Viktoria IronHold-Musings

[Mkable]

A Memory

 

It was a day of days, a memory for all time.  For Viktoria and Casimir it had begun the evening before, they took their wedding night early.  Today, lovedrunk and tired, they had made it through a small ceremony in the early morning hours.  A simple wedding, a friend of his, and a family retainer of hers.  Though sweet, it was rushed.  Afterwards Viktoria struggled to keep a stern expression, as in the cool morning hours the outstanding Squires were raised to knighthood.  The second joy of the day, Casimir was accepted into the Order of the Rose, pride and love blooming in her chest as she watched him solemnly taking his Oath.  As the new knights were taken away for further ceremony she felt a small nervous ball take root in her stomach.  It didn’t, couldn’t, overshadow the many joys though.

In the hotter, less welcoming afternoon, the hopeful applicants were made Squires in the Knighthood.  Managing better now, she maintained seriousness as she made her Oaths.  She tried, but couldnt keep from breaking into a smile when she saw Casimir standing in the back watching the ceremony.   Their new life together had started.  She was living her dream, in the Knighthood with the man she loved.

**A few months later**

The cold night lay heavy over the camp.  A few dull lights flickered…a kicked apart fire here, a torch beside a cold hand there.  In the dark a few noises…dying whimpers, rattled last breaths….a riderless horse fleeing through the trees.  

Casimir moved through the camp, stumbling slightly on another corpse.  The dark was filled with the fallen Ogres, Goblins…and Knights.  It seemed to him that only moments before it had been a whirl of chaos and death.  The monstrous attackers had fallen on their camp late into the evening, though small in number surprise had been on their side.  Only the watch had been armoured, those woken by the sudden onslaught fighting with only shields as protection.  With growing desperation he searched for her, sickness growing in his heart.

Viktoria had never been so cold. 

At first, the wounds burned, the heat of battle near unbearable.  When at last she stumbled, then fell, all had gone numb.  The calls of man and monster distant echoes in her ears.  She drifted until something, something familiar intruded.  A rhythm in the dark.  “Cas?  …Cas I’m here…I’m cold”
She could feel the relief inside him…the warmth blooming inside him.  He was there now, holding her.  She was fading again, the welcome nothing of death coming.  Something tickled her nose, pushing into her lungs.  She could smell blood, the coppery tang.  Smell it mixing into the forest ground, her clothes, his clothes.  The rhythm surged in her ears again.  The sound of his heart, his life, his Blood.  

Her eyes rolled back in her head, the whites shining in the night, groaning as fangs sprang from her jaw.

“Cas…please…go…”

He only held her tighter.

Somewhere, wherever Viktoria fled to, she wondered if he knew, truly knew what was about to happen.  Maybe just maybe he was trying to save her…give her his strength.  Such thoughts were swept away in a red wave, as in the dark of that night the wet feeding sounds began.  

With a clatter Casimir’s body was tossed aside, rising quickly the thing that was Viktoria rose.  The feeding sounds began again, snarling, growling, at times crawling spider like among the wounded she finished them all.  Not a soul, light or dark lived to see the dawn.  

The horrors of the night being exposed in the Sun, fled. The legacy of her mother retreating deep inside once again.  Flushed, and alive like she hadn’t been in years, Viktoria wept.  In grief and madness she buried them all.  Friend and foe, she hid them all beneath the earth.