Justice

The thing she remembers the most is the cold. How it pressed around her like a weight, heavy and dull, numbing in its completeness. The most remarkable thing about the wind was that there wasn’t any, the air still and silent and agonizing as she just… laid there, on her side, curled in on herself with her knees nearly folded to her chest while one hand traced nonsensical symbols in the blood-soaked earth.

It was hers, hers, hers, and she must have been so afraid, oh, why did she send her away first? Why did she think she could evade the Warders, why did she keep her here in the first place, why didn’t she leave when she asked her to — ?

The thoughts raced, breathless and instant, through her mind in a blur of tangled up regrets. They were sharp, bleeding things that cut at her with insistent what-if’s and should-have-done’s. But there was nothing to be done now, no hope.

Asta didn’t remember closing her eyes, but they must have. Her hand was still over the bloody stain, the soil churned up and dark. She blinked in the low light, eyes drifting upward and watching snowfall. It was falling like dust, pale and perfect, but in the back of her mind she knew it was the wrong season.

As if summoned by the thought, there was a heavy step at the far edge of the clearing. It was followed by another, and another, a slow shuffling that made the air colder as it approached her. Her black fur was dusted over with snow, her points fading out to grey as she moved into better view.

It took a great deal of effort, the cold making her movements stiff and painful as Asta finally forced herself to sitting. Mother Bear continued her slow steps, stopping just short of the viera and meeting her gaze with sightless blue eyes. Her cubs, younger elementals, peered at her from the treeline, heads bobbing with curiosity while their Mother lowered her great head to sniff at the bloodied earth.

“They took her from me,” the words spilled out, quietly. Agonizingly. “She was no Other. But it did not matter.” Bitterness soured her tone, guilt weaving around it in a tidy knot.

Mother Bear simply stood silent, head cocked to the side to listen. Asta could do nothing more then stare at her hands, caked with dirt and old blood, frozen to the spot.

“I want — “ What did she want? There was a dozen things she wanted, things that could happen, and things that were simply fantasy. “I want to know what happened.”

She wasn’t sure Mother Bear could tell her what happened, if she would even honor Asta’s heartbroken plea for an Outsider. Instead, she took a step forward, planting a massive paw over the center of the stain and staring into the Walker’s eyes expectantly.

It was an invitation, but she hesitated even as Mother Bear chuffed impatiently. Asta knelt forward, lifting her bloodied hands and pressing them to the great elemental’s head and opening herself up. Waiting to feel the cold press of the Mother’s mind against her’s.

It was blinding at first, as it always was. She could see it, there, but she was not there. Bells ago, when the sun was still high and hot in the sky, a woman stumbled into the clearing. Hyuran, spattered with blood, blood that wasn’t her’s.

She was gasping, great gulps of air as she tried to stagger to her feet, finally managing to crawl her way to the riverbank and splash water on her face.

Already Asta could feel the pit in her stomach, her ears pressing down as the knot tightened. It wasn’t right; the air was still, quiet. Where was the bird song? Where was the snapping of twigs or the crackling of leaves by some unknown beast hiding out of sight in the brush?

The woman felt it too, suddenly going still with her hands half to her face to wash the blood. She turned, slow, quiet, trying to keep the leather of her gear from creaking just as Asta had showed her.

She was waiting.

Slowly, painfully slow, she lowered her hands back to the river to keep from splashing. Her eyes were trained on the treeline, too wide, before she planted her hands on the soft earth and lunged forward.

The soft earth of the banks made her feet sink as she surged up and forward, making a mad dash for the cover of the brambles nearby. She scrambled on all fours for a moment, fighting the very ground as it threatened to trip her with each sucked-mud step, stealing precious beats away and making it all the more unlikely she would escape —

She was finally clear of the mud, but she faltered just short of cover with a startled cry. Fletched arrows peppered her back, deep enough that even if they weren’t cruelly barbed there was little hope of removing them — but still she fought. She pulled herself forward on her hands, trying to drag herself away…

Only for the Warder to pull her back by her ankle.

He dragged her to the clearing, well away from the river to keep her blood from the water. The woman cried out, her fingers trying to catch but the soil was too loose, too soft, and all that did was leave deep furrows in the mud.

Another Warder, younger, came out of his hide. The bowman that had struck her down. He watched the older man, the wolf circling and casting his sharp glare across the clearing to be sure there were no Others to interfere with the bloody work.

“Please,” she choked out, forcing herself up, trying to sit, and only being able to support herself on her arms. Her legs didn’t want to work, the numbness spreading from her waist down. “Please.”

The older of the pair turned on her then, a wicked blade sliding free of its hiding place in his boot. “The time to beg is passed,” the words were low, scratching together like rocks. A voice not used to talking.

She shook her head, looking up at her executioner as he neared. The blade was naked in his hand at his side, and he bore down on her with all the malice of a predator.

“Its not my life that I beg for,” she said more forcefully, glaring at him, teeth bared. “Please, when you’re done — don’t leave me here for her to find.” Her face softened, her final moments clouded as Death loomed over her. “I don’t want this to be her final memory of me.” She took a shaky breath, her eyes closing as he stopped just short of her, grasping her hair with a firm yank. “She is punished enough.”

There was a moment, perfect, timeless, crystalline in its clarity as he stood over her. Her neck pulled taut and bared to the blade, the Warder hesitating.

“I will grant her this mercy.” His hand tensed over the blade, preparing to draw. “You will have that wish, if only for her.”

There was a rush of wind, the blood pounding in Asta’s ears thudding loud enough to deafen her. The pressure built and built, blinding her as she took one ragged breath after another. The vision had cut short then, or perhaps her mind was protecting her from what she’d seen, her vision narrowed down to that spot of blood staining the circle she stood in.

The pounding in her head grew to something intolerable, a drumming that beat along her veins like a physical force. She was still clutching at Mother Bear, the only force that was grounding her as she stared down at the blood at her feet.

It was too much, this feeling, expanding outward and threatening to burst from her skin. The very air burned in her lungs, the pulsing rage clawing at her heart as she let go of the elemental and staggered, dropping back to her knees.

Asta couldn’t breathe fast enough, there wasn’t enough air, suddenly suffocating under the weight of what she now knew. What she now felt. She screamed, wordlessly, shriek after shriek to rend the heavens above as the Mother stood over her. The other elementals, her children, quailed at the sound, driven back to the treeline by the outburst.

The rage burned along her skin like a physical thing, the static in her head the only thing louder than the blood beating through her heart. She had to release it, she had to get it out or she would go mad, this hate that suddenly burst forth like a grotesque weed.

Her shrieks abruptly stopped, replaced by an almost feral panting as she raked at the offensive red earth under her fingertips. She dug, great handfuls of earth clawed out until she touched untainted soil. The bloodied dirt only seemed to fuel her rage, feeding the creature that now rode Asta like a second skin.

Another scream, and she plunged her hands into the clean soil, fingers claw like as she forced the static inwards. With a jolt, she felt it. The lifestream, the network of energy that ran through the Wood like ant tunnels, and she could See it. She could sense every one of the monsters like a spider in her web, each one of their threads bright and connected.

Asta leaned forward, her wide and bright, and plucked the thread she’d found. She pulled it, yanked it as hard as she could, her teeth grit and bared.

A wolf baring down on a lamb.

The thread unraveled in her grasp, snapping with satisfying pluck as she pulled it free of the web. She half expected to feel relief, to feel the rage and grief subside, but it only grew louder.

Asta had tasted blood, and now it was the only thing she craved.

She knew the threads she pulled, could see their faces as clearly as if she stood in front of them, and as she snapped one after another, it became less about justice and more about soothing the hate that had suddenly burrowed into her chest.

Each kill only deepened the chasm, forming a bloody border that marked the territory the Hyuran had once walked. Even this was not enough to satisfy Asta, and she made to cast out her net wider. To find others just as responsible for her grief.

Enough.

It wasn’t a voice but a feeling, Asta suddenly jarred from her hunt. She blinked, her connection interrupted, as she glared up at the Mother.

It is done.

Bile rose up in her then, her jaw clenching as she watched the Elemental raise her head. She called her children back to her, but they stayed in the treeline as if unable to move.

“It will never be done,” Asta hissed, digging her fingers deeper into the earth. She poured the last shreds of her rage into the land, binding herself to the blood that soaked through it. Binding the energy of those she had killed in her rage to the land to reinforce the border she’d formed.

“They have taken from me, that which I can never get back.” The rage was still hot on her tongue, the words searing as they hit the air. “So I will take from them, and none will ever step foot where she had. As long as I hold this pain with me, they will be punished.”

Mother Bear stood, head cocked as she watched the Walker poisoning the land with her own hate. Worse still was the grief she poured in after it, a madness that would take its own time to heal. They have paid their price.

“They have not!” The words roared, shaking the trees even in this aetherial prison. Raging, burning, and painful, the cold suddenly unbearable as the cubs found themselves trapped. “They will know loss as I do now, and be banished for it.”

The cubs gathered around their Mother, frightened, while she could do nothing but look on at the feral thing the Walker had become. Her grief had twisted her, the agony of loss turning her into a being of hate and vengeance — and she felt pity.

This was not a wound that could be healed in a day. A moon. A year.

You will heal, in time. She stepped away from her children, unable to force the boundary that trapped her kin. The prison Asta had made for them, and herself. But now you must grieve. That is the Will of the Wood.

Mother Bear gathered what children she had here in the clearing, settling for the long night as Asta collapsed under the weight of her own rage.