Mora ran south, now that she was alone, it was scarier. She stopped for a while to breathe, she wanted to go with Marianne, she had been the first person to treat her like a human being and not like a thing, but she knew that for better or for worse, that was her path, if she wanted to stop being an insignificant bug she had to move forward, alone.
She looked back, she could no longer see the fork where they had separated. The path she was taking led down towards the valley below, it was colder now, and she was grateful for the sheepskin coat. The breeze carried acrid, metallic smells, the smell of blood, Mora felt queasy.
She came across a bush in the middle of the path and tried to go around it, when she managed to push aside the dense leaves, she took a step forward but hit an immovable object.
Surprised, she took a step back. Ahead of her was a tall, stocky man with a scarred hard-featured face.
He wasn't alone, behind him came three more.
A startle of recognition came over Mora, she had already seen those men, they belonged in the camp where she had been a prisoner, they must have left before Marianne arrived.
Mora tried to run backwards but the thick bush made it difficult to move.
The man she'd hit wasted no time, before she could run away he grabbed her from behind and knocked her off balance.
Mora fell helplessly into the bush which broke her fall but left her scratched.
"Look who's come to welcome us boys, our favorite slave," the man said, laughing.
"Oh, that comes in handy," said the slightest man, "I couldn't make it to camp anymore, what a shitty trip."
The stocky man pulled her out of the bush, Mora felt the man's rough grip as he grabbed her.
He slipped a hand inside her sheepskin coat and squeezed her breast hard. Mora let out a grimace of pain.
"Hey, be careful with the material, idiot, you won't ruin the product before it's everyone else's turn!" Said the skinny man displeased.
"Hmm, do you want me to burst all over you? Have you seen my size next to yours?" The stocky man snarled in a menacing tone.
"Yes but we are three, and you are only one, isn't it guys? We can finish you off in no time," he said hoping to get the others' support.
"Easy, easy, let's not argue, we're tired of this shitty traveling, this slave is enough for everybody, she's tough as a rock," another man said, who seemed to be the most thoughtful of the four.
The four men nodded and began to laugh like idiots, imagining the pleasures that led ahead before they even reached the camp.
Mora was thrown to the floor, and the stocky man knelt on top of her and began to bite into her breast, Mora screamed with the pain, and tried to flail, but with his massive weight on top of her, she couldn't move. He didn't seem to care in the least about causing her pain, for those men, she was just an object.
Those rough touches were so different from Marianne's hug.
Mora couldn't believe it, everything was happening again. Why was her body so weak? She supposedly had a million times more inner strength than those fuckers, so why was she going through this?
Mora cursed her whole pathetic life, cursed her parents for selling her to the soldiers, cursed those motherfuckers for treating her like a disposable thing, cursed the spirits for making shit out of the world, and even cursed Marianne's lessons that were nothing more than vain words.
Suddenly some of them echoed in her head: "... you're too scared, you feel too sorry for yourself ..."
A deep feeling rose in Mora's mind, she couldn't remember feeling something like that before, visceral, cold, ugly... there wasn't any tenderness in it, just an endless yearning...
The burly man yelped in pain, he took his hand to his ear, bleeding profusely. Mora had bitten him with all the strength she had.
The scream that followed took the men by surprise, it didn't seem to come from a human mouth, it was devastating, doubtless, imposing its law.
"I...WILL NEVER... BE...A SLAVE...AGAIN!" Mora shouted through a mouth full of blood.
"You fucking bitch, I'm going to kill you!" The big man yelled picking up his sword.
The man brandished his sword above his head, ready to slash Mora's head, but just as he prepared to strike, he spasmed violently, and blood ran from his mouth and nose.
In the next moment, the man's body was violently ripped in half, and a kind of metallic chain full of thorns emerged, tearing the man's flesh apart like a rag doll.
Horrified, Mora clawed at the ground with her feet to gain traction to get away, she was soaked in the man's blood. The other men fled in terror.
Mora managed to escape, but that thing chased her, she tripped over a root and fell at the base of a leafy tree.
Mora leaned against the tree, and that thing went right to her!
Mora closed her eyes and shielded her face with her hands, she waited for the end, she wanted it to be quick, she wanted no pain, she had already had so much in her life.
..silence...
Mora opened her eyes, she must be dead, was this heaven or hell?
Suddenly she felt a searing pain in her chest, was the pain still there? Even after death, did she still feel pain?
Mora took her hands away, in front of her was a thick metal chain full of intricate spikes, that thing had stopped a meter from her!
She didn't realize what it was, she wanted to pull away, but as soon as she moved, that thing moved as well. Oddly it didn't move toward her but to the side.
"What the hell?" Mora couldn't understand a thing.
She brought her hand to her bloodied left breast, amazingly the pain was vanishing, she was already healing! Suddenly the thorny chain shot violently to the left and ripped a couple of trees in that direction as if they were made of paper.
Mora couldn't believe it, that thing had followed the movement of...her hand?!
"What the hell, could it be that..." Mora decided to experiment, slowly removed her hand from her breast, and pointed it forward, to her astonishment the chain returned and again was in front of her.
"This... am I doing this? What the fuck?" Mora swore.
"How do I make this thing disappear?" Mora was intrigued. After saying these words, the strange chain plunged into the ground, probably where it had come from, it was as if it had never existed.
"Ahahahahahahahaha!" For the first time in her life, Mora found fun in something.
"So this is my power? Shit, did it have to be chained? How ironic!"
Mora pointed her hand to the ground and raised it again, a thin metal chain emerged, and she grabbed it with her hands, it was just what she had imagined: a normal chain, without spikes, so the grotesque thing that had appeared earlier had been caused by her chaotic thoughts.
Apparently, she had the power to form metallic chains, from the metal that was inside the earth.
Mora spun the chain above her head, and she managed to spin it at a dizzying speed, the foliage was violently shaking around her, and she noticed that her arm had gained a thin black mesh, the exoskeleton that Marianne had shown her before.
Mora laughed, it was all so natural. The spirits were real, that power was real and it was hers alone!
She remembered then the men who had fled. Could she catch them? Without thinking, she started running like crazy. After all, Marianne hadn't robbed her chance for revenge, and Mora was glad.
Unsurprisingly, she reached a dizzying speed, her legs came to life with the exoskeleton, every second she covered more than 20 meters, snaking through the trees and bushes at that speed was surprisingly easy.
That was so much fun, instead of running away scared, as she had done all her life, she was now flying in pursuit of the motherfuckers who had made her suffer so much, they were the ones running away now, not her.
The soldiers from the camp were fleeing down the hill, the way they had come. They had seen a diabolical thing tear their companion apart, they were very scared.
They were surprised when they heard a growing noise that seemed to go towards them, the whole forest seemed to be chasing them.
From the bushes behind them, a small bloodied figure burst out of the forest and rose tens of meters into the air, with it came hundreds of thorny chains erupting from all corners of the forest.
For an instant the men turned and contemplated the tenebrous scene coming straight out of hell, suddenly the thorny chains plunged into the ground to later erupt exactly where the men were.
The violence of the rise of the terrible metallic projectiles was such that the men's bodies disintegrated from bottom to top. A mighty shout followed:
"THIS IS WHAT I CALL A PENETRATION, DO YOU LIKE THAT SHIT, BASTARDS?!"
Mora landed on the forest floor, now silent, and with no one around, she felt something she hadn't felt in a long time: peace.
She looked at the vast landscape as far as the eye could see: the southern lands.
"I'm going to crush the motherfuckers who think they own this land, I'm going to destroy them one by one!" Mora swore.
A name popped into her mind, she knew it was the right one.
"From now on I am SELESTA! The bearer of the spirit of the queen SELES!"
The mighty voice of former slave Mora echoed through the valleys of the southern lands, a pawn had been turned into a queen, and nothing would ever be the same again.
Far away, Marianne turned, she didn't even need to feel it, the powerful voice that had echoed through the mountains was clear, Mora had made it, after all her spirit had what it took to wake the dormant queen, just as Marianne had imagined before.
It had been a good idea to send her towards the camp's returning soldiers, Marianne had sensed them when she and Mora reached the fork, she had decided to give Mora the opportunity for revenge she had claimed, Mora had to prove she had what it took to be more than a slave, and she just did.
A second later, Marianne felt something totally unexpected, a wave of sensation hit her, it was difficult to describe, but somehow she managed to translate it into a clear and unmistakable sentence.
"Ohoh? So the legends are true? The gifted one launches a prophecy when she wakes up, but only for the worthy within reach. Guess I don't need to worry about the South anymore, no matter what happens, it'll be fulfilled."
"We'll surely meet once again, Mora, hopefully...as friends," Marianne said, looking back one last time. After that, she continued her way.
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