Tremors in the Earth (Summer Challenge x2, Malt, etc.)
‘Verse: Natural Forces
Challenges/Toppings/Extras: Summer Challenge ‘14: Special Brownie #20 (How can you run when you know?) & Akutaq #4 (bear insurance) + Malt (am I thinking what I think I'm thinking?) + Butterscotch + Sprinkles + Cookie Crumbs (of Head for the Hills) + Chopped Nuts
Rating: M (death, though less graphic than in Head for the Hills)
Title: Tremors in the Earth
Summary: Of Monsters and men. A different ending… or is it?
Notes: The first part is a Cookie Crumbs of Head for the Hills, but with a different ending which makes it Chopped Nuts as well. Kindly read that first, but you don't need to to understand this on a basic level.
Also, for those who don't know, "bear insurance" means, when going into the wilderness, taking along someone you can outrun. ;)
“Let’s go hunt the monster,” he’d said. “Let’s bring back its head on a pike,” he’d said (never mind he had no idea what a pike was, the phrase having outlived at least one of its component ideas). And Vainar had listened to him. Or rather, not listened to him, as he was wont to do. After a while, Ilma thought, his long-suffering friend had stopped listening altogether.
Stupid Louhi; it was her words worming their way through the pleasantly-drunk fog that set him a-thinking in the first place. And all his buddies knew that Bad Things happened when Ilma Aulisen started thinking, started plotting.
Like now. Like monster hunting.
He didn’t care.
"I'm going to kill that monster before you can even fire a single Curse," Ilma said, not really thinking about what was falling out of his mouth. He was riding a wave of drunkenness and that strange herb Petri had passed around in the small hours of the morning, before half the group had passed out and Louhi started moaning to Div (of all people!) about how scary it was on the outskirts of town and would he please carry her home tonight.
The stick he was holding made the cut on his palm burn every time he twirled it, but the pain wasn’t going to cut completely through his high, and it helped to be a teensy bit distracted from the Louhi-Div debacle. What would burst from his mouth next? “You don’t believe me, do you? I swear, it’s around here somewhere. Louhi was very clear on that-” He broke himself off, as it was sinking in, at least a little bit, that he had gotten his information from Louhi. But, before he could turn around and march back to the village, the high surged up and carried him away. “-and I know I heard her tell Div that she saw a shadow as big as a house moving in this direction-” He cut himself off again. What the hell was he doing?
Vainar was saying something, but the herb-high was back, and Ilma suddenly found that he couldn’t walk properly. He fell to his knees, the winter forest spinning around him, and something flashed above his head. Something brown-black, covered in stiff hair and huge that was most certainly not there before.
“Ilma!” Vainar screamed, but the monster was gone again, flashed back into the protection of the forest. It was fast. Or maybe it was teleporting with Change magic - that was a thought! - and they were already dead, but at least the flood of adrenaline was pushing down the herb-high and Ilma was able to push to his feet, turn, make a step, another, grab his startled friend by the arm and start running.
They ran, careening through the forest, following their own footprints back towards the village. Ilma’s breath came in fast pants, Vainar’s in strangled gasps (never was much of a runner) and the monster’s howls echoed all around them, but they were not dead yet if the painful seizing of his heart was any indication.
The village’s lights appeared in the distance, and Vainar had a thought. The monster’s howls were closer now, the whump-hah of its breath practically on their necks, and Vainar was falling behind, dragging Ilma down. They would both die at this rate.
Oh God, forgive me, Ilma thought, and let Vainar go. His friend made a disbelieving, high-pitched noise, and immediately faceplanted in the snow. Ilma sped away, not wanting to hear what was inevitable, but Vainar’s scream, his last scream, still shot straight to his heart, nearly making him stop then and there.
What was done was done, and Vainar was dead.
Ilma stumbled into the village as if the Hellhounds themselves were behind him, tearstains streaking his face, but when the available men and women in the village were gathered to hunt down Vainar’s killer, it was gone. So was Vainar’s body, but even the monster, and the animals of the forest, couldn’t hide the pool of blood that still stained the snow in the forest where he died.
Ilma lived. For a short time, but the guilt, and the looks he imagined came from the rest of the village, was too much.
And in the end, that disastrous morning in the forest stole two lives, and marred the village forever. Though Div would be the one to slay the monster, no one would ever forget Vainar and Ilma, the friends who first encountered Achan and were slain, directly and indirectly, by the beast.
Challenges/Toppings/Extras: Summer Challenge ‘14: Special Brownie #20 (How can you run when you know?) & Akutaq #4 (bear insurance) + Malt (am I thinking what I think I'm thinking?) + Butterscotch + Sprinkles + Cookie Crumbs (of Head for the Hills) + Chopped Nuts
Rating: M (death, though less graphic than in Head for the Hills)
Title: Tremors in the Earth
Summary: Of Monsters and men. A different ending… or is it?
Notes: The first part is a Cookie Crumbs of Head for the Hills, but with a different ending which makes it Chopped Nuts as well. Kindly read that first, but you don't need to to understand this on a basic level.
Also, for those who don't know, "bear insurance" means, when going into the wilderness, taking along someone you can outrun. ;)
“Let’s go hunt the monster,” he’d said. “Let’s bring back its head on a pike,” he’d said (never mind he had no idea what a pike was, the phrase having outlived at least one of its component ideas). And Vainar had listened to him. Or rather, not listened to him, as he was wont to do. After a while, Ilma thought, his long-suffering friend had stopped listening altogether.
Stupid Louhi; it was her words worming their way through the pleasantly-drunk fog that set him a-thinking in the first place. And all his buddies knew that Bad Things happened when Ilma Aulisen started thinking, started plotting.
Like now. Like monster hunting.
He didn’t care.
"I'm going to kill that monster before you can even fire a single Curse," Ilma said, not really thinking about what was falling out of his mouth. He was riding a wave of drunkenness and that strange herb Petri had passed around in the small hours of the morning, before half the group had passed out and Louhi started moaning to Div (of all people!) about how scary it was on the outskirts of town and would he please carry her home tonight.
The stick he was holding made the cut on his palm burn every time he twirled it, but the pain wasn’t going to cut completely through his high, and it helped to be a teensy bit distracted from the Louhi-Div debacle. What would burst from his mouth next? “You don’t believe me, do you? I swear, it’s around here somewhere. Louhi was very clear on that-” He broke himself off, as it was sinking in, at least a little bit, that he had gotten his information from Louhi. But, before he could turn around and march back to the village, the high surged up and carried him away. “-and I know I heard her tell Div that she saw a shadow as big as a house moving in this direction-” He cut himself off again. What the hell was he doing?
Vainar was saying something, but the herb-high was back, and Ilma suddenly found that he couldn’t walk properly. He fell to his knees, the winter forest spinning around him, and something flashed above his head. Something brown-black, covered in stiff hair and huge that was most certainly not there before.
“Ilma!” Vainar screamed, but the monster was gone again, flashed back into the protection of the forest. It was fast. Or maybe it was teleporting with Change magic - that was a thought! - and they were already dead, but at least the flood of adrenaline was pushing down the herb-high and Ilma was able to push to his feet, turn, make a step, another, grab his startled friend by the arm and start running.
They ran, careening through the forest, following their own footprints back towards the village. Ilma’s breath came in fast pants, Vainar’s in strangled gasps (never was much of a runner) and the monster’s howls echoed all around them, but they were not dead yet if the painful seizing of his heart was any indication.
The village’s lights appeared in the distance, and Vainar had a thought. The monster’s howls were closer now, the whump-hah of its breath practically on their necks, and Vainar was falling behind, dragging Ilma down. They would both die at this rate.
Oh God, forgive me, Ilma thought, and let Vainar go. His friend made a disbelieving, high-pitched noise, and immediately faceplanted in the snow. Ilma sped away, not wanting to hear what was inevitable, but Vainar’s scream, his last scream, still shot straight to his heart, nearly making him stop then and there.
What was done was done, and Vainar was dead.
Ilma stumbled into the village as if the Hellhounds themselves were behind him, tearstains streaking his face, but when the available men and women in the village were gathered to hunt down Vainar’s killer, it was gone. So was Vainar’s body, but even the monster, and the animals of the forest, couldn’t hide the pool of blood that still stained the snow in the forest where he died.
Ilma lived. For a short time, but the guilt, and the looks he imagined came from the rest of the village, was too much.
And in the end, that disastrous morning in the forest stole two lives, and marred the village forever. Though Div would be the one to slay the monster, no one would ever forget Vainar and Ilma, the friends who first encountered Achan and were slain, directly and indirectly, by the beast.