Your support makes Blue Moon possible (Patreon)
Lagertha
Devilishly Wicked
- Joined
- Apr 27, 2014
- Location
- Conneticut
There was a place everyone knew of, a monastery in the east that took in children of all ages that had showed magical powers, destructive or not. Everyone knew the rules, the binding they would do to the children, training they would show them. They stripped each child of their abilities, training them in a certain way before they regained their power back in the form of a ring, but only did any of them get five rings at a time. There was never more than five rings on any warriors hand, but there was also another rule that had been implemented over the ages; Women, girls, could not be warriors. The girls were transformed into priests, healers, and would follow the warriors, or the Templars as they were called, on any mission they received to purge the lands of any dark creatures. This was a fate the boys looked forward to, being able to be a great Templar, and the girls grew used to the idea of they may become a healer.
Ren, she had grown up knowing this idea might happen, and when she showed abilities that normal humans didn't have, the monastery came for her, crating her up in a box and shipping her away to their so called 'school'. So it had began, and Ren had underwent several training forms, but there was something they had never seen before in her, something they had never thought possible of a girl. Ren, despite their training, despite their reforming to try to get her to get on the healing level all the girls were at, could never become a healer. She didn't have the same sort of energy that girls like her had been given for centuries. Instead, Ren was outcast as a freak of the whole thing; she could control fire, water, air, earth..among other things that others could not.
The hierarchy of the school did not so much enjoy that Ren had developed Templar powers, and they tried their best to place her under strict tests, tortures she called them, to get her to believe she could be a healer like other girls. It never worked, and her abilities only flourished. Finally, after a couple of years, they decided to test if she really could stand pare with the men and boys, and forced Ren into the Templar classed. She learned more truths that had been twisted over the years; most of the Templars had five rings on their right hand like she had been told, but they got to choose the abilities they used and what they wanted. She also learned, none of them had healing abilities, as that was the woman's job. Needless to say, Ren was outcast among the boys/men of the school, as she was an abomination in anyone's eyes.
Ren had became the warrior no one had ever thought she could be, and she broke all the rules in the hand book; The first woman Templar, the first Templar with ten rings, the prodigy of war, first of her class. However, no one trusted a woman to go by herself on missions, and Ren found herself paired with the same set of Templars from training as she did on her first mission, as well as a friend that had been taken to the monastery with her that had become a healer.
Ren, she had grown up knowing this idea might happen, and when she showed abilities that normal humans didn't have, the monastery came for her, crating her up in a box and shipping her away to their so called 'school'. So it had began, and Ren had underwent several training forms, but there was something they had never seen before in her, something they had never thought possible of a girl. Ren, despite their training, despite their reforming to try to get her to get on the healing level all the girls were at, could never become a healer. She didn't have the same sort of energy that girls like her had been given for centuries. Instead, Ren was outcast as a freak of the whole thing; she could control fire, water, air, earth..among other things that others could not.
The hierarchy of the school did not so much enjoy that Ren had developed Templar powers, and they tried their best to place her under strict tests, tortures she called them, to get her to believe she could be a healer like other girls. It never worked, and her abilities only flourished. Finally, after a couple of years, they decided to test if she really could stand pare with the men and boys, and forced Ren into the Templar classed. She learned more truths that had been twisted over the years; most of the Templars had five rings on their right hand like she had been told, but they got to choose the abilities they used and what they wanted. She also learned, none of them had healing abilities, as that was the woman's job. Needless to say, Ren was outcast among the boys/men of the school, as she was an abomination in anyone's eyes.
Ren had became the warrior no one had ever thought she could be, and she broke all the rules in the hand book; The first woman Templar, the first Templar with ten rings, the prodigy of war, first of her class. However, no one trusted a woman to go by herself on missions, and Ren found herself paired with the same set of Templars from training as she did on her first mission, as well as a friend that had been taken to the monastery with her that had become a healer.
Ren's Rings: 1# ??? 2# ??? 3# ??? 4# ??? 5# ??? 6# ??? 7# ??? 8# ??? 9# ??? 10# ???
Ren watched the dial in the sun, her blue eyes looking at the thing lamely as the shadow cast on the dial. Minutes had turned into hours, hours had turned into more hours, and before she had realized it, the sun was setting overhead and the moon was rising. "How peculiar.." Ren mustered, spitting onto the grassy plains below. She sat, between two long pieces of rock, from a ruin that had fallen together in a point, her back to the obstruction as she sat on the ground staring forward at the large dial on the ground. Her arms, small and covered in sword scares from training, were completely exposed to the elements, only a short black shirt over her chest, and they rested on top of her knees. Her long white hair had been pulled, however messy into a large bun halfway down her head. Freckles lined her tanned face, appearing more and more now that she stayed further in the sunlight. Her white lashes closed, as the girl of seventeen grunted. Ren, picked off little twigs from her black linen pants, a loose rope held her clothing together, and black shoes that the monastery had been so nice to give her was there, but she still waited, staring at a large stone dial the original Templars had crafted centuries ago.
Ren sucked her lips in, making a fish face with her high arched brows, cheeks, and plump ash colored lips. Her fingernails had been broken, ripped off over the years from tirelessly training to keep up with the boys of the monastery, the real Templars. After all, Ren was an outcast, she was the first female to be a Templar, among which, she was the only ever Templar to boost ten rings, one for each finger. Ren looked down at each ring, each one looked the same, all silver thing bands that twirled around her third digits, and glistened in the sunlight. However there was no sunlight, only the moon glowed over head, and despite the cool breeze Ren made no motion to move from her spot outside the monastery, looking the sun dial or Dial of Time, as most of the Templars called it, as it kept track of both the day and night. "Am I the only one ever on time?" Ren huffed at the thought, trying her best to make fish noises and calm herself as she waited. She hated waited, everyone wanted her to wait. Everyone wanted her to stay behind. She was just a girl, and she knew none of the men or boys in her classes had taken kindly when she had first arrived among there ranks.
"Dear Rentia Ashford! How long have you been down there waiting?" A chubby man came up, a simple black robe covered his large frame, a black belt with gold thread holding the rope together at the ends wrapped around his mid section to keep his robe in place. He held firmly in one hand, a large black book that had seen better days, paper jutting out from the edges of the frame. The man was short, bald, and looked at Ren with curiously as he trudge slowly up the hill to come closer to the sun dial. She made the same face, blank stared the man, a eunuch Ren noticed, looked at her as if puzzling while she was waiting. She knew the man all too well as she made more fish noises. He smiled softly at her, holding the book to his lower half. "Waiting again? Shall I wait with you?" Ren sighed, scooting over in her spot and patted the grass that had been smashed to the ground for the hours she had sat still, watching and waiting.
"It's quite warm from my own arse being there. I hope you won't mind Malick, though most of the others would! Sit in a place after a girl? I think not!" Ren rested against one of the large ruins that made her little make shift chair, as Malick smiled and turned around, pulling his robe forward before he came to the ground and sat shoulder and shoulder next to Ren. Malick, was not much older than Ren, but loosing his manhood had aged him in ways Ren could never understand. "That's not my name Malick. You know it very well!" Ren scoffed, looking the opposite direction from Malick who sit cross legged with the book in the center, in both of his hands.
"Of course I would be over joyed to call you by your actual name, but you refuse to share." Malick looked at her, but Ren did not respond. Her cheeks were sun burnt, as much as her scarred arms were. "How long have you been waiting this time Ren?" Malick's dark eyes stayed on Ren, studying the girl.
"You know the rules of the monastery. If I was to be a boy I needed a boy name, was the only way they were let me come among their ranks!" Ren's brow furrowed, annoyed at the thought. She had been forced to do barbaric things to not make herself stand out among the other boys, though they had all well and known she was a girl. Still, every day she had grown used to bandaging her chest and ass down so tightly she could barely breathe when they had first started growing. Among that, Ren could not longer call herself by any names of her previous life before the monastery, before becoming a male knight in their eyes.
"Yes, I know quite well what that's like." Malick looked at the sun dial now, watching the shadow slowly change to a new number. "It was the Monastery's idea that I could not work with the girls, training them in the will of our Makers, training them in healing powers, without first relieving my humanly notion of being a man." Ren did not look at Malick as he spoke, she knew all too well why they had taken his manly goods from him at such a young age. The monastery had been frightened he would try to rape the young girls, as it had happened before. Though, none of the healers knew this anymore, and likely Ren would have never known such a thing had she stayed among them. Only the men talked about such dark things, as they were allowed to see the true scope of the realms. Ren sighed as Malick shrugged his shoulder, causing Ren's own shoulder to lunge forward before she turned to glare at him. "How do you get away with it I wonder Ren..."
"Get away with what?" Ren looked at him, raising a brow as Malick stared up at the stars starting to light up the sky one by one.
"Well.. your womanly things. Don't the other Templars ever know?" Malick looked at her, teasing as Ren's face turned even brighter than it was was, her teeth barred.
"I 'ought to cut you a new hole Malick!" Ren accent came out, thick and clear as day as some of her words rolled off the tongue harshly. Malick only smiled at her, before moving his robe aside and pulling out a little bundle of white linen. "What's that?" Ren mused, watching Malick place the bundle in his lap before he began to unwrap it carefully.
"Bread, burnt by my own foolishness, but I figured you might be hungry waiting for the rest of your colleagues to show up." Malick pulled out a large loaf of bread, surely burnt on the bottom from a stone oven, and moved it in front of Ren who eagerly grabbed it. "Now..this is your first mission?" Ren shoved the bread to her mouth, her teeth and lips around the piece of bread as she looked at Malick, wide eyed like an animal. Malick put his hands up, as if displaying his surrendering. "Please! By Makers mean please eat! Answer after." Ren bit down, harshly tearing a piece of bread off as she began to chew.
"That it is!" Ren exclaimed, bread in her mouth as she spoke, no doubt the girl had grown up around men. She swallowed, letting out a sound of pleasure with the bread. "I have little clue as to where we are going. Though I sit here and await to see who the Monastery had selected to accompany me with whatever mission they choose." Ren let out a whistle of a sigh at the thought, as she squeezed the loaf in her hands several times. "None of 'em so much liked the idea of me being off on my own as the first female knight. So..I wait as they said! On top of the hill by the dial of time they said! When they have my crew they'll show one by one they said!" Ren looked agitated, and she tore into the bread as Malick shook his head at the wild girl.
"Yet no one but I have arrived." Malick made a circular motion with his hands in the air, looking around before he looked back down at Ren as she swallowed another piece hole. "Do you think perhaps, I'm the first of them?" Malick leaned closer to her, questioning a question he already knew the answer to. The only reason him and Ren relatively got along was from a time long ago, Ren had grown up with Malick before he had turned five, and been pulled to the monastery. She followed only a few years later, to find the boy was not the same, and his essence had been gone. That had been an interesting conversation, Ren wondering how he would ever have children, how he would ever please anyone he loved. She knew now, as most everyone knew now, that Malick would never be able to please a woman like a man with all his testicles could, and he would never father any children.
"If you are. I best sharpen my knife to slit your throat now!" Ren huffed, sawing off another piece of bread with her teeth, literally. Malick smiled kindly down at her as she chewed the piece and swallowed. He understood in a sense what it was like to be an outcast, but the reason really was from their childhood the two had remained closer than others.
"Do your remember Terra? A girl that was taken with you to the monastery when you were both but three and four?" Malick mused on the note, trying to muster up some sort of conversation as they waited on the ground for whomever was to arrive next. Knowing full well, a chancellor of the monastery would follow when all had gathered. Ren looked at him, brows furrowed, skin peeling between her brows, as she held tightly to the bread as though he might try to snatch it away.
"Terra? Last I saw her, she was looking down at me when I was stuffed in a hole in the monastery dungeons. Could see plainly up her skirts." Ren looked up at the stars, hand extended in the air as she said her words, before laughing at the last part. She knew full well Malick still enjoyed hearing such things, and the joking lightened their harsh lives.
"Yes..that girl that used to pour water on you as the monastery told her to, so you stopped fighting and learned to be a healer like the rest. Though, Makers be praised those powers never clung to you." Malick smiled at her, his fingers thrumming on his book. "I hear, she's to be part of our expedition to wherever it is we go." Ren looked at him, not pleased with the thought. There was a time, Ren and Terra had loved each other more than friends, but things had changed in the monastery as the years passed. Terra had learned their love was a sin, and she had hated Ren for having powers no girl should have had.
"To torture me more then?" Ren mused, taking another hunk of bread. Malick rolled his eyes and shoulders sighing at the comment. Terra had been brain washed into the nuns beliefs, no wives, no husbands, no lovers, healers lived only to heal the sick and the Templars on their missions.
"No. As you know now, Terra has become a most respected healer. She volunteered when she heard which templar they were setting up the meeting for. She still remembers you taking that name when you first entered." Malick looked at the ground as Ren's face contorted in thought. Malick, over years of torture had forgotten most of the people's face from the village they grew up. It was true he had recognized Ren right away, though to this day he could not remember her real name. Ren knew all too well that most of the healers had been put through the same sort of tortures, for those whose loyalties they wanted the most. Ren had never thought twice about it, she knew it was a part of life. Though, they had never broken Ren.
"Terra broke within a few hours of them pouring boiling or freezing water on her. She kissed their feets and cried 'Please! I'll do anything you want make it stop!'" Ren stared at the sky again, the bread falling from her hand and hitting the ground. She grunted, not enjoying the memory of Terra breaking so easily. She had always thought the girl to be stronger than she really was.
"I know you hate Terra still...she still remembers she was very fond of you..though what kind of fondness she remembers I can not tell." Malick sighed, shrugging his shoulders as he spoke. He stayed completely straight, looking around for any sign of others coming. "She may have forgotten over the years Ren, as most of us have." Ren stared at the burnt bread on the grass, quietly as Malick sighed once more. "Nonetheless, I hear she is joining us because she wanted to help you as much as she could. To make amends for whatever ill feeling she has caused for you." Ren huffed, crossing her arms over her chest as she jerked her head away from Malick, as if such words were an insult. As much they were, Terra had been the first to try to tell Ren to give up, to give into the role she should have fit in among the other girls. Hell, Ren was mostly happy Terra wouldn't remember they had loved each other once, that she had hurt Ren so bad, Ren had turned cold hearted to those she didn't know. As she should have, as any of them wanted her head.
Ren sucked her lips in, making a fish face with her high arched brows, cheeks, and plump ash colored lips. Her fingernails had been broken, ripped off over the years from tirelessly training to keep up with the boys of the monastery, the real Templars. After all, Ren was an outcast, she was the first female to be a Templar, among which, she was the only ever Templar to boost ten rings, one for each finger. Ren looked down at each ring, each one looked the same, all silver thing bands that twirled around her third digits, and glistened in the sunlight. However there was no sunlight, only the moon glowed over head, and despite the cool breeze Ren made no motion to move from her spot outside the monastery, looking the sun dial or Dial of Time, as most of the Templars called it, as it kept track of both the day and night. "Am I the only one ever on time?" Ren huffed at the thought, trying her best to make fish noises and calm herself as she waited. She hated waited, everyone wanted her to wait. Everyone wanted her to stay behind. She was just a girl, and she knew none of the men or boys in her classes had taken kindly when she had first arrived among there ranks.
"Dear Rentia Ashford! How long have you been down there waiting?" A chubby man came up, a simple black robe covered his large frame, a black belt with gold thread holding the rope together at the ends wrapped around his mid section to keep his robe in place. He held firmly in one hand, a large black book that had seen better days, paper jutting out from the edges of the frame. The man was short, bald, and looked at Ren with curiously as he trudge slowly up the hill to come closer to the sun dial. She made the same face, blank stared the man, a eunuch Ren noticed, looked at her as if puzzling while she was waiting. She knew the man all too well as she made more fish noises. He smiled softly at her, holding the book to his lower half. "Waiting again? Shall I wait with you?" Ren sighed, scooting over in her spot and patted the grass that had been smashed to the ground for the hours she had sat still, watching and waiting.
"It's quite warm from my own arse being there. I hope you won't mind Malick, though most of the others would! Sit in a place after a girl? I think not!" Ren rested against one of the large ruins that made her little make shift chair, as Malick smiled and turned around, pulling his robe forward before he came to the ground and sat shoulder and shoulder next to Ren. Malick, was not much older than Ren, but loosing his manhood had aged him in ways Ren could never understand. "That's not my name Malick. You know it very well!" Ren scoffed, looking the opposite direction from Malick who sit cross legged with the book in the center, in both of his hands.
"Of course I would be over joyed to call you by your actual name, but you refuse to share." Malick looked at her, but Ren did not respond. Her cheeks were sun burnt, as much as her scarred arms were. "How long have you been waiting this time Ren?" Malick's dark eyes stayed on Ren, studying the girl.
"You know the rules of the monastery. If I was to be a boy I needed a boy name, was the only way they were let me come among their ranks!" Ren's brow furrowed, annoyed at the thought. She had been forced to do barbaric things to not make herself stand out among the other boys, though they had all well and known she was a girl. Still, every day she had grown used to bandaging her chest and ass down so tightly she could barely breathe when they had first started growing. Among that, Ren could not longer call herself by any names of her previous life before the monastery, before becoming a male knight in their eyes.
"Yes, I know quite well what that's like." Malick looked at the sun dial now, watching the shadow slowly change to a new number. "It was the Monastery's idea that I could not work with the girls, training them in the will of our Makers, training them in healing powers, without first relieving my humanly notion of being a man." Ren did not look at Malick as he spoke, she knew all too well why they had taken his manly goods from him at such a young age. The monastery had been frightened he would try to rape the young girls, as it had happened before. Though, none of the healers knew this anymore, and likely Ren would have never known such a thing had she stayed among them. Only the men talked about such dark things, as they were allowed to see the true scope of the realms. Ren sighed as Malick shrugged his shoulder, causing Ren's own shoulder to lunge forward before she turned to glare at him. "How do you get away with it I wonder Ren..."
"Get away with what?" Ren looked at him, raising a brow as Malick stared up at the stars starting to light up the sky one by one.
"Well.. your womanly things. Don't the other Templars ever know?" Malick looked at her, teasing as Ren's face turned even brighter than it was was, her teeth barred.
"I 'ought to cut you a new hole Malick!" Ren accent came out, thick and clear as day as some of her words rolled off the tongue harshly. Malick only smiled at her, before moving his robe aside and pulling out a little bundle of white linen. "What's that?" Ren mused, watching Malick place the bundle in his lap before he began to unwrap it carefully.
"Bread, burnt by my own foolishness, but I figured you might be hungry waiting for the rest of your colleagues to show up." Malick pulled out a large loaf of bread, surely burnt on the bottom from a stone oven, and moved it in front of Ren who eagerly grabbed it. "Now..this is your first mission?" Ren shoved the bread to her mouth, her teeth and lips around the piece of bread as she looked at Malick, wide eyed like an animal. Malick put his hands up, as if displaying his surrendering. "Please! By Makers mean please eat! Answer after." Ren bit down, harshly tearing a piece of bread off as she began to chew.
"That it is!" Ren exclaimed, bread in her mouth as she spoke, no doubt the girl had grown up around men. She swallowed, letting out a sound of pleasure with the bread. "I have little clue as to where we are going. Though I sit here and await to see who the Monastery had selected to accompany me with whatever mission they choose." Ren let out a whistle of a sigh at the thought, as she squeezed the loaf in her hands several times. "None of 'em so much liked the idea of me being off on my own as the first female knight. So..I wait as they said! On top of the hill by the dial of time they said! When they have my crew they'll show one by one they said!" Ren looked agitated, and she tore into the bread as Malick shook his head at the wild girl.
"Yet no one but I have arrived." Malick made a circular motion with his hands in the air, looking around before he looked back down at Ren as she swallowed another piece hole. "Do you think perhaps, I'm the first of them?" Malick leaned closer to her, questioning a question he already knew the answer to. The only reason him and Ren relatively got along was from a time long ago, Ren had grown up with Malick before he had turned five, and been pulled to the monastery. She followed only a few years later, to find the boy was not the same, and his essence had been gone. That had been an interesting conversation, Ren wondering how he would ever have children, how he would ever please anyone he loved. She knew now, as most everyone knew now, that Malick would never be able to please a woman like a man with all his testicles could, and he would never father any children.
"If you are. I best sharpen my knife to slit your throat now!" Ren huffed, sawing off another piece of bread with her teeth, literally. Malick smiled kindly down at her as she chewed the piece and swallowed. He understood in a sense what it was like to be an outcast, but the reason really was from their childhood the two had remained closer than others.
"Do your remember Terra? A girl that was taken with you to the monastery when you were both but three and four?" Malick mused on the note, trying to muster up some sort of conversation as they waited on the ground for whomever was to arrive next. Knowing full well, a chancellor of the monastery would follow when all had gathered. Ren looked at him, brows furrowed, skin peeling between her brows, as she held tightly to the bread as though he might try to snatch it away.
"Terra? Last I saw her, she was looking down at me when I was stuffed in a hole in the monastery dungeons. Could see plainly up her skirts." Ren looked up at the stars, hand extended in the air as she said her words, before laughing at the last part. She knew full well Malick still enjoyed hearing such things, and the joking lightened their harsh lives.
"Yes..that girl that used to pour water on you as the monastery told her to, so you stopped fighting and learned to be a healer like the rest. Though, Makers be praised those powers never clung to you." Malick smiled at her, his fingers thrumming on his book. "I hear, she's to be part of our expedition to wherever it is we go." Ren looked at him, not pleased with the thought. There was a time, Ren and Terra had loved each other more than friends, but things had changed in the monastery as the years passed. Terra had learned their love was a sin, and she had hated Ren for having powers no girl should have had.
"To torture me more then?" Ren mused, taking another hunk of bread. Malick rolled his eyes and shoulders sighing at the comment. Terra had been brain washed into the nuns beliefs, no wives, no husbands, no lovers, healers lived only to heal the sick and the Templars on their missions.
"No. As you know now, Terra has become a most respected healer. She volunteered when she heard which templar they were setting up the meeting for. She still remembers you taking that name when you first entered." Malick looked at the ground as Ren's face contorted in thought. Malick, over years of torture had forgotten most of the people's face from the village they grew up. It was true he had recognized Ren right away, though to this day he could not remember her real name. Ren knew all too well that most of the healers had been put through the same sort of tortures, for those whose loyalties they wanted the most. Ren had never thought twice about it, she knew it was a part of life. Though, they had never broken Ren.
"Terra broke within a few hours of them pouring boiling or freezing water on her. She kissed their feets and cried 'Please! I'll do anything you want make it stop!'" Ren stared at the sky again, the bread falling from her hand and hitting the ground. She grunted, not enjoying the memory of Terra breaking so easily. She had always thought the girl to be stronger than she really was.
"I know you hate Terra still...she still remembers she was very fond of you..though what kind of fondness she remembers I can not tell." Malick sighed, shrugging his shoulders as he spoke. He stayed completely straight, looking around for any sign of others coming. "She may have forgotten over the years Ren, as most of us have." Ren stared at the burnt bread on the grass, quietly as Malick sighed once more. "Nonetheless, I hear she is joining us because she wanted to help you as much as she could. To make amends for whatever ill feeling she has caused for you." Ren huffed, crossing her arms over her chest as she jerked her head away from Malick, as if such words were an insult. As much they were, Terra had been the first to try to tell Ren to give up, to give into the role she should have fit in among the other girls. Hell, Ren was mostly happy Terra wouldn't remember they had loved each other once, that she had hurt Ren so bad, Ren had turned cold hearted to those she didn't know. As she should have, as any of them wanted her head.