"Mercy Street" by Tallulah ´Darkhorse´ Cunningham

Mercy Street
By T Cunningham

The wind blew through the tattered hem of her faded green cloak, scattering dry leaves along the deserted street with a hushed, mournful rustle. The cobblestones beneath her thin soled boots were worn smooth by time, they, the rubble, and the deserted buildings that lined the road were all a nondescript cloudy grey, as was the sky.

Aelia turned her back to the icy breeze, ignoring its teeth.
‘At last Sea Haven...’ She breathed to herself.
But this place was no longer that. Time had passed since she had last been here, years... decades or centuries... who knew how long, enfolding the small town in her robes of oblivion.
Only memories remained now...

There was a small querious noise, almost lost in the wind and Aelia turned slowly. A thin cat looked fearfully from a heap of rubble, the remains of what had been a part of the tailor’s shop.
Aelia knelt and extended her hand, silently casting a charm towards it, calling it with her mind. The feline slunk forward across the cobbles, pausing to glance around before it trotted into the shelter of her cloak, rubbing it’s head against her knee. She stroked it distractedly, comforted by the warm rumble beneath her fingertips.
From it’s mind she picked up a few images of it’s ancestors memories passed from generation to generation nine times: the attackers framed by fire, the scorched buildings long since loosing their black coat to the rain and ocean breeze. The humans fleeing, never to return.
The wind picked up again, tugging at her ragged cloak hem and pulling back her hood, letting loose a cascade of bright red curls that seemed out of place in this grey place. It’s hue radiant, making the few rusted remains of a cart that squatted, like a defeated bug, on the road side, seem to be made of dried blood
Her hair fluttered against her face but Aelia ignored it. She picked up the feline and tucked it into the crook of her arm, drawing her cloak closer around both of them before turning into the wind and picking her way down the main street, ignoring her other companion who followed silently behind.
Memories... she passed the blacksmith’s, almost feeling the heat of the forge that had surely been cold for generations and hearing the tumult of hammers that had fallen silent long ago. From here she could see, through the broken doors, the frame of the bellows, the leather long since gone to the elements. Near the smithy, the bakers shop, it’s windows dark and empty, some shards of glass scattered like sharp diamonds, still sat below the sightless windows.
Remembering the life that had once been here, a buzzing existence of people and animals, Aelia felt herself pity the town, now nothing but a hollow echo of what it had been... Like an empty shell cowrie shell, long bleached by the sun and wave, just as she felt now inside.

As Aelia neared the edge of the town the wind became fiercer, whipping through her coppery locks and making her cloak snap like a banner, but she continued on down the path past the church, headstones jutted from the unkept graveyard like worn teeth, polished by the sea winds, the stone walls of the church sand scoured equally smooth.
The chapel door, splintered and rotten, hung on it’s hinges revealing the decayed wooden pews and tattered material. Nothing had been taken... no one had come to loot this place... as though it, like she, had been cursed and none dared approach.
A faint hollow clanking of the church bell in it’s tower as it was moved by the wind made the hair on the nape of her neck stand on end but she did not change her pace. Even the ghosts of this place had long since been worn away to wisps, leaving nothing.

Along the beach, upturned and rotted, lay, like white whale bones, old fishing boats and the remains of lobsterpots, bleached by the weather.
Not a creature stirred, no seagulls or insects. It was as though the world was dead. The wind picked up handfulls of beach sand, flinging it inland to sting the skin. Brine fresh from the sea, blew past her, strong with the scent of seaweed and salt. Once again memories welled up within her like water from a spring but she forced them away again, unwilling to cry again.
Her soft boots, patched and worn, made no sound on the flagstones of the harbor road. Quiet as the paws of the cat she carried, she padded out onto the pier and stood looking out to sea, along the coast, the same way she had as a child, waiting for her father to return, eager to help bring in the days catch. As she had waited for him that last winter evening... never to see him again.
The remains of his boat had been found washed up on the shores a few days later...

A storm was blowing in, the sky as grey as a dove’s wing, the sea an uneasy grey green. Aelia looked out across the waters with eyes of the same hue. Knowing that there was nothing left for her here but unable to move on.
“Friend?” She did not turn at the soft voice behind her, he move silently to stand beside her, sheltering her a little from the wind with his bulk, his beard and mane catching like jet silk in the wind, dancing lightly as though flame.
“What is this place?” He asked at length “There is nothing here anymore... not even the remains of human aura...”
He turned to look at her, his almost-feline eyes bright as emeralds against the midnight black of his coat.
When Aelia did not answer his ears flicked uneasily and he shifted his weight, scenting the breeze, looking towards the horizon, the cloudy light catching on his ebony horn, reflecting irridescence.
“I know... a storm comes.” Aelia said, turning her back to the sea and walking back to the town, towards where her horse was tied.
Walking beside her companion tried again, previously the roles had been reversed: she had attempted to be cheerful and he had been sunk in thought. The abrupt change with the finding of this place had caused unnerved him.
“Friend... What is this place?!”
Aelia swung herself up into the saddle of her raw boned, roman nosed bay horse and turned him towards her companion.
“My home.” She looked down the deserted street and came to a decision. “But no longer. There is nothing left for me here.”
She settled the dozing cat in a open saddlebag and looked back at the town, her voice sorrowful. “I... I had not expected it to be like this... I had... I had hoped the Magus was wrong...”
The black beast shook his head. “At least three hundred years has passed since we woke. Much has changed in the world of humans”
“I know now... I just didn’t want to believe... The war’s presence was felt even here... the place I always thought would be safe.”
She nudged the horse into a walk, away from the husk remains of the fishing village, her companion easily keeping pace.
“Where will you go now?”
She shrugged. “Away.” Her expression softened a little. “Thank you for coming so far with me. Your elders should be satisfied that your debt has been repaid in full.”
He nodded slightly, focusing on the road, ahead it split, leading in opposite directions. “Escort you only as far as the sea... then return: That was my geas.”
“Then your debt has ended. You are free again. I’m sure the spell has been broken”
Aelia smiled sadly. “You can return to your home with all honor... As you wanted to from the start.”
Haikuo sighed slightly as they reached the fork in the road. “The passing of time has less affect on my kind... but things have changed over the time we slept... I have seen much of the world since we began this journey and don’t know if I could be satisfied living hidden in a forest any more.”
“Where will you go then?” Aelia looked at her hands absently, plucking at her horse’s mane.
He flung up his head, letting the coming storm’s breath catch at his mane. “With the wind” “To the East then, across the stoned wastes.” Aelia pulled her cloak closer around her. “Where the dark creatures hunt.”
“Much has changed over three hundred years. Perhaps that place has too.” He inclined his head and hesitantly asked. “Will you come with me?”
Aelia smiled slightly, remembering how when their journey had begun so long ago the last thing they wanted was each other’s company.
“Yes” She squared her shoulders, summoning her courage to face the monsters of childhood stories, and pulled up her hood against the drizzle that had begun. “That direction is no better than any other”
Haikuo‘s ears pricked slightly with concealed pleasure, he would not be travelling alone for now at least. Turning he began to trot to the East, setting a pace that her horse could easily keep up with, following the wind.