What makes a blessing?

Ferrohearth still seemed so far away. They were at least out of the cold. Just not out of the nightmare. That would be unlikely to end. Five figures strode through the dimming light, their figures casting long, scarecrow shadows across the landscape. Cold conifers slowly giving way to warmer grasses as the procession continued Southward at a ponderous pace. The bitter cold lingering in their bones as the burdens they now share dragged their boots heavily. Down into the brightening dirt like it was still the snow. Five figures. But not equal. At the front were two men - Aldrian Knights. Stolen valour. They were cowards. Only wearing proud, platinum-gold plates because of promises, oaths and Bloodlines. The good ones died in the North where they fed the greedy three-eyed carrion birds. The men joked and laughed with each other, irreverent of the sin they've commit. Of the innocence taken and the paradise lost. Behind the two men trudged an oddity amongst the group, though not the only oddity. A once proud and strong Shire-horse, gated along as a sulken, miserable cur. The beast of burden - Daisy, the poor thing, was wondering where her sister was. And why she could still smell her scent coming from the sacks of meager traveling supplies on her back. Or, perhaps that stupid, odd-toed ungulate was not so ignorant after all. The moon rises. Casting its light with a red glow. Behind the horse walked the last two figures. The one forward was a bulked woman in full, black plate. Her armour detailed in the classic gold-leaf filigree, molded with meticulous details. But the detail of the Armour could not match the detail to the skin. Black and gold tattoos etched into the bronze complexion, a hue that suggested origins closer to the Southern Deserts rather than Aldria; the tattoos swept from crown to well beneath the armour. A tapestry of pious indulgence and platitude, a grotesque mockery of art in the name of theocracy, but nevertheless meaningful to its wearer. Her strong, aquiline features were framed in a medium cut of black hair. Her eyes shone a baleful gold in the fel light. Her expression was a masque of permanent disdain. A Black and Gold warhammer was held proudly, straight up with one hand, its haft being used as a walking stick. It was her weapon, her gavel, her scepter, and her guillotine. In the black-armoured woman's free hand was held a chain. It's crude, oppressive iron was pulled taught from her hand to the shackled wrists of a straggling other. Another oddity, if paired with the gaunt, depressed Shire. It was a young woman, shortest of the bunch, with rough iron shackled around her. Her once wavy, bright blonde hair, now dirty and matted, was seemingly drained of its warmth. Her sky-blue eyes, once sapphire sparkles in the sea of marbled gold, now sat sullen, empty, on a pale, bruised face that still had the streaks where the tears of the night before flowed. As well as the tears from this morning. The only outward evidence she'd want to show if it weren't for the slightly ripped and pulled drag she now called a dress. The phantom ache of her locket seemed almost forgotten amidst the other pain.

Her name was Ashe Greyroll. Supposedly a common enough girl from Ferrohearth. Middle-child to a warm and loving family; brought up humbly, working in her family's bakery, enjoying the fruits of the gilded cage with a kalopsia that even the flagellant, fervent, fanatics of the Golden Church could've envied. But, of course why would any such ideal circumstance last when the foundation it is built upon is made of as much excrement as it is cadavre. Aldria needed healers. Those born with the Bloodline potential to maintain the pyres of its Dominion Theology. So valuable is the magic that even the offspring of higher nobles would be dragged Northward, straight into the teeth of winter, where the epitaph of an era was being written with gristle and meat. This was to be Ashe's fate. When she was sixteen it manifested. Somewhat odd, considering that Bloodline magics typically manifested in childhood, but not unheard of. People called it a blessing. What was also somewhat odd was that no member of her family in living memory had demonstrated magical potential, but again, not unheard of. And again, sure enough, people called it what they called it. What is a blessing? Ashe just wanted to make bread.

The North was hell for Ashe. Not just from the cold and conditions. Not from the marching the long, languid march of offal in processing. It was the the objectification. She was just a tool up here. A resource with only one purpose in the white abattoir. To patch up the ruined flesh and, in Ashe's case, hope for the best. She wasn't a very good healer. Three years wasn't enough time to learn where most others had several. And she would've needed it. She was reminded frequently of her means and her purpose. Back-handed comments and jeers about how she has it easy and avoids the fighting. Calls and whistles to her figure. Unappreciated advances from grimy men that smelled of rancour, booze and shit. Ashe was not the only one to receive such treatment, nor was it only healers or the women. War has a habit of bringing out the demons that fester within all of our souls. It was a blessing she was even still alive with all the Gransa ambushes. Their presence was an ever looming spectre like the mists that float through the very pines. Helpless was Ashe when it happened - The decimation of the Aldrian Fourth Army. She'd been busy in the medic tent during the evening - the usual business: Tending to limbs maimed from the cold and traps, trying to stop a boy, barely eighteen, from dying of sepsis, another young woman in the corner made a wet groaning noise as she shifted to ease the discomfort from her bandaged injury, where a Gransa arrow had popped her lung. Ashe wasn't a very good healer. But Aldria needed healers. Therefore she carried on healing, concentrating as the dim, cerulean light of her magic, emanated from her blood-soaked hands, working desperately to weave together parted flesh and sinew with Aarde's refreshing kiss. Soft as a mother's touch. Ashe was humming to herself when she heard it. She'd usually sing to herself, but these last few months her songs have been coming in quieter and quieter. The sound that caught Ashe's attention was a distant, shrill and startled yelp. The noise itself wasn't necessarily objectionable, but the raucous clamor after was. The Gransa descended like an avalanche born from the white-grey ephemera. Violence begets violence as the Aldrian bulwark attempted to stand against it - but it would be pointless. They'd been out maneuvered, surrounded, with their sentries all pointless heaps in the snow. Axe bit into flesh and steel as sure as woven magics scorched and eviscerated. The snow sodden earth slowly began to turn shade after shade of maroon. The added vital liquids quickly turned the ground into a slough of mud, viscera, and waste. Ashe stood frozen, half from the cold and half from the mortifying spectacle coming towards her, closing her in. Too close now that Ashe was pushed from behind by a duo of tumbling belligerents, the three of them crashing down. Ashe was wide eyed as practically on top of her was an Aldrian "Knight" pinning down a Gransa warrior woman wearing the skins of some thick-furred mountain cow. The two wrestled in the reddening mud, with the Gransa pressing up to slowly inch a stone knife towards the struggling knight's neck, as the knight fumbled for her blade and his, just out of his reach. But within Ashe's. Ashe could see the fear in each of their eyes. She saw the Gransa woman for a moment that was too long. She even wondered what her name was. Ashe had a choice. Ashe hesitated. And it would cost her dearly. "HERETIC!" A rich, booming voice thundered in a blur of sweeping black-gold metal. A poled warhammer crashed down onto the Gransa woman in a trail of hot, gold embers. A sickening, wet crunch and a brief flash as the Gransa's head shattered, fragments of bone and tissue hit Ashes face. She could taste a spec of charred meat land on her tongue. Ashe evacuated her stomach onto a patch of snow as the black-gold tower glowered at her with disdainful, gold eyes. "You hesitated-" The armoured woman spat to Ashe as the Fourth died around them. A judgement already passed. She pulled her warhammer from the ruined matter under her. Ashe finally found her voice, or what of it she could, her soft gentle melody broken by her ragged, panicked breaths as she looked up with worried, sapphire eyes. "Bla- Chaplain... I-" "Enough, cur!" The Black-Chaplain barked, no longer even paying attention to Ashe, her own golden gaze now fixing away. Out. A gap. Her mind raced. Get out. Get out. Get out. Get out. Without preamble, the Black-Chaplain pulled Ashe by her sleeve, sidelong. Towards a hopeful escape. "I'll deal with you later." She growled as she dragged Ashe away while the Fourth died. It was a blessing either survived. What is a blessing?

Caedria Almureth, Black-Chaplain, warrior bishop, moral guide as well as soldier and leader of the Golden Church, walked worriedly under the reddening moonlight. The dim light flickered like faerie ghosts in her eyes. Not her ghosts. Always the ghosts of others. Caedria did not pity the weak. Nor did she suffer them. Pain is weakness leaving the body, and only through pain can one achieve enlightenment. To understand but a fraction of the sacrifice The Gold endures so that Aldria may flourish. Or so that's what Caedria thought. She's been having doubts lately. Since the Fourth fell and the three weeks of travel from the grave. Since she tactically withdrew- no, not ran, from the North. Since the food ran out and they had to resort to eating one of the only two horses they had. Since she was stuck with a near useless healer that seemed more pitiful than anything else. Her doubts should've been at its zenith when Ienric, coincidently the "Knight" she saved in front of Ashe, began to pay Ashe too much attention. He framed the ordeal in such a way with Ashe leaving him to be killed by the Gransa woman. The desperation and travel has only fuelled his ire. Caedria did not pity the weak. That was her blessing. But last night when Ienric and his bastard colleague came to Ashe, Caedria knew she should've spoken up, should've acted. Caedria did not pity the weak. But even as she heard the grunts and the stifled crying, whimpers, Caedria had to convince herself: Ashe was a tool. An instrument misaligned. She needed calibration and correction. The Golden Church can see to that, setting her on the correct path of righteousness. Nothing done now would matter, not when salvation lay beyond in gleaming gold. That is what Caedria would tell herself. Even when she heard Ienric make that supposed joke at Ashe's expense; about how Ashe could make it grow back and that they could then take it again. Caedria should've spoken up. It wasn't in her nature to hold her tongue. But Caedria did not pity the weak.

The five lost souls maintained their southward march. Daisy would've been the first to notice. The wrong smell in the air. She gave a worried halt and winy, stopping abruptly on the dirt path they followed. Ienric's bastard colleague made a move to calm the beast down, hushing and cooing like he wasn't the truer beast. Caedria's golden eyes narrowed as she peered at something in the distance. It made her throat dry, her heart pulse and her limbs numb. A massive tower of black smoke poked over the horizon like a dead God's abhorrent finger. But Ashe, besides herself, was the first to mention it. "Chaplain?" Ashe's soft voice spoke hesitantly, with an upward inflection. The dawning realisation momentarily cutting passed her daze and pain. "Is that smoke?" "Quiet, healer-" Caedria growled in response, without looking over back to Ashe, she intentionally rolled on the title as mockery. Ferrohearth was that way. Caedria knew Ferrohearth was that way. So, how could there be a fire that size? She was unable to finish the thought. Daisy reared high up, kicking forward, knocking Ienric's bastard colleague square in the chest. Ashe could've swore she heard a few ribs break, even through his armour, as the man flew back from the blow, landing next to a broad, closed off thicket of gold-flowering shrubs. Daisy, the precious thing, then ran off opposite, in a westwardly direction, making off with what meager supplies they did have. The man with the now ruined chest gasped and splattered. Clutching the earth below him as if to anchor his breaths. Ashe hesitated. She should've moved forward to administer aid, time is tissue after all; but Ashe couldn't bring herself to move just yet. The memories and the pain of the night before stilled her to inaction. Though this time, her hesitation would not cost her. This time it was a blessing. Before Caedria could round to reprimand the tardiness of their terrible healer, a low grumbling sound cut across the shrubland. Something was in the thicket. Something wrong and not of Aarde. A willowy creature sprang out It was roughly the size of a cow, but it would've looked like an arachnid. Save for its head. The head was an upturned face of a baby, the features caught in an eternal rictus grin; from its black, fleshy body, protruded ten segmented limbs that terminated into metallic, barbed blades. The spider-demon pounced on top of the ruined bastard, it's bladed limbs shredded the man to mince before anyone, save for the already long gone Daisy, could even register the leaping, unfolding horror. Ashe fell to her knees, frozen with a white pallor. Even Caedria faltered for the moment as reality spun a mockery before them. The demon rose off its kill, already sizing up the next target. The dead, infant eyes seemingly fixed to Ashe, sensing weakness. Ienric, for his part, was a coward, but he did not get a chance to showcase his craven ways today. He took a side step and his foot snapped a twig. The sound was uncomfortable and jarring as the spider-demon rounded slightly to face him. A wailing noise escaped the infant, a disembodied cry. Ienric panicked, charging forward with a brandished sword of pious silver. Caedria found her senses and too charged the monster with all the righteous violence she could facilitate. The demon-thing moved quickly and uncannily. It's metal limbs chittered and its fleshy body pulsed as it surged. "VILE MONSTER!" Caedria howled her war chants. Admonishing with her words as with every fiery hammer blow. Each blow found its mark against the beast, but it's movements would not slow. "Heretical filth-" she cursed. "DIE!" But the demon was relentless. With a flurry of metallic, threshing limbs, Ienric was brought low, losing his sword hand. The appendage fell limply in the dirt path. But it was a blessing- the demon seemingly relished in the pain it inflicted and shuddered to itself with an eerie shudder. Caedria didn't need to be asked before she saw her chance. She crashed her hammer down on the infant face and released all the golden, magical, fire she could from the impact. A dirt path in the shrubland had sudden sunlight, before the gold fire faded, making way again for the red light of the moon. Caedria panted as she stood over the charred corpse of the Demon. Ienric lay crying sidelong, clutching his stump wrist. And Ashe had her knees in the dirt behind them. She hadn't moved since Daisy ran. She couldn't. Her shackled chain hung loosely from her neck, momentarily forgotten. As the corpse of Ferrohearth bled black smoke into the darkening sky over the horizon.