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“Pride!” She called out as she was pushed toward an eluvian.
“Go, I will find you again! I will always find you, ma vhenan!” He shouted, and then darkness consumed her, and she was wiped from the histories.
West Texas, 1893
“Hannah! Come on, girl, cows don’t drive themselves, girl!” Her father bellowed with a chuckle as Hannah Elizabeth Kordrey stared out at the wild Texas before her. Settlements could be seen dotting the landscape, but it was much quieter, and more peaceful than the hustle of South Carolina.
“I’m comin’ daddy!” She shouted in her thick, southern accented english. Quickly, she adjusted her chaps and turned Marigold, her appaloosa mare, around to help her father and brothers herd the wild cattle they had been pointing toward home.
John Kordrey caught up with his daughter, still beaming at the beautiful sunset as she turned her horse around, raven black hair flowing behind her from where it had once been braided down her back.
“Your mother still has a fit when you wanna come an’ herd cattle with me, little bitty.” Her father said, pride in his voice as she kicked her horse and they flew towards the herd so fast, she held her hat on her head as she smiled just before Marigold slowed to a trot as they came upon the herd and her eldest brother.
“Ma is gonna tan yer hide, Hannah!” He said, laughing.
“She ain’t gonna be catchin me, John Junior. She might be catchin’ yer hide ‘fore mine.”
The ride back to their homestead was slow, and took two days, and, of course, Hannah’s mother Grace was waiting up for them with a hot meal and a scolding.
“Hannah! I told you not to go out with them anymore! Dear Lord in Heaven, do I have to tie you to yer bed? You’re just twenty-seven, just ‘cause yer a widow now doesn’t mean you can run off and leave me with Elsie for days at a time.” As if on cue, Hannah’s nine-year-old daughter walked into the kitchen.
“Mama! You were gone so long, gramma said she was gonna have a cow! I told her you went to get the cows so she could have all of them!” At that, the entire full to bursting kitchen burst into male laughter as Elsie hugged her mother.
Once day had turned to night, and everyone but Hannah, her father and mother, had gone off to their own rooms and homes, and Hannah had bathed in the river nearby, she stood in her leather-fringed pants, and a multicolored vest. Two sets of multicolored beads decorated her clean black braid. One her late husband gifted to her on their wedding night, and the other was presented to her by her mother in law on the day of his funeral. Elsie had a matching one she wore as well in her own raven black hair.
“I am a woman grown, mama. I was married to a man I loved at seventeen, I lived among his people, learned about his culture, and even became an integral part of their tribe.” Hannah took a moment to breathe, and wipe a tear from her eye. “And then he was shot dead by bandits from Fort Worth, an I have no intention of marryin’ again. And if I do, It’ll be my choice, my life, an’ you ain’t gonna have a say in it, ya hear? If watchin Elsie is that much of a hassle, mama, then we’ll go back to the Comanche.”
And with that said, Hannah waited for her mother to answer. The silence that stretched across Texas was Hannah’s answer. Hannah made to leave, but her father tried to stop her.
“Hannah…” He said, but she yanked her arm from his loose grasp.
“We’ll leave first thing in the mornin’. I’m not wakin’ her ‘cause she has a problem with me. Not doing it anymore.” Hannah said, throwing up her hands in defeat before leaving the house to walk to the barn. At least there she wouldn't be run roughshod.
Sitting on an overturned wooden bucket by Marigold's stall, crossing her legs out in front of her at the ankle. It had been five years since Adahy's death, and ever since she'd been back at Kordrey Homestead, her mother had insisted she remarry as soon as possible. Then again, she had been vehemently against Hannah's marriage to a “savage”.
Hannah sighed heavily, hanging her pale face down to the dirt floor. She had never asked for this, to be a young widow. She adored Adahy, and his family. She was readily accepted by the Comanche tribe that resided in mid-Texas, and when Elsie was born, she was celebrated for three entire days.
Adahy’s mother will be happy to see them return. Much more than her own mother was when she returned to Kordrey Homestead with an extra little mouth to feed and a new style and trade that made her too ‘masculine’ to marry off to any proper gentleman in the state.
To her mother, she and her daughter were feral beasts, uncontrollable and untouchable thanks to the protections of the Comanche people who called her family now.
“Mama? Are you well?” Elsie’s voice pulled her out of her thoughts. Her daughter stood at the entrance of the cracked barn door, a bundle of carrots in her hand.
“Would you want to go back, little bitty? Back to your daddy’s resting place? Do you want to go back home?” She asked as Elsie flipped another bucket to stand on it in front of Feather’s stall, her black stallion, who sniffed Elsie’s hair as she spoke to him in Comanche.
“Yes Mama. I wanna go and see everyone. I miss grandmother and Uncle Red. Can we go tonight?” She asked, more grown up than she had ever seen her adolescent daughter as she fed her horse carrots in the middle of the night, and fixed his braid, which kept eagle feathers safe in the simple knots.
“Go an’ get dressed. I’ll saddle Marigold and Feather.” Hannah said conspiratorially.
They didn’t need anything from here other than what she arrived with. Adahy’s mother, Flies with Ravens, promised that should she ever return, she would be welcomed back with open arms.
After tacking the horses, Hannah quickly gathered her longbow with its decorative notches and whorls in the wood, beads and feathers adorned the carefully notched wood as well.
Elsie returned to where her mother was strapping a quiver full of arrows to Marigold’s saddle, looking up at the dark clouds gathering in the midnight sky. “Will it be safe, mama?”
“You were born during one of the worst storms I’ve ever seen, we will be fine Lightning in her blood .” The sound of her name in Comanche made Elsi smile as her mother helped her up onto Feather. A few moments later, they were both off into the night without a second look behind them. The feeling of leaving behind her mother was freeing.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
A crack of thunder made Hannah jump in her saddle as the sky began to lighten. “You okay back there, little bitty?” Hannah called back to her daughter.
“Yes mama. It’s just a storm.” Elsie said, but Hannah could hear the quiver in her child’s voice.
Just a storm. It’s just a storm Hannah. You’ve ridden through much worse than a thunderstorm.
Hannah closed her blue eyes for a moment and tried to calm her trembling hands. She had always hated storms, and they would need to stop to relieve themselves and eat soon.
However, when she opened her eyes, Marigold and Feather both neighed loudly as the world around them shifted so fast, it would be almost imperceptible except for the fact that they were no longer in the Texas wilds; The landscape around them shifted so drastically, that there was snow on the ground and mountains in the distance.
“Mama!” She heard Elsie shriek just as Feather reared. Thankfully, Elsie had been on the back of a horse since she could walk, and she stayed on the back of the massive stallion.
Hannah turned Marigold around in the deep snow to come to a stop in front of Feather and Elsie. “It’s alright, you’re alright. Good boy. It’s gonna be alright.” Hannah said, trying to ease the weird sensation in her own brain. They were not in West Texas anymore, that was for sure. It didn’t snow in Texas.
“Mama, where are we?” Elsie asked, fear still laced her words.
“I dunno, baby. But we’ll figure it out, now won’t we? Come on, little bitty. Let’s find a town or somethin’. Get our bearin’s.”
Now that Feather was calmer, Hannah and Elsie rode side by side. Hannah refused to let her daughter out of her sight. Hannah pulled out a cigarette and lit it with a match, trying to calm her nerves.
They did come upon a small town, but the people were dressed oddly. The town was the same as any other, the only oddity being that these people were dressed funny. Some were dressed in fine clothing, others in leather leggings. Some had pointed ears like she had just seen on her daughter… and felt on her own head as a chilled breeze made her shiver. Some people looked at them as if
they
were the odd ones.
They finally came upon the stables, where an ornery stablehand was puffin’ on a pipe. “‘Scuse me sir, can you tell us where we are?” Hannah asked, the spurs on her boots making a
clank
as she dismounted her horse.
“Sorry, I don’t take in the horses of knife-ears.” The man said rudely, obviously talking about their newly elongated ears. Hannah was now angry, pulling a knife made of bone from the sheath on her vest and pushing the man against a wooden pillar, her knife to his throat.
“My daughter and I are exhausted and have been ridin’ all night. So you will do me the honor of tellin’ me where we’re at.” She gritted out.
“You- you’re in Haven, my Lady. There’s some kind of meeting going on up the mountain at the temple.” With a good shove, Hannah left the man to drop to the snow drift piled against the wooden pillar.
“Thanks a bunch.” She said, leading Marigold to where tents were being erected. She and Eslie quickly put up their own tent in an open space, which there weren’t many left. Men and women in armor were training nearby, and Elsie watched in rapt attention.
“Elsie, I need you to stay near the tent, and unpack our things. I’ll be back soon. I am gonna see what this meetin’ is about and if it can tell us where we are.” Hannah said and Elsie nodded. At nine years old, she had been doing things like this, and watching her mother and uncles do it for five years. She was old enough that she knew how to defend herself if she needed to. She had her own set of daggers and a smaller bow like her mother’s.
Quickly, Hannah untacked both horses and tossed bedrolls and blankets into the tent, and started a fire just outside the entrance.
“I will return, Elsie. Keep the fire hot, and don’t tell anyone where you’re from. Don’t talk to nobody. Ya understand?” Hannah asked, and Elsie nodded, her brown eyes wide. “I love you.” And with that Hannah began to walk behind a line of armored men and women heading up the mountain that this ‘Haven’ sat at the base of.
The trek up to this Temple didn’t take as long as she thought it would, but once inside, she got turned around, and that’s the last thing she remembers.
The sound of distant voices roused Hannah every now and then. And the touch of searing pain, like she slept on her hand wrong, sometimes roused her a bit, but her eyes refused to open. She was so tired. The black hole always dragged her back under every time she tried to fight for consciousness.
I have to get back to Elsie. I have to. Wake up dammit!
She tried to rouse herself, but when she finally did, her eyes took a few minutes to adjust to the dim light around her, and she couldn’t shield her eyes from the flicker of the candles in the room; Hannah’s hands were shackled in irons chained to the stone floor she stared at as she blinked the sleep from her brain.
She let out a pain gasp as a green light roared from her left hand so bright she had to close her eyes and turn her head away. Just then, the door in front of her was pushed open forcefully, the wood banging hard against the stone wall behind it.
In walked a severe looking woman with shorter hair than she had ever seen on a woman, and behind her, another woman in a strange dress made out of chains, red hair peeked from beneath her violet hood.
“Tell me why we shouldn’t kill you now.” The severe woman asked, her face so close Hannah had to turn her face away.
Hannah remained silent. She took in the information that these women- Cassandra and Leliana- spoke of. There was some kind of explosion, and she was the only survivor from that strange temple she had been headed for.
“What do you mean everyone’s dead?” She finally asked, surprise laced in her thick accent.
“What do you remember?” The redhead, Leliana, asked her.
“I remember running, things were chasing me, and then a… woman? She was reaching out to me, and then…” Was all she remembered after telling Elsie to stay put. How many days ago was that? Where was Elsie? But they hadn’t brought her up yet, so maybe they didn’t know that her daughter was in the Haven town.
Suddenly, the irons on her wrists were replaced by rope, and she was being pulled to stand and led through what looked like a church. She’d never been inside a church before, but this is what she imagined they looked like on the inside.
Once again, she had to shield her eyes from the light as she was led outside… she was in Haven again. But that… that thing in the sky hadn’t been there before.
“We call it the breach. A rift in the veil that leads to the world of demons. It is not the only such rift, but it is the largest.” Cassandra explained.
“An explosion can do that?” Hannah asked, enraptured by the mere presence of such a tear in the heavens.
“This one did. And you are our only suspect.” Cassandra explained. Gone was the malice in the words.
Cassandra led Hannah through Haven, but Elsie was nowhere to be seen. Hannah was both thankful she was staying out of sight, and worried for her young daughter. These people didn’t seem to take kindly to those with pointed ears.
The people gave her loathsome glares as Cassandra led her out of the town. But nobody threw things at her. Cassandra explained that the meeting on the mountain was something their holy woman was doing to try and quell civil unrest between ‘mages’ and ‘templars’. These words meant nothing to Hannah, but she had promised Cassandra she would help. Of course, she would also try to find a way home, back to Texas.
“There will be a trial, I can promise nothing more.” Cassandra said, pulling a knife through the ropes she was bound in. Hannah thought the best thing would be silence. She didn’t know anything about this ‘Thedas’ place. And right now, her life was on the line.