Fan Fiction ❯ Wanderer Leilis ❯ Leilis chapter #1 ( Chapter 1 )

The huge lightning bolt was unavoidable. From what little she knew of the science of storms she was just out of luck. The `leader' that came from her and the trick horse Anashi had reached the build up of power and wammo they were hit. Unfortunately for her it seemed that science had little to do with her present circumstances. Someone had decided to take a hand in her fate and had monkied with nature to do it.

When she woke up she was in an unfamiliar bed. Being an orphan circus girl with a tendency to drop and sleep wherever she found herself this was not all that strange. What was strange was the pompous looking man leaning over her wearing what had to be his business scowl. He was wearing what could only be called robes, official looking ones but still robes. And the perfect eyes that made her hands itch for her colors and pencils were diamond hard and colored platinum. Then he pulled a strand of hair back behind his ears. What she saw made her eyes roll back in her head for a second.

"Miss, Miss!" She opened her yes again and snarled with discontent at the site of the pompous man. "It's Leilis you annoying beurocrat! And what in the hell makes you think being in here with me is at all appropriate! Get out!" She reached for the nearest heavy object to throw at the strange politico, a brass candlestick came readily to hand and she threw it in a perfect curve. She was aiming for soft tissue. This oddball hadn't given her any reason to want to brain him just give him enough discomfort to discourage future misbehavior.

The object didn't hit him, but it didn't miss and fall to the floor ether. With a blinding move so very fast that all she saw was a blur, he caught the thing in mid air. Righting it he sat it on a table closer to himself then to her. Real smart Leilis! Lose your only weapon right off the bat! She groaned. "If this is some scheme to abduct women and start yourself a bordello I warn you I bite and not in a friendly way!"

"Lady Leilis I can assure you that I have no ill intentions towards your virtue or your well being in general! I am merely serving the will of my sovereign!" he said. His tone implied that she had given offense by accusing him of being a lecher. "A girl wakes up in a strange bed in a unfamiliar room with an oddly dressed stranger standing over her staring. Tell me oh robed one what am I supposed to think?" He nodded in acceptance of the facts as she stated them. "True enough Lady Leilis. However we have not the time. We are the last to be still here in the portal city and we are desperately wanted in the royal palace many miles distant from here!"

He said then he set a pile of clothing on the table and turned to leave. "Once you are dressed we must go. It is a long ride to the palace. Ours is a journey that will take many days and cross much perilous ground. It is best that we make haste and begin." An hour later found them riding out of the South Gate at a leisurely trot. The city was a medieval one that stunk to high heaven. Open sewers and dead carcasses of animals adding to the pong of pre pollution control industry.

She was glad when the wind finally began to blow in their faces and carry the stench back to its place of origin. Ha! That was the first time she had ever smelled anything so very bad it could be classified as a stench instead of just a stink. Living almost all her life among circus animals meant that it had to be worse then terrible to be worth the upgrade. She looked over at the politico to see him calmly holding a perfumed handkerchief up to his nose.

Ralden Kimo-Dia was startled out of his reverie by the feminine voice making some sort of inquiry in the human tongue. "Say again Lady?" He inquired. "I asked If any one ever called you a dandy? To your face even though most likely behind your back?" He turned to look at her his eyes shifting into the colder half of the spectrum in his fury. This only made her smirk at him in triumph.

"Yep I thought so. Well I can help you there my dear pointy eared friend. Ditch the hankie and wrinkle your nose just like the rest of the universe does when it gets a whiff of something foul. Simply stop acting the way people of lower class expect you to act as a noble born sot and act like a nobleman should act. With caring and dignity towards every living being. The public opinion of you will swing to the good right quick if you do." She spoke teasingly with the lilt of the city raised ones, but she spoke things that made much sense and left him to contemplate them for the first two dozen miles of their journey.

Night was beginning to settle on the land when they made camp for the first day. He chose that moment to properly introduce himself. "Nice to meet you Ralden, now be a good boy and start a fire so we can have a hot supper." She said. No flowery speeches from this child of Adam. She was an all business sort of individual whom in his humble opinion could bring nothing but good to the flagging royal line.

The next day she woke him before the sun had chosen to grace the land with it's blessing of light. His grumbled grouches were met with a surprisingly vehement reply. "Get on your feet now!" Leilis had insisted. He had obeyed, knowing the sound of a submit or suffer order from long standing service to a crown worn by those most thought insane. She looked back at him once they were trotting down the road again, and completely unaware of what she had done, asked him why he looked so darn afraid. "Lady Leilis you give orders just like the royal house has for many millennia beyond even my reckoning."

Her apology was very unexpected, but well worded despite it's simplicity. "Friend Ralden. I am not insane, nor am I cruel. You only have my word for this for now, but I promise that unless you offer me harm or try to harm a person who can not defend themselves you need never fear me."

All the time she was giving this apology she was laughing inside. At this time she had absolutely no power over the fate of this local lordling, and she doubted that even a hardcore Marine would be able to kick Ralden around in a fight. Especially if her companion used his blinding speed in the settling of what he would most likely call a `severe disagreement'.

The day passed reasonably well until they had just finished their noontime meal. On the road once more they had barely gone a handful of leagues when the sound of someone getting a severe beating could be heard. Blows falling on flesh make a very distinctive sound, and once you have heard it you never forget it. Ralden watched in amazement as the otherwise decent woman he had been discussing court politics with turned and stared down the road. Her eyes hardened from a subtle blue to the color of a winter sky just before an ice storm blows in.

"How much you want to bet that's a fricken mob and one guy is getting whacked Ralden?" She muttered something foul sounding in a foreign human language and spurred the circus beast into motion with one swift click of her tongue. She galloped down the road and he was not far behind. The scene that they came upon was just as the lady had described it to be. It had been so very long since he had seen such a direct form of violence that he wondered what sort of environment spawned a woman who could tell be the sound that a man was getting beaten to death by a horde of angry fools.

For fools they certainly were! They had crossed Leilis that day. Ralden's opinion of his erstwhile travelling companion soared even higher as she used her sharp piercing voice to cry a halt to the proceedings. "Stop in the name of the Crown!" She bellowed and all motion came to a screeching halt some were stopped in mid swing. She trotted up to the mob and ordered it to disperse to the side of the road.

Having done so she softly but clearly to all who stood around inquired of him weather such was a common form of capitol punishment in this land? "Nay Lady, no matter the crime capitol punishment is frowned upon most harshly by crown and kingdom." He replied. He knew almost as if he had read her thoughts what this woman was about. Though he could not approve of her choice of stray to rescue, Ralden had to admire her method of executing said rescue. "Tell me you there with that nasty looking club, what crime has this pore fellow committed that warrants such unjust and vicious treatment of his person?" Leilis asked with decided deadliness in her tone.

They may have been mob ad before but they too noticed the similarity of her tone to that of a deadly royal, and looked no further for her identity. "Forgive our mistake High Lady! We thought that since he was just a deep dweller..." The well dressed mob leader spoke. Before he had drawn breath to finish her face had taken on a black look that made even Ralden want to wet himself in fear for his life. "Silence! I will hear no more! Nothing but base bigotry and pit vipers seeking prey!" Leilis snarled. She was shaking in her fury, and he knew she was not acting.

"Yea merry gentleman had better seek forgiveness of the gods and you had best pray for deliverance should I ever see any more of your sorry hides! For it will mean an end to your days of wickedness should you and I ever cross paths again!" She turned to him with that look on her face and said softly in that lethal tone, "Dear Ralden, be a good soul and help me get this poor fellow on my horse. We will see him to a healer far beyond the range of these psychopathic creatures before we continue our journey."

Then once he had the man balanced on her beast who was rolling it's eyes at the smell of blood on the air, she mounted up behind him and once again calm in appearance she whispered, "Don't you fellows have some prayers to catch up on?" That soft-spoken phrase was the final blow to the mob. In terror for their very lives they scattered and ran.

"Whomever you are lady I, Zenthier Dier Vair, owe you my life." He spoke with honor's certainty. She however just smiled her gentlest smile. "We will discuss the method of payback I might require of you once you are well again Zenthier, and drop the formality. When two lives such as ours cross destiny had it in mind that we be friends." She pulled one of the lady's kerchiefs's he had supplied for her use out of a handy saddle bag, and had him hold it firmly to his arm with his good hand.

"He will need that bone set and the wound closed by stitches if I am not mistaken Lady Leilis." She nodded. "I can handle that but I think we should make tracks before those fools find their missing balls and decide to reclaim their lost entertainment." Then she took them off at a rapid pace; not slowing again until full dark was well past. And only then because the stars could not give enough light to proceed with the moon in her darkest phase.

They set up camp in a cleft in the hillside that surrounded them on three sides with towering walls of granite. The fire she lit was only large enough to boil water in the copper kettle he had brought along to make tea. This she did and then she assembled bandages and made a paste of the small amount of plaster in the healers kit they had along with them. First she set the bone in The Deepman's arm with a swift twist. The sound made as the broken ends of bone grated against one another was enough to make Ralden cringe with sympathy for the pain it must cause. The Deepman did not even make a whimper of protest.

That done she washed off the wound. Then she used what he assured her was an antiseptic potion to cover the ragged tearing in the Deepman's skin. Then she stitched it closed. Once that was done she wrapped bandages several times around the entire arm and secured it so that it stayed bent and immobile. After coating the bandages with plaster she instructed him that if he ever wished to regain full use of that arm again he would not move until the plaster hardened and he would not try to use it more then absolutely needed for the next several weeks. Having said that, she apologized to the Deepman for not having any pain relieving agents and went to settle into her bedroll.

Leilis just wanted to sleep. This week had already been way to much for her to deal with and they were only a few days into it. Rescuing persecuted races of elves from their white skinned neighbors and mending their shattered limbs had not been what she had imagined when the circus had settled into it's winter housing. Learning to speak like these odd jobs had not been on her list of things to do ether until that very morning when Ralden had insisted that she talk like a lady and not a back woods hoyden.

"It is best you do not reveal your origins until you have a high born protector lady. In our lands not all are as equal as they may seem and off behavior is an invitation to trouble." Now that she had seen first hand the way elves treated a darker skinned version of themselves she hated to think what they would do if they found out she was a human! She would be a used up, tortured victim for sure!

She fell into an uneasy sleep filled with dreams of the death of her parents. The scene with Zenthier had been so nearly the same that all those memories had come rushing to the surface when she had thought them long buried. The race riots of `06' they had called them. They had sealed the fate of one of the strongest nations in the world with a bloody kiss. She knew she wasn't the only one made a kinless orphan by the brutality of those days. The post apocalyptic world into which she had been thrust as a ten year old did not look kindly on the young the old or the weak. So Leilis had learned to be none of these.

She had been earning her keep by doing odd chores with the circus where her great grandma told fortunes by the time she was twelve. The funny notion that had grown with society's industrialization that kids shouldn't work and nether should the old had been washed away by the chaos with all the rest of the promises made by dead politicians. So she labored as hard as any adult around and they gave her a fair day's pay for a fair day's work.

She had already learned to read before her parent's death, and liking books had slept little so that she could have time to read. Thus her odd habit of crashing wherever her exhaustion took hold of her had been formed. Anyplace that was flat or at least mildly comfortable had often found her asleep in it. Many had been the times that she would wake up in a moving trailer belonging to one of her brother or sister carnival workers, Having been scooped up with the rest of the equipment for a pre dawn escape.

`Gypsies of the modern age' one poet had called them. And he had been right about it. They were welcomed only for a little while anyplace they went, then looked at with suspicion and driven out if they stayed to long. For their troop at least it never seemed to get that bad. Boss Higgans had made sure that they left while they were still welcome and no one ever did anything to jeopardize their invitation to return the same time next year.

She had worked so hard that once her grandmother died of old age at the ancient age of ninety-four they had given her over the house her grandmother had claimed as her own. Eighteen and having your own home wasn't bad in the modern age. Admittedly with property ownership laws hinging on possession not unheard of but still a feat that showed she was valued for how willing she was to work like tomorrow would never come.

Her talent for fixing all things mechanical and her gift of learning every trick they cared to teach her made a much sought after assistant out of Leilis. She didn't even have to specialize because she could run any sideshow gimmick or any carnival booth without so much as batting an eyelash. She had learned to throw knives without looking and hit her target ride horses in the trick rider style and handle venomous serpents without a qualm. She was one of the best animal handlers overall that they had ever had and this made her proud.

Animals she knew could be trusted to behave in one of two ways. How instinct told them to or how they were trained. Ether way no surprises lurked if you knew your beasts, and treated them well. A mad tiger is not a friendly tiger as strongman Phillips had learned to his detriment after teasing the beast. No one had mourned him after his attempts to seduce her. She sure wished she had her flock of carnies and only barely tame beasts right now! She would feel so much more secure in among her mobile family.

Jolted awake an hour before false dawn would even be in the sky she gave up trying to sleep. She got up and went over to her only familiar mobile landmark. The retired trick horse Anashi had become her personal property after she had nursed the poor mare back from a broken leg. Anashi loved her in the simple trusting way of most animals that she befriended. She could only hope that they would see each other through to the other side of this adventure.

Zenthier watched as his rescuer went and embraced her mount leaning into the creature's warmth the woman spoke soft reassurances that sounded more for her benefit then for the beast's. "We'll make it out the end of this wacky adventure o.k. Anashi. Then we'll go home and you can run around the pasture with Flint and Jarvis, and maybe have a few more colts and fillies to shore up the stock before you go to horse heaven eh?" The beast seemed to detect it's mistresses uncertain emotions, it wound it's head around and nuzzled her shoulder in a comforting way, whickering softly as it would to it's own offspring.

He sat some distance away from the fire and she was unconcerned enough to not search him out. His older brother was not so at ease with his missing sibling and soon the shuffle of undead moving about was heard by his sensitive ear. The Fool Ralden woke but looking over at his travelling companion with her horse attributed her speaking softly to the beast and it's movements as the sound he heard. He quickly rolled back over not wanting his partner to think him awake and ready to depart so very early, as was obviously her way.

She however knew the instincts of her beast and when it began to roll it's eyes in fright and whinny in a much more high pitched way then normal she reacted. She was very quickly at his side, but not so swiftly that she did not find his brother already there. "Well hello! Obviously related to our Zenthier, so Zen if you want I will let you go with your kin and see you some other time then?" She offered.

"What of my debt then?" He inquired with a soft smile that made his brother's eyebrows shoot up in shock. "Silly Zen. I will sure as the sun rises see you and most likely this here thing that stinks like old moldy dead bodies again. Like I said Destiny played her hand with us yesterday. Since we are friends though I'll tell you something important." He nodded and since she saw it in the light of the sixth world that now was shining brighter then the full moon, she continued.

"I was dragged here from my world Zen. By a spell cast bolt of lightning. The King of this way sick and twisted land is looking for a bride from among the supposedly suitable candidates brought by this spell and all of them are going to the palace to be pawed over. I am just going to see if they will be nice and send me home. If they won't I am sure as hell not marrying any king or getting tossed like a bone to one of his noblemen.

Even if it was Ralden, an all well and a nice guy I suppose, I still would have to refuse on grounds that he's a wussy pansy boy. However the point is that I will forget your debt if you keep your ear to the ground and come looking for me if I don't show up or word doesn't come out that I went home. If that does happen check it out before you believe this lot. They lie like they breathe, quietly and efficiently, and without thinking about it."

This got her a laugh from his brother. Then he even `graced' her with his words. "Whatever debt of honor is owed by my brother I will share his burden. We will look for you a week from the time you reach the place. If you have not escaped or been released we will see to restoring your freedom. Take care Lady Leilis." He said with a teasing half bow as they used at court. Then he turned to go.

"Brother she goes into to much danger and I owe her more then a paltry sum of funds. I owe her my life; therefore I will go with her and see that she is well and free in time to meet up with you. Then I am afraid we must go to cousin Daiel to insure she survives." His brother turned, stared at her, then at him and smirked. "Alright then brother. I will set about raising an army. You watch over your human and get her out of that den of jackals with all due speed. We will meet you in the haunted grounds."

Then His brother turned and faded into the coming dawn. "Hmm now that I notice it brother is right. You are a human. How odd. One has not been seen inside the borders of the Northern Kingdom since before I was born, since before even he was born I should think. You should be wary as we complete the journey. You are even more of a loathed thing then myself or my brother, and in several dozen times greater danger due to your gender." He said. She snickered and held something out to him.

Now he knew why his brother had so blatantly smirked at him. The woman had picked his pocket so to speak as they stood there talking to one another! He took back one of his ninety-nine throwing knives and smirked just as his brother had. She smiled back. Then she whispered to him, "Whenever we get to your cousin's remind me to find the maker of those knives. They are very well balanced." He arched a brow at her vast knowledge of all sorts of matters and followed her back into the circle of light given by the tiny fire.

Ralden looked oddly at him as he used his one good hand to climb up behind Leilis. She smirked at him over her shoulder before gesturing to the badly wrinkled beurocrat that they should continue. He rested his injured hand on her left hip and his uninjured one on her right. This made her look back at him in question. He gave her a slightly wicked grin to which she chuckled a bit.

The next days were without incident until they came to the halfway point on their long road. Taking his warning to heart she told Ralden to ride in and acquire the supplies they needed while she took her beast and circled round the mediocre city. She settled into the grass under a tree a few hundred yards from the northeastern gate. After carefully dismounting he joined her. When he realized that the horse wore a hackamore and not a bridle with a bit in it's mouth he was impressed.

All surface dwellers on average be they elf or human or something else tried to force their will on other creatures by very harsh means. This beast was well trained it was obvious, but it also showed no fear of its rider. "Did the beast come with you to this world Leilis?" She nodded. "Anashi is a retired Trick Pony. She became mine when I rescued her from being sent to make glue of her. I bought her with my hard earned money and the boss though he is my friend gouged me a little because of force of habit. I was out giving the old girl some exercise when the bolt struck us."

"If they used the lightning summoning then you must have a burn." She nodded and pulled the neckline of her dress down to her collarbones where the burn started a familiar fern pattern. "The surface nobility has no respect for anyone even their own! After it was discovered that the scar is difficult to heal in most cases my kind banned the use of that particular spell altogether!" he snarled in fury. She just smiled her `I accept life as it comes' smile at him.

"Eh no worries Zen. I was orphaned at the age of ten in a land rife with civil unrest where my parents were killed before my very face in an incident just like the one I pulled you out of. It isn't my first scar and it won't be the last most likely. Their concern being so little just means that they practice smart politics. You can't make everyone happy so in order to have some control you only worry about the ones with power. Unless the powerless are huge in numbers and well organized they don't mean diddly squat." He nodded; again finding himself shocked at her sheer volume of knowledge.

They conversed on many other topics while awaiting the return of their companion. Finally she asked about the one subject no woman of any race could avoid once they met him, she inquired about his brother. "I will tell you everything to avoid questions about his odd behavior along down the road. My brother Xercolna is what our people call Shiral~Nak. Literally translated it means Void Sorcerer. However in the common spoken tongue of humans it could be translated as Necromancer." He waited for her to be shocked. Not this one though.

"So he calls out the residual consciousness of things that once lived and uses it to animate their remains or other nearby remains to make himself minions eh? Nice job if you have the stomach for it I guess. You then would be the assassin of the family yes?" he nodded then asked a question of his own. "Why does this shocking information not bother you? Most humans and even the surface dwellers would be paralyzed with fear or even repulsed by ether one or both of our occupations. Yet you have no worries stamped on your very scent. Such calm can not be a natural thing, so how do you accomplish it?"

"First of all while most people where I come from can wrap their heads around the idea of a pro killer for hire most would not even in their wildest imaginings believe Necromancy and other such things existed. However, I smelled the scent of dead things all over your sibling, and they were the things that made the shuffling noises all around us that morning. I trust my nose to tell me what's going on when I can trust nothing else. It said that dead things walked and you say Necromancy. Blind and deaf and without my hands I could still find my way with just my nose. Between the two of these things you are proved truthful.

And second the calm you say is even in my scent is a natural thing. A sort of immunity that has built up over the years of endless pain and loss so that nothing reaches the heart of me. Everyone dies and I am left by myself Zen. I am much better off if the walls stay up and logic reigns my actions and behaviors. As to the whole revulsion thing, I am fond of you so I will accept both your work and that of your brother without revulsion because if our friendship is to outlast this first stage it must have a strong foundation in trust and acceptance."

The sadness that he smelled, heard and felt radiating off her in tidal wave sized floods when she said that everyone died and left her alone cut deep. If it were not for his extended clan and his brother he would be alone as she. He was also stunned by her sweet bravery. To offer friendship to one of his kind meant nothing but trouble on the surface and even among his own kind she would be an oddity. He soon learned that she did not mind being out of place and was in point of fact quite used to the status of oddity.

As if she read his mind in that minute she smiled her accepting smile again and whispered, "I am always the oddball in any company Zen. I am a mixed parentage orphan girl who works with the circus carnies as a way of making my living. I am what some have termed a modern day gypsy. Cast out by all and sundry and living on the road. A harsh reality makes for a harsh girl, but will you be my friend anyway?" He took her right hand in both of his though it made his arm twinge with remembered pain, and bowed his head over their clasped hands. "It would be my greatest honor and joy to call you friend Leilis." He vowed.

Leilis smiled again. It was amazing how often she found herself smiling now that she had met him. Napoleon was right. Fortune does favor the bold. By taking a stand for what her parents had died for she had earned a lifelong friend who would most likely outlive her by centuries if not thousands of years. And in so doing he would have the chance to give her memory to hundreds of others in his kindred clans and elsewhere. So in a way by saving his life that day she had insured her own immortality. She was gladder of the friend in this foreign place then anything else about him at the moment.

A look of deep sorrow flickered in his eyes and he asked her something in his own language. Perhaps Zenthier was forgetting that he had not spoken in language she could comprehend. "Ask again in English friend Zenthier." She reminded gently. "Kora Lier." He said then continued in English. "What I asked was whether or not you found my dear brother to be attractive." Her soft smile this time seemed to cause him pain. Her answer shocked him obviously.

"Why would I dear Zen? He smells bad, does your brother, and as I explained already I have a highly sensitive sense of smell. So while I am sure he has some good points and will make some noseless female very happy. I can not even think of him like that without gagging. No offense to your blood relatives of course."

He nodded "Of course not." She felt him turn and stare at her profile when she looked at the city in the distance and said, "However I do think his brother is kinda cute." She thought she might want to spread it a little thicker so she leaned into him and sniffed deeply. "He even smells good, like spices, warm blood and the heat of battle, a yummy combination." Then she rested her head against the good shoulder of her new friend and allowed the warm sunshine to lull her into a restful sleep.

Zenthier wondered why a human who had never taken a life of anything she did not eat would enjoy the smell of blood that mingled constantly into his scent even when not wounded. He also wondered what he would say to that fool Ralden or even to his brother went they noticed that his new friend had caused an unfortunate and most unintentional reaction in him. Perhaps she would be a 'good friend' and help him with the problem once they had won free of the king's palace. Maybe even before then with the danger all around adding to the enjoyment they could both get out of it. Somehow though he felt that she had been trying to sooth not arouse so he just forced his condition out of his mind.