Vera Suis Background part 1

Title: Friendless

Author: SilverInk

Writing: Character Background Story

Word Count: 1314

“Vera, you have been assigned to detain or defeat the escaped prisoners.”

I nodded and accepted the mission briefing card. After skimming the objective again, I flipped the card around and examined the map. Another nod.

“Best of luck, Miss Suis.”

I bowed, placing my left palm over my right fist, accepted the supply pack, and swung my cloak on while walking out.

Tracking the prisoners wasn’t hard. They had gotten hurt during the escape, and a trail of blood clearly marked a path. Luck! I thought, glancing around. Stealthily, I crept down the path and before long found myself near an abandoned shack

It was almost too easy.

With a jerk of my hand, I sent the soul in the hand out of my body and let the invisible soul hover near a boulder. Slowly at first, then with building speed, the material of the rock arched and covered the soul, so it seemed that there was now a rock hand floating in the air. The rock whose material I had stolen from appeared unchanged. The hand on my body moved a little and the rock-hand moved likewise. Satisfied, I continued towards the hut, enlarging the rock hand with my mind.

“Vera!” a voice called pleadingly from the door of the hut. “Please, Vera, you don’t have to do this!”

“Convert or death. Those are the rules,” I replied, venom creeping into my tone. The giant stone hand was aptly camouflaged against the night forest and was vibrating undetectably as a result of my impatience. Talk was pointless.

The escapee shook her head, tears forming. “Please, let us go!”

Us?

“Who else is there?” I barked, annoyed.

She reached to a place behind the wall and showed me a bundle. A youngling. That must have been why she was so eager to escape.

I glared at the bundle and at the escapee. “Convert!” I called again. “For the youngling’s sake!”

“I won’t have my child brought up like them!” she cried, cradling it.

I could have rolled my eyes at the sappiness of it all. Slowly, I stepped a few steps to my left. A small move of my hand brought the giant fist forward for her to see. She gasped with a expression of terror and shock, eyes pleading hopelessly with me. Then goodbye. I thought, clenching it into a fist.

“Vera, don’t!”

---

But first, there is another story behind that. One that explains why I’m called Vera and not Veraline.

I used to tie my hair up in braids. Four of them, them, two on each side, hung up neatly like ponytails. It was the symbol of the Revelin, the rebels and survivors of time before the Cordelian takeover. I lived in one of the Revelin villages in the midst of the Cordelian realm.

I lived with my Mum, but I never called her that—she was known as simply “Cora” to everyone, or maybe “Ms. Cora”. She was a nice lady, of pretty size and figure, with mellow temperament and good intelligence, and always smelling of cinnamon and sage. She was the village’s head cook. Together we lived in a small stone and adobe building that my father—who was usually away for council business—had built. It had three cots in it, though there was always another if Aponya, the healer and our neighbor, needed an extra.

Down from our hut was a small courtyard where all the children would play under the watch of an unoccupied adult.

I didn’t go down there much.

“Ew, it’s Veraline…” one of the kids murmured as I approached the courtyard one morning.

“Hello!”

The other kids shuddered collectively.

“What’s wrong?”

Another shudder.

I stood still, innocent of their contempt until at last I heard my mother calling me back to the house to run a few dishes to other houses. “oh..Well, I’ll see you all later then!” I said, smiling and waving as I bounced back to the house.

After the orders were delivered, I happened to be walking back to the courtyard and hid behind a wall when I heard the kids talking about me as they bounced a ball around.

“Why you all so mean to her?” someone asked. From the voice I recognized Akeisa, Aponya’s daughter.

“Don’t you know?” a kid said. “It’s because of who she is!”

“What do you mean?”

The bouncing stopped. “She’s one of them.”

“You mean a Cordelian?”

No reply, but I could guess someone shook their head.

“What do you mean then?”

There was a lot of uncomfortable shuffling and murmurs as someone struggled to explain. Finally, someone stepped forward and said bluntly to Akeisa, “She’s a Soul. Didn’t you see that time she possessed the leader of the wild dogs?”

“Yea, but what do you mean? She’s not bad though—she saved the village!”

“They’re all Cordelian spies, that’s for sure. And of course they’re bad. They possess people. And then her ability—detaching parts of her soul and stealing material from other objects or just taking them over completely—pure evil I say.”

There were murmurs of agreement. Tears formed at the corners of my eyes. I stepped into view. “That’s not the least of it,” I growled, tiny fists curled.

Without thinking, I rushed forward and tapped three fingers to each side of his head. Immediately the scene changed—I could now see inside his brain. Every neuron was clearly visible to me, vulnerable to my control. I thought about killing him—it was a short trip down to his heart and crushing the thing into a pulp—but I was unsure if I would be able to reach the brain in time again to escape the dying body. Instead, my mental conscious  reorganized the maze of neurons into a few simple shapes and I picked one of them up and crushed it before slipping out.

The victim had been still while I was inside, but now he jumped back and screamed, clutching his eyes. A few kids screamed; some attacked, while others ran. I struck one of them in the arm and was whisked into the muscle of his right arm. With maniacal anger I snapped the closest arteries before abandoning his body.

The kids remaining had learned to stay away but I gathered the material of the ground on my soul-feet and kicked them with the mud and dirt. When one of them lashed a torch at me, I sent my soul into the fire and twisted it to burn it wielder.

“Veraline!, They didn’t mean it! Stop fighting!” The order stung me and I couldn’t fight. The mud-feet didn’t fade and I still had control of the fire, but I couldn’t hurt anyone. A long moment passed and Akeisa laid a comforting hand on my shoulder. “That’s better. Calm down and be nice now…it’s ok.”

My parasympathetic system kicked in and within moments I was remarkably calmer even though some part of me still wanted to be angry and hurt. Slowly, I relinquished control of the mud and the fire. “I’m sorry for disrupting the peace,” I muttered, though still hurt at the kids’ cruel words. Looking at the person I had blinded, I said without meaning it, “I can repair that for you” and did. I healed the injuries I’d inflicted on the other kids as well before running home. Damn the obedience curse.

I resolved that day never to go back to the courtyard. Word of the incident never reached the adults for some reason, but everyone still held a grudge against my being a Soul, so I was avoided nonetheless. For some reason though, Aponya and Akeisa never saw being a Soul as an intrinsically bad thing and were kind. From then until the invasion of the village, I hung out with Cora and Aponya and helped them, learning bits of their trades. 

Artist's Note: I'm starting another character background thread thing! Vera wasn't an option on the MiniPoll, but I had a sudden inspiration to write something about her and decided to write her background story. I tried to start Miranda's (who was the only one mentioned >_<) but it hasn't come out exactly as I thought, and I'm really struggling with it; nevertheless, if I do procure something decent for her, it shall be posted. ;)

For the most part though, I will be sticking to the following four characters for a while, maybe with a few NaNoWriMo-related posts every so often: (In alphabethical order by first name)

Arliquen Chizan--16--healer

Quinn Winchester--15--nomad

Tsiyone Karmiti--14--nomad

Veraline Suis--15--secret police

:) I think, at least. Anyways, sorry for the late post this week and please read and review! Thank you in advance! :D

~SilverInk