Cauterization Whump - Tumblr Posts

Faelights- Part one

My wyvern glided over to me, accidentally knocking over the candle, and I grabbed it as it set fire to the floor, then stomped it out. We couldn’t afford a new stall.

Pandolin, screeched and set fire in the stove, then helped me to set up the plants we needed to cook to sell, while I stood at the counter, letting folks come by and ask for certain foods. My magic kept the candle and stove going the whole time.

A few hours into the day, someone came by out of my blind spot. Probably one of the people who couldn’t read the sign.

‘Sorry, ma’am, I can’t see you out of this eye. Please enter my line of vision,’ I said in Kiyeban.

I pointed to my right eye and the other person said in Common, “Apologies, ma’am, I’d prefer to stay anonymous,”

“Oh. Alright. What would you like?”

“I would like the Kwenta.”

The most expensive thing I had, it had a tiny bit of meat on a stick, wrapped in lettuce and toasted in a roll.

“That’ll be fifteen Scales,” I replied. The monetary system went Scales as the cheapest, these little bronze coins, twenty became Lizards, little silver coins, fifty Lizards into Eagles, big silver coins, twenty Eagles into Nests, small gold coins, and ten Nests into Trees, big gold coins. I’d never seen past an Eagle, and only twice in my life had I even seen an Eagle. Eagles and Nests and Trees were incredibly hard to come by.

The woman handed me an Eagle, surprisingly, she must’ve been rich.

“Would you like your change?”

“Keep it, I’ve heard good things of your little traders' stall. I wish to ask you to work with me,”

“Um-”

“Nasilje! The Emperor of the Aqual is here!” Someone called. Nasilje Bentos was in the marketplace? Now? She sometimes came at night, when I had no business and thus slept in the stall, but now? 

“One moment,” My anonymous customer replied.

Nasilje? Nasilje was at my stall? She normally went to the bigger ones. 

“I- oh dear gods, Nasilje, I am so, so sorry,”

I tried to hand back the Eagle but she denied it.

“No need, I still want you to work for me, come along,”

I took down my things and packed up, and Pandolin hopped on my shoulder, keeping his tail wrapped around my arm. 

“Empeza, we have one more coming back with us,”

“Alright, Nasilje,” one of the four guards replied. She had a wyvern like I did, a similar color but with gold and metallic green scales instead of copper and metallic green, and a different pattern. And far bigger. Pandolin was scarily small for a wyvern.

Pandolin screeched at the other wyvern in the tongue only the wyverns knew, and the other wyvern stayed still, like a stone.

“You didn’t train your wyvern, did you?” Nasilje asked.

“I don’t need to train him,” I replied. “He’s his own intelligent person after all, hell, he’s-,”

My hand flew to my mouth, cutting off the rest of the words, “he’s probably more of an intelligent person than I am,” how could I use foul language in front of the Nasilje?

“Oh, relax,” Nasilje said. “Language is allowed,”

She took me to a carriage, told me to get in, and the four guards followed me. She didn’t enter behind us, instead getting in the front with the driver.

“What’s that about?” I wondered aloud. None of the guards responded, instead conversing amongst themselves.

Starborn o’er there says that the Nasilje prefers to watch the horses as they travel up the road. Pandolin whispered telepathically.

Thank you.

I gave him a head scratch and his tail swished back and forth and he made a dragon-like smile. Most humans wouldn’t notice it, but we the wyvern-guided could tell what they smiled like. 

I gave him another head scratch, and he let out a satisfied coo and closed his eyes trustingly as we traveled up the bumpy road.

—

We arrived at Nasilje’s keep and Nasilje ordered the guard with the wyvern to take me to the kitchens and show me to my ‘quarters’.

“Um- Empeza? Was that it?” I asked.

She grunted in response and said, “Call me whatever you’d like, serf.”

“Um- I’m not- I’m not a serf- I’m a merchant,”

“Whatever, serf,”

“I- I said I’m not a serf,”

Empeza turned on me and snapped, “I don’t care,”

I could smell sweetness on her breath and could stare right into her white and blue eyes. They had no pupils, she was completely blind. 

“Well, serf? No words?”

“I have a name!”

“Which is?”

“Kira-, Kira Guseva,” I replied.

“Goose? Really?”

Empeza raised an eyebrow, “Alright, Goose, come along, we’re off to the kitchens,”

“Why?”

“What do you mean, why?”

“Why am I here?”

“Oh, Nasilje never told you? Well, it’s need to know, I assume she’ll tell you, Goose,”

“You don’t know either, do you?” I asked, picking up on Empeza’s uncertainty.

“I- maybe not,”

Some hideous creature ran at us and tackled Empeza to the ground.

“Empeza,” it hissed. “Empeza,”

Its fur-covered, pointed ear twitched, and it stared at me out of a blind left eye. Its right eye was sighted, however.

“Kira?” it asked.

It ran at me and gave me a giant hug. I stood frozen, horrified by this creature.

“Kira, Kira, Kira. S-”

Empeza chased it away and fell to her knee, her shoulder turning slightly blue.

“By the gods!” I exclaimed. I ran over to her and tore away the blood-soaked clothing.

“Goose, leave me, I can go to the infirmary,”

“No, let me,”

I touched Empeza’s shoulder, and she winced, but then, I let heat emerge from my palms. It was what I used to do when my father still lived and he would get hurt, it lowered the risk of infection.

Empeza shivered and said, “How are you doing that?”

I pulled my hand away, I wasn’t supposed to show people.

“Please, don’t tell an-”

“Did you just do magic?”

“No, I’m just very good with fire,”

“Starborn?” Empeza asked her wyvern.

Starborn echoed her voice to me, Pandolin, and Empeza, “Yes. She can do magic.”

“Please, don’t tell anyone,” I begged.

“Relax, I’m not going to, Goose. I’m not about to sentence someone to death,”

“I- death?”

“Now, we’re not supposed to talk. Onto the kitchens. You and I’ll talk later, maybe I’ll be trying to convince our head chef to let me have a little snack,”

She looked right into my eyes and grinned, then guided me to the bowels of the keep.

“Kitchens,” she grunted in front of a door with a warm little sign on it. “Go on, Goose, in you go,”

I entered, and there were about four other people working. How could four people feed everyone?

“Everyone!” Empeza called. “This is Goose, she’ll be working with you from now on,”

I very slowly approached them and smiled weakly.

The eldest of them approached me and held out his hand.

“Ivan Petrov,” He said. “Head baker, you report to me,”

I took his hand and it smoked slightly, and he said, “How good are you with flame?”

“I-” I was able to control it, and it led to my entire family’s death, excluding my missing sister, and many said they could still hear the ash in my throat.

“I’m good with it,” I rasped in reply.

“Only those of us that survive it are best,” He said. He rolled up his tunic sleeve and showed me his burn scar.

“The fire that brought me to the keep left me with this,”

“I see,” I said, faking interest, I just wanted to get going.

“Ah, I see you have a wyvern as well,” he grinned. “We need a fire creature like one of those things,”

“Thing?” Pandolin snapped.

Ivan jumped back and Pandolin hissed, “I am no thing,”

“Deepest apologies,” Ivan said. “Now, Goose-”

“Kira,” I corrected, “The ‘Goose’ thing is Empeza’s idea of a practical joke, I assume,”

“Well, Kira, I’d like for you to start with the flames, ladno? We change spots,”

“Konechno,” I replied.

I went to the stone oven, it was far bigger than the simple thing that I had in my stall.

Pandolin unhinged his jaw and yawned, stretching from wings to tail.

I threw a log into the blaze and it burst into flame quickly, showering me with sparks.

“You alright!” Ivan called.

“Yeah,” I coughed, I sank to my knees and felt like my lungs were about to leave my body. “Happens, happens, fire-” I coughed again.

“Blyat.” I swore after a moment of coughing.

“Language!” a blond girl around my age snapped.

I threw another log onto the fire and it crackled fiercely. I stared at the dancing molten gold, and almost like an automaton, walked closer to it. I reached out to touch it, and someone grabbed my hand and pulled me away.

“Hey, Kira, don’t, don’t touch it,” he ordered.

“I- who?”

“Ivan, remember?”

“Ivan?” I mumbled. My brain wasn’t working right now.

My legs gave out beneath me, and I realized my skin steamed. That had never happened to me before.

“Sit, sit down, ladno?”

I folded my legs and he touched my shoulder, and I stopped steaming as his skin stopped touching mine.

“Alright, alright, everyone, out!” he ordered.

The other three left the room and he kneeled next to me, “Fire user, eh?”

“How’d you-”

“Don’t you know? Smoke when we touch means other fire user,”

“I- no,”

“Raised with the normals?”

“No, seers,”

“Ah. So, can you ask them to tell my future?”

“They’re dead, but I have a tarot deck in my pocket if you want,”

“Tarot’s a buncha bullshit,” he rasped.

“True,” 

I pulled out the deck anyways, “But my family used to use this deck, so I use it,”

“True seers using tarot?”

“An actual reading was more, for putting our safety on the line and an Eagle and a half, we gave prophecies. Only one person could ever afford that,”

“Ah,”

I put my deck back in my pocket and stood, shaking.

“We’ve two hours til dinner, make the most of it,” Ivan said. “Stay away from the blaze,”