Writing Samples
A mortal in search of her brother meets a man imbued with a deity...
Katariyna tipped her chin downward in a silent acknowledgement of Xi's answer, considering its implications. Truthfully, she could understand completely why Vestein would find some savory beauty in not avoiding a blow; in allowing your opponent to connect, to feel the satisfaction of a shambling step toward victory, and to see the pulse of contentment flash across their face in a subtle, toothy grin. Katariyna had been in her fair share of scuffles over the years. None of them had been anywhere near as epic as a duel between magical creatures, but being struck in combat; feeling that pain spark through your abdomen, up into your hear; feeling the adrenaline surge through your body. It made you feel alive.
To that end, she could understand his fault. Yet, it was a fault. In a scuffle between friends, or a tavern-room disagreement, there was an unspoken agreement that the fight ended miles short of grievous wound or fatality. It was a rare occasion when someone ended up truly hurt to the point that they needed the attention of a chirurgeon, or even simple bandages. Often, a cold glass pressed to the head was sufficient. That life had molded Katariyna's sense of honor in a fight: One did not escalate beyond the merit of the disagreement, yet, if the fight were ever to merit something more than blows of a fist, you were to give it the serious reception it deserved. No longer were you to give and take, only to win.
Vestein stopped short of that understand. Perhaps his culture was different. To Katariyna, it felt as if her was throwing his life away.
"...a fault, for sure, Xi," she mused quietly. "Why do you feel he is that way?"
A young inquisitor begins her training...
As the address began, Celia offered her full attention to their instructor for the day. Where often her mind would wander to entertain schemes for the present or visions of the future, in this moment - a moment so crucial to how she would be perceived by those who would shape her life - she found the whole of her being focused on his words.
Celia hadn't found much value in the words of the clergy. The gods were real. She knew that much. She respected them. She prayed to them. She attended her duties, and lived as a respectable member of her class should. She had morals, even if her standard for them wasn't always what she portrayed. Still, the words of these priests, the lofty meaning behind them, and their loose metaphors were lost on her.
No. Celia was concerned with what she could do. She knelt before her gods with the intent to be the guide to their change in the world; to be the warmth of cleansing fire that swept the unclean from their lands; for her eyes to be the watch that kept those creatures barred far from those the citzenry held dear.
Some would fail. Some would falter. Some would die. Not her. Never her.
A possessed Ancient is pushed beyond breaking...
The crack of wood on wood echoed in that forest, far from the Mists she called home.
Beads of sweat dripped from her chin; her bare stomach; her back. Her fingertips trembled around a wooden pole—a broomstick-that-once-was that she'd snapped and crudely refashioned into a makeshift spear with all the craftsmanship of a child with a playset. It had never been her method of choice, but then again, she'd never preferred weapons at all.
Even all the way back then, during her golden age, when spires of polished marble and crystal touched the clouds. She hadn't needed a weapon, save her quick wit and an intellect to rival the gods of realms beyond their touch.
Yet here she was, muscles she didn't know she had aching as if fires burned within. Tired. So tired. Continue, she must. But so tired. Her eyes lidded halfway closed, and if her will were entirely her own, she might have collapsed to the forest floor and slept amid the peat moss and crawling creatures and decaying life in the dirt.
But it wasn't, and so she continued well beyond what was healthy for her body.
She'd studied herself. She knew her body; its limits, and its breaking points, however little she pressed them.
And she was broken, invisibly.
The crack of wood on wood echoed in that forest, and she watched the ground rush up at her.