-----------Chapter-3--------------Andraste----------------------------------------------

When the world falls apart, at what point do you tell them? How long do you let them sit with that tickling worry before crushing their hope? Tell them too soon draws it out, prolongs that sickening emptiness in the gut, prolongs suffering. Tell them too late and it's you, your fault they didn't have time to stop it. Even when you knew it couldn't be stopped. Not with their power, not with yours. It's all you. Your words will kill them. The only question is when to swing the axe to seal their fate. The question is, what do you do?

The question is, do you even say anything?

The question is, do you do anything at all?


As they neared the river that would take them to the foot of the village the winds danced continually wilder. The sailors braced their backs and bowed their heads as they rowed onwards towards the approaching river mouth.

The girl stood transfixed at the bow, gaze never wavering from the coast and their destination. The wind was her people, her country, her home. Surely, since wind was her gift, this halo of destruction that hovered above Skålvik must also be her burden. Now the winds where shifting, blowing not inshore but back out to sea. The change was not a wonder to her, but rather the puzzle of what she had done to spark such a thing as this attack on Skålvik. For surely simple sailors could not be to blame?

The wind picked up speed and force as they neared the river, becoming a roaring gale as they entered the river canyon. The sailors knew this was wrong, and each felt the terror grip his heart at what might be found in the nearing village.

The steep cliff faces to either side where cold and lifeless as the winds poured through, slowing the ship's pace to a barely maintained crawl. Still they beat onwards upriver, fighting the gale to make their way home. There was a desperation now, and the girl realized it with a start. The men where warriors, they solved their issues with blades wrought of iron, and the scene they would soon find would clearly point blame to her. A new fear thus dawned on her, a fear of not only the powers that destroyed Skålvik but also of the men who had sailed with for this long year.

The wolf picked up on this new fear and his cool, reassuring voice cut into her thoughts.
'we should run,' Fener spoke into her mind, 'as soon as we reach the shore.'
'mhm' she thought back.
'They'll blame us.'
'I don't understand it.'
'Was it you?'
'I don't know.' She thought a bit. 'I didn't do anything.'
'It's something else?'
'Mh. But why?'
He didn't have an answer.

As they rounded the bend of the river, each man felt the panic in his heart. Surely a scout should have seen their approach from up the river and sent others to greet them. By now they all knew something was terribly wrong. The howling winds added to the rising fear as the sailors

The ship cut through choppy waves to crunch on the small sandy beach of the usually quietly sheltered inlet. Here the wind screamed stronger still as it raced back out to sea. The wind carried with it the emptiness of the shattered village.

With hollow hearts the men looked upon a scene so familiar, like every plundered village they had left smoldering in their wake come back to haunt them. But this was different. It was home.

Before the ship hit the beach the men were already leaping out to splash through waist deep water, struggling through the bitter cold to reach the ruined village. Their rage and anger drove them onwards into the courtyard square of the ruins of Skålvik, and through seething eyes they took in a destruction not wrought by human hands.

"This was the wind!" On screamed.
"The gods! Why do they punish us?"
"Not the gods." boomed the voice of the captain, his words dripping with hate, "That wench has betrayed us. The girl, who else could it have been?"

Said girl slipped quietly from the ship onto the beach, followed shortly by Fener. The wolf's paws left deep tracks as they dashed off towards the forest, cutting through the edge of the ruined village. They struggled through ruins and fresh snow, pressing onwards to escape the crew and their fate.

In the village square, almost as if to answer the captain's question, a hulking shape lumbered around from behind the smoking ruins of a smithy. The nearest men shrank back at the sight of the beast before drawing weapons to face it.

"Trolls!" another man came running down from the upper village. "It was trolls!"
He stopped in his tracks upon seeing another such beast turning on his comrades. The men rushed to attack, all thoughts of the girl gone from their mind as the fog of battle closed their senses to all but the fight before them.

Another two trolls, draw by the shouts, rushed to back the first as the sailors unleashed their desperation upon mountain-like beasts.

The clang of swords and the whistling wind engulfed every ear as the men overwhelmed the beast. Each troll fell, and then with a deafening roar the raging winds coalesced upon the square, throwing a blinding flurry of snow into every eye. The wind dissipated, and a man stood, calmly, in the square.

"You!" The captain roared, brandishing his longsword at the strange figure.
"Mmm, yes?" The man smiled, an icy smile that chilled to the bone.
With malice in his eyes the captain charged him, sword held aloft. He swung, what would have been a killing blow.
But he struck only empty air. The man now stood beside him, light on his feet and calm in is stance. The captain swing again, to the same avail.
"What have you done?" the captain cried, "Why?"
"Why!" The man laughed bitterly. "Why? I should ask you!"

The girl heard the clang of swords and, personal danger pushed aside, was overcome with curiosity. She watched this exchange from the edge of the square, out of site from those around.

"You pillage and plunder. You understand the trade." The man said. "I do not seek wealth or benefit here, merely vengeance."
"What are you talking about?" The captain swung again with his full strength, though the stranger dodged again without a scratch. "Who are you?"
"I am Andraste, and your me have destroyed my village!" The man screamed in reply as he threw the captain back with a gust of wind.
"And elemental?" The captain's voice rose in fear. "You're like that girl! Well, you can't have her if that's what you want! She's mine, I found her!"

'We go now.' Fener tugged lightly on her sleeve. The girl nodded, and the pair turned and ran through deep snowdrifts into the waiting woods.

"What?" Andraste stopped, startled by the captain's words. "An elemental, you say? Well, that might merit some investigation." The captain's eyes widened, then he dropped to his knees as the stranger's swift dagger pierced his heart. And with another flurry of wind and snow, Andraste was gone.

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That was amazing. Am glad the trolls where defeated lol

This new guy really seams like a cool character.

Kinder reminded me of this

I finished my story, stored it on a flashdrive, then lost it.
I'll post the rest when I find it.
And then, I'll post the next story. The one over which I am obsessing.
It will be good, I promise. If it's not.... ok, it's just got to be good.
It's got monsters and philosophy. And I'm trying to give it a plot.
So you know, that's all you need, right?
All you need is liberal doses of action, adventure, monsters, bad people, good people, ugly people, pretty people, weird looking floral arangements, more monsters, more very pretty and also very bad people, kind and beautiful single teens of royal descent to be rescued, romance, murder, broken kneecaps, swords, telepathic talking animals, a little girl with a mysterious destiny (woooo cool, or at least try to act surprised), magic, and my own personal philosophy on fear, consciousness, darkness and light, bad people, good people, and what it means to truly be beautiful. It'll be heartwarming! Touching! Tragic! Amazing!
Or, you, know, at least kinda cool.
Besides, did I mention I was trying to add a plot?

Edit: in case it wasn't clear (it wasn't) this new story is about the same girl as the first one, just like 6 or 8 years later. 7 to be exact.

This post was last modified: 08-05-2008 02:52 PM by Qui.

i thought this was really good, you really have talent for writing cant wait to see more

The one thing I'd say, is that learning punctuation will help you to convey your meaning to the reader more effectively. Also, watch the repetition of words, with "unknown" and "fine" cropping up fairly close together. But you were able to recreate the feeling of being on board a ship, and the girl is interesting (who is she? what are her powers? etc.) .... I enjoyed reading this.

Punctuation? Ah, my love affair with the comma has been revealed.
Thank you for pointing out that repetition, I try to refrain from doing that, but obviously to no avail. And here I go again, what with the commas and starting sentences with "and". My grammar sickens me sometimes, though you're perhaps the only other person to comment on it.
I was making an attempt with this little prequel to get people to ask themselves the same questions you ask here (and no, I don't mean "does she know she's over-using commas?"). I wonder, do you think perhaps I should give more information about her here? I know all about her, but intentionally the reader knows very little. I only wonder if perhaps I made her to much a shallow character, so that no one would be interested in digging through a much longer story to find out even so much as her name. As things are, I do intend to withhold her name much longer than the other question, being "what are her powers?". I began to address this in the 4th chapter, but as I have stated previously, that flashdrive grew legs and ran away. Hence the unanswered questions.

Thanks for reading and for pointing out my faults. In the future I shall make a greater attemt to limit my word repetition and comma use.

Well, why not try using semi-colons and colons? I felt that your first few sentences especially suffered through the lack of these excellent writer's tools.

you know i've never really been told what colons and semi colons are specificaly used for, all i've really thought of as a fancy comma. for I myself believe them to useless except for the wonderful smilie faces i make with them



hello happy, just seeing a texted smilie face just makes it feel like everything will be alright

This post was last modified: 09-05-2008 06:11 AM by evanescencefan91.

I read that book "Eats Shoots and Leaves", pretty interesting.
You'd never think that a book about grammar could be so funny, but it rocks.
I should probably re-read that. I'd recomend that to anyone who cares a lick about grammar.

*gets out flash drive hunting rifle*

Time to go flash drive hunting!

*cocks gun loudly like they do in the movies*