn.” He demanded, and then, without further warning, attacked.
Sava had seen her father fight in many battles, and knew he had fought in countless more. Watching him fight, command, lead - it was both inspiring and terrifying. There were never any mistakes, no flank left undefended, no opponent left unkilled. Here, now, having the entirety of her father’s frame bear down upon her, enormous axe raised hey, Sava knew she should feel awe, or terror.
But there was only rage.
She snarled and raised the haft of her axe to meet the blade of his, infusing the weapon with the rocky sturdiness of her craggy home. There was an earth shaking crunch as metal met wood, and Sava felt herself slide backwards several inches, but her stance held. The Warchief’s face was all grim determination, and the muscles in his shoulders flexed as he attempted to force her to yield. Sava roared in defiance, using her superior position of leverage to heave the axe away, and aimed a savage kick at her father’s stomach. He immediately brought his elbow down, knocking the kick off-course, and swiftly back-handed Sava brutally along the jaw.
She saw stars, but she did not fall. Instead, she swung her weapon wildly and jumped back. The Warchief had respected the blade of her axe, and stepped aside - she had been able to disengage, for now. She worked her jaw - nothing broken, fortunately. But her lip had split. She spit blood onto the floor, and saw her father’s feet shift. He would charge again.
So she took the initiative and charged him instead.
This did not end well, as she knew it would not.
Her axe swung wide as he sidestepped it. Then, as though tired of the farce, he punched her once in the gut and she felt several of her ribs crack from the blow. Then, he grabbed her by the neck - as she knew he eventually would. This is how he killed all of them - her siblings. This is how it always ended, with them scrabbling uselessly at his enormous paws as the life left their eyes.
And he stared up at them, face grim and set.
Sava refused.
It took great effort to resist the urge to tear at the hand that was restricting her breathing. But she clenched her fists, and stared at her father. Let him see the life leave her eyes. Let him know what he was doing. Her younger siblings would fall next to this tyrant, and there was no escape from that… but she… would not… die… a beggar…
The world fell out from beneath her, and her last memory before losing consciousness was gasping for air.
***
Sava awoke to the sound of crackling fire, and… Wind? Some great, soothing sound… The air smelt of salt, and was heavy with water. This was not home. She had been taught from an early age about being captured by the enemy - and since she was not dead, and she was not home, that meant she had been captured. How was a question for later.
She was not bound. Mysteriously, she was also free of pain. She concentrated, and heard the deep breathing of only one other person nearby. Her eyelids were dark - there was little light, then. No weapon immediately near her-
“I know you are awake, child.” Came the rumbling voice of her father. Sava froze, then opened her eyes and sat up quickly, looking around.
She… had no idea where she was.
She had also never seen an ocean before. She gawped. There was… There was so much water. How was that even possible?
“Whelp.” Came her father’s voice again, and almost instinctively, she turned to face him. He was sitting cross-legged on the sand of this… place. Across a small, barely flickering fire. Her eyes flicked around warily. Quicksand, perhaps? They were not sinking… yet. Her father seemed unconcerned.
“...Why am I not dead?” She muttered, putting this strange place out of her mind for now.
“You are above death now.” He informed her. “You have ascended - finally. After all this time.”
“...Explain.” She demanded, and matched his posture. By all rights, she should be dead - if he wished to kill her for insubordination now, it would mean nothing to her.
“I will.” He told her. “But my words will fail me - it is better if you are shown.” He retrieved a pouch from his belt, and held it out ot her. She took it warily. It was light - there was some sort of dust or sand within. “You must commune with the spirits, child. The dust will aid you - throw it into the flames, and breathe deeply of the smoke.”
“...I am not yet of age for my first Vision Quest.” She muttered, briefly bothered by how sulky her voice sounded. Spirits, she was no longer a child! She just… had never expected to live this long. Her father’s face betrayed nothing about what he was thinking.
“Do as you’re told.” He growled, though there was no threat of violence behind it. He could not force her to partake, but… Whatever his faults, whatever his purpose here, he was still Warchief. The same respect which had caused her to face him with her head held high prompted her to follow his orders now.
She dumped the handful of dust into her hand, and then tossed it into the fire. It hissed and popped, the smoke becoming more thick, but… something stirred within. Sava leaned over the fire, and breathed in deeply.
***
She imagined she stood in a great battlefield.
The dead around her numbered far more than she had ever known to live. Far more than the seas of the shore. The causes of death were as varied as the dead themselves. Fire, arrow, blade, and hundreds upon thousands of gruesome fates that she could not name.
Behind her, there was heavy breathing, and the smell of fetid breath. She turned around.
She faced an enormous Wolf, blood dripping from its maw, teeth as black as its matted fur.
“What place is this?” She demanded of the Wolf, for she recognized the Great Devourer for what it was. Perhaps this was the Devourer’s realm, and she was visiting it during her quest. What wisdom he Devourer could grant her, or what the Wolf would know of her father, was beyond Sava.
The Wolf’s jaw widened in a yawn, fetid decay washing over Sava once more. She wrinkled her nose, but did not blink. The Wolf turned around, and began to trot away. She decided to follow.
The Wolf did not pick its way through the battlefield. It trod over corpses and weapons. Sava was more careful, but she followed the Wolf for what seemed like an age. The crunch of bones and wood beneath its paws became indistinguishable. Not once, however, did Sava tire or the wolf turn around. The battlefield shifted and changed - but always the dead remained. Sometimes they stood upon rocky steppes, or sloping hills, or other places she did not have names for.
Then, there was quiet sobbing.
Sava looked around for the source of the noise, and the Wolf finally stopped, and sat. Panting, the Great Devourer’s head swiveled, nose sniffing with purpose. Sava followed the Wolf’s gaze, and she saw a man kneeling upon the ground, cradling a body in his arms. She knew this man, because she had only ever known one man who looked like that. Tall, gray skin, thick brow, large ears…
It was her father. But he was young. This was unremarkable. She had heard tales that Vision Quests - especially those involving the Wolf - would often show visions of the past. No, what intrigued Sava was the body he held in his arms. It looked just like him.
Not exactly, of course. It was a different person, to be sure. Sava recognized the corpse as a woman, though a woman with far more pronounced features than her own. Like her father, the body had dark gray skin, not the light, washed out color of Sava’s. She was large, with wide ears and a thicker jaw than Sava’s… Her father had always looked different. He was the Warchief. He had… always been the Warchief. That’s all there was to the man, Sava thought.
Watching him cry over the body of someone who must surely be his kin forced Sava to rethink the matter.
“Orc.” A voice snarled from behind her, and she understood it was the Great Devourer without having to turn around. “Gamey. Stringy. Hard to chew, often. Difficult to kill. Your father was no different. His family was his bond. When they fell and were devoured…” Sava looked away from her father for a moment, to glare at the Wolf. When she returned her gaze, it was with the Devourer laughing like a hyena behind her. “...He became much more difficult to eat.”
Her father had vanished. The corpse remained.
“...What is an Orc?” She asked.
“Gamey. Stringy. Hard to chew.” The Wolf repeated. No answers from it, then. But a vision quest was all about answers. Answers from the spirits, answers from the past… Answers from yourself. Sava stepped over to the corpse.
She was not the only body. There were several other “orcs” scattered about haphazardly. She quickly came to understand that the cause of death was fire - from whence it came she could to guess. Several of the bodies had terrible burns that made them unrecognizable. The body her father had cradled was missing a large portion of her torso, blackened and burnt away. The stench was strong, but not overpowering. She could not readily admit, however, that she had ever smelled anything worse.
Every corpse looked similar to her father. His people… Her people? If so, why had she never met them, or seen them? Why had she never heard of them? If her father was the last of his kind, why had no one in the War-Band spoken of it? No one had ever commented on his appearance except to say that it was a sign of his strength. No one questioned his authority, for as long as she could remember…
...How long has her father ruled the War-Band?
Many questions, few answers. Her quest was far from over, it seemed.
“...I have heard the shamans tell of you, Devourer.” Sava said, folding her arms and staring at the corpse. “It is said that should you appear during an aspirant’s vision quest, you attack without question. To struggle with you is to struggle with death itself. To conquer you is the same.” She turned to appraise the massive Wolf, whose black tongue was lolling from its mouth as it stared at her blankly. “And yet, you speak with me. Why?”
“You have also become difficult to eat.” The Great Devourer said, shaking its rank and shaggy fur.
Sava pondered that. Not all spirits were intelligent, but rarely were the unwise.
“...Much like my father.” She murmured. Where had her father gone, when she looked away? A trick of the vision, or something more?
The battlefield shifted strangely. Savan stumbled, tripped, and fell.
***
When the world stopped spinning, she was surrounded by sand.
The sun beat oppressively down upon her brow… Wait. Two suns? In the sky? The Wolf was gone. The bodies were gone. The smoky darkness of the battlefield and been replaced by an endless expanse of hot, white sand. The heat was nearly unbearable - nearly. It was nothing Sava could not stomach, however. Likely it was an illusion anyway.
A shadow passed over her. She did not bother to track it. The suns would block whatever it was from view, and she had an idea what it was anyway. When a cawing laugh sounded, she grimaced.
The Raven, now. This bode ill.
She watched the shadow circle her without looking up, and then it flew off, towards the… North? She was not sure if the directions mattered much in this place.
She walked in the opposite direction. Either she would be quit of the Watcher or it would harass her every step. Either way, she would not give it opportunity to trick her willingly.
The sand stretched on for miles. She quickly became convinced it was eternal, but did not allow any doubts to claw their way into her mind. Her path, she had been informed, would be decided by how she thought. How she felt. Often, she had thought of becoming a shaman. Often, she had sat at their feet and listened to their tales and their wisdom. Often, she had regretted she would never live long enough to join them.
Many things she had thought were true were becoming untrue today. She wondered how many more truths would shatter before the quest was through.
The Raven returned, albeit this time with only a shadow and no sound. She imagined it was displeased that she refused to follow after it. Let it be, then. The creature deserved no kindness from her.
She heard a delicate flapping of wings as the Watcher alighted on her shoulder. It took great restraint not to swing at the feathered thing - attacking a spirit was unwise, even in the throes of one’s own vision quest. It said nothing as Sava trudged on, and she would not break the silence. The Raven was crafty, and could twist words into pointless meaning and confound even the most steadfast of minds. She would say little, and attempt to glean what she could from whatever riddles it spouted.
For a time, the Raven seemed content to sit upon her shoulder and clean itself.
“You look but you do not see.” It croaked. Sava glanced at the bird, and promptly ran into something large and heavy. She felt nothing but the barest hint of pain, but as she fell backwards and the Watcher flew off her shoulder, cackling madly, she had to admit her pride was wounded a little. She would not give it the satisfaction of acknowledging the pointless jest, however, and instead turned to what she had run into.
It was a totem pole - much like the one she had knelt before earlier. Skyfather. Watcher. Devourer. The carvings, however, were… different. Subtly. If she had not seen the effigies so often during her life, she would not have noticed.
A voice cut through her speculation.
“I do not understand!”
“It is not your place to understand, whelp.”
Sava did not recognize the first voice, but the second was undoubtedly her father. She rose to her feet quickly, and glanced around the totem. The scene that was before her was familiar… disturbingly so. Her father - once more a much younger man - stood on one side of a makeshift circle of… No, these were not her people. Their skin was too dark, their statures too lithe. She had never seen their like. But the display was so similar. She had seen it four times from outside the circle, and once from inside it.
Another “trial”. Another sibling dead… But the man - boy - who stood across from her father was no one she recognized, and this place was nowhere familiar. In the past, yes… But where had her father come from?
The Raven flew overhead without a sound.
“I have no desire to die, Warchief - father! What sense is this?” The boy, her wayward sibling, shouted. Sava grimaced - her father did not like being called “father”. She thought that maybe she was beginning to understand why. The Warchief’s face clouded over like a summer storm.
“You will die.” He growled like rolling thunder. “Either now, or many moons from now, or even many seasons from now. But you will die. Caught up like sand in the zephyr that is death.” Sava had never heard her father say anything like this… But then, none had asked him for an explanation in her lifetime. It was just… what was expected. To keep peace in the War-Band. That her father had ruled for so long was a testament of his continued strength. That he never tired or seemed to age was indicative of his right to lead.
...Or so she had always thought.
Many truths made untrue.
“And you won’t?” The boy screamed in frustration. This caught Sava’s attention, because she had never… thought about her father dying. It had never occurred to her, and she was certain it had never occurred to anyone in the War-Band. He was simply… infallible.
The Raven cawed once.
“No.” The Warchief said. “I won’t.”
The battle was short and uninteresting. After the boy had fallen, her father stared at his corpse, axe held loosely in his hand. Interestingly, she recognized the axe - it was the same one he always had. Had always… had. Another constant she had never questioned. But seeing it now, closely, she could not discern what it was made of as the blood dripped off the blade and onto the sand.
The strange people surrounding her father began to disperse.
“...How many more?” She heard her father mutter as a hot gust of wind kicked sand onto the corpse of his son. Something else dripped onto the sand as her father stared down at the body. Sava’s brow furrowed. Tears…
He had never wept for any of her siblings.
The Raven landed atop the corpse just as her father turned away. Sava glared at the creature as it picked idly at the body. These people may not be her people, but if they were led by her father, someone would undoubtedly be by soon to burn the corpse.
“You look but do not see.” The Watcher repeated. “Hear but do not listen.” It cocked its head to one side. “Know, but do not understand.”
“Then share your understanding with me.” Sava implored, folding her arms. The Raven cackled.
“See. Listen. Understand.”
The Raven took wing, and its shadow passed once over her before it vanished from sight completely. Sava looked around, but once more there was only desert. The corpse, totem, strange people, and her father - all had vanished.
There was only the glare of sand, the howl of wind, and the blistering of twin suns.
...This was no home of hers. Like the place of strange sand and the endless water, this was a different place entirely. ...A different world, entirely.
She shielded her eyes, and stared up at the sky. Two suns.
How had her father gotten here?
...How had she?
Another shift. Sava braced herself as the world changed around her.
***
Fire. Fire everywhere.
Sava instinctively shielded herself from the flames, before she became aware that they were not harming her… though they were hot and bright, and the sound was deafening. She squinted into the surrounding inferno. Where there was not flame, there was blackened stone. Undoubtedly, this was the wrath of the Skyfather. Sava tread forward carefully - whatever had angered the Dragon was likely just as dangerous as the Dragon itself…
Though she had a good idea who that was.
She needed only walk forward for several moment before a warrior’s bellow split the air. She put her hand to her brow and attempted to discern where the sound had come from. Then, suddenly, the flames parted before her, and a snarling form leapt forth. She had only a moment to recognize the man as her father before her instincts kicked in and she ducked out of his way. As she came up from her crouch, she attempted to track her father’s movement.
It was not difficult. He was standing at the center of the inferno, battling the Skyfather itself - an enormous dragon. Sava’s eyes widened as the Dragon’s maw opened wide, spewing forth a torrent of flame that turned the surrounding stone to slag. Her father simply screamed - silently, it seemed to her - into the flame. It looked as though he simply willed not to burn, and did not, before leaping up and burying his axe into the Dragon’s snout.
The Dragon cried in pain, and her father pulled the beast low, muscles bulging… no, growing! Her father increased in size until he was standing over the dragon, his axe head replaced by the heel of his boot.
Sava just stared.
“How many more of your do I have to kill for answers?” Her father roared, the force of his voice forcing Sava to her knees and putting the surrounding flames out. It did not appear as though the Dragon could speak, muzzled as it was by her father’s foot. “Where am I? What have you done to me? Where. Is. My. Family!”
The final word was punctuated with a brutal and cacophonous cracking noise as the Dragon’s skull exploded.
...Sava sincerely hoped this was some sort of exaggeration on the part of the vision quest, because if her father commanded this sort of power, she had been more foolish to stand against him than she had first thought.
She had a feeling, though, that she was simply viewing the past.
“Watch.” She heard a deep, tenebrous voice whisper, carrying all the weight of a being that expected to be obeyed. Sava knew the sound of this voice, the sound of command… her father had the same voice. This voice was not her fathers, but…
She watched.
Her father had returned to his regular size. He was breathing heavily, face streaked with viscera and tears. He screamed in impotent rage again - just as a shadow loomed up from behind him. Sava thought for a moment about shouting some sort of warning, and then decided against it. It would change nothing, and she felt a certain amount of satisfaction as a large, clawed hand seized him by the head and lifted him into the air.
Sava gazed at the newcomer. She thought for a moment that it was a Dragon, however, it was… not the right proportions. It stood on two legs, and was quite a bit smaller than the slaughtered creature. It lacked scales, though it had great, wide wings. Horns swept back from the creature’s head, curving back elegantly, not unlike many rams she had seen. Its - his, she decided - ears were pointed, and long, his skin was black like ebony though lacked its shine. Around each wrist was a cuff of shining gold, though it wore no shirt, and a belt of similar material adorned its waist. Flowing white cloth fell from his waist.
His face, she thought, was beautiful, though his eyes were as empty as those she had seen on a corpse. What… sort of creature was this?
“Watch.” The voice implored again.
She did so.
“Stop all that screaming.” The man told her father, who appeared to have been rendered immobile. Sava grimaced. She could… something was wrong, coming from the winged man. She felt sick, though not in her stomach… In her soul, perhaps. Dark magic, the shamans called it. Unnatural - not beholden to the Devourer.
The man dropped her father on the ground. The Warchief did not move.
“What sort of right do you have to come here and kill all my pets, hm?” The man paced over her father’s body, placing his hands behind his back. “An amatuer Planeswalker such as yourself - how newly ascended are you, Orc?” No sound from her father. “Let me guess - A day? Two?” The man stopped pacing, and flexed his wings with a look of curious speculation.
Then he snapped his fingers.
Her father writhed, gasping for breath, and Sava felt distinctly… unnerved. She had never seen him so weakened… Rendered so powerless.
“A-Answers…” Her father managed, rolling onto his front and propping himself on his elbows. The winged man grinned at the word.
“Well, that is serendipitous, because it just so happens that answers are the sort of thing I traffick in.” Her father, who had climbed to his knees, appeared to be in better control of his voice as he replied.
“...Your price, creature? I am lost, confused, and filled with things I cannot understand. I have not much to offer.” The winged man’s face twitched at the word “creature”, but he did not comment or otherwise react to it.
“Everyone has something to offer, Planeswalker. You, more than most. My price is simple. I can give you all the knowledge you seek - but you must give to me knowledge in equal measure.”
“...How.” Her father said flatly, tiredly… defeatedly.
The winged man grinned, and grabbed her father by the skull once more.
“Like so.” He said.
“Watch. Carefully.” The deep voice implored for the third time, and then Sava was screaming along with her father and the winged man.
The pain was worse than anything she ever experienced. Even as she imagined her body being torn apart segment by segment, images flashed before her agonizingly wide eyes. The winged man, bruised, cornered, battered - her father, weeping over a child freshly slain - the dark one, triumphant and with pink skin, standing over his foes - her father, leading a foreign War-Band to battle - the demon, seducing unknowing victims - Kurda, Warchief of the Countless, holding his daughters throat, feeling her heartbeat slow as she vanished from his hands.
Unbidden, words sprung from her mouth.
“Blood calls to blood! Pain reaches through time! Seed, womb, and spark mingle! Time will unite, pain will bind, blood will sing! Spark, spark, spark will burn! In time, pain, and blood!”
She fell weeping to her knees, throat raw, without the presence of mind to believe in the illusion. But she had done it - done as she was told. She watched… She… She looked up.
This was not what had happened. This was wrong.
The winged man - Demon - was staring at her, face unreadable.
“...On your way, Renan. This dream does not belong to you.” A voice, deep and tenebrous - the Skyfather. Vaguely, she felt a presence standing above her. A shadow over her. A warmth enveloping her. But her head was swimming, and she could not focus.
The Demon vanished.
Sava fell into darkness.
***
When she awoke, it was with memories that were not her own.
Her father still sat, staring into the fire. He did not react as she sat up and turned to him. He did not move, and for a moment, she was surprised. Surprised by the white of his beard. The lines of his face… Her memories… no, his memories. They did not line up. She… She was Sava Pith. Not Kurda the Warchief - not her father. Not… Not…
No, that part was fading. She remembered a darkness, and two dead eyes, but that was all.
“I have lived a long, long time, Sava.” The Warchief murmured. “Once, all I wanted was a family to share this gift with. This… ascension.”
“Planeswalker…” Sava whispered, surprised that she understood. Her father looked up at her with a tired sigh.
“...The gift is not what it was. But it was still something I wanted to share. with my family.”
Sava shook her head slowly, sifting through the foreign memories. The things her father had done… The things he knew… But these memories too, were fading.
“...How many hundreds of your children did you kill, hunting for this spark?” She managed hoarsely.
Her father did not respond. She stared bleakly at him.
“You knew.” She said. “You knew once I became like you… That I would not stay. That I would hate you.” Her voice was steady, with the flurry of memories in her head, it was difficult to feel her emotions, difficult to understand how she felt - but she knew what she knew. “Because I hate you. I hate everything you’ve done - how I was never meant to escape from your shadow. And you killed them anyway.” She searched the quickly vanishing memories, and her father’s slowly grimacing face, for answers. But all at once, there were none. “...Why?”
The Warchief shook his head slowly.
“My words will fail me.”
The memories faded, and with them, the whirlwind of thought that had cluttered her head. Now, free from the torrent, she felt rage. Hot, red, anger filled her veins. Filled her vision.
The first thing she saw after that was her father’s axe.
The second was a great deal of blood.
Sava pith seethed, and snarled, wide-eyed, at the impaled body of her father - Kurda, Warchief of the Countless. An Orc who had lost all he had on his brutal home plane, and attempted to find solace in a family he would always outlive. He did not even have the decency to look surprised.
“This was always my fate…” He muttered. He had not even moved to stop her, she saw now. He had just… sat there. “Blood… calls to blood. In time. In pain. In… blood.” And, once again, tears were flowing down her father’s face. She bared her teeth. How dare he weep! “My burden was never… meant to be mine. Always yours, Sava… Always… yours…” He heaved, and shuttered, inhaling one last time. “Find… The Skyfather… Find… The demon…”
His eyes closed.
Sava screamed.
“No!” She brutally tore the axe from his chest and tossed it aside. “No, I will not - What burden? What demon? What Skyfather? Answer me!” She grabbed the corpse by the shoulders, and shook. “I will not live the life you’ve chosen for me! I will not be a slave to your destiny!” She felt something within the body stir, and she watched in horror as blood began to ooze from the cavity in her father’s chest, towards her. She let go of the corpse with another shout, but the blood had already begun to float and flow around her, brushing against her skin and filling the air with warmth and copper scent.
All at once, it fell onto her flesh, seeping through her clothes, and burned.
She felt all her muscles flex in defiance of the whatever vile sorcery this was, and she roared in rage for a third time.
The burning subsided, however, and the echo of her scream faded into the night. The fire, she saw, was puttering out. Her father’s body was growing cool.
“Blood calls to blood…” A voice - her father’s voice - murmured in her mind. “In time. In pain. In blood.” And then, there was silence.
Sava’s entire body quivered with rage, grief, and despair. She fell to her knees, and clawed at the sand, as the culmination of everything she did not understand overtook her, and she screamed her frustration into the night with enormous, racking sobs.
Sava Pith, Eighthborn of the Warchief, knelt before her father’s corpse.
Dossier
Background Sava Pith was always groomed to die, from the day she was born. Her father, Kurda the Warchief, challenged all of his children to trial by combat, and none had yet survived his savagery. Sava could not have imagined the reasoning behind it - not even after her spark ignited during that fateful struggle. After a strange vision quest leaves her disoriented and her father dead at her hands, she has a head full of voices that are not her own and a heart full of resentment about the fate that has been forced upon her. She desires nothing more than to be free of this curse - though as she travels the Multiverse, she is beginning to fear that the only way to do so would be to follow in the footsteps of her father.
And she's not certain if that's something she can do - or if she even should.
Appearance and Personality Sava Pith is a female half-orc, with a powerful build and features. Her nose and brow are thick, her hair is black, long, and coarse, and she rarely tames it. Her eyes are sharp, yellow, and quick, and her lower canines stick up slightly from her lower lip. She is muscular, buxom, and quick to anger. She is not above distracting herself from the voices in her head through battle, though she is also partial to general raucous behavior - anything loud enough to drown at the whispering.
She is confident and will not let an insult slide by unanswered. She makes friends as fast as she leaves them behind, and has little concern with relationships she makes or leaves behind. Mostly, they are convenient, and she does not believe expecting anything from her outside of what was actually agree upon is logical or even fair. In truth, she does not wish to promise anything to anyone out of fear of losing more control over her life than she has already lost.
She hates dragons and demons and avoids them at all costs.
Abilities
Sava was always a powerful and hardy combatant - thanks to both her father's blood and his rigorous training. She favors an enormous double-handed axe that she "inherited" from her father, and never lets out of her sight. Whatever "curse" her father left her with has also had the unexpected benefit of bestowing upon her a great deal of his strategic knowledge and combat prowess. Though she was always a fierce fighter, now combined with the abilities of her ancient father, she is truly a machine of destruction - if an amateurish one.
She specializes in augmenting her own size, strength, and speed. She is also mostly immune to magic that directly influences the mind, which comes from constantly fighting off the hold of whatever magic she had inherited from her father. If fighting with any sort of allies, she acts as a rallying force and energetic center of battle. The command and bolstering of troops and warriors comes easily to her - and though she likes to believe this is her own natural charisma, she must grudgingly admit that her father is, once again, probably to blame.
Card
Sava Pith
Planeswalker - Sava
[+1]: Creatures you control gain haste and first strike until the end of the turn.
[0]: Sava Pith deals X damage to target creature, where X is the number of loyalty counters on Sava Pith.
[-5]: Put a 7/1 Red Legendary Warrior token named "Sava Pith" with haste, trample, hexproof, and indestructible onto the battlefield. Sacrifice it at the end of the turn.
{2}
And she's not certain if that's something she can do - or if she even should.
Appearance and Personality Sava Pith is a female half-orc, with a powerful build and features. Her nose and brow are thick, her hair is black, long, and coarse, and she rarely tames it. Her eyes are sharp, yellow, and quick, and her lower canines stick up slightly from her lower lip. She is muscular, buxom, and quick to anger. She is not above distracting herself from the voices in her head through battle, though she is also partial to general raucous behavior - anything loud enough to drown at the whispering.
She is confident and will not let an insult slide by unanswered. She makes friends as fast as she leaves them behind, and has little concern with relationships she makes or leaves behind. Mostly, they are convenient, and she does not believe expecting anything from her outside of what was actually agree upon is logical or even fair. In truth, she does not wish to promise anything to anyone out of fear of losing more control over her life than she has already lost.
She hates dragons and demons and avoids them at all costs.
Abilities
Sava was always a powerful and hardy combatant - thanks to both her father's blood and his rigorous training. She favors an enormous double-handed axe that she "inherited" from her father, and never lets out of her sight. Whatever "curse" her father left her with has also had the unexpected benefit of bestowing upon her a great deal of his strategic knowledge and combat prowess. Though she was always a fierce fighter, now combined with the abilities of her ancient father, she is truly a machine of destruction - if an amateurish one.
She specializes in augmenting her own size, strength, and speed. She is also mostly immune to magic that directly influences the mind, which comes from constantly fighting off the hold of whatever magic she had inherited from her father. If fighting with any sort of allies, she acts as a rallying force and energetic center of battle. The command and bolstering of troops and warriors comes easily to her - and though she likes to believe this is her own natural charisma, she must grudgingly admit that her father is, once again, probably to blame.
Card
Sava Pith
Planeswalker - Sava
[+1]: Creatures you control gain haste and first strike until the end of the turn.
[0]: Sava Pith deals X damage to target creature, where X is the number of loyalty counters on Sava Pith.
[-5]: Put a 7/1 Red Legendary Warrior token named "Sava Pith" with haste, trample, hexproof, and indestructible onto the battlefield. Sacrifice it at the end of the turn.
{2}
