Lannia turned the vial over in her hands and itched at her scalp. They only make wigs in itchy, very itchy, and "Dear Gods my scalp!" Months of wearing the damnable thing had not desensitized her to it. Still her focus was mostly on the small vial of black liquid.Â
She had bought it from an alchemist who swore it was the most toxic poison to be acquired. It was her plan B for so long. She had means of contacting people if she were captured, even a better than decent escape spell. If those failed, and Marius's stronghold were in view, this was her last resort. Months she's managed to hide this tiny vial from everyone, even her beloved Derik.Â
Lately she'd been thinking. How had she resisted so many times? How had she found the desire to rebel even with lifetimes of memories that should have compelled her to serve Marius blindly. There was the pounding of his black heart in her ears, sure, but the more she thought on it, the more she remembered the ache.Â
There was this ache in her heart of love, precious and forgotten. A family that had been erased from her again and again. Her compassion, as she watched others taken by Marius often drove her over an edge that love had already poised her on. Love drove her to rebel, and that is why Marius wanted to use love to compel her before Zachary helped her escape.
And love... Would always call her to fight. If she were taken again, though her mind may be wiped clean of any traces of her new family and her warrior, she believed her heart would remember. It would remember as it had remembered the love of her tribe.Â
She took the vial back to the alchemist that day. She didn't even ask for a refund or try to sell it back to him. She pressed the vial into his hands and walked away.
"If we should be torn apart, my love... We will just have to fight our way back and meet in the middle over the bodies of the fools who thought they could separate us."Â
Another day... More training...
=======================================================================
Lannia’s Memories (Viewed in reverse as this is the order she would regain them if the enchantments were dispelled):
She had a mother, a father, and 7 siblings. All of them burn in her mind. Their laughter, their dreams; they are empty echoes that keep her from peaceful sleep but she forgets them every time she wakes up.
She has three things she remembers well, though she doesn’t understand them. The sound of a heartbeat that isn’t hers, the feeling of a family lost that she can’t name, and the last suggestion given to her.
……………………….
“Run, Lani,†Zachary said softly, “Run, and keep running.â€Â
He pushes her through the portal onto the beach with tears in his eyes, “You are now no one. You are a beautiful butterfly, dancing from flower to flower. Now… RUN!â€
……………………….
Years of false memories burn like so much dry paper. She falls away from the beach at Ulgoth’s Beard, through a portal into darkness. She opens her eyes to searing pain and a man talking.
“This is the best I can do for you in the time we have,†Zachary says, “First we get rid of this past day, then I have enough implant memory scrolls here to give you about 10 years of new memories and a few minor suggestions.â€
“This is the best I can do.†Why does that sound so familiar?
He thinks as he sorts through the scrolls. Lannia is bleeding, and laying against a bare stone floor. It’s dark, and everything hurts. Without looking at her he says, “When I start the process I will call the cleric in. You don’t remember, but healings by these Clerics are not pleasant…â€
He walks over, brushes her hair out of her face and looks deeply into her eyes, “In watching you I’ve slowly realized he’s likely done the same to all of us… All his followers.â€
He takes his cloak off and covers her as he says, “I’ve reset people inside of a week and I have seen you resist for over a decade. So much of people is paper and straw, stuck together by sloppy paste and indelicate hands; they are mish-mashed toddler art projects. It’s almost a service to recreate them.â€
He stares into her, “Not you. These years of seeing you fight my best enchantments have been my deepest bane and sweetest joy. I have been asked to paint over a masterpiece, and now…â€
Deep shame seems to wash over him as he says, “I won’t let him do it, Lani. I won’t let him make you his woman and use that goodness we haven’t been able to stomp out as a weapon. I won’t watch him use your love to bleed you and wither you dry.â€
“Do you think,†He starts to ask as a tear falls down his cheek, “Do you think I was ever good?â€
He shakes his head ruefully, “No, it doesn’t matter… Are you ready to forget this place, Lani?â€
She nods slowly and the world goes black. For some reason she could hear the dull thump of a heartbeat that wasn’t hers. Thump-thump.
…………………
“It’s been a decade and a half,†A drow hisses at Zachary, “Countless scrolls, countless trials and always she ends up turning on me!â€
The drow has a wound in his shoulder. Zachary looks at him and points to the wound, “You should get that seen to, her aim must have been true to get past your various deflection spells.â€
Zachary looks to Lannia, beaten, bloodied, and chained to a wall and says, “I can’t explain it. Especially since we got her so young. She’s an anomaly. It might be best to reset her to be a coward and send her off to be some farmer’s wife so she won’t be a nuisance.â€
“She’s had innate ability since she was small,†The drow says slowly, “You were there that night… I can’t help feeling she could be my greatest disciple if she would just turn and STAY turned.â€
He grips his shoulder and winces. He pulls a whip and strikes her with it to make her feel the pain. Lannia shrieks in agony. Zachary doesn’t move, doesn’t even flinch as he watches. The drow wraps up the whip and looks her over. He licks his lips with a predatory smile.Â
“Maybe we can use it against her,†He says, “This heart of hers…â€
He smiled darkly as he said, “Make her love me. Desperately. So much so that she would die before hurting me.â€
Her mind actively resists remembering the rest. Thump-thump.
………………………..
Lord Marius has been shot! There! There is the shooter!Â
Lannia stands with a freshy notched arrow staring down at her lord with malice. She cries, “Spirits! Guide my arrows!â€
Wisdom guides her sight and the arrow flies true, but the wretched lord Marius has many who would die for him. Today it is a young boy, barely 16, who jumps in front of the arrow. Marius grins with sick satisfaction as the youth crumbles in front of him.Â
A bone-shattering pain hits her. A bolt has lodged in her thigh right down to the bone. She begins to return fire, but there are too many of them. She is beaten and gathered before her lord.
Marius takes her chin in his index finger and thumb and tilts her face up, rubbing her chin, “You again. Always you.â€
Lannia’s head spins. Again? How can this be again? She’s been his loyal dog for as long as she can remember. Tears well in her eyes as she remembers all the terrible things he’s had her do over the years. She bites at his fingers but he is too quick and she misses. He back hands her across the face for the trouble.
“Get her out of my sight,†He says as he spits upon her. Thump-Thump.
…………………..
Her memory repeats this again and again. She sees herself as young as 7 trying to drive a knife into his black heart. Every time she is taken away, given new memories, trained in zen archery, and starts to train to be a shaman. She is used as an assassin, a scout, and guard, and even as a commander in Marius’s forces. Her heart does not take the corruption permanently, and she rebels. Sometimes she gets closer to killing him than others, but she never succeeds.
She is tortured ruthlessly every time. Thump-Thump.
…………………
“Lani, Little Lani,†A warm male voice coos, “Wake up child.â€
But when her eyes open it is not a warm sight. Her grandfather, the shaman of her village stands over her with a distant expression holding a small dagger. He swipes at her and she leaps back. Pain rips through her bicep and her uninjured hand instinctively clamps over the rush of warm blood.
“Grampa,†She cries, “Grampa, please, what’s wrong?â€
He swung again, missing her narrowly, but backing her into a corner. She pleads and cries as he slowly closes in on her. He draws his hand back and she closes her eyes, bracing for the final blow.Â
Then she hears him chanting. It is a ritual she is not familiar with. She opens her eyes to see he has plunged the knife into his own gut. Blood leaks from his mouth as he says, “Forgive me, child. I am unwilled.â€
He drops to his knees, “I can only do this for you.â€
“Spirits of fire, come,†He coughed, “Consume me and burn my name into the great book!â€
He makes a few hand gestures and erupts in flame. Within seconds he is nothing but a husk. Lannia trembles with shock, crawling forward on her hands and knees. She attempts to hold his charred corpse but it crumbles to ash in her hands. She shakes, choking on sobs of despair.
“I told you I wanted the Shaman alive,†Marius complains.
“There’s no way I could have predicted-,†Zachary starts.
“I’m not interested in your excuses,†Marius says over him with a sneer, “Dispose of the remaining vermin in this village. We’ll need to find another.â€
“Did you do this?†Lannia asks without taking her eyes off her grandfather’s ashes.
“Hmmm? Do what?†Marius asks absently,†Oh that, yes, I did that, and I am about to do far worse.â€
He smiled sickly. Lannia could hear him breathing. She could hear his heart beating. It pounded in her ears. The abominable noise. Thump-Thump.
She wanted it to stop. Thump-Thump.
“The spirit of the earth is my mother,†Her voice ran away without her, she was outside of herself, “My brothers are the wind and rain. My father is fire, and he is ANGRY.â€
“She’s a shaman!†Zachary warned as he began chanting his enchantments. Thump-Thump.
Marius began to back away. Lannia’s body stood, and she watched it from the outside. She willed the horrible sound to stop. Thump-Thump
“Burn,†She heard herself say, “Burn into the great book and be gone from this world! Spirits take him!â€
The fire danced that night, she saw the spirit of fire delight in being let loose. Marius smiled wickedly as the spirits threw themselves upon him but ultimately fizzled on his many protective enchantments. For a young girl, barely 6 years old, evoking such a powerful call to the spirits of fire was more than her body could tolerate. She collapsed in a heap and felt the world slipping away.
“Get a cleric in here,†She heard Marius say, “If she dies you die.â€
Thump-Thump, Thump-Thump, Thump-Thump…
……………………..
From there back her mind is a flood of a peaceful village in the mountains, though the name seems to slide out of her grasp. They worshiped Chauntea and the spirits, particularly the elemental spirits, and called them kin. Her grandfather noticed her early talents and was preparing to teach her their ways. She would have been the youngest shaman in her village history, but that never came to pass.