Irariele- The Tale Of A Simple Hunter
By: Diella
Chapter One- Mathosian Civil War
My story starts with the most extraordinary event of my life, that is to say my first death. While most of you would not argue that death is a pretty extraordinary event, many would have cause to ponder why I would start my story with it. Is not death the end of everyone’s story and do not the Fates decree only a single life and death to each mortal.
That is true but when the Gods of the Vigil deem to get involved in mortal affairs even the decrees of Fate can be over ruled.
The Servants of the Vigil walked among mortals plucking the fruit of the war from the fields like a farmer separating the wheat from the chaff. If one was to watch them as they made the way among the bloody fields of the Mathosian’s civil war, one would observe that those they choose were not pick for their virtues. They were not chosen because they were great warriors, leaders, or men and woman of faith. The criteria of their choices were not something a mortal could understand for we were picked not for our virtues but for our power.
Take myself for example I am not a great warrior, I am now well schooled, I am not particularly religious, I am nothing but a simple hunter. My task before the day of my death had been to supply the army with food. It was only when we were so overwhelmed that every hand was called forward to fight that I had ever even held a battle bow. If this had been a tale told over the fireplace it would have been very different tale I would be telling you. If this had been a story if I had been the protagonist of a fairy tale you would expect to hear how the simple Hunter pulled forth great courage to turn the tide of battle and brought victory to her home land In this tale she even may have married the Prince who would have fallen helpless in love with our beautiful protagonist. No my first maiden voyage on to a battlefield ended in my death. When the time came to put an arrow into a fellow Mathosian’s head just because he believed in the wrong brother I froze. I hesitate just long enough for the Knight to get close enough to skewer me with his sword. Obviously he did not feel the same compunction against killing a fellow human being as I did.
Here my story may have ended if not for the Servant of the Vigil lifting my dead body from the field and carrying me back to life and the Sanctuary of Rebirth.
Death was a darkness so thick you could touch it, death was a silence so deep that nothing could escape from it. It was a emptiness filled with nothing, no light, no sound, no sensation, not even the sound of one thoughts could be heard within the void that was death. Suddenly Irariele felt someone lifted her soul and thrust her into her body so hard Irariele felt as if she should have shattered into a million pieces. In a heart beat she felt a million sensations from the pulse of her blood, to the pounding of her heart, and the chatter of her thought as she tried to determine what exactly had happened.
Opening her eyes a crack caused a sudden red hot pain to explode in her temple while the room spun and her bed rocked like a boat in a storm tossed sea. Closing her eyes Ira tried to get everything to stop moving including her stomach. It took a bit of doing but finally she was able to open her eyes without her stomach threatening to climb up her throat. When she did she noticed that she had not been alone a dwarf had been watching her from a high stool making notes in a journal he balanced on his lap.
“Good, you are awake. There is much we need to discuss if we are to vanquish the evil that is now trying to infiltrate your land.. You are the last of the ascended to awaken and I feared you had not been strong enough to have made the passage from the Vigil.â€
Ira felt the dwarf looked familiar but the pounding in her head made it very difficult for her to put a name to the face.
to be continued....