Free Faller

Starless

Finally got my post up too. The army got me sick (and yeah, it's totally their fault) so I've been having fun dealing with the flu all weekend, so it took longer than expected. But there it is; a little bit wall-ish, but there.

Starless

Zahra

.قهرمان ما دوباره آمده است. در عقل سلفها ما، شادی می کنیم

Zahra watched on as the village elder whipped the people around them into a frenzied state, a storm of human emotion twisting through the streets in electrified energy that pulsed painfully in her eardrums. People stared at her with an adoration that made Zahra’s skin crawl as if dozens of fire ants marched across her body, nipping at her exposed skin as they went along. She did not want it, any of it. Their awe, their idolization, their glorification of the things she had suffered throughout her life, or even their celebrations that she had been ripped from her oblivion and thrown into chaos once more. The old woman’s beseeching words grew more fervent with each breath and the Lioness realized then that the rebirth she had at first considered a gift, may actually have come at a terrible price.

Stop the world from dying? How could they expect such a feat from her, from anyone short of the Gods? True, in her life she had been an allomancer of exceeding power. She had done things that those that came before her had never been able to accomplish with their magics. But she was just one woman. One woman who had perished in the rebellion her own lust for vengeance had brought to pass. One who had never stepped foot outside of the deserts of her homeland. She was not like the legends of the old stories that she’d grown up on as a child. She had not traversed the lands looking for lost lambs to protect out of the goodness of her heart, slain entire armies with a single blast of magic, built an empire or entire nation from nothing, nor did she ever have the blessing of the Gods guide her every move. Zahra was only a woman, a tired woman with hands sullied by the blood of countless enemies and allies alike. However many generations she had spent in death had done nothing to ease her jaded spirit. She did not need paradise. She did not need to be remembered. She simply needed peace.

But it did not matter, she thought wearily as her somber gaze swept across the crowd, scanning the faces around her for familiarity she would not find. Regardless of how much time had passed, these were the children of her children, the children of the warriors that had become her kin, the children of the Dust. She would not abandon her own to their ill-fate, though she knew not of what could threaten the very existence of their world or how she could hope to stop it. If she was brought back from eternity to die beside them again, so be it. Maybe the Gods had granted her another chance to cleanse her spirit and atone for the lives she had ended, or maybe they wished to push her further into the blackness. It seemed they were fickle creatures, she thought as eyes and a long-fingered hand brushed across her middle where her ghastly scar lay.

.مردان آلوده نزدیک میشود اما قلب را بگیرید، کودکان، قهرمان شمشیر او را می کشد

A quiet so absolute blanketed the town that even the buzzing whine of the desert insects stopped so as to not disturb the moment. Zahra’s eyes snapped up to meet the cause and upon seeing the hulking perversions of men entering the town, those eyes grew so intense it seemed like her inner fire had leaped up through her throat to set them ablaze. The fear from the people around her grew palpable and Zahra set her feet apart in anticipation of a fight.

“You! People!” The leader spat and approached the elder, ill-intent plastered across his grotesque features. “Our… Dowry. You pay. Or die.”

The beseeching look the old woman gave her while being clutched by the monsterish man caused him to turn his attention to Zahra for the first time. Her searing stare made the thing visibly bristle at the unspoken challenge and he dropped the shirts of the old woman to spin full on to the only one of these desert people not cowering in his presence, this weaponless woman wearing not but a robe that she had to hold close with her own hand.

He stepped up to her in snarling menace, meaning to tower over the woman and insert his dominance. Make her fear him. But he didn’t loom over her so much as he would had thought; the woman was tall, and while he still had many inches over her, the woman’s six feet and daunting countenance made it seem much less. He pulled an ugly knife from his belt to brandish in front of her face. “Woman, kneel!”

But the Iron-Toothed only ignored his request, giving the crude weapon only a cursory glance, and more than that she leaned around him to speak to the elder. “Arshad, fizalat barai mun daried?” she asked in the ancient language of the deserts so that the invaders wouldn’t understand, seeking her metals. Though her fires yet again warmed her depths, she didn’t have sufficient fuel in which to burn.

The elder looked confused for a moment, but then nodded slightly. Good, Zahra had hoped that was the case since they had said they’d been expecting her return. She had been slowly pulling the dredges of metal inside her blood and body towards her center since the raiders arrival, but what she could gather wouldn’t last long. And pewter, the metal she desired most at the moment, could not be found naturally within the human body. She had noted that all the buildings around had swirling patterns made of her three metals inlaid into the walls -a purposeful design in homage to her, no doubt- and she supposed she could have taken her metal from those, but she would prefer that her first act since returning from death not be gnawing on the side of a house.

“Bring it,” she ordered in the common tongue they’d been speaking in, her voice heavily laden with the thick accent of the deserts. The sub-human before her seemed to relax back into his over confidence upon those two words, probably assuming Zahra meant for them to bring his dowry. She continued to watch his knife with her inner sense that allowed her to “see” even the tiniest filing of metals, however, just in case he decided he’d try to be the second person to spill her guts upon the sands. Fortunately he seemed content on just getting his prize and leaving, even with her slight of not groveling before him. His band was outnumbered here, and the only thing that let him control her people was their own fear. She would remedy that. She’d enjoy remedying that.

A youth just old enough to have a sword slapping at his hip as he ran came bumbling up to Zahra and the leader of the sub-men, and the woman held out her hand expectantly for the three small pouches clutched to his chest. The young warrior nearly threw the things at her to scramble back from the danger. She’d forgive it, though, hearing the small beads of metal clicking together delightfully in their tiny cloth bags. The thing in front of her seemed less enthused when she open the bags to reveal them.

“What this!?!” It exclaimed in a seething rasp. The mutated face contorted into anger and the knife gripped in his meaty hands flashed towards her throat.

It tip of the blade stopped mere centimeters from the soft skin of Zahra’s neck. The man roared as his arm, then both, strained against the unseen force keeping the knife at bay. Confusion now mingled amongst the fury. His mind troubled to comprehend the situation in which he now found himself.

The corner of the legendary freedom fighter of the Dusts mouth twitched upward slightly and then the monsterish man was impaling himself in the throat. His life-blood was soaked up greedily by the parched sands as he gurgled out his last dying breaths; drowning on his own blood. Zahra stepped over the almost-corpse and slipped three beads -one of each of her favored metals- into her mouth. The effect was immediate. Her fires flared and heat seeped into every part of her body and it hummed in her ears. These towering brutes would not survive the transgressions they’d brought upon her kin.

The Iron-Toothed lept into the air and used her magic to pull herself towards the group of intruders on their beasts. They’d barely had time enough to unsheath their crudely forged weapons before she was upon them, landing in their midst in a billow of silken robe and crimson sand. She pushed out her power in a burst and sent both weapon and armor-clad beast into the walls of the surrounding city. Those she’d caught were crushed between the weight of her own power and the thick stone. Bones cracked and inhuman wails of pain punctuated the quiet that had descended on the town.

She dropped her hold and bodies crumpled into the sand at the base of walls, her eyes sweeping over the enemies converging on her. Zahra stood to meet them, bringing a fallen sword to her hand in the process. The pewter burning in her core gave her far more strength, speed, and agility than any normal man was capable so when she brought her sword to bear against the first of the giant wolf-beasts she was able to duck beneath its mashing jaws to lodge it in its neck, sending the creature and its rider toppling across the sands.

An onslaught of blades and teeth came at her in rapid procession as the rest of the small pack reached her. But a lifetime of honing her natural fighting skills and years of heading armies with her allomancy made her a force to be reckoned with. She flowed around attacks with an astounding amount of control and grace, pushing them aside with both blade and magic. Zahra was the antithesis of these brutes who brazenly flung their strength and steel at her.

Zahra pushed a blade from its wielder and used the opening she’d created to decapitate the sub-human with her borrowed sword. That had given her a gap and she spun a menacing circle in the ten feet of empty sands she’d forced for herself. Sweat and blood covered her now and she imagined she looked much like the Daeva she’d often been compared to in life. It seemed the sub-humans thought that too. None of those still alive and uninjured enough to fight her dared breach the open ground between them now. They were afraid. She could see it roiling off them now.

But then, she thought as her eyes raked the village again, so were her own people...

.شن قرمز پر او می نوشد. خشونت قهرمان ترس ایجاد می کند

Starless

@Vigfast That's not a people, that's a Claude Lemieux. Everyone knows that French Canadians aren't real. And even if it was, clearly I was just helping it realize it's life long dream of becoming a turtle. That makes me a pretty nice gal, if you ask me.

Oh, and I'm working on my post now. I'm like halfway through, but I just keep getting distracted by the internet.

Starless

Now, I don't want to say that I have some pretty compelling proof, but here's an undoctored, unedited and raw, completely legit photo of me, Free Dangerous Faller (that's right all you sexies out there, Dangerous is my middle name. How you doin'? ), loving not one, but TWO people at the same time.



So yeah, you know. Suck it.

Starless

@Vigfast Am not! That is a horrible misquote and interpretation of the things that I said. Clearly I love people.

Starless

<Snipped quote by Dawnscroll>

Fair point. RL happens, but dedication is important for an RP. And if you disappear without notice, there's no excuse.

Though I'm sure if necessary the GM can move the plot forward or unstick you out of a situation. Speaking of which, it may be prudent to select a co-GM at some point. I myself wouldn't mind applying for that spot, though I am rather inexperienced unless you count D&D haha.

@VoiD

It's simple. Kill them. Kill them in the most crazy way possibe. Mid conversation. Like a baseball sized meteor just plows into their face.

I totally love all the peoples.

Starless

Haha, PENIS!

That's totally how you do innuendo, right? Lol.

Starless

A few would likely still be intact. Likely the weapons belonging to cultists who died inside buildings and such The rest would have been disintegrated pretty bad.

Also, not demonbone. Just some unusual metal. It's very dark, very sharp, and can't be readily found anywhere on Ansus. Other than that, not too many unique properties.

@Transience

Ca- Can Zahra maybe, I don't know... like, put one of those in her mouth? Give it a bit of a nibble? Certainly nothing could possibly go wrong with consuming dark, spooky cult metal to see if it gave her abilities when she burned it.

Starless

Got my intro up.

And could we perhaps refrain from poking the electricity-spewing dragon with giant, pointy lightning rods? I just feel like it would end up being not-fun times for everyone involved... or in the general vicinity, really.

Starless

زهرا - Zahra

برای تمام زمان قلبهای ما برای او تنگ شده است. او از دست داده است

The cacophony of battle was all around her, deafening in its presence yet fading in uneven rhythms. The sharp clash of weapon upon weapon, upon shield, upon armor, and upon flesh sang its song loudest in Zahra’s unhearing ears. Shouts and lamentations danced desperately among the desert air currents; dervishes swirling in a chaotic rush among the dead and dying, and seeking salvation from the gods as their lights were washed away with the rising of the suns. The sands of their forefathers shifted with the pounding of her people’s feet cascading around her; begging her body, unmoving, to rise and reclaim the honor of those that came before. The first rays of the harsh desert light pricked viciously at eyes already unseeing; beckoning them to gaze upon the fruition of all that her vengeance and strength had wrought. Blood burbled slowly into across her tongue and into the sands; her body offering itself to be consumed in the withering fire of her magic, but no longer did her life-blood possess any remnants of the empowering tang of her element. Finally, the stench of death forced its way into her nostrils; threatening her into action against her own impending demise, but she had already deadened herself to the pungent miasma of decaying life.

The world continued on unrelenting around her and all she could do was fade away. Her body had curled into itself as she had fallen, and now she lay wrapped around the core where her power laid. It was a vain attempt to protect the flickering, quivering flame of her magic from the raging tempest around her. She could only hope that her people would prevail without any further guidance from her, and that maybe after all of this war they’d finally be at peace. That finally she could be at peace as well.

The woman watched with her inner eye as her fire licked slowly and fleetingly at the last residue of power she possessed. It was so reminiscent. Like the countless times she’d held nightwatch over the camp as a young warrior, sitting near the light of the cooking fires and watching the flames wither away. Surrounded by her people, but utterly alone. It was a dissonance she’d always found comforting in life, and she couldn’t help but feel something akin to that as she slipped into death. Slowly she felt the emotions that had carried her through so much drain away with the rest of her.

There was no more anger. No more hatred. No more wrath. No sadness, or pain… Regret. Joy. Pride. Strength. Hope. Nothing.

Then, there was simply no more Zahra.

روی شنهای که در آن او خون ریخت، دوباره قهرمان خودش را پیدا میکند

POP!

GASP!

Pain exploded out from the center of her being, and a pulse with the heat of a thousand infernos shot through every sinew of her body with ruthless abandon, awaking sensations she could never remember feeling and wracking her body in convulsions of power both frighteningly alien and undeniably her own. She continued to seize for several minutes as the torrents of wanton energy ripped through her. Only when she feared that she would be torn asunder again did the energy finally ebb from her body. Her mind quieted as her body did, and rasping breaths was all she could seem to manage at the moment.

Only once in her life had she experienced such a thing, though this time it was compounded ten fold: her breaking. But that was impossible. Allomancers didn’t break more than once. No, it didn’t make sense. Except, wasn’t she dead? There was no way that she could have survived that final battle. Nobody of the tribes possessed any kind of magic that could stop her inevitable fall into nothingness. She certainly didn’t heal herself either, not with so grievous of wounds. She didn’t understand.

Zahra fluttered her eyes open once again to the world of the living, taking in the dusty light that filtered through the small openings in the confines in which she found herself, and the shaft of light that shone intensely at the end opposite of where she lay. The warrior turned her head slowly to the side where a skeletal corpse wrapped in the remains of a silken burial shroud had been gently placed on a slab beside her. She sat up with a start, her gaze sweeping across the room where more dead lay similarly in rows before and beside her.

A tomb... Her tomb? She blinked hard as if readjusting her sight might adjust her situation, but no such mercy was forthcoming. Her daughters. Tradition dictated that only the spouse and children could be laid to rest beside the one that was deemed worthy of a tomb. Her daughters lay beside her, and the next five generations of their kin lay before them all, as was appropriate. Zahra felt as though she should mourn the loss of her children, but found herself unable to with the realization that they had lived a life enough to have children, and those children had had children, and so on. And a line of warriors, if the array of weapons resting at the feet of many of the dead was any indication.

The Iron-Toothed pushed herself onto her bare feet to take tentative steps around the crypt to view those who have been her legacy. Her steps became more steady as her body found its equilibrium in world again, and the flame in her center tempered into a steady blaze. Why she was alive again she could not begin to fathom, but it was a gift of the Gods for sure.

Only after Zahra had made her rounds through the fourth generation of her kin did she notice the gaggle of silk-covered faces peering cautiously through the large opening she’d been slowing making her way towards. It was disconcerting to see other living souls after being among the dead after forefathers-knew-how-long, so for a long moment she didn’t speak and they interlopers seemed content to continue staring.

Finally she followed their eyes to her naked middle and found what had trapped their gazes. Zahra’s hands fluttered to her stomach to run fingers over the vicious scar that puckered and distorted the skin there; the blow that ended her. She felt no physical pain or hinderance from it, but couldn’t help but be a little discomforted. A reminder of her own mortality? Or of her self-sacrifice?

One brave soul threw Zahra out of her contemplation by approaching cautiously with a robe similar in which all the group wore, held open in and waiting for permission to wrap her within. Zahra nodded slightly in acquiescence, allowing the older -or she supposed younger, as it were- woman to engulf her in the silk and lead her with a gentle hand led her to the group that was making quick haste to create her a path in which to walk through them to the outside world. She stepped out into the full light of the desert suns in the midst of a small village of stone and metal building built in same architectural style as the one in which she emerged.

The people alternated between gaping at this unknown woman emerging from what had been the sealed tomb of one of their most famous heroes, to the twisted and warped metal chunk that may have once resembled a door.

“Welcome home, Zahra the Iron-Toothed Lioness,” the old woman said softly as Zahra’s bare feet sank into the desert sands bathed in crimson.

او بیدار شد