Author's Note:
Hi all, just wanted to say if you're looking for a quick trip to the lemons, this isn't it. It's a bit more of a slow burn and part of a bigger, cohesive piece. That being said, enjoy!
--
She stood, a statue of blood. Rivulets flowed through the scores in her amour, drenching her through her plate, mail and leather all the way to her skin. She'd earned the divots through enough battles that she no longer counted, both human and Hell-spawn, but she detested the waste of what flowed through them.
If you were inferior, why resist? Let the Am'thon do what they were born to do. It was their duty.
She felt no guilt as her
Mele'can,
her elite guard, made quick work of the remainder of the opposition. This village was as good as theirs. Still, she held on to the thrum of the Verve, its immense energy coursed through her body, a vibrating pleasure she rarely let herself experience any longer. She allowed herself to continue surging on the grounds of remaining prepared till the end of the battle, lest something unexpected occur.
"Are they extinguished?" she asked her
Mele'can,
hiding her hope of contradictory indication from her tone. Not that she particularly wanted more resistance. But the idea of releasing the energy thrumming through her...
"Yes,
Ma'thala,
" came the quick reply.
With an inward sigh, Bianca al'Triae the Fierce, eighteenth
Ma'thalan
Matriarch of the
Caltama
tribe, released the Verve. She barely slumped, a testament to her discipline. She had been surging for several hours at a furious pace.
"Very good. I will see the subdued now," she sighed.
I require a daughter,
Bianca thought to herself tiredly as she followed her guard.
Bianca wasn't old and she didn't necessarily want a child for its own sake. Although she was well within child-rearing age by her tribe's estimation, she had only seen eighteen winters yet. Her legs were long, her body was strong, ripe and rounded in the places that made even the men she engaged in combat with look as they tried to kill her. Entirely impractical in the physical sense, but incredibly effective against the male sex. No, Bianca's difficulties only stemmed from her colossal ability to tap into the Verve. She had grown too strong, too quickly, and was increasingly a weakness to the tribe.
The Verve was the everflowing river, the tide of time, the energy of the world. Uniquely blessed with its surge, the
Caltama
tribe was often honored with leading the tribes in repelling the Terrors of the darkened territories. Each of their young was born with the ability to tap the Verve, without fail. The longer one lived and trained, the bigger the connection one could open into the Verve.
Bianca surveyed the village as she walked through it. More of a ragtag gathering of huts in the middle of a forest rather than a village, she noted. Perhaps it only looked that way because the majority were burning. In any case, she couldn't help but compare it against her home territory of
Caltama
with its beautiful stone temples and granite walls, only possible through the power of the Verve.
The Verve enhanced one's physical speed and strength, but also their reflexes and mental acuity. Things could be processed quicker, producing sometimes terrible efficiency in the heat of combat. Certain manifestations could also be cultivated, called
Ikim,
or *Kairn, appearing in women or men, respectively. The ability to heal at speed, to lend energy to the weak, even the ability to produce physical manifestations of the Verve as pure light that could cut through bedrock had all been logged in the archives -- though someone with the ability to generate a blade of Verve had not been seen since the time of the temples' creation. Bianca herself had manifested a rare hereditary
Ikim
, of healing with the Verve.
Bianca gazed jealously at her
Mele'can
as they strode in their joyous pairs. Each pair always took turns surging, staying on guard for their
Ma'thala,
who could not risk a careless surge. She sighed internally yet again, remembering when she had been
Mele'can,
before her trial, before her challenge issuance.
Before she had grown far, far too strong.
The problem arose in the buffer between an individual and the Verve. The larger the connection, the more focus it took to open the connection, and the longer it was required to sustain such focus. Bianca was at the stage where she required several minutes of meditation to involve herself in any fight with the full protection of the Verve. She had passed the practical stage of surging, now needing her elite guard to protect her while she meditated before battle, and indeed had stopped training entirely, only allowing herself to surge when necessary. It had happened before, though rarely. It signified an overwhelming power of bloodline, the elders foaming at the mouth for her potential children. She wouldn't be surprised if they demanded she have more than the usual three daughters.
Bianca was willing. She longed to test her true limits without concerning herself with the battle practicality of her abilities.
If she were to choose a
Ghulam,
a mate, here for example, then she could have a daughter who, when of age, would allow her to pass on
Umantellu
--
the Mantle.
Granted she was strong enough, of course. But Bianca refused to settle for anything less than her standard. And so far...
The
Mele'can
showed her into one of the few huts that wasn't yet burning, the stink of men inside searing her nostrils.
...No man had measured up. She'd shared a few men of at least tolerable smell and stature belonging to her
Mele'can
with them, and even then...Bianca sighed. Something was always...
missing.
Bianca surveyed the subdued -- the men that her
Mele'can
had found worthy of being taken captive.
They were physically attractive, certainly.
Large physical stature, and musculature, many even taller than Bianca herself. Still, she found within herself a distinct lack of appeal to these men. Few could meet her eye, and of those, none made her feel anything other than disgust, and at most, pity.
She was fully aware of her duty to her people and theirs, and the privileges she was offered as a result. She had rights to any fresh pick of the subdued, and she was to choose one and conceive an heir on her terms. Such was the way. Appeal, attraction...these did not factor into the choice. She would act for the good of the tribe, she told herself.
And yet...
She looked at the men again, sighing in defeat. She turned around, shaking her head.
"Shala earned first pick," she informed her guards and began to walk away. They gave a collective groan, flashing handspeak to each other, but they understood her plight even if unable couldn't relate to it. They quickly began divvying men.
The next raid,
she thought to herself.
In the next raid, I will find him.
