» [Storytime] Patchwork Sin’dorei

[Storytime] Patchwork Sin’dorei

[ I'm not sure how I feel about this, to be honest, and may try to tackle it from a different perspective, but it was an idea I wanted to get out there. ]

It was not a Sin’dorei that ambled through those sweltering woods on that summer night. Perhaps, at one time, it had been one, but there were very few distinguishing features left save for the faintly glowing yellow-green eyes that were embedded in the creature’s skull. The figure that slowly made its way through the trees was vaguely female, though time and ghouls had ravaged the body to the point where it was difficult to tell, save by what remained of the shape of the hips and the slight bumps of the torn shirt.

The Once-Sin’dorei traveled for days, perhaps weeks, even months, slowly made its way through wood and over field and past tall, sickly mushrooms and through forest again until it found its way to a ruined farmstead. In the trees just at the edge of the clearing, just before what was once the house of the property owner, a makeshift wooden enclosure stood. Its beams were falling from the nails that held them together and the grass was tall, past the creature’s waist. The Once-Sin’dorei paused as it approached the cage and it sniffed loudly before ducking down into the grass. Something glinted in the moonlight, the creature’s head snapped to the right, and its clawed hand closed around something shiny that was embedded in the dirt.

A chain.

Soft whining carried upon the wind, canine, as the Creature followed the path of the chain to another, smaller chain collar – and then it pulled.

The soil came away, pulling up a vertebrae or two, and that was when the creature noticed the pale skull of a dog in the grass near where the collar had been. The Creature tilted its head, reached forward, and slowly, gently, petted the exposed bone.

Barking. It wouldn’t stop barking. The dog crashed against the walls of the wooden cage that held it in, but the beams were sturdy and would not budge. He whined, he paced, he circled, but nobody came. Nobody came. The air was heavy, he was hungry. He was thirsty. When he finally curled up to die, his last thought was of the master that had betrayed him and left him to his fate.

Each bone was carefully pried from the ground and gathered up into the tattered satchel that the Creature carried. Once it was sure that everything had been taken, the Creature slowly stood and ambled from the woods and into the overgrown yard of the farmstead. It entered the barn where it paused in the doorway and took in the sights – the hay that was strewn across the floor, the bones of horses that lay in the stalls and the tools that had been abandoned. The Once-Sin’dorei set its satchel upon the ground, selected an empty stable, settled down on the dirt floor and began to dig, and dig, and dig.

When a hole had been made that was of the appropriate size, the Creature pulled its satchel close and began to re-settle the bones within this new, makeshift grave. Each bone, starting with the skull, was put into its proper place, and then a small bag of black powder was pulled from the Creature’s clothing. It paused over the grave, grinding its jaws with thought, before fishing out a handful of powder and sprinkling it upon the bones. With that task complete, the bones were buried and the Creature left the barn.

- – -

Every week the Creature returned to the grave, dug the dirt from the hole, and stared at the bones within. Every day it muttered gutteral words in Thalassian, words twisted by Undeath into a horrible spell, and every day the bones changed. At first, the changes were gradual – the position of the skeleton shifted until it appeared as if the corpse lay upon its side and a red film formed upon the once-white bones. Organs and muscle and tendon slowly grew in their proper places. At the end of the third month, something shifted within that grave, and the Creature – more ragged than ever – lifted the results of its work from its resting place.

The corpse was that of a gray-furred dog, obviously of Worg descent, with patches of rot still visible on its hide and a ragged appearance that one would expect from a deceased animal. The Once-Sin’dorei tilted its head to an awkward angle and ran its clawed hand over the fur with jerky strokes.

“Live.” The Sin’dorei-Creature rasped in a voice that, in life, would have been female. “Live.”

The animal did not move, but the Creature had much patience, and repeated the word again, over and over, “Live. Live.”

It happened gradually. Muscles long dormant twitched beneath the beast’s fur, then its lips jerked back from its teeth in a silent snarl; the eyelids flickered open to reveal golden eyes and the half-Worg stood.

“Find… him,” the Sin’dorei-Creature hissed and pointed north-east.

The large dog took off with unearthly speed, its haunting howls echoing through the forest.

- – -

Thom Waite was a survivor.

He had managed to outrun the Scourge when they took over his farm, he had made it out of many a battle against the enemy and, that evening, he was recovering from another near-miss. His time, however, was running out.

He lay alone within his tent in the Argent Dawn camp. He was just on the fringes of sleep when he thought he heard shuffling outside his tent and he barked, “I’m tryin’ to sleep, kid, go back to your own damn tent.”

There was no response. The shuffling stopped rather suddenly and Thom rolled onto his side to try sleeping again.

Then he heard it – the low growl right next to his head, behind him, that made his hair stand on end.

He didn’t have time to scream. The beast went straight for his throat, and the last thing he saw was the very familiar Worg standing over him, its muzzle soaked in blood, watching him die.

- – -

A year passed.

For the Sin’Dorei-Creature, time did not exist. For all it knew, it had been a decade since it had awakened and clawed its way from the pile of rotting corpses that had been thrown into a pit somewhere in the Plaguelands. It knew nothing of who it had been in life, nor did it have any inkling of just what it had meant to be alive – all it knew was this, the open road and travel alongside the rotting Worg that it had raised from the dead.

One afternoon, as the sun ducked behind the sickly clouds, the Sin’dorei-Creature found itself in one of the abandoned towns of the Plaguelands. Curiosity overcame it and it made its way through each and every home, checking drawers and closets and every possible surface for shiny, interesting objects for it to collect. As it reached the upstairs bedrooms of the largest house in the village, it found itself faced with a very unusual object.

A full-length mirror sat upon the wall of the smallest room, reflecting to the Once-Sin’dorei, for the first time, its own appearance – and the Creature screamed, a horribly unearthly sound that seemed to stay in the air for an eternity.

Pale yellow hair hung in clumps from a skull that was barely covered in tattered, ashen flesh. Sickly yellow-green eyes stared out at the Creature, and the arms that were held up in a defensive stance were missing much of their flesh, as if it had been clawed and eaten away, leaving only a little muscle and tendon; the torn clothing that was draped over the Creature’s frame did little to hide any of the exposed bone and torn flesh that made up its body.

Her body.

Flashes. Brief, but certain, of ideas of itself. Female. Rot. Ugly. Single words, simple thoughts.

And she kept screaming.

- – -

Every day, the Once-Sin’dorei sat before the mirror to trace her image with one bony finger. Every day, she wracked her rot-addled brain to figure out just what wasn’t right about how she looked. Face? Wrong. Hands? Wrong. Arms? Wrong. Everything? Wrong.

She raked her claws through her Worg’s fur while he happily chewed – wait.

The Once-Sin’dorei’s gaze snapped to the Worg by her side and the human arm he was chewing, and with a single hissed Thalassian word he stopped and stared at her. She growled. He growled. They growled until the Once-Sin’dorei snapped her teeth at him and he backed down, allowing her to take the arm. She snatched a dagger from the floor in front of her and cut a chunk of skin from the human arm, then held it to her face over some exposed bone.

If she had the facial muscles to smile, she would have.

- – -

A sewing kit from an unfortunate Dwarf. Several limbs. Several sets of breasts (if others that seemed female had them, why couldn’t she?). A couple of torsos. Some legs.

The Once-Sin’dorei sat before her mirror many months later, needle and black thread in hand, with an odd smile upon her brand new lips. She could smile. Though the necromantic spells and spell regeants that she had used to bind muscle to bone and animate it were running low, she was satisfied with her work – for the time being. She set down the needle and stood up straight, planted her hands on her hips, and beamed into the mirror.

The image that beamed back at the Once-Sin’dorei was fully fleshed: patches of various shades of ashen, pink and tan were connected to one another with neat, black stitches; borrowed eyebrows sat a little too high up upon her brow; small, round-ish breasts sat a little too low upon her chest (and neither one was the same colour) and her thick lips were parted in a crooked grin made even more crooked by the fact that they had been attached a little too much to the right.

Female. Beautiful. Perfect.

The Now-Sin’dorei bent down to retrieve a set of dog tags from around the neck of an earless, lipless, browless Once-Sin’dorei woman and put them around her own neck.

Simone.

For the first time in her Un-life, the patchwork Sin’dorei, Simone, could not stop smiling – and perhaps she never will.

Matojo's Tome | admin | July 8, 2010 12:23 am

2 Comments

By Marianne, July 8, 2010 @ 7:38 am

That’s… wow. Just, um… Wow. VERY good.

*kinda speechless*
By Kareth, July 8, 2010 @ 2:49 pm

Very cool, in an eerie, Lovecraftian sort of way. Love the whole concept.