Our Chosen

1. Forsaken

Elder Dolkir-Korak watched the creature, so small it was almost inconceivable even for him to think of what she might be capable of someday. Dolkir had seen many ages come and go, many creatures rise and fall, and for the dragon kin, the time had come that would see the tide turn for his kind, either to conquer the skies once more, or fade completely into myth. The Aketi, or humans, as they called themselves, had kept to the tradition for what must seem untold ages to their kind. Dolkir knew it was no longer out of trust, but fear and superstition, that they carried on presenting - or more closely - discarding one of their own helpless infants to the Nir’kri Forest every fifth year. He doubted they even remembered why it must be so, for it was their way these past cycles, to abandon the ones who were born no love. Those who were more burden than blessing, forsaken to ease their own toil and appease the law that had long since turned from prophecy to fable in their ears. There had been many before who had shown more promise than this wan creature he now beheld, but it was not for he to decide the fates or times. It was simply what was and what would be, so this one would become Seri’var – Our Chosen, in the Aketi tongue, though perhaps they did not recall the word’s meaning.

The ancient saw time pass, as he always did, by watching the changes of the Aketi. Most particularly, in Seri. She grew, like the others, learned the languages of communication; of tongue, eyes, body, and mind. In time, Dolkir began to see her strength - not in body, as all Aketi are so small it matters little, but of her mind. She made progress, developed her wakened being further each year, her tutelage possessed her, she embraced her trials and instruction with an almost pure focus. Dolkir was satisfied by her efforts, for time was so limited to the Aketi. He knew her focus now would someday lose its ability to fortify her, her inner balance would seek to know answers to questions she did not yet have – questions Dolkir would not ask of her, nor the answers give, for they were of the kind that all creatures must find the path of asking and answering for themselves. For now, they did not relate to her purpose, and would only serve to blunt the weapon he must create. He would shape her in the ancient ways, strip away all that did not serve the identity she must have. He would sharpen her in the given laws, and then he too would soon forsake her. She would become an instrument, perhaps only loved by those in coming cycles who would recount her deeds and tell her story, for only they will understand why she was.

2. The Making

Seri hated villages. They made her realize she was different from everyone else; homeless, with no family. She hugged her bare arms, watching the mud street foot traffic squelching and slipping about, all but oblivious of her; the small girl in dirty rags - Forsaken. It wasn’t the cold air that brought goose bumps to her skin - she was well acquainted with the cold – it was the indifference of her own kind, who, by law, were to grant her no pity. It was a feeling that always crept under her skin when she ventured among Aketi, to see the way people’s eyes met, speaking a silent greeting or acknowledgement, a primal communication born out of kinship. Never to her, it was stark indifference that she received, and it was hard to get used to, even though she had never received anything else from her kind. It just always put her on edge. She also hated the stink of squaller and waste that seemed to hang about any place where Aketi lived. It was noisy and everyone seemed to carry a kind of wariness of each other, while pretending to be free and easy. To her, it looked like confusion, a hundred different people with a hundred different reasons each, as they went about their day. Somehow, what looked so important to them, seemed so mundane to her. Haggling over prices, anger over interferences on the road, the purchasing of charms, trinkets, perfumed oils, and pouches that were shaped just so. What scared her, was the fact that she didn’t know who any of them were. She was a Forsaken, and everyone recognized her for that. But people, they were such a rambling, fickle creature. She could tell a blacksmith from a butcher or a handmaid from a spinner, but that told her little of each person, for they seemed so bound up in so many cares, so many idle wants and needs, that she could not recognize any for who they truly were. That meant any could be an unknown danger to her. For all they had, none seemed to have an identity like she did, and that was her solitary comfort in places like this. She was here to learn, to understand the ways of her kind, to learn to read them. She left the shelter of the stall where horses were kept by travelers, left the comforting smell of the animals, and began weaving her way between muddy puddles and hurrying people, padding through the mud with her bare feet. She had seen a girl of similar age to her and that was where her focus was now as she stalked from place to place like a raven preying in the woods from tree to tree.

She abruptly stopped as she came from the street, seeing the girl she had followed sitting by the well, near the center of the village. She had put down her shoulder bag and was perched on the small wall, dangling her feet above the mud. Seri glanced around quickly, took a deep breath, and began walking directly to the well. She stopped in front of the girl, keeping a few paces off as she had learned was best.

“Hi, I’m Seri.” She said as brightly as she could and added a big smile for good measure. The girl, who she now saw was maybe a year younger - perhaps eight or nine summers, stared at her, a mix of fear and awe in her features. “What’s your name?” Seri asked, hoping to prompt some response.

“Marney,” the girl chirped, almost looking shocked that she had spoken. Seri glanced down at the bag resting by the stones of the well. She thought she could see a loaf of bread in there, and there was a rag doll hanging out by an arm and head. “I like that,” Seri pushed on, “Its nice,” she said, though she wondered why little girls seemed to love their doll figures so much. She knew they liked to make characters out of them. “Does it have a name, your doll?” Seri asked again. Marney stared at her and gave a half shake of her head. Seri knew that wasn’t true, all girls named their doll’s. She noticed Marney glancing around as if to check if someone nearby would come and collect her. “Are you waiting for-”

“What’s this then?” a voice from behind her came. She spun to see a boy, perhaps fourteen summers, smirking at her. He was holding a leg of ham wrapped in waxed cloth under his arm.

“I’m Seri, I was just speaking to-“

“Forsaken.” The boy cut her words off. She swallowed and glanced back at the big ham he was holding.

“I was told most Forsaken don’t survive the woods, so how did you do it?” The boy asked with a hint of instilled scorn.

“I- I found food. I learned how to live in the forest.” Seri said, straightening her back a little. Her palms were turning sweaty, but she reminded herself that being known for what she was, was her power. The boy smirked again. “You don’t look like you found much to eat,” he said, hefting the weight on his hip. “Bet you’d like me to cut you a piece of this ham.”

Seri smiled and nodded, not trusting herself to say the right words. The boy frowned at her then. “You know we’re not allowed to give Forsaken anything for free. You have to earn it.”

Seri nodded, her smile slipping. She looked back to the girl and then the well. “Are you thirsty? I could draw you some water.” She hurried over to drop the bucket down into the water below and began hauling it back up by the rope. Though she might look small, Seri was strong and drawing some water from the well would be an easy task for the reward of a piece of smoked ham. As the pale neared to top of the well, hope began to surface in her mind. When she heaved the wooden pale to the edge, she saw that the boy had passed his ham to Marney. He stood closer now and watched her, she panted lightly from her effort. He stepped forward then to take the pale, but his eyes remained on her with a smirk on his face. “I’m not really thirsty,” he said with a shrug and lifted the pale over Seri’s head, pouring its contents right on top of her. The cold caused her to inhale sharply, but she never broke his gaze. She felt her scraggly clothes go limp and cling to her skin as the water soaked her through.

“That’s not nice!” She heard Marney squeak before hoping off the wall, dropping the ham, clutching up her bag, and running off.

“She is filthy, needed a bath.” The boy said as Marney’s feet padded away. He broke her gaze and looked at where his ham had fallen, then back to her. “If you really want to earn a piece of that, I can tell you how.”

“What is your name?” Seri said stiffly.

His smirk returned. “Dellon. Now, lets get better introduced,” he said and bent to pick up his ham.

“I don’t want to know you,” she replied and turned to leave. Dellon’s hand reached out and took her wrist, pulling her back. She didn’t think about what she was doing in that moment, she just acted, striking out with a fist that connected with a crunch right on Dellon’s big nose. His hand released her to go to his face, now scowling and blooded. She didn’t wait any longer, spinning around, wet hem swirling about her legs, and ran back to the crowded street. “You can’t do that.” She heard Dellon shouting behind her, but soon she was gone, and she decided that day, that she would never need anything, from anyone.

3. The Testing

Seri crouched to cover the ash of her previous night’s campfire. She had gotten used to leaving no trace of where she had been long ago. She stood, brushing the knees of her buckskin pants and letting the forest sounds and smells fill her mind as she thought of what lay ahead that day. She had served the people who spurned her, for eighteen summers performed the tasks asked of her and more, just to learn the things she needed to. She had learned to fit in, despite her being different from the village folk, but she never asked anything of them in return. She had learned the skills of the hunter, to feed and cloth herself, learned the skills of the tanner and seamstress, bowyer, and smith.

“Am I ready for this” She asked, using her communication with the Elder. She felt his mind stir and then his reply, a low rumbled laughter.

“You are prepared for it.” Elder Dolkir’s voice said. “This is not your first trial, child Aketi, you know you are not supposed to commune with me.”

Seri said no more, but conveyed a message of comfort in reply, partly because she was grateful for the Elder’s words, and partly just to have the last say. The day was brightening, the early light beginning to pierce through the trees. It was time to move.

It wasn’t hard to find the thief from the trail she had followed. She was upon his hide before noon. From the trees, she could see his small shelter against the cliff, a crude structure of pine boughs and sticks. She watched for some time, maybe an hour, to pick up every detail she could. The small stream of smoke from his camp had died away, and she suspected the criminal to be sleeping. Silently, she began her approach, the bird calls and forest chatter dying away in her ears as she channeled her focus on the shelter. Stalking like a cat she crossed the small clearing and stopped dead still when she heard a scuffling coming from the base of the cliff where the man’s shelter was. Like a statue, she waited. He appeared from the entrance, walked a few paces along the jagged and ledged cliff face, and stopped to relieve himself of a stream of fluid. With his back to her, Seri crept like a mouse to the entrance of the shelter. When the thief turned back, his eyes went wide in shock to see her standing there, waiting for him. “How did you…” His shock turned to confusion, and then slid into a harsh look that seemed to rest on his face.

“Forsaken. Be gone, I don’t want nothing from you.” He spat.

Seri shrugged. “I already have a task, I’m here to take you and return what you stole.”

The man stared at her and then grunted with a grin. “I once knew a Forsaken girl who lived as long as you did. Did her service in the pleasure house.” His grin broadened.

“That’s not the path I have chosen.” Seri replied coolly.

The man pulled a gold chained necklace from his pocket, pulling a small piece of cloth off that protected the large green gemstone that was set into it. “This what you’re looking for? Sure would look pretty around your neck, girl.”

“I know you’re guilty of much more than stealing that, but yes, that’s all I need, along with your hands bound.”

He barked a laugh then, and advanced on her. “We’ll see whose hands are bound,” he sneered.

Seri darted in, hot anger coursing through her blood, and took hold of the arm that reached for her, side stepping and twisting it around. A cry escaped the man’s mouth, but she kicked her boot into the back of his knee to fold him. She wouldn’t hold him long, but she made sure he felt the knife at his neck and his struggling stilled. She picked up the dropped necklace and tucked into her pocket while the man panted, neck straining in rage. She pulled out the hand noose she had ready and slipped it over his wrists, using the excess chord to lash back and forth, adding extra strength to the bindings. “When I take my weight off your back, we’re going to get up very slowly. We have a long walk back ahead of us.” She growled in his ear.

Once again, her identity had served her purpose, she thought as she stood up. No man would test a Forsaken, even a girl Forsaken, when she had a knife to his throat. People knew what Forsaken were. She had been mad when he’d spoken of other women Forsaken, it had gotten under her skin and Elder Dolkir would make her regret that, she knew. But she had succeeded easily in her first major trial. She smiled to herself.

4. Chosen

“Who am I?” She repeated the question, standing in her war attire. “For most of my life I asked myself that question. I am not like everyone else. I had no family, but how could that be? Everyone comes from somewhere… Me, I came from the forest. A diminished person, with no ties to my past, yet given a power that made me something more – something else that others were not. That is who I am, and it is all I can tell you.”

Seri looked around the vast room then, a cathedral by every standard and more. A smile brushed her face as she listened to the dull murmuring of hundreds of the voices rolling across the hall, such a foreign sound. She could almost smell their hesitance to accept her words. Certainly, she could see it in their eyes. She took a slow breath, filling her lungs and letting the incense of burning pine resin calm her doubts. The familiar smell of the forest comforted her in the dull air of the vast chamber, packed full of bodies, odorous with trepidation, anger, and blatant fear. She stood straight and tall, as if to prove her own confidence, hoping her own determination would radiate outward and at last drown out the doubt that yet remained in many of the people who had just been told she was their new Commander-Queen.

“Today, an act that had fallen into a deep tradition, has once again fulfilled one of the oldest laws. I stand here now, all my challenges conquered, to lead us not to our fate, but to our people’s destiny!” She called out in her most determined voice.

Finally, the crowed was stirred at her words, a cheer lifting feebly above their heads.

“I have not failed the choosing, and I will not fail you.” She cried with passion.

A shout lifted; fists of approval struck the air.

“Queen Seri, our chosen!” General Durand shouted over the voices, and the chant was taken up throughout the spired cathedral of Mir’linar, Palace of the Destined.

Seri let the chorus fill her mind, steeling her resolve for what lay ahead. She would need every ounce of strength she could draw on to lead these people to victory. She would see them through, whatever the cost. That was why she had been made who she was. By what mind, evil, or fate she had been chosen, she could not say, but it made no difference to her purpose now. She was Commander-Queen of Mir’linar. Her greatest trial had come. She was the one chosen to bear the burden of the prophesied time of greatest struggle. Seri’var, Our Chosen.