Leviana short stories

So while I'm reworking stuff I decided to post some in the shape of short stories involving the characters, and that doesn't actually give away any real plot... and because I would never get around to (or be able to make them fit) draw the short stories.

The first one (which this would only be part one of (probebly only 2 parts because I don't wanna drown you in text)) is about a Scarlet explaining to Maika about her people and her own past.



Was she lost? Surely not, Maika told herself; Lantz wasn’t big enough for you to get lost in. Besides if she really wanted to find her way all she needed to do was to head downwards, and she would be by the city walls sooner or later. So she wasn’t lost.

Hopefully.

She walked along the streets and in between the alleys hoping to find something she recognized that could give her a idea on where she was.

Ok maybe she was a bit lost.

As she walked in between a few houses a raised voice in front of her made her stop. Some kind of argument was occurring at the street ahead of her, but she couldn’t see what was going on. She moved slowly towards the corner of the house and peered around it to see what was going on.

She could see a woman all dressed in red and with long blond braided hair being –more or less- yelled at by a man. The woman had her back turned towards Maika so she didn’t see her peeking around the corner, and the man seemed to occupied with being angry at the woman.

That woman. Maika had seen her before hadn’t she? Wasn’t she staying at the same inn as she was along with Keiko and Theo? She remembered something; she had heard some of the people refer to this woman as “Scarlet”, a bounty hunter of some sort, apparently well known enough to be given a nickname. Maika assumed so at least, Scarlet didn’t seem like a name that would be her real one.

She tried to listen in on the argument between them, although it seemed to be a one sided argument as Scarlet wasn’t arguing back, but simply replied with a soft tone of voice.

‘-haven’t your people done enough harm, Rima?’ the tone of voice he used for the word “Rima” made it sound as if he was referring to some sort of poison.

‘And you assume that I’m causing harm by being here?’ Said Scarlet calmly. ‘In what way may I ask? Do I poison the air by walking down the street? Do I plan to murder you and your family in their sleep?’

‘You might as well!’

Scarlet sighed.

‘I can see that you are about as stubborn as a rabid badger and has clearly decided not to listen to reason or common sense for that matter. I’ll leave and let you go on with being a crazy bigot’ She said and started to turn. Maika reacted quickly and hid behind the corner.

The man started to say something but was interrupted by Scarlet. ‘And of course, if another army of bandits decide to invade the town I’ll just be somewhere else and defiantly not helping defending the town’

The man grunted and shortly afterwards Maika heard the sound of a door slamming shut.

Then she heard footsteps moving towards the corner where she was hiding. But stopped just befor the corner. Maika was holding her breath, trying not to make her presence known.

‘Isn’t it impolite to listen in on other people’s conversations without them knowing it?’ Said the voice of Scarlet and she peered around the corner and right at Maika. ‘I might have known that you were there, but I doubt that he did. Not that I care what he thinks mind you’

‘I…I’m sorry’ Maika said with a weak voice.

Scarlet gave her an examining look, but then a faint smile spread across her face. ‘It’s alright. You are Maika aren’t you?

‘Yes’

‘You are travelling with Keiko and… what was his name? Thord? Thalan?’ It was something about the way she said it that made it sound as if she was only pretending not to know his name.

‘Theodred!’ Maika blurted out. ‘..and I’m defiantly not travelling with Keiko!’

‘So you are only travelling with Theodred and Keiko is travelling along with him, but you aren’t travelling along with her? How does that work? You have some sort of arrangement so that you and Keiko are walking as far away from each other as possible?’

‘I…’

Scarlet smiled again. ‘I’m only playing with you’

‘…oh’ Maika said and started to realize that Scarlet had somehow expected her to react as she did.

A moment’s silence passed between them as Maika was trying to find the courage to ask.

‘…Sorry to ask, but…but what was that man so angry at you about?’ she managed.

‘Oh some people are just bigots who are so sure that their way and their way of thinking is the only way’ Scarlet said and looked over her shoulder towards the door the man had gone through. ‘But sadly he isn’t the only one in this town with a unreasonable prejudice towards the Rima’

Maika was silent for a few seconds before asking ‘A Rima?’

Scarlet actually looked surprised by the question. Was this girl now trying to get some sort of revenge upon her for that joke? Was she just playing ignorant? Scarlet looked at the girl, but could not see any hints of that. Apparently the girl didn’t know. Or she had some serious case of colorblindness.

‘You don’t know what a Rima is?’

‘No. I’ve heard the name before, but I don’t know what one is’

Scarlet wasn’t sure how to answer here. It was as if someone had asked her what color the sky had or how many moons the world had.

‘Well I’m one. As in I’m of the Rima people’ Scarlet said ‘Well, half-Rima at least’ She looked at the girl who apparently didn’t see that as the answer she was looking for.

‘Umm… how did that man knew you were one?’

Really? She didn’t know? ‘Well I would have to say that the most obvious sign would be my dark skin and blond hair’

It was true, Scarlet had dark skin and blond hair. Now that Maika started to think about it, you didn’t see a lot of people who looked like Scarlet. People with dark skin wasn’t really uncommon, but they didn’t tend to be blond. She had come in contact with a lot of different people on all the markets and merchant boats she had seen, but only a few of them had those characteristics that Scarlet had. But what did it matter? Maika had never thought of there being any difference between them. They were all humans and ventari, so what did it matter?

‘Why would that man be so hateful against your people?’ She asked.
Scarlet looked at Maika as if she was some rare legendary creature. ‘You don’t know a lot about history do you?’

‘I know some. It wasn’t really the sort of things my parents taught me’ Maika said

Scarlet seemed to hesitate for a moment, then she looked up towards the sky. It was starting to get dark and it had started to snow a bit, adding to the already inch or two that had fallen since the attack about a week earlier.

‘Are you heading back to the inn?’ She said still looking up.

‘I was trying to find my way back there when I came here’

‘Well then, I think we should get back there before it gets dark and colder. I’ll tell you along the way’

’Some time before the empire the people who are now called Rima lived on a group of islands south of Bao Sana, and had probably lived there for thousands of years’ Scarlet started as they walked down the street
‘They had lived very isolated from the rest of the world, and maybe that is the reason to the rather unique appearance that they have even to this day’

Maika actually noticed that Scarlet had said “they” rather then “we”, but she didn’t comment on it.

‘From what I know; some kind of disaster turned the islands into very dangerous places to live in, probably a volcanic eruption or something. Not like there is a lack of those around there. The different clans who lived on those islands gathered and made a decision; to leave the places they had called their homes for as long as history could recall’

‘Seems like a hard decision to make; to abandon your homes like that’

‘Well I’m guessing it’s an easier decision to make if it’s raining ash and burning rocks from the sky’ Scarlet said with a slightly sarcastic tone ‘Anyway, they took to the seas and sailed with the currants and came to the mainland, probably somewhere in what is now Honora. It seemed that most of the Rima came to carry on inland from there, as most of the lands in Honora probably already were inhabited. In the end they came to the deep forests north of here, a very different land then what had once been their homeland. Coming from tropical islands and ending up here in the cold dark forests and mountains far from the sea; most have been hard. But those lands were uninhabited since most people probably didn’t have that much love for the idea of living in the deep forests’

‘Surely there most have been a better place then that?’

‘I don’t know; the stories the Rima had about the travel was filled with mythology and didn’t really focus that much on actual facts. In the stories the land was given to them by the gods, but I’m guessing that they were probably just tired. All those clans covering that distance in a foreign land? A lot of people probably died along the way and they chose to settle down rather then to risk losing what was left’ Scarlet shook her head slightly.
‘I’ll not debate the reason any further, all I can do is to tell you the facts, and those are that they settled down north of here. But not so long after the empire was born, and the Rima was just one of the people subjugated into it during the early years’ Scarlet seemed to remember something.

‘Ah, the actual name Rima was given by the empire, The Rima had a language of their own and apparently Rima was just a bad translation of the actual name. But the name came to stick because of the empire who gladly introduced “civilization” to all it’s subjects, even if it was offered off the edge of a sword, so the original Rima language came to be pushed aside for the imperial one, along with may aspect of the Rima culture. The empire also came to name the land Rimana, a bit of a trend for the empire was to name the lands after the name of the people loving there and only ad an A to the end, so there for we have countries like Honora and Resana among others to this day.’

‘I had wondered about that actually’ Maika said

‘Despite how much people will deny it, many things from the empire still live on to this day’ Scarlet said ‘When the empire fell Rimana was established as it’s own country again, but had been very influenced by the empire like most of the continent. The elders that had guided the people were gone and were now replaced with a duke as ruler, starting the Lantarion dynasty’

Maika reacted on hearing that name. She had heard it before, but could it really be the same?

Scarlet seemed to notice the reaction.

‘Yes, it’s the same Lantarion as in Arcturas Lantarion’ Scarlet sighed and
shook her head ‘That one man’s madness can destroy so much’

What he was known for didn’t need to be said between them.
He was the last Duke of Rimana, a man who had invited most of the nobles of the neighboring countries for a huge festivity, and had them all poisoned before taking his own life. After his death it was revealed that he had been the “inventor” of necromancy and had indeed been the leader of a cult that had sprung up around the usage of those powers. The cult had soon been banned in all mage order controlled areas, and most countries had made it punishable by death to even associate yourself with a cult member. After the death of the duke a big hunt started to wipeout all that remained of the cult, something that did succeed but not without a big loss of lives from innocent being accused of necromancy.

‘The Rima wasn’t to blame for his doing, the people knew as little what their ruler did in their castles as they do today, but his actions has become a taint upon the whole people’ Scarlet sighed again
‘And so came the aftermath; Resana had lost many nobles due to the Duke, both of their own and their vassals and invaded Rimana as a act of vengeance. Once again the Rima was a subjugated people. Some had fled avoiding the invasion and the chaos that followed, but most were now subjects of Resana, and has been for the last 200 years’ Scarlet paused for a bit ‘Even if Resana won’t admit it themselves; the Rima are seen as a lesser class of people, and sadly there are some who do think the same in many countries’

A moment of silence passed between the two.

‘So… you were born in Resana?’ Maika asked after a while

‘Me? No, Honora. My ancestors were among those who fled during the invasion and came to Honora, and I don’t think any of them ever set for on what had once been their home country since then’ Scarlet said and continued ‘It has never been a big thing for me. There are many Rima who want to reclaim their homeland, but I can’t say that it’s that important to me. I grew up in Honora and it has and will always be what I consider my home. Besides there are even those among the Rima who wouldn’t call me one of them’

‘Why is that?’

‘It might not be hard to see it on me, but I’m only a half-Rima; my father was not, and to some Rima who have a very romantic view on their origins; I would probably be seen as an outsider’ she sighed ‘To some it seems as if we were another race all together, neither human nor ventari for that matter’

Scarlet caught a glance of Maika preparing to say something but interrupted her.

‘If you are gonna say that you are sorry; then don’t. It’s not your fault and I’m a bit tired of people always being sorry for me’ She then quickly added ‘Other then the ones who seem to hate me of course’ and a soft smile appeared on her face as she said the last part.