Yllestad, Glacia, Thursday Evening (Fandom Time)

[glacial_queen]

The stay at Yllestad had really helped. Not only had they had a change to relax and recharge after the debacle with the bespelled landens, but they'd also gotten a chance to bond with the townfolk, who hadn't been entirely keen on an army encamped on their doorstep, especially not one that included landens. But her army had been courteous and friendly (and eager to spend money), and soon the relations between the two sides had gone from strained acceptance to something akin to friendliness.

Karla didn't think there were going to be any mixed landen-Blood social gatherings after she left Yllestad, but she was telling herself that baby steps were important here. Baby steps.

Even Yllestad's Queen and First Circle were starting to warm up. When they'd first arrived, Queen Vika had been standoffish--not from dislike, but fear. Karla didn't take it too personally; there were plenty of reasons why even a northern Queen would rather not have the disputed Queen of the Territory spending time within her walls. And by the third day there, Vika had relaxed a bit, as if whatever shoe she'd been expecting to drop hadn't appeared after all.

The camp was readying to leave in the morning and Karla had taken the rare opportunity to go for a walk in peaceful territory. She just wanted a few minutes alone in the woods, to commune with the land sleeping undisturbed beneath a blanket of snow, away from the hustle and bustle of a busy camp that could sometimes press in on even the most serene soul--which Karla certainly was not.

She'd been idly wandering, occasionally bouncing a mental message back to camp to let them know that, yes, she was still fine after having traveled another hundred or so yards by herself, when she came onto an odd glade to the southwest of Yllestad. Trees had been cut down to make it larger, she could see where the trunks had been left to rot in the woods around it. And as soon as she stepped inside, the sleepy murmur of the land turned to something else--something distinctly uneasy. Restless. Dangerous.

*Send me Raven and Warren!* she snapped. *Quickly, please!*

Her Black Widow senses were buzzing now. She wanted to cry, to scream, and she wasn't sure why. There was pain here, grief and loss, terror and rage. It brought her to her knees and there, moved by instinct, she began digging in the snow. Ignoring the wet seeping through her pants and gloves, she kept digging until she managed to clear a few feet of empty ground. No...not empty. There were wilted plants there, mostly brown and scraggly, but still very much alive.

Witchblood. Karla was kneeling in an entire field of witchblood.

[For them as is mentioned, please! NFB.]

Comments

[trigons_child]

Raven felt Karla's surge of emotion even as her message came. She was on her feet and teleporting immediately.

"Karla!" she said, looking around for danger but seeing nothing but Karla on her knees in the snow-covered glade. Her empathy was picking up something, though, a nauseating mix of pain and fear and despair. "What is wrong?"

[wwiii]

Raven could get instantly there by teleporting, sure, but Warren was only a few moments behind, swooping down from the sky to land near the two ladies, concern writ on his face.

"Karla?" He followed her gaze downward and frowned, furrowing his brow at the plant that she'd uncovered. "What's that? What's the matter?"

[glacial_queen]

Karla was still digging, breaking her nails on the layer of permafrost she'd hit. She was frantic, trying to get beneath that to what she knew could be found beneath, too upset to stop and use Craft.

"This whole field!" she choked up, looking at them with a tear-stained face. "Look at it! Under the snow! Look!"

...Karla, you had picked the two worst people in camp to show Kaeleeran native flora to.

[trigons_child]

Raven exchanged a puzzled glance with Warren to see if he understood what Karla was trying to tell them, then knelt in the snow, catching Karla's hands and trying to make her stop before she hurt herself. She'd studied a lot about Kaeleer in the books Cassidy and Karla had given her, but she didn't recognize the wilted plant.

"What is it?" she asked. It was bad, whatever it was, she could feel that. And she didn't want Karla touching it.

[wwiii]

Warren crouched down in the snow beside Karla, getting a better look at the wilted brown plant that she'd been trying to dig beyond. He let Raven catch Karla's hands, and then considered the ground for a moment himself before trying to loosen the soil with his claws.

There was something under there that Karla needed to see. That much was clear enough. And if nothing else, his nails were far more sturdy than hers.

[glacial_queen]

"Yes, thank you, help me," Karla said, nodding at both of them. Her gloves were shredded and the tips of her fingers red, her nails jagged, but no major injury had been done yet. "Do you see? Do you see what's there? Do you see?!"

[trigons_child]

The pictures Raven had seen of witchblood in her studies had been more alive and in bloom, but she was putting the pieces together. Only one plant she could think of would cause a reaction like this. "Witchblood?" she said, horrified.

[wwiii]

Going by the name and the reaction the ladies were giving it, Warren was deciding then and there that he didn't much care for this plant. He frowned up at them both momentarily, and then re-doubled his efforts to dig. The ground was solid, giving him a fair amount of resistance thanks to the cold of winter, but here and there it was loose, as though it had been overturned before, not even terribly long ago.

"Witchblood being...?"

[glacial_queen]

"So many," Karla whispered. "So many. One for each. That's how it grows, you know. One plant for each. Living memento mori. Can't be killed once it takes root, can't be hidden. Ground soaked in blood nourishes the seed."

She spread her arm out to encompass the whole glade. "So damn many."

[trigons_child]

"Witches died here," Raven said quietly. "How could someone have killed so many? Why?"

She could feel the psychic echo of the horrors that had happened here, and her panicked first instinct was to thrust Karla into Warren's arms and order him to fly her away from here. But she remembered what she'd read.

"Be careful," she said. "It is very poisonous. I believe it can be picked safely, but it can also be absorbed through the skin." She had no idea what kind of effect it would have on Warren with his healing abilities. She had no idea what it might to do her.

[wwiii]

Warren gave a small nod. One plant for each dead... An entire field of them... then what he was digging for...

He froze as his claws scraped against something more solid than frozen soil, and, after a moment's pause and against his better judgement, he dusted some of the dirt away.

It had been a hand, once. Now it was only bones.

But once, it had been a hand. And that hand was still attached to an arm. That arm, presumably, was attached to the rest of the Witch that it had belonged to. He didn't want to look, but he couldn't look away. Not when very clearly, there was a claw of sorts on that hand. A snake tooth, slipped out from under one fingernail.

The Black Widow who had died here had not intended to go down without a fight.

"We need to get away from here," he said, feathers prickling, voice a little too soft.

[glacial_queen]

"It grows where a witch was killed," Karla whimpered. "Where her blood was spilled with violence. Or where she was buried. If I sing to them the right way, they'll tell me their names. They'll tell me the name of every single witch who died here."

So many died here. So many.

[trigons_child]

"We will find out what happened here," Raven said. Vengeance wasn't on her mind, just making certain it could not happen again. Had it been Hobart, or someone else?

She gently pulled Karla to her feet. "Come," she said, completely agreeing with Warren. "We must leave this place."

[wwiii]

"We'll speak to Queen Vika before we set out again," Warren agreed, hesitating for a moment before carefully pushing the soil back over the uncovered bones. Under his breath he murmured an apology to the dead for disturbing their resting place. What else was there to do? "But we can't stay here, Karla."

[glacial_queen]

Karla nodded, slowly pushing herself to her feet.

"That's why she was so scared of me, before," she murmured. "Because she was afraid I'd find this. Is she complicit? Did she help?"

She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. "They were just left here to rot..."

[trigons_child]

"We will find out," Raven said again. "And we will make certain they are not forgotten." They just had to get Karla out of here first. She wasn't certain how deadly the plant itself was, and she didn't want to find out. What she'd read about witchblood was frightening enough. The pain and fear she sensed made it all the worse.

[wwiii]

"Come on," Warren murmured as he pulled himself to his feet. He mantled one wing slightly, curling it around Karla's shoulders. Partly for comfort. Partly to block the field from view as they guided her back toward the camp. "We'll see to it that this is dealt with in any way we can. We'll find out what role Vika might have played in this. We won't just leave this forgotten."

[glacial_queen]

Karla allowed herself to be herded out of the glade and back towards camp, allowed Raven to fully inspect her hands and her First Circle to fuss over her going out alone. She felt strange, almost distant from everything.

Even when Vika was called into the tent and collapsed at Karla's feet in tears, explaining how she'd been told to look away or she'd be joining the Black Widows in the killing fields and her people with her just left Karla feeling...numb.

Her mind just kept going back to the witchblood under the snow. Lurking. Waiting. Biding their time.

That night, as she curled up around Warren and slept fitfully, her dreams were filled with images of a smiling Hobart inviting her to eat soup that had witchblood blooms bobbing beneath the surface.