Yelena

Sunlight streamed in through the gaps in the wall, throwing minor daggers of light across the kitchen table. The pantry was empty, and the Sunday roast was split between the three of them: mother, father, and daughter. It was the eyes of the daughter that she looked through, trembling ever so slightly, as she took a liberal helping of chicken wing and gulped it down with a swig of milk.

"Sweetheart," daddy said. "Could you pass the gravy?"

Her hand moved of its own accord as she shoveled a piece of burnt potato into her mouth and chewed, feeling worms still wriggling within the blackened spud. She passed the gravy to her father whilst a small part of her acknowledged its odd, crimson hue.

"Thank you, dear," her father smiled. At least, she thought he flashed a smile at her. His face, like that of her mother, was blank and featureless. His voice came from somewhere hidden in the back of her head.

"Now, she finally starts to behave like an obedient girl," her father went on, shoveling a globule of charred meat into his face, smearing it with the blood of the raw meat.

She raised her hand, desperate to form words even as she knew none would come. Her mouth was full of the wriggling maggots that had spewed from every bite she took and now curled round her teeth.

"Ah, no dear, please don’t," her father said, suddenly only an inch from her face. "Don’t try talking back again. You didn’t let us talk when you killed us, did you?"

She knew in her heart that what daddy said was true. And yet she tried to grab him, to scream at him through sheer force of her expression that she didn’t. She didn’t. It wasn’t her.

"Oh, here we go again," daddy sighed, walking away to stand behind her mother.

The lights began to dwindle on the candles, and the sun vanished behind the windows.

"Do you need me to show you?" daddy asked. "Do you need to see their faces again? Maybe then you’ll remember what a little freak you are."

And as he thrust his hand towards mommy she heard her neck crack, and he pushed her lifeless head towards her. She looked into mommy’s eyes now, and saw the twenty mortal gashes that had been drawn across them like she was a piece of freshly cut meat. Blood still oozed from the fresh wounds, and then the pieces of dangling flesh fell from her face and piled on the floor.

She fell back in her chair.

"You know exactly what you did," daddy chuckled darkly. "What you’ll continue doing. Don’t just take my word for it though, I’m just your father you slaughtered after all. Hear it from your ‘friends’ too – look at them and remember what you are."

She found her eyes suddenly drawn to the meat on the table. And there – now – she saw what she had been consuming. There they were – covered with clouds of bloated flies: the heads of Cynthia, Agathae, and Dimedrious. All watching her from their plates on the table, faces twisted in expressions of horror.

"Now you’ve lost them, too," daddy’s voice whispered from behind her, and she felt him hand her a fork. "Now they know what you really are. Now you don’t have to hide it anymore. Go on, my little creature of the night, eat. Eat till the black hole beneath your heart is filled."

She saw her hand grip the fork and stab into Cynthia’s eye. The Tilonxeel screamed out in pain as the eyeball came loose from its socket, and her hand brought it to her mouth. Just before she started eating, all of them opened their bloody maws in a scream that tore through the dead air of the cottage.

"MONSTER," was the word they bellowed into the night. "MONSTER. MONSTER. MONSTER."

Then her teeth bit down on the eyeball, and she felt its sickening juices run down her throat.

----------------------------------------

"You know what it means!"

Yelena awoke to the blank stone wall of Caer Argent’s prison quarters. She groaned in pain, feeling an intense aching in her side and head. Her mind only vaguely focused on a conversation that was becoming more heated by the second nearby.

"It was there on the face of every wolf. She brought them there. It is the mark of her curse."

"Oh, quiet your tongue, snake-fiend! Or I swear those moronic words will be your last."

"Peace, both of you," one voice suddenly broke through the cacophony. "Sister Yelena has awoken."

Yelena twisted her head and found that she was looking at Proctor Azran, Dimedrious, and Virtir through the bars of a prison cell. She struggled to move, and became all too aware of the fact that she was bound by chains to the bed she lay upon.

Her face was nothing more than a picture of confusion. And for a moment that seemed to stretch for an eternity, no one said anything.

Then Virtir gave a savage hiss, and Yelena’s eyes suddenly flew to her bandaged arm.

"How many more have to die - have to be maimed - before we acknowledge the truth, brothers?"

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"There is no truth beyond your baseless accusations," Dimedrious growled back at her. "This is my soldier. The responsibility lies with me."

"Would that you had listened to me from the beginning," Viritr hissed back. "As usual, Captain Dimedrious blames his failures on those with far more foresight than he. Only this time, such failure has cost him the life of one of his own."

"You’ll answer for that you poisonous she-witch!" Dimedrious roared, but once again the hand of Azran stayed his blade before he could draw it.

"Yelena," the Proctor said calmly. "How do you feel?"

She double blinked, taking it all in: their stern faces, Virtir’s seething with hatred, and her own hazy recollection of what transpired out there in Yarruck. Snippets of darkness obscured her mind, but she could not forget the sight of Cynthia’ s mangled body being trodden in the snow, nor the look that Dimedrious had cast her way when she had regained control.

She’d never forget those sights as long as she lived.

She bowed her head and tried as hard as she could to stop herself from crying.

"I failed to protect my battle-sister," she said, and the declaration struck her more than she thought in the moment. "I failed," she said again. "I failed you all and deserve your hatred. I’m exactly what Sister Virtir says I am."

Her lips trembled as she tried to form the word – the label basically scarred into her flesh and blood. She saw Dimedrious’ hand waver, as though trying to support her from behind the bars of her cage. But he said nothing.

"And yet," Proctor Azran said as he watched her every expression with her sharp crow eyes. "From all reports you slew the possessed beast when none could, and so avenged your sister as befits one of the order of Argent."

"Proctor," Virtir broke in. "I would urge caution. The instruments of the dark often deceive with their strength, only to turn their blades against their once-time allies. Even the dog will admit that she would not respond to any who called her name. She was in a state just as feral as the beasts that attacked."

Yelena saw Dimedrious snarl. She knew then that the Yok’ra’s words were true, for he held his tongue.

Azran’s eyes were focused on Yelena completely. She felt them bore into her as she sat, mute and trembling, her head bowed in total supplication. They could have taken the head from her shoulders, and she’d let them. She’d let them keep her bound in these chains. Such a fate was a better alternative to letting out the thing that lived inside her. For she knew it now – it was more powerful than her. One day it truly would kill them all. Just like it did – just like she did – to her parents…

Then she heard the door to her cell unlock.

"Proctor," Virtir snapped. "I must again urge caution –"

Azran’s deep voice cut through her statement. "Captain Dimedrious, from what you saw, you told me Sister Yelena could kill us all down here in one swing if she wished, did you not?"

Dimedrious shirked away from Yelena’s confused stare. "Aye, Proctor," he said. "I did."

"The fact she has not is reason enough to trust her," Azran said. "I doubt those chains could do a thing to protect us from harm, and yet she has not even attempted to break free of such simple binds."

With one snap of Azran’s feathered fingers, Yelena’s manacles were released, and the chains fell from her body.

The Proctor then turned to Virtir, completely neutral.

"Sister," he said. "There is much for us to prepare above. Come, let us leave Captain Dimedrious with his second-in-command. They have a comrade to mourn, as do we all."

Viritr bowed and followed the Proctor out of the chamber, but gave an undignified sniff of the cold air as she passed Dimedrious.

A thin smile played across her slitted lips.

"You think my accusations are truly baseless, Captain? Well, let’s see how loyal your people are now that they’ve seen firsthand the curse of that girl."

With that she followed the Proctor out, and finally Yelena and Dimedrious were alone.

They were alone, and she didn’t even know how to look in his eyes.

He entered the room and pulled up a wooden stool across from the bed as she sat up and hugged her pale legs.

"Well," she muttered. "You’ve seen this monster for all she’s worth. What do you think?"

He said nothing.

"Say something, Di," she asked the bars of the cell. "Even if it’s that you hate me."

"I could never hate you."

His voice was cool. Controlled.

"Tell me that I should’ve taken Cynth and ran," she said, swallowing her grief, choking it down in a great lump that stuck to the back of her throat.

"Lena," he said. "It wasn’t-"

"Don’t tell me it wasn’t my fault!" she snapped, throwing her scorn at him. "Stop giving me a way out. First you told me what happened to my parents wasn’t my fault. Then you told me everyone hating me here wasn’t my fault. And now you’re telling me not to believe my own eyes when I saw Cynthia die because of me. Because my strength wasn't good enough. It's never good enough."

She looked away from him. The sorrow that was painted on his doglike features was too much for her to bear right now.

"When you found me there as a baby," Yelena whispered. "A crying Firvak in the middle of my burned-out village, surrounded by the dead, why didn’t you end it there and then?"

She asked the question, even as she knew she was going too far.

"Why didn’t you slay this monster?"

"I’ll tell you what I saw that day, shall I?" he said, crouching low next to her, not touching her, but just staying near, so that she could feel his heavy breathing on her bare arms.

"When our recon team found your village decimated overnight, we assumed the worst. We assumed a bandit raid or some Glanced-up sorcerer had gone off the rails there. We came prepared – me and my brothers. We were ready to slaughter any survivor, even, if it meant containing the force that brought the place down.

"But what I saw was no dark wizard or bandit, Lena. What I saw when I rode into that dead town was a little girl shivering there in the rain, crying for her momma who was dead under her – nothing more than a mummified body. I saw you, Lena. And then I gave the order to take you back here."

"Why?" she asked him angrily, through tears appearing at the corners of her vision. "Why? To control me? To somehow master the power that was growing inside? Or was I to be a sacrifice to Amarata above – a demon tamed and then slaughtered when the time was right? Tell me now, Di. Tell me – why?"

Dimedrious bowed his head before answering her.

"You know why, Lena."

She sneered at him.

"There you go again," she choked through grief. "Telling me what I know. You just can’t help yourself, huh?"

Then she felt the warmth of his paw resting on her hand.

"I did it because no child deserves to die alone, and afraid. Was I wrong?"

She still couldn’t look at him.

"Well, look what that child grew into."

"A skilled warrior and a loyal friend? And probably the bravest comrade I’ve ever known? Overall, I think I made the right call."

Their eyes finally met as she looked up to behold his radiant smile. He really did believe it.

"Lena," he said. "You are not a monster."

She sniffed, and moved closer to him.

"Damnit Di," she coughed. "What do I do?"

Now the tears did come. She didn’t let them overwhelm her, but nor did she hold them back.

"What do I do?"

He drew her into a warm embrace, and together they sat as the world above past them by without any mind.

"We’ll get through this, Lena," Dimedrious whispered to her. "Whatever this thing is, Azran will know what to do. He will…he has a plan. When you’re ready, go see him."

She sniffed. "What if there’s nothing –"

"You will get through this," Dimedrious replied, harsh and guttural, then softer as he felt her hug him back: "That’s an order."