The #Broken_Dagger Forum

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Thirteen years in the past, it was. I remember it all so clearly even now. I was just a girl, then. No more than, what...twelve? Yes, I think that's how old I was. It wasn't much different a day as many of them had been when I was growing up on that little farm I once called home. ..That little farm that no longer exists. It was a day just like any other: Up at the crack of dawn to help father with chores, then return to the house to the smells of my mother's cooking. Then back to doing some more chores around the farm with my dad, and after a little while he'd send me on my way to go and do the things that I liked to do as a girl my age. Which was play with dolls and the such. Simple things, simple pleasures. Simple life.

And that day turned out to be just like all the rest. I woke up..or rather, my dad woke me up at the early morning hour, as he always did, just before the sun come up, and I'd got up, got out of my nightie and into some different clothes..clothes that I usually wore when I'd go out and help my dad..stuff I wouldn't mind getting a bit gritty. Then I went and put a heavy cloak on; it was pretty chill out..and I went out with my father to start the day off, feeding the chickens, tending to the horses in the stalls, making sure thier oats were stocked good, and we cracked the ice over thier water so they could drink...made sure thier stalls were all cleaned well.

After that we looked to the cows and other animals...we had a lot of them on the farm...and about the time we finished that my mother called us in for breakfast. We went in...and I remember standing beside my father as we washed our faces and hands in the basin..and he looked at me and smiled his sweet, soft smile. ..I loved my father, and he loved me, so very much. He patted me on the head and told me how pretty I was growing up to be, and how soon he'd be worrying about me prancing around with boys when we visited the village. My father was a handsome man, by all rights. Chiseled by his life as a farmer..hard, stern features that made him look proud and strong. He had beautiful blue eyes, dark black hair he always kept back in a ponytail when he did chores. He was starting to show his age..around his eyes and the corners of his mouth..but he still looked every bit as fit and firm as he'd been twenty years younger.

I just smiled at my dad and gave him a pat on his arm. As an only child, I worked hard with my dad, helped him with things around the farm that he had at first been adamant against letting me do. But when I had grown a bit, he finally decided to let me help him..and he was surprised how hard I worked. After we washed up, we went to the kitchen around the table, and mom served us up our breakfast. We ate quietly, with bits of conversation here and there...mostly my mom and dad talking about the things needing to be done that day, some of it my mom talking to me and asking me if I could help her with things around the home, with some sewing and the such; a task to which I agreed quickly, and my mom smiled. She was a pretty lady, too. She had kind, sweet grey eyes and soft violet hair...just like mine, actually. My dad told me once that her hair color come from elven blood...but my mother always denied it.

Later on I returned to helping my father with more chores, then he finally sent me on my way and told me to go have fun doing my girl's business. I started to skip away when I just...got this strange feeling that I still don't understand. For some reason, I turned around, went back to my father and hugged him very tight. He was surprised at first...then picked me up and hugged me back in his strong arms and kissed my head. Then he set me down and set me on my way with a swift, soft pat on my back..and I went to the house to go help my mother.

..Mother's chores were easily done. She just needed me to help her sew some holes in some of our clothing, and with the both of us working it only took us a little over an hour. During that time mom and I talked about things, like females do. ...I loved my mother very deeply, too. ..I loved both my parents, so very much..and I still do. My mother smiled at me when we were finished, and started to get up to go do something else, when again I got that strange feeling. ....I ran up to my mother and hugged her tightly..and she blinked, surprised...then kneeled down and hugged me back and ran her hand through my hair...hair so much like her own..and gave me a little kiss on my left brow. Then she sent me on my way.

..Later in the evening we sat around the table again; mom had cooked dinner for us and we were eating quietly when once more I was seized by that unsettling feeling. I looked at my mom and dad and felt like I wanted to cry. I told them how much I loved them both so very much..and at that point I -did- start to cry. My father looked at me with concern in his pretty blue eyes and asked me what was wrong, and all I could do was just shrug helplessly and shake my head. I told him I didn't know what was wrong..that I just had a terrible feeling in my stomach and I didn't understand what it was about.

My father come around the table and put his arms around me again..hugged me close and told me it was all going to be alright..and after a little bit I finally got calmed down, and my mom come over to me and ran her fingers through my hair again..patted me gently on the cheek and told me how much she loved me. ..I told her I loved her, too. ...We finished dinner, then..I helped mom clean up...and soon after that we went to sleep...

...Hours later, I woke from a dead sleep..awakened by the shouting of my father. Before I opened my eyes...I realized how hot it felt. Then I opened my eyes, and all I could see was thick, black smoke...and the orange-red of burning flames. Then I took a breath, and as I became fully aware I started coughing..I could hear my father shouting for me. Alessa! Alessa! ...I leaped out of my bed, ran towards my door..put my hand against the knob and pulled it away immediately. The knob was too hot! It burnt my hand...I could see flames licking in from underneath the door, and my father still calling to me..

Alessa! Alessa! ALESSA! ...His voice, from somewhere outside the door. I called back to him..yelled for my father as loud as I could..but the flames outside my door were too thick...he couldn't get to my door. I could see the flames getting brighter on the other side, feel the heat radiating off the wood of my door..which had begin to smolder and smoke. I was trapped in my room...uncertain of what to do. Then again I heard my father's voice..and a crash behind me. The window! I turned to look, and my father had thrown something through it and busted it..and he was reaching inside, cutting himself on broken glass. I ran to him..his strong arms wrapped around me and he pulled me through..we went tumbling backwards from the window, from the second story..and my father let himself take the fall. His strong body absorbed the shock, and we lay there gasping and coughing for only a moment before my father rolled me off of him and stood up, running back towards the house.

...I yelled for him, told him not to leave me...but he yelled back, saying he had to go find my mother..he had to go save my mom. The fire wasn't too bad by the kitchen...so he ran in through the front door...back into the inferno. I could hear him calling inside, screaming loudly for my mother...and I could hear her somewhere inside..screaming for him. Time had slowed to a crawl then..and I could only watch and wait in horror, tears streaming through the soot on my face, leaving clear tracks through my dirty skin. After a moment of what seemed to be forever...I realized I couldn't hear my mother yelling anymore..and my father...I couldn't hear him either. But I waited...and I waited, as the fire grew hotter and hotter..bigger and stronger..it burned through the roof and I could see the flames shooting into the night sky..and I waited. My father had told me to wait for him..that he had to go save mom and he'd come back..and I waited.

I waited until the flames consumed the house, and it fell to the ground as the flames ate away the strength of the wood...and as the house collapsed into firey ruin...I realized then that my father..and my mother...were dead. ...Simple things....simple pleasures...simple life. ...All of it gone now, destroyed..fallen apart into a firey nightmare. My father had saved my life..gone back for my mother...and they had both perished in the blaze.

The morning was bright and cold....but it wasn't a morning like any others I had awakened to. ...I was alone, frightened, and cold..dressed in but a little nightgown...still looking at the smoldering pile of rubble that used to be my home..still burning and crackling under the light of the new dawn..... ----

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Alessa Whitecloud finishes her writing, sitting somewhere in a cell at the Gaol in Myrken Wood. ...Tears stream down her pretty face..and she pulls off her glasses to wipe at them with the back of a shaking hand. Before her, a diary. One she had never written in before this night. Waiting on word from the Guard on her confessions to murdering a man several nights ago, she has had nothing better to do than let her thoughts flow from her head to her hand and out onto the paper. She insisted on staying in Gaol until she was needed again, to perhaps let Captain Thomas know that she had no plans on leaving. She'll stay there as long as she is needed..until they call upon her. For now..she is exhausted. Writing of her past has left her tired and worn. She closes the book..marking it with the quill she'd been using to write..and sets it next to the inkwell upon the small desk in her cell. With a sigh, she'd curl up on the bunk...close her eyes..and drift off into an uneasy sleep.... ----

When morning came, Alessa would be visited by a guardsman who came and beckoned Alessa to follow him, where he'd take her to a small, relatively empty room save a long rectangular table and a couple of chairs on each long end. The guardsman would introduce himself as Sergeant Hickensen, sent by the captain to conduct a small informal trial and investigation, lacking the proper time or manpower or councilor activity to conduct a more formal trial.

They had found the body, at Alessa's direction; they had the weapon. The captain had a brief of her story. As far as the sergeant was concerned, he'd probably be letting her go that day or the next.

He started with what might be his only question: "All right, Miss Whitecloud - from the beginning. Tell me what happened on that day."

The day in question was, of course, that day and its actions that brought Alessa to bring herself here in the first place.

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The morning would come to her slowly..her writing had brought about troubled dreams, and her sleep was not a peaceful one. As much as her mind and heart screamed out for her to awaken and end those awful, painful dreams..she could not. Eventually, however, her sleep would end..and she'd drift from slumber to consciousness. Tears stain her cheeks; she'd been crying in her sleep, and no doubt talking in it as well. She'd sit up and be in the process of drying her eyes and wiping them clean with a small handkerchief when she would be summoned. She'd of course go along with no resistance or complaint. Her parents had always taught her to respect the law and those who enforce it, and she would show naught but respect for the Guards of Myrken Wood. She is taken from her cell, then, and led to this small room. An interrogation room, if she ever saw one.

She is respectful and polite to the guards, smiling softly and nodding as she is directed to go through with the details of that night.

"..Of course, sir. ...I'll be as detailed as possible..with respect to the decency of you and the other fellows here. After all, my chosen...profession is not one of good repute, and some details I believe would be best left undisclosed."

..She would then recount for them what had occured. ...How the man she had killed had come to the whorehouse looking for what many men before him and since had come looking for. He had been directed to Alessa because of her knack in a certain area that the man had noted an interest in. Sparing them the details as she had promised, Alessa would then describe the events leading up to the man's assault...how he had become angry when he had directed her to perform an act which she found repulsive and disgusting.

A short argument had ensued, in which the man repeatedly demanded her to perform said act, and in which Alessa had continually refused. After some moments, the man became enraged, and had lunged at her. She was able to sidestep his advance, but as she turned to make for the door to the private chambers in which they had been, the man produced a whip and had struck her with it. ...And at this point, Alessa would stand and turn her back to the Sergeant, and lifted her shirt just enough for him to see the still-healing wound of the whip-lash across her back, between her shoulder blades.

Then she would seat herself again and resume the story....

After the man had whipped her, she stumbled forward into the door and spun around. By this time the man was upon her and pinned her against the wall. He grabbed her arm, spun her about and threw her to the floor, then proceeded to kick her three times...twice in the ribs and once in her shoulder...then he reached down, grasped her left arm by her elbow and wrenched her to her feet so ferociously that her shoulder was dislocated. He then slammed her against the wall, and her head had knocked against it harshly. It was at this point that she could see the man reaching towards his hip...specifially his right hip, and to point where she could see the glint of something metallic, and at this point, with her fearing for her life, she could only assume it was a blade of some sort.

It was this realization that drove her to her next course of action. She carried a weapon on her...the very dagger that she had given to Capt. Thomas...in a small sheathe on her right hip. Using her good arm, she drew the weapon as the man reached for his, and as he began to lean towards her, she saw him draw his hand back, and knew the time for action had come. She had lifted her own weapon, turned her hip and rammed it into his thigh to catch him by surprise..and aimed for a spot where she knew she could at least seriously wound him. Thus her knife went into his right eye, and killed him rather instantly. He didn't even utter much of a scream and was dead before he hit the floor.

...At this point she would finish recounting for the Sergeant and go silent, looking at her hands. The woman has done what she feels is right...now the rest is up to those who have been bestowed the responsibility of upholding truth and justice. She remembers the kind smiles of her mother and father, and how they had always taught her as a little girl to respect the men and women who helped enforce the law. "Always be honest and respectful", her father had told her, "and the good men and women who uphold law will certainly appreciate you for it." ...Remembering her father again, whom she loved so dearly...would bring tears to her eyes, and her cheeks would burn shamefully. A muttered apology given, she'd remove her spectacles and wipe at her eyes...then wait for Sergeant Hickensen's decision...

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Sergeant Hickensen would listen in silence, nodding when applicable and otherwise being, simply, the listener. Leaning forward, he used his knees to support his elbows, and thusly the rest of his torso - a simple arch of the back. When Alessa was finished, the sergeant would sit up straight, resting his hands in his lap. He cleared his throat, and took a moment to pick his words - though, as the woman would discover rather quickly, not to find some way to pass along bad news nicely - but to simply express that even if she was let free, the situation was rather serious.

But she knew that; perhaps it was more that she knew they knew. Which was important, believe one or not.

"Well, Ms. Whitecloud, I conducted a short investigation, asking around and inspecting the body, and everything seems as you say...so you are free to go."

The sergeant would then produce a blade that had been stationed next to his larger Straka issue sabre. It would be none other than the same that Alessa had given to the captain as evidence, which would now be offered back to the woman hilt-first.

The sergeant would leave her, or she'd leave him first; either way, he'd offer a simple word of caution: "Be careful."