third party PoV
Dupadure, a land nestled in the alcove formed by the Carpa Mountain range. A place where depending on the season, the sun would rise above the mountains only for a few hours at most. This land was a place of passage for any would-be conqueror to traverse. Connecting the western kingdoms and the empire to the south-east, as well from the southern city states to the northern Jarldoms. While there were plenty of riches and beautiful landscapes to find through the land, making it alluring for any land grab to expand one's borders. It didn’t mean that it would be easy to traverse or exploit. As, over the centuries: many things and beings decided to live in the center of the known world, inhabiting the woods and forests. Claiming the countless caves and hidden valleys that Carpa mountain range formed on its vast expanse .
It was why those born of this place were told from young to never leave their home at night, and even more so to never enter the woods. Parents were already concerned by the local wildlife: wolves and boars were dangerous already, bears even more so. But that is without counting on bandits and roaming armies passing by, who wouldn’t bat an eye about taking a child out of bed at such a late hour of the night.
And yet, despite such warnings, Iulian was planning to do exactly such a thing. The young boy was moving stealthily, or as much as he thought he could be around his house. This wasn’t the first time he was doing such a thing, at first it was because he needed to clear his head, to spend time with himself, away from his parents. And over the years, he grew more skilled at doing so, escaping their attention and not alerting them during his many nocturnal strolls. But tonight was different, he wasn’t planning on simply going around the fields, as dangerous as that already was, he was planning much worse. But the boy knew that this wasn’t something he could half-ass, he knew of the dangers, having already encountered many a boar rummaging through his family’s fields. How he kept his life up until now was a mystery even for him, but one he wasn’t trying to find the reason why this soon.
Taking his father’s hatchet as well as his own knife that his godfather had gifted him, he took a few cuts of dried meat and hard tacks from the reserve. But as he was about to turn around he came face to face with someone. Had this been his father, he could have easily threatened him with the hatchet, or at least he could see himself doing it. But it wasn’t his father that caught him, no. But his mother. That sweet smiling snake.
She looked at him, shocked to see her son out of bed at this late at night. The small candle she had in hand barely lit the room as she looked at him. His face had already bruised since he returned. She could see in his eyes something that caught her attention. Something she saw earlier today.
“Iuli? What are you doing out of bed at this hour of the night?” She asked, trying to process what she was seeing. Her eyes looked at her son up and down.
“Nothing mother. I was a bit hungry, see?” The boy showed the few cuts he had taken for himself from the drying rack inside their cold room. He had already expected something like this to happen, burning one of the cards he prepared as an excuse, while trying to hide the hatched behind him. But it wasn’t the hatchet that betrayed him, but the faint sheen of his knife that reflected the candle light.
“Didn’t your father tell you to not touch that knife? Are you really trying to disappoint him again? This late too?” Her eyes turned hard and sharp as she looked at his annoyance at her own son. Setting the candle stand on the table nearby.
“No mother, If I was trying to disappoint him, I would have set the house on fire, or told on him to the Artenie or the Golea's father. No, I am trying to survive, mother. I don’t think I can endure much of this anymore, keeping this mask you crafted for me. I don’t want it anymore, no. I cannot wear it any longer. The next time that man fist's touches me, I might as well stay down and die.” Iulian said, looking into his mother's eyes with as much restraint as he could muster, to no lash out at her, to keep things from escalating. But despite his best efforts, that cat was out of the bag and running wild.
“This is it? You are leaving? And where are you going?” Her voice started to get louder, outraged and shocked at the impertinence and contempts her own son was showing.
“Far away mother. Where you or him won’t be able to touch me or lie to me anymore. Where I won't fear for my life anymore.”
“After everything I've done for you? You are supposed to help us. To stay here and make us proud. Your father was right, you need to learn your role and place the hard way. This is your place, this is your family. You need to help us, It is your duty as our son. You need us.”
“But I don’t, not anymore. Remember mother, you’ve told me that our family were slaves, serfs to the Boyard. But that applies only to you and father. You, because you decided to marry him, and to share his penance to get him free faster. But I am not bound by you and father’s burden according to the law. What do you think will happen when the guards come and see that father killed me, his son? His freeman son? Do you think they will think that all my bruises and broken bones come from me falling over? That you will get away scot-free of any consequence like you've done until now?"
“Do you really think your father will kill you? You are too sensitive Iulian, be a man and toughen up! Did that stupid cursed boy fill your head with such nonsense? You are just like us, Slaves! They would not care about you. They would arrest you as soon as you enter a city, you naive brat. Now go back to bed boy, before I call your father to correct you again."
“Shut up! Maria is a woman, whether you like it or not. If you can’t accept reality, that’s on you. But I will not give my life for you to open your eyes, yo-”
“DO NOT SPEAK TO ME LIKE THAT YOU STUPID CHILD!” She screamed, her voice turning into a shriek of anger and fury, but for all the volatility and sanctimonious outburst. Iulian stayed his hand, looking at her with silent annoyance and cold hatred.
“Go ahead then, hit me. Like that dead-beat of a man you call your husband." He got closer to her, standing his ground, offering his cheek. But she didn't move, her gaze stuck on him as she didn't understand what was going on.
"But you are afraid of what would happen, you are scared of the consequences that would happen if you start taking position, out of your middle-ground. You prefer seeing me suffer, get hit and writhe in pain rather than accepting reality, accepting that you have played a part in all of this." He smiled, tired, and weak. How much he had wished to say those words out loud, he wasn't aware of it himself, yet the words came out on their own. Born of years of suffering, of being lied to, of being pampered only to be able take another blow afterwards.
"But that’s over now. I am not a tool, and not yours to use as you see fit. I am a child, your child, as human as you are. And because you didn't accept and care for me as such, I am leaving.” Iulian moved, walking toward his room. Throwing an anxious look toward his parents bedroom, afraid to see his father walking out of there at any moment.
“Please, Iuli. You know I would do anything for you. Please, tell me where I went wrong. Please. You need to help me, to help us. We love you.” Loreta fell to her knees, grabbing onto his clothes as she begged him.
Looking into his eyes with mad and desperate eyes. She was lost and confused, she didn’t know what to do, ‘Everything was going so fine and perfect, only for this to happen to me? What happened?’ She thought again and again. That simple thought ate at her already tired and spent mind.
“Should you have ever cared about me as you like to claim, you would have known what to do. Let go of me now, before I do something we'll both regret.” His right hand was on his knife, the blade already pulled out of its sheath as they looked at each other.
The more she looked, the more Loreta found that she didn't understand her own child. The cold hatred and disgust she saw in his eyes made her stuck in place, she didn’t know who she was looking at anymore, this wasn’t her Iulian. ‘Iuli is but a sweet boy, not some brash and rude ruffian like this. This isn’t him, something must have changed him. Yes! That must be it! It must be that curse Marius has, it must have jumped to him somehow! ...That must be it, there is no other way for my sweet Iulian to have become this, this bad-mannered and insolent brat! After all we had done for him, he would know better than behave like this!’
“Please Iulian, you must resist.”
“Oh, but I am done resisting, mother. I am leaving. I wish you good luck to endure your father's kindness. And him, your touching words.”
“No, not that. The curse. You are cursed, my dear baby boy, you are cursed and you aren’t even aware. Please, you must fight back! You know how much we love you. Please come back to us.” She begged, implored him. Yet all Iulian could feel was more contempt for the woman before him, the person that should have cared for him more than anyone else. But instead of seeing his mother, what he saw was but another child: one that was lost, hurting and afraid, hanging on a thread. One that refused to support her any longer.
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“Is this what you think it is?" Yet, For all the hatred and contempt he has toward his mother, he could only feel sadness for the child inside of her, knowing himself how despair and fear felt.
"Goodbye, mother. I am done trying to act along with your imaginary plays, I won't allow myself to rot and suffer to enable you to stay as you are, not anymore.” Iulian forced his way out, yet his mother started screaming louder. Clawing at him, trying to hold onto his clothes. Calling for her husband to help her save their son.
“You are going to get me killed, you idiot!” He pushed her away, slapping her face.
Loreta recoiled, letting go of Iulian for a moment. But the boy has had enough, and ran away to his room, the sound of his window opening before silence returned.
The woman sat there, holding her face where her son had hit her. Tears went down her eyes as she watched her boy running from her, the fear and desperation in his face and voice shocking her. The entire event replayed into her head. Her mind searched for what she did wrong. Yet she wasn’t able to find, to see, to understand what had pushed her Iuli to act like this.
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Iulian’s PoV
“Damn… Fuck… I nearly died. Mother pulled all the cards she had, didn’t she? Shit. No wonder things stayed like this for so long.” I am taking a break, struggling to breathe. I ran as fast as I could, grabbing my bundle and jumping out the window and toward the woods.
‘Shit… Now that I think about it, hadn’t I slapped her to get away then and there, father woul… No, not father, not anymore. Petre, Petre would have gotten out of bed and beat me up. And I am already in no state to take more of his beating. ’ The thought sent me reeling, my hand tightening on the handle of the hatchet before I felt my anger bubble inside me.
‘I don't think I would have made it out if I wasn't already this angry. She could have succeeded, wrapping me around her fingers, holding my strings like puppeteers would their figurines . No, I was a puppet. But not anymore. I made it out! I am free now!’ I smile as I sit down, my back against the first tree of the witchwoods. The forest was dark, the canopy thick, covering most of the star lit night sky.
The new moon made for such a sight. The stars felt so close, so bright, yet only so, not lighting up the landscape, as if I was in one of those theatres Maria told me her fiance took her to. Like a grand scene where the stars are like actors, glowing with their own spotlights, each adding to a grander whole.
I couldn't help but think of it, that if this grander whole that hung above our heads meant something more.
‘Maybe it's because I hit my head on the ground earlier when Petre punched my skull. But i can't help to think that maybe… things aren't so bad… sure my family is bad, being hit by Petre and lied to by mother. No, Loretta.’
But like the constellations, the closer I look at things, the more I find stars, singular points that bridge and connect it all. I started looking at my life, at my parents the same way I am looking now at constellations in the night skies. Trying to see the smaller points, the individual stars making up the greater constellations.
‘Loretta is scared, that I am sure of, otherwise she wouldn’t have said she needed my help. Petre is fleeing from something too, trying to work and drink his way away from whatever that is. But, why should I care about it anymore? Things have been going like that for long enough already. If even my godfather Velkan isn’t surprised, then it means that this isn’t something new. Maybe this is why Loretta was trying to keep me around so much, If me being born made them stop suffering. Then maybe they could finally face whatever is haunting them now that I've left. ’ I slap my cheeks, catching myself falling back into that good little boy mask. I hated myself for doing it, for becoming someone that allowed myself to rot for others.
‘No, stop doing that, Iulian. Don’t try to help them. Do not try to find them excuses. You are already covered in bruises, starved and still only a teenager. Just stop thinking about them, and think about yourself. You did it, you got away, but you didn’t do it for them. You did it for you. Keep thinking about yourself and start moving again.' I force myself to breathe deep, trying to take apart all the reasoning I disliked, trying to guide myself away from those bad thoughts as I psych myself up.
Pushing myself up to my feet, I grabbed the small cloth bundled up in a bag. I made it to carry what food I could salvage and the few trinkets I hold dear, things I've received as a gift from the Artenie.
With the hatchet in hand and bundle in the other, I turned toward the witchwoods. The tall evergreen trees obscuring any sources of light from above. It was pitch black, with sounds of beasts and critters moving about, howls and other birds I didn’t know hooting and chirping in the middle of the night. Things moving about in the shrubs.
‘I am scared.’ Swallowing hard, I tighten my hold on the hatchet as I take a first, trembling step past the treeline.
And nothing happened. I sigh with relief. ‘Maybe these woods aren’t as bad as people say they are? At least nothing cursed, I hope.’
I take another step, and then a third. And before I knew it, I was walking deeper in than I thought myself able to. The uneven ground forced me to be slow and methodical, bending my knees to feel the ground as I step down. Passing by and over Roots and other stones littering the ground.
I have no Idea of where I am going, only that I know that the deeper in I go, the more chance I will have to find the witch living here.
Crack I heard something breaking behind me, my heart jumping out of my chest As I turned around, my hatchet raised high as I realized that I cannot see the treeline behind me anymore. ‘Just how far did I walk in? I just got in, it’s not even been a few minutes…’
It is then that I became aware of how afraid I really am. My heart was beating hard, my stomach heavy as my throat was tight. The sound of an owl screeching at me didn’t help as I felt something sharp plunging into my arm.
“Oh fuc-Aaaa!” I swatted my arm as hard and fast as I could, hearing the owl that just attacked me screeching in my ears. I yelled back, as hard as I could, slapping it away with my bundle. I felt it hit something as the sharp pressure on my arm left. The screech moved away as I kept slapping and moving my bundle around.
But that was when I heard something I absolutely didn’t want to hear. Short nasal breathing coming from somewhere behind me. Small squealing sounds as something raked the earth. That was a boar, a wild boar in the middle of the forest, at night. Somewhere I didn’t see.
I couldn’t breath, my heart beating in my ears as I heard It scream. The boar charged toward me. ‘I am going to die. Right after I managed to leave home.’ I thought, feeling cold sweat going down my back as I felt my knees buckling. I heard the hatchet falling, my hands unwilling to stop shaking.
‘This is it.’ I thought, feeling the sharp tusk digging into my torso. Goring my guts as I was sent flying.
“GRAAAAA!” The pain tear a scream out of my lungs as I crash down and roll on the soft forest ground. I could hear the wild pig moving again, his feets trudging the ground as he charged.
‘No, Not now. I just go away. Leave me alone!’ I am paralysed with horror, I can’t do anything. I try to move, I try to throw the bundled cloth bag at it. But no can do, I can’t lift my arm anymore. Cold seeping through me as I cannot even see the creature that’s going to take my life.
Then, I felt something, like an echo, coming from all around me. Like I wasn’t the only one, or only thing trembling in fear. I felt the air around me thrum with a deaf and low hum. Something happened in the dark as I heard a crash, feeling the impact in the ground I was laying on as debris and clouds of dirt was sent flying towards me, followed by the anguish and pain filled screams of the animal as something happened to it.
I heard sickening crunches, like something biting into bones and crushing it, only for the boar to scream louder still. Followed by something dry and hard clicking together, like many dice being thrown at once, or bones clatterings together. Then after a long while, everything stopped. The board stopped screaming after another wet crunch. And the clicking sound ceased soon after. The air turned silent once more, my surroundings calming down just like I was.
Except for the intense feeling of dread and confusion, I wasn’t afraid anymore. I didn’t live it, it was there, I could feel my fear yet it was just out of reach. Not ceasing my body, making me sweat and tremble anymore. But it was there, present.
When I thought things couldn’t get worse, I heard the sound of footsteps.
“Well, well, well. What do we have here? You are rough and loud, young sorcerer. Didn’t your parents teach you to not draw too much on the Everflow? You’re like a bonfire in the middle of the night, you know?” A woman spoke to me, a pair of eyes, bright like a full moon, were looking at me from above, glowing a soothing silver light. There was no anger or judgement, in either her voice or eyes. Yet she was annoyed.
“Are… are you the witch? The witch of the witchwood?”
“Depends, are you a copper? Did the nobles send you?” The derision and ominous vibe she had made her sound scarier to me than that boar ever was.
“P-please, I am searching for her… She helped my friend. Maria. I need her help.”
“And why is that? Can’t you go annoy your parents, boy-wonder? I am sure someone as brash as yo-”
“That’s why I need help! I can’t go back, or I will die. I am sorry for having disturbed you, I truly apologise. I don't even know what I did to catch your attention. But please. I don’t want to die.” The twin moons like eyes kept looking, before narrowing as the woman clicked her tongue.
“You aren’t a sorcerer, are you? Or at least, your parents aren’t capable of any special feats, are they?”
“Does beating their only boy to within an inch of his life every other week and using guilt to force him into staying to suffer more counts?” I couldn’t help myself. Cracking a joke as I felt all my warmth leaving my body, growing colder and more tired with every breath I take. Maybe it’s those two small moons she has for eyes that’s making me feel at ease, or maybe I can’t bother myself to care anymore… I feel so cold.
“ I didn’t know someone could have such beautiful eyes.” I blabber out, un-bothered as I struggle to work my lungs, with them getting harder to fill them and breathe as time goes on. I retch, something warm and pungent coming out of my throat, the taste is one I know but too well, blood. My blood.
“Thank you for the compliment. And definitely not. I guess congratulations are in order then, you’ve found me. Now hold on while I patch you up. Can’t have a newly awakened die out on my lands, that would reflect poorly on me…” She said, a laugh in her voice, one that was half crazed and half angry. I started feeling that strange echo from before again, but not coming from me this time, but from her. But I couldn't keep myself awake, feeling the cold and fatigue wrapping around my mind as I rested my head down.
“Thank… you.” Was the last thing I remember before passing out, embracing the cold that filled my body.