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Permyriad
((SUPER long. Sorry. Also I'm pretty rusty so please forgive me.))
Hunched in the center of a dirt clearing, a gaunt woman’s figure waited; surrounding her was a circle of small rocks interconnected by a series of geometric patterns and runes drawn in the dirt. At the center of the circle, a small boy with a deep gash splitting the exposed skin of his stomach lay prone beneath the woman. A pool of his blood blended with the dirt beneath him, creating a black slurry whose color bespoke death and whose stench heralded the infection that spread from the festering wound in his stomach.
The woman’s skeletal hands skimmed over the collection of herbs scattered at her feet until her taloned fingers hovered over a pile of pale green leaves glinting with silvery hues under the harsh sunlight. She reached for the leaves and quickly scooped them up. The thick, wine colored robes hiding her arms shifted at the rapid movement, revealing a glimpse of the almost scaly skin that covered her emaciated figure. The hood that hid her face shifted as she looked downward to examine the gathered leaves and hoarsely pondered aloud to herself in a ragged, sickly voice,
“Hmm… Yes. The… ahem… williford could draw the poison… poison from his wound.”
She shook her head at the roughness of her own speech. There was a time once when her voice flowed smoothly and her words were eloquent. But that was before her strength had faded.
Glancing at the boy’s stomach, the woman shook her head. A black web of veins showed through his sickly skin, fanning out from the gash in his stomach. The web had nearly spread to the blood in his chest now. The williford would not be able to draw out any toxins that had moved that far from the site of the wound, assuming that the sort of magic-laced toxin within his blood could even be influenced by something as lacking in magical energy as williford.
No. Herbs just wouldn’t do in this case.
The woman continued to sit, pondering. Her taloned hands tousled the necklace that hung at her chest. The necklace was a simple piece of twine with a cluster of long feathers held together by a metal clasp. Each feather was slightly different, but just as dull as the last. Each feather was predominantly the color of oil: a deep black the color of tar with amorphous patches of iridescent brown. Beneath the oily color, specks of gold glinted on the feathers, making them appear almost like tarnished gold jewelry from afar.
The woman nodded to herself, an awkward hybrid between yes and no bobbing beneath the robe as a disappointed sigh rattled from her lungs. She knew what had to be done, and she would do it. However, the consequences would be difficult to reconcile.
Shrugging the robes from her shoulders to ready herself for what she was to do, the woman grimaced. The pain was clear in her eyes, whose irises were the same oily gold color as the feathers hanging from her neck. But, to know this woman’s pain, looking into her eyes was unnecessary. That was evident from the way her skin clung directly to her bones and how her joints were swollen and bruised. She was so frail that it seemed impossible that she wasn’t dead already.
Once her robes were off, and nothing but a sleeveless dress covered the woman’s body, it became clear that she wasn’t quite human. Where a nose would be, a worn beak protruded from her face. Scaly skin in a deep, uneven brown tone covered her body, which was completely devoid of hair. Instead of hair, she had less than twenty golden feathers ready to fall from her skin scattered along her neck, head, and arms.
She could remember what she had once looked like. Golden feathers covered her body and flowed from her arms and spine like tendrils of silk, and her eyes glinted in their sockets with the same color that graced her
Remembering what she had once been was bittersweet for her. On the one hand, those memories brought with them those of her kind: the others with beautiful metallic feathers and eyes. On the other, the memories reminded her of what she’d had before she sacrificed it all for magic.
That was the curse of her people. Each of them was blessed with affinity for magic beyond the wildest dreams of any human, but the price of that magic was great. Every feather held a piece of the magical energy that kept the metallic birds alive, and every time they used magic, the energy from a few feathers was expended. Once that energy was expended, the feather that contained it would fall out and tarnish like old metal, and another portion of their life force was lost. Unable to resist the pull of their own magical energy, the bird men drove themselves to early graves, almost without fail.
The frail bird woman trying to heal the boy was no exception and, having only a handful of feathers remaining, the cost of healing the boy that she had to reconcile before saving him, was that saving him would be to trade her life for his. That sacrifice, however, was one she was willing to make.
Healing had only called to her out of the guilt weighing on her from the harm she’d done with her magic. Late in life, as her well of magical energy dwindled and less than an eighth of her feathers remained, she’d decided to turn away from fighting with magic and towards healing with it. She’d hoped that it would make up for the misery she’d caused.
Now was a test, she was sure. Now it was clear to the dying woman that if she was willing to let the boy die so that she could live, none of her attempts to make up for her wrongdoings had meant anything. A selfless sacrifice was what she needed to be at peace, and no sacrifice could be greater than her own life.
And so the ritual began. Chants bubbled from her throat, and her hands waved in the air. The runes in the circle began to glow as she began the tug of war with the toxin in the boy’s blood. The magical energy fought her as she tried to coax it from the child. It pulled away from her as her feathers began to fall, the last of her magic draining rapidly.
The magic tying the toxin into the boy’s blood finally broke, allowing her to use the last of her magic to draw it out of his veins and weave his severed skin back together.
Her feathers fell and tarnished around her as she faded into death and made out the boy stirring.
He was alive.
Feathers fell.
Sins balanced.
Darkness descended.
