A child of fire, ice, and a whore...
-
Corwin draped a blanket over Drelan while he slept in his giant stone chair. He had noticed his father didn't like to go up to his old sleeping quarters since his mother had died and the child tried to hold back a gag at the smell of burnt fat and dog hair that seemed to follow his father these days.
His mother's body had been "kept" somewhere where his father could always watch over it. Though the priestesses had told him otherwise and it was pointless, Drelan had had the wards placed to keep the body safe. The boy wondered if the stories his mother had shown him with dancing illusions before his eyes with his head comfortable against her bosom were really true. He had always just assumed they were stories to instill admiration in his father, but it wouldn't have been the first time his mother had done something to guide him to an end true or not. Still his father was hardly acting like the sailor and brigand most accused him of being. He had spent weeks preparing her resting place, and weeks more making sure it'd be safe. When he wasn't drunk he was always making plans, as if there was a fire that coursed through him. His actions weren't that of a cold killer but instead a driven watchful bodyguard doing everything in his power to protect his charges.
But on the other hand.. he couldn't ignore the stench. His father's "they take one of ours we take a hundred of theirs," had long been surpassed nearly thirty times over and counting still. For the first time in his life he saw his father's softness gone. His father didn't know it but he was nearby watching. Corwin's lessons in stealing cookies had finally came to use as he watched his father coldly and dedicatedly slay, torture, and maim the gnolls going ever deeper into their lands. Though it didn't seem to satisfy his father who continued to spend more time and money in the endeavor. Later he saw the piles of gnolls that his father drug high and burned, and the kegs he never did figure out what his father was doing with until the giant boom and a whiff of smoke floated above the tree line as bits of flesh and organs fell down like rain. His father would often yell and growl at the gnolls in gutteral tones, as if challenging them to send their "real stock" to face him but instead they just grew younger. His father must have figured they were merely to scared to face him, because he entered their caves and holes. A spreading fire down a rabbit hole not returning until many hours later, near death but still an odd fire seeming to burn in his eyes.
The boy couldn't help but wonder when the monsters would realize that they weren't fighting a man.. or a war.. but something quite different than they had ever confronted before. He also wondered if his mother could see what was happening, and what she thought. Her words from the world of the dead had seemed to hurt his father more than anything he had ever known. His father would mutter in his sleep about a broken vow from long ago, as if questioning if it was really true and why. He obviously never grew tired of blood but the boy wondered if it was to really pay back the gnolls or if it was against a certain woman that he couldn't reach. Finally the boy wondered who was really right. Was it the priestesses that had said her spirit had long moved on, or his father who seemed to think one day.. when least expected his mother would return?
-
Corwin knelt beside his father and tried to imitate his father's gaze as he seemed to stare out into space at the tomb a candle lit for every ten day since his mother's passing. Had it really been 12? Still his father came down as consistent as the moon's rising and would say something in an odd tongue he couldn't understand and light another candle. Next he'd just kneel before the tomb watching. The boy wanted to ask why his father was so diligent but he knew what his answer would be:
"I gave an oath. If its one thing I've learned in my days it is that you never know who lies and who speaks truth. Who wants to be accurate yet speaks misinformation. But I do know my own actions, and while I do not know why she would or if she really has broken her oath, I will not be so lax in mine."
The boy smirked a bit. His father may really be a fool. A strange novelty in the world perhaps despite some of the horror stories he had heard, but still a fool. Or was he? Corwin tilted his head a moment and thought. Was it really in his mother's power to make an oath to make her pursuit and urges to grow with magic second to the rather odd man that spawned him? Did she even plan on following through with it in the first place? Suddenly one of the candles caught his eye as it seemed to dance and grow…..
The day had proven to be an interesting one, as he watched his mother practice. Around him she usually only used the most mundane and nonharmful of spells. Perhaps he'd see an illusion, a floating light, at best a bolt of cold that she tried desperately to teach him. She would always be exasperated when nothing happened but his moving fingers, yet always seemed amazed that he managed to conjure the slightest spark. But, when she would go to practice herself, he got to see the violent side of the art. For she wouldn't have to risk "destroying what had been paid for with nine months of absence from magical study and other less ghastly but still horrid effects."
One day he was especially excited at the spectacle because he could just "feel" the energy about her though she was feet away. First her eyes were closed. Then they suddenly opened her fingers moving in a dance as her eyes were focused on some spot afar. Her voice was quiet and continual until it suddenly began to build. Two orange specs of light appeared as if from nothing. They merged. The now one orb grew until it illuminated the entire room, a heat making him to sweat. Then she released it. It shot forth and it exploded charring the grass and sending a bit of smoke into the air. Corwin watched with his mouth agape a moment then looked to his mother, her chest rising and falling, a twinkle in her eye, and a smile that showed she was just oh too pleased with herself.