A Thrall Perfected Ch. 01

Time crawled for Mara as she watched what came next.

Roanes tried to push the Imir away, and almost faster than she could see, the woman grabbed his wrist and twisted it, bringing his forearm down and away. Salli jumped back at the suddenness and pitch of his cry as it happened, too stunned at the mayhem unfolding before her to do much else. Then Imir followed Roanes as his body bent to try to follow his arm and she stepped to the side before she hooked her forearm around his neck from behind, pulling him to her, bracing her other arm behind his head to lock his skull in a vise.

She knew her companion was in an altercation of her own, but she saw no need to intervene, as though she knew on some level what was happening, but saw no need to interfere, content to keep Roanes where he was.

Mara gasped seeing the glint of a knife in the hand of one of the regulars as he and a friend of his saw the opportunity to engage in some mayhem that they could later claim someone else started. Those two always liked to cause trouble whenever they could, but they were big spenders once they sold a season's worth of pelts, so Roanes let a lot slide.

Devin seemed to see the knife behind her and moved at the last possible instant so that the blade found air instead of her kidney. Her arm coiled around his almost like a snake and her hand pushed downward while she brought her body upward and Mara thought she could hear the resulting crunch of bone and cartilage from where she was. She could certainly hear the scream that came from the action.

The knife fell and she plucked it from the air with her free hand before it hit the floor. Then, with a fluidity Mara was certain no one had ever witnessed, she watched as Devin dropped her body to just below his chest and pivoted it towards the bar slightly before bringing her body back and her elbow up to his nose with shattering force and a sudden spray of blood.

"My nose! You broke my nose, you fuckin' bitch." As he staggered back she spun as she rose with dancer's grace, taking him by the back of the neck and slamming him to the table he came from with one arm.

As he tried to lift himself from his position while snorting blood, his friend attempted to copy Imir's move, attempting to use brute force to strangle the life from Devin, taking them both a step back. With one hand and brute strength beyond his she pulled his arm away from her and spun him with her in a circle as she turned. Using his disorientation, she pushed him hard, sending him into the wall with such force that he bounced off of it before falling to the floor with the force and finesse of a felled tree.

As the knife-wielder tried to rise from the table to avenge himself, he was reintroduced to the blade by having it driven through both his hand and the table beneath in a single thrust. Pain shot through him and he screamed a scream of the damned. When he quieted a bit and clutched at the handle "The fight is over so long as you wish for it to be. If you continue, there will only be more pain." He seemed only interested in the pain he was enduring now while she surveyed the room and found no one interested in taking up their defense. That being so, she relaxed her posture to the calm guarding stance she had when she came in.

Mara stared as though she had seen the righteous hand of the Goddess within them. It had literally been only a matter of seconds and they controlled the room and the threats within it. They had controlled destiny itself and they did so with a divine certainty and without fear. She had never seen anyone like them beyond story books that gave life to the wildest imaginings.

The woman in black didn't show the slightest exertion with holding Roanes as she was while her voice was perfectly casual "Mr. Roanes, I am going to ask questions and you are going to answer them. We are going to practice now, do you understand?" She punctuated the question with a squeeze.

Roanes made a gurgling, gasping sound before he said anything intelligible. "Yes."

"I'm certain Salli is grateful for the opportunity you have provided, but she's made it clear that, due to changing circumstance, she wishes to quit and return home. Do you understand?"

He choked out, "Yes."

"She is free to, isn't she?"

He gasped two breaths, as that was the time it took to grudgingly come to terms with reality. "Yes."

"Do you understand that if you accost her or her family, or allow anyone to do so on your behalf, we will return? Or perhaps even Mistress will?"

He had no idea who in the void that she was talking about, not that it mattered. It'd be enough shit just to see them walk through the door again. "Yes."

"You know that if we return, the visit will be far more unpleasant for you than this one?"

"Yes."

"Is this all over now?"

There wasn't a pause. As much of a find that Salli was, she wasn't worth this; no woman was. "Yes."

Imir released him while he gagged and coughed in air with a hacking sound that reminded Mara of a dying man trying to gather enough air to last a bit longer. For the woman, it was over as quickly as it had begun, though she remained in a ready and commanding stance. "The gold is still yours in return for your inconvenience. Have a pleasant evening." Imir extended her hand once again. "We'll escort you home."

Salli's eyes darted around and shied away from Roanes' quickly, deciding it was best to leave as quickly as possible. She looked to the bar and said "Bye." quickly and quietly, as she had begun to make friends with those who worked behind it in the short time she'd been there.

"Bye, honey," Mara said just as quietly as she watched the one named Devin take a place behind Salli and the three disappeared into the night. Mara just stared at the empty space as, with the excitement of the moment gone, the patrons were getting back to the business of the evening, whatever that was for each of them. She couldn't get those women out of her mind. They'd come in to a place like this without fear. She'd seen them fight and knew why they didn't have to have fear anyone in this place. By the Goddess, one of them could probably have taken on a dozen trained soldiers. She'd never seen anyone move like that or show strength that was nothing short of inhuman. She couldn't imagine anything they ever needed to fear.

But it was so much more for Mara. It was in their eyes. They were alive in a way that she'd never seen. They were sure and certain of themselves and their purpose. They knew what they were doing was right and that what they were doing, they were doing for something greater than themselves. She knew they didn't wake up every day to a cloying, soul-numbing, sameness. There was something in them that was above and almost beyond it all. It felt like...

"Get those fucking orders out. The show's over."

"Yes, Mr. Roanes," came automatically. Even so, she found her eyes still drawn to the door as she did.

* * *

Mara meant to head home after her shift. The first light of dawn marked that time for her and she took her usual well-trodden route to her small apartment near the livery stable where she'd wind down a little, go to sleep, wake up, do some errands, and go back to work. At least there would be something to talk about for the foreseeable future at work because she didn't know who else she could talk about the night's events with that would believe it. It was probably the most exciting thing to have happened there up to that point and maybe the most exciting thing that would.

Turning down the street towards the livery, now only a block or so from home, her eye suddenly caught sight of a blond in an outfit the color of wine, just before seeing the woman in black as they checked their horses before heading out. In that moment, she saw something else that she had seen so many times before that she couldn't remember the number even if she tried, but it seemed more powerful somehow. She saw them caressing their horses with affection. She was too far away to hear the whispers, but she could tell that that's what they were from the way the horses leaned in to listen.

She knew from life experience that you could well judge a person by how they were with animals and how animals reacted to them. There was a gentleness to them. There was a humanity under the calm, cool warriors with that iron will and certainty of purpose. It just made them both seem that much more beyond mortals and something approaching the divine. They talked and they seemed to listen for the longest time before they broke the spell they'd woven on the horses. They mounted them smoothly and set out on the road with the rising sun behind them.

She crossed the street as they went ahead of her, planning then only to watch them go; to watch them disappear to wherever creatures beyond the world like they were would go. As the distance between them expanded and they grew smaller in her view, she found she couldn't let them go. Ideas that she had always held and dreams that she had always had were personified before her in the distance. Her heart fluttered in anxiety and she found herself searching the livery for stable hands. Hearing one singing to himself on the other side of the building, she saw a fine mare not hers, minding her own business in her stall. The horse continued to not make much fuss even as Mara guided them both onto the road.

What are you doing, Mara? What the fuck are you doing? That small voice in her head that asked a perfectly valid question was completely ignored as something she couldn't find words for drove her onward, carefully gauging her distance from them, trying hard not to be seen. Knowing nothing about following someone unseen, she hoped that the sun at her back helped somehow.

Keeping them as far ahead of as she dared without losing sight of them, she followed them from the main road out of town. She followed them as that main road became a smaller road, then as that main road became a beaten path. She heard the voice asking her if she was crazy again as that beaten path became seemingly just meandering though the woods, well beyond the city, and well beyond the trodden paths. She was thankful for her heavy dress against the cold and, she noted, without surprise, that they seemed untroubled by it.

In this place, the trees were so close in spots that they had to slow to weave through them and Mara looked up to see to see the gnarled limbs of the trees that sometimes seemed to be battling one another and imagined them as a web that had ensnared them all. She was certain that, at any moment one of them was going to turn around and she'd be discovered, but they continued to be unaware of her presence. She remembered the one called Devin with the blade; how she knew where it was without even seeing it. Why would they look back? Why would they care? Even if they knew someone was following them, what do they have to fear?

Nothing.

That fact was part of what kept her going, hoping that the sound of hooves cracking the underbrush in even the smallest of ways wasn't too much. A few minutes through the maze of trees and they stopped just before a small clearing of short grass before another stretch of trees. Mara stopped when they did, watching and waiting, wondering why they chose this place as the end of their journey. Whatever reason that she might have imagined, she did not imagine what she saw.

Imir raised her arm that wore the bracelet at an upward angle toward the sky, palm out. Mara blinked several times, not quite believing what she saw. What she initially believed was a breeze having its way with the trees, she realized was more when the very air seemed to ripple like the waves of the ocean with Imir's hand at the center. The waves smoothed and it took another moment to realize that the treeline looking differently ahead of them was actually the treeline looking differently and not simply a play of light and shadow mixed with the fact that she'd been working all night and hadn't gone to bed yet.

The light and shadow ahead had changed as well. There was another beaten path that appeared before them and wound off into the distance. Mara finally accepted what her senses were telling her. Ahead of her, ahead of them, was someplace else. It was someplace else far enough ahead of them to literally be somewhere else.

Mara looked on in wonder. Magic. It was so unbelievable and yet it made so much sense. Magic was all but forbidden in the known world after fear of all it could do drove the majority of its practitioners into exile or to their deaths at the hands of those who feared them. Some magic was still allowed, mainly because, as fearful of it as many might be, they weren't so fearful of it that they would abandon something that could make them well when potions and the other stuff of science would fail.

That wasn't this. They're mages. True mages. That explained their skill, power, and fearlessness. That explained why they could walk into a place they'd never been as though they owned it, and when challenged, prove that they did indeed own it. The fountain of awe within her that they fed only grew as she watched them move from here to there with no more difficulty than what was was involved in getting here to begin with.

Turn back, Mara. You saw them. Wherever they're going isn't a place meant for you, it's meant for them. Every bit of sense she had was screaming in her ear to go back, return the horse she stole, make up a less crazy reason why she took it than, 'I felt the need to follow two forbidden mages out of town,' go home, and go to bed. Even her horse seemed to balk at the idea of being that close to whatever it was despite the fact they weren't that close. She knew it wouldn't stay. It couldn't. Even if she didn't have the courage to turn around and go, the decision would be made for her. She wasn't sure in that moment why she didn't have the courage to go home, but she did have the courage to follow two mages to Goddess knew where.

Fully accepting that the skittish horse beneath her probably had more common sense than she did at the moment, she urged her forward down the path, into the clearing, and through whatever the mages had created. She moved through whatever it was with no sensation of feeling, but she was definitely elsewhere. She believed she wasn't on the other side of the word or something because the area didn't look too different from home, but she was definitely well away from her home and her bed.

They were ahead of her, seemingly oblivious to her as she felt the air shift behind her. Looking back, the door behind her was gone as though it had never been. Now she really was committed to this path in more ways than one. For about ten minutes she followed those forms in the distance into the deepening woods until they stopped for reasons that weren't apparent. Maybe now that they had her exactly where they wanted her, in the middle of what was, for her, nowhere, was when they turn on her to at least ask her who she was and what she was doing. She scolded herself for not using all this time to at least try to come up with a semi-plausible excuse to be here to begin with.

Someone emerged from their left from the maze of trees, from where Mara couldn't see. She blinked and the other was there. It occurred to her that that may have actually been the case. Why couldn't they just appear like they did? The thin frame was cloaked against the cold and the dark fabric that surrounded this person hung just above the ground to to give this person the appearance of floating above it.

The women dismounted and Mara did the same, trying to move towards them as much as she dared, using the trees as cover as she inched forward, trying to see what she could see and what she could hear. She measured each movement, looking where she would place her feet so as to make the least noise with every step. Mara heard nothing, but what she saw captivated her almost as completely as the scene in the bar.

She could tell the cloaked one was speaking and running fingers through Imir's hair, who seemed to relax instantly. Her stance had softened visibly with her shoulders seeming to sag and her head sinking into the hand that caressed her. It looked gentle, kind, and loving. It looked like sex, surrender, and power. All of those ideas vied for a place in her mind to the point that she thought she'd jump from her skin when a voice came from all around her and seemingly nowhere all at once.

"Hello, young lady."

When her heart stopped its rampage and settled back into something closer to a natural rhythm, she took her hand from its place over it before reflexively looking around for the source of the crisp, feminine voice before realizing she'd probably been staring at it the whole time.

The voice was a sincere one. "Apologies. I didn't mean to frighten you. It's just somewhat awkward, and in my case, unnecessary, to yell across the woods. You've come all this way, so you may as well make the rest of the trip."

Her first few steps were cautious before she scolded herself for deciding now that being cautious might mean not going forward. The next ones were a bit more sure as she approached the trio, though she was more nervous now with the fact that she couldn't pretend or hope that no one knew of her presence. As she did, the hand stopped caressing Imir and, almost instantly, her stance found its power once again as she stepped to the cloaked one's right and behind her, while Devin took her place on the left.

The one turned to her and Mara could see that it was a female before she drew back her hood and Mara could see that she was a lovely one. Her blond hair cascaded in soft waves down her shoulders framed sculpted features and blue eyes that seemed to see everything everywhere. "I assume this is the one?"

"Yes, Mistress," Imir said. "This is the one who followed us on our departure. She works at the brothel and witnessed our extracting Salli Olstrum from her employment."

Mara couldn't help but be surprised that she was remembered.

"Good," the other said. "I'd hate to think that we were just randomly attracting hangers on." She appraised the young woman while still maintaining a pleasant demeanor. "And who are you, young lady?"

"Mara. Mara Navins." She started to offer her hand, but then, with what she suspected, she wasn't sure it was the best idea, so she put it back to to her side.

The woman seemed to be unbothered by the withdrawn gesture and dipped her head slightly. "Hello, Mara Navins. I am Bryana Lia. What, may I ask, brings you all this way?"

"Last night," she began, struggling to find a place to begin and the words to go with it. "Last night...I saw... Are you mages?"

Bryana saw no reason to lie, but also saw no reason not to toy with the girl a bit. She came all this way and it seemed a shame to send her away without a word. "I'm a healer, yes."

She frowned. "That's not what I meant."

"I know what you meant. I am a healer, but you're here, aren't you? Do you really need me to answer that question for you?"

She found herself stymied for a moment because she supposed that she didn't. There were stories because there were always fantastical stories. People would come in and talk about needing a mage or having dealt with one and she could, and usually did, dismiss it because who would risk death to be one, or even hire one? That and they were usually well on their way to, or firmly ensconced in, drunk by the time they started talking about it. It was scarcely believable even though it was before her. "So you are mages."

"Walk with me, Mara." Bryana gestured them deeper into the woods, which concerned her until she reminded herself again that she was already exactly where they would want her if they were of a mind to do anything, and what could she do if they wanted to do it. Bryana's eyes seemed to look through her and watch her mind work. In the end, they started a leisurely walk down a seemingly random path. "To clarify the issue for you; I'm a mage while Imir and Devin are not. "