*Weekly updates* "There are no leashes now, no bindings," she says, her voice a dark lullaby in the flickering candlelight, "and it is their sacrifice that gave us this. Nothing can ever repay it. No one can ever take it from us. So now, in this hal...
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It is when the night is darkest, when the moons are nothing but slivers carved up in the vast black, that they hold the Moot. Bonfires burn in a roar, the flames shifting and leaning, whipped up and pushed low. The air is crisp but heavy.
They come out of the shadows, these contenders, phantoms against the flickering red, loping and silent, the tools of their choice clutched loose in hands. On their faces, across their arms and chests, the symbols of their pride are smudged.
When they stand still, there are twelve; twelve months counted long, twelve hours struck by a dial.
Soon now, very soon, the gong will ring and some of them will kneel. Tara finds herself shifting foot-to-foot, gaze flickering around the circle. Soon, they will begin.
Hiran is across from her, in the crowd outside of the ring, his golden hair orange in the firelight. Every tight coil bundled inside her is stretched across his face, but even so, as their eyes meet, he nods, tries to smile, as if this will be okay.
But it's not; the drums pound behind her, and their beat seems to echo in her head.
Though no one has moved, Tara's heart races in her chest, frantic, as if she has already begun to fight. And even as she feels it, she hears the drums go faster, louder.
The light dances over them all. And for one, brief moment longer Tara waits.
Then the gong rings. And five, alongside Tara, take the knee.
Fuck.
The whites of Hiran's eyes glow in the blaze; he's staring, looking ready to shout something, but the gong hums again and Tara springs to her feet without thought, hauling out her blade and giving it an experimental twirl. Then she swings.
There's a beat, the sound of iron thundering on earth, and she twists and ducks, weaving around Vogil's crackling hammer, kicking up dirt at Thella who swivels with a sword in each of her hands, like a maple seed ringed in flame. Durai is here in Tara's corner too, his club hewing through the cold air, but this too she darts around, swinging an elbow back, cracking its iron guard across the Center West man's temple.
There's a sound of whirling in the air and Tara drops low as something small and silver flits past—a knife—and as she stands again it's Thella's sudden blow she blocks next. She catches one of the woman's descending blades with her sword, kneeing the older woman in the solar plexus before Thella can swing her other one. Tara brings her fist down on the woman's wrist, forcing the hand to release one of the twin blades, and then Tara punches her flat in the face.
Across the way, Tara sees Vogil and Doromir clash, the latter's broadsword caught by the former's hammer handle. It's the bear on the wolf, hulking in the orange light, knees bent, arms locked, grunting. There's a small, silver hilt in Vogil's bicep and a thin, red line beads out from it, running a glimmering stripe along the corded muscles.
