Flash Fiction (5)

Jackie, Blodeuedd, and I are back to working up some Flash Fiction fun. We will do flash fiction posts every two weeks, give or take due to holiday's and such. I will post my complete story here. Jackie will add the beginning and a link to her flash fiction on her Live Journal and Blodeuedd will be posting on her blog.

Enjoy our quick glimpses into worlds of the unknown.

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Blood Tears
By:  Melissa Hayden

Ira left her helmet somewhere on the battlefield. Her hastily chopped hair plastered to her head with sweat and blood. She felt the sickly sweet smelling wetness ooze down her face and neck as she stormed through the mud and blood trodden field. She had to get away, leave this all behind before... She pulled and gripped at the buckles and ties of her armor, removing the armor on her arms then her chest plate.

She looked down at her men and the monsters. Her heart ached, as did her body, at the thought of them all sharing the same graveyard. They fought for their lands, their people, but never did they think their spirits would reside in the same home of those they hated so deeply. No one would listen to her when she told them. The goddess had spoken but they didn't want to believe a young girl.

The goddess drew them here. Saturating their very fiber, their blood, with seething. Ira tried to warn them, tell them of the lady they would feed. None listened. All the men felt was the boiling desire to attack. No fair beauty would stop them. They responded with joy and pride to fight for her and to save all the fair ladies of their land.

The once beautiful and fruitful field is now graced, with now delicacy, with blood and gore. The men were cut and mangled by teeth and claws, some even by bastard swords and stones. The dead beasts lay surrounded by bodies of men, but all the blood mingled all the same. As will the spirits until the end of time.

Ira pulled at the strings of her leg armor, kicking it from her. She weeped as she stumbled over an arm, or leg, at this point she couldn't tell anymore. She slipped on the soggy ground, landing face first in an open abdomen. She rolled and wretched, but all that came up was yellow then red. There wasn't anything left to extract. Goddess love her, there wasn't anything in there to start with. She couldn't eat knowing what was coming.

She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand seeing the bright red of fresh blood when she pulled it away. She touched her eyes with her fingers, drawing them back to see the same liquid there.

"Noooo." She wailed to the silent sky.

The Goddess emerged from a white cloud. She approached Ira, and Ira watched the striking woman. Ira dropped her eyes, not wanting to offend the goddess, but she felt the goddess's eyes never looked from Ira. Never look to the brutal deaths around them.

The goddess put a gentle hand to Ira's head, her hair sticky with blood - of her own or others she did not know - grew to the long locks she had before she joined the army. The goddess gently brushed the long hair from Ira's eyes.

"My dear child. You were chosen by me. This could have ended in two ways. They chose this ending. You were in this battle and survived this tragedy for a reason." She paused and Ira waited. "To be my vessel and carry my word."

"But," Ira felt her voice hoarse from yelling through the battle, "but they won't listen to me. You saw..."

Ira looked up to see the goddess smile. A smile that stopped Ira in mid thought, and scared her.

"That, my child, is why you will be the blood child. You saw and fought here. You are the sole survivor and now carry in you my power of blood magic."

The goddess drew her hand to Ira and as it neared, Ira saw the crown of red weeping roses she held.

"You carry the power of my will. You will be worshiped by all in my honor. You will work my deeds among the people." The voice echoed through the dead air of the land.

Ira tilted her head and gasped from the sharp pain of thorns embedding themselves, and the rose crown, into her skull. She was now one with the death goddess. This was her reward and punishment, all in one. She failed yet succeeded. Terrible the tricks of the gods.

Ira opened her eyes, feeling the thick tears that were coming heavy at first now slow. She turned to see the dead soldiers and beasts alike on their knee around her as she stood. She was in command now, for her patron goddess.

She felt the hot tears roll down her cheeks again, as well as the dripping from her head. She and her rose crown weep the blood of her soldiers.

She always would.

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Preview of The Runaway, an original short by Jackie Lester

They might as well have left the thorns on the roses they'd used to form the circlet that held Abhi's veil. Though slight, its meaning seemed to weigh the headdress down painfully on her head, like it was creating a million tiny cuts, blood seeping from each wound. Looking in the mirror, she struggled to reconcile the reflection that revealed the simple, delicate ring of white roses. Instead of blood, it was only the glistening of tears that stained her cheeks.

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