Sevenfold

[Prix with a Silent X]

Oh, yes, certainly.

I still have no idea what's going on, but now we have been introduced to two characters: Matthew and Shun. The (in this story, specifically) present tense still throws me for a bit of a loop, though.

B-But this one is in past tense unless I lapsed somewhere? Maybe you meant because I usually write in present tense? I wrote this one in past because I thought it helped with it being set in the past. I also think writing in past tense allows for simpler vocabulary except in the additional have/hads.

Matthew and Shun are important, yes. In case it was not clear, Shun is the protagonist in the first installment, too. I think that was clear but he was not so-named then.

[Historia]

B-But this one is in past tense unless I lapsed somewhere? Maybe you meant because I usually write in present tense? I wrote this one in past because I thought it helped with it being set in the past. I also think writing in past tense allows for simpler vocabulary except in the additional have/hads.

Matthew and Shun are important, yes. In case it was not clear, Shun is the protagonist in the first installment, too. I think that was clear but he was not so-named then.

Oh my gosh, it is past tense. Critical failure on my part. Yes, it was as you said: the switch to past from your usual use of present threw me for a loop and still kind of does.

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But, yes, there isn't much to discuss as nothing has happened besides the introduction of two named characters, be they important or otherwise. I think the question now is: who are they, exactly, and why should we care?

[4score7years]

I like it so far. Interested to see where you go with it.

[Prix with a Silent X]

[Prix with a Silent X]

III.


Gaining passage back across the river, Shun tried to lose himself in the wind that whipped across the landscape, catching his skin and biting gently with cold breath. His clothing was a comfort, and he let his eyes close. His neck felt the cold, but his shoulder was kept warm. He breathed the fresh, clean air. He tried to simply float along, trudge along, back toward the house and the shed his father had purchased for his workshop.


Now that he was fed and had provision enough for three days of isolation, he needed to clear his mind. Tonight was the night to summon the ritual, and because he was certain that he would summon the spirit into the vessel meant for an Assassin, if the literature concerning the first iteration of this ritual had been correct, he could not be careless. He was not summoning a mighty hero or a mighty killer.

He had to be careful to remain unseen.

雨生

Almost to the shed, Shun heard the dry crackle of deadened grass beneath his feet. It wouldn’t stay dead, reviving in the spring, but when his eyes strayed to watch his step, he was reminded of the yellow-haired man he had met in town. He must not care whether or not he meets those who will be Masters, but he cannot shake the regret that he met him before they had become enemies.

There was nothing he could do about the fact that, when next they met, it would likely be with the intent to destroy everything the others’ families had built for them, however large, however small.

Inside the shed, he set aside his supplies, food and twine and soap and other ordinary things, and walked to the center of the empty space at the center of the shed. The crisscross of heavy chains above him hung down to an inverted apex in the center of a circle that at first only existed as a deep, prepared etching in the dry earth that made up the dirt floor.

Shun reached into the folds of his clothing and withdrew a small, concealed dagger. It was nothing ornate, though the handle was inlaid with a faint twining of metal that seemed to comfort, soothe, even warm his thumb a little. He made sure his grip was sure, and then he drew the blood from the outer edge of his left wrist, just deep and wide enough to create a free flow. He hissed lightly at the pain, but despite appearances it would be an easy wound to reach, clean, bandage, and finally heal.

He began to move deliberately over the circle, first in broader strokes and then crouching to create the small summoning circle with his own blood. He was giving it to the ground, where it was owed. For a time, the ground might stop crying out for blood, and if it did, it would grant him his family’s greatest need to win this conquest and to complete their millennia long quest.

When he had finished, he checked the wound and decided that the bleeding was slow enough to complete the ritual before he tried to stop it. Perhaps it would be more favorable if he was still bleeding when the summons had been completed. That didn’t stop him from feeling a little like the world moved without him for a moment. He closed his eyes and felt the blood trickle.

He was centered, and then he felt the power of the bloodshed creep through him and spread.

He recalled the words his father had taught him, spoken freely in the language of his homeland.

“For the elements, silver and iron… For the foundation, stone and the Archduke of Pacts…”

When he had finished the incantation, he did not let his mind wander to whether or not the ritual had worked. He was too woozy for that. Instead he blearily stepped back and knelt down outside the circle painted in his own blood. He dropped to his knees as if in prayer or kneeling before some nobleman. His arms hung very nearly limp at his sides.

There was a wind that blew in a circle from within the shed. He felt cold, then heat, but he could not shiver or recoil. He blinked open heavy eyelids.

In the center of the circle, he saw a man standing with his back to him.

His hair was long, some sections of it reaching the narrowing of his waist. Some sections were plaited while others seemed to have been cultivated to grow together and then stifled in their growth at some point. There were smoother strands and those that curled freely. It was beautiful and wild in a way that reminded Shun of a forest.

The man turned slowly. He seemed to be looking left, right, up, and down. Shun could not blame him for wanting to get his bearings. He noticed faintly that the man’s hands caught themselves up into fists.

He glanced longingly over at his trunk and satchel of supplies. He should have bandaged his wrist or had something more to eat first, but there was no helping it now.

It had worked. He had really summoned him. Assuming that it was the right man after all. Shun gave a furtive glance toward the prepared catalyst and swallowed hard.

He thought of the yellow-haired man in town, how he had not known the language of anyone around him except Shun. Shun knew many languages, taught by his father, but suddenly it occurred to him that he did not know the ancient tongue this man ought to speak. He hoped that he had not made a fatal mistake.

“Hello,” the man said calmly, and Shun found that he understood him as well as he understood his father. He was surprised at how smooth and calm the man’s tone was. When he turned to face him, Shun noticed the deep, dark color of his skin and the brilliant white of his eyes. The brown of his eyes was a little lighter than the color of his skin, but in the dark shed, it was hard to see anything but the piercing black at the center. “Why have you brought me here?” he asked with sudden seeming confidence.

“... Master Cain,” Shun said, preparing to address him, but Cain held up his hand and shook his head.

“No. I… understand that you are my Master,” he said.

Shun swallowed and nodded.

“That is only the… form of this ritual. You have been my Master since the day I was born and my father’s Master before me. Since the beginning of days, you have been our Master,” Shun said. It wasn’t quite a recitation, but it came from something practiced since he was a child.

Cain looked away from him, noting the outline of the shed door. Then he looked down at Shun’s arm, noticing the blood.

“You have not brought me here for vengeance?” he asked. “Or to shed my blood when I am already long dead?”

Shun noticed the mark on Cain’s face then. Since his family dealt with the Mark after each and every significant ritual they performed, he was not quite as alarmed by it as he imagined others might be. His father had worn that Mark from time to time all his life, but Cain’s was pure and visible, and it seemed that it did not fade from his skin.

“No… No Qayin,” he said, trying his best to pronounce his name correctly as his father had taught him.

Qayin’s eyes widened slightly. Perhaps he had become unaccustomed to hearing his own name, or maybe he was simply surprised that Shun would try. Shun couldn’t guess, because Qayin did not tell him.

“Then why am I here?” Qayin asked again.

“We have brought you here not for our vengeance, but for your own…” Shun said.

“I am in no need of vengeance. I have received mercy,” Qayin said, but then he took a few confident steps toward Shun. “You are bleeding,” he remarked.

“To summon you,” Shun replied, not able to think of anything more elegant to say.

“This foolishness should have left me in the dust to which I belonged,” Qayin said, chiding this time in a more obvious way.

“I’m sorry,” Shun said, a little not of fear making its way into his voice.

“Never mind. If there were no reason I wanted to be here, apparently I would not have come,” Qayin said. Then he grabbed Shun by the forearm, well above his cut. Shun made a soft sound of discomfort as he felt the broken skin tug a little.

Qayin looked at the small wound as if it were a harrowing marvel to him. He puzzled at it. Then he met Shun’s eyes.

“Do you know how to stop it?” he asked. Shun wondered why he would ask such a thing, but with his uninjured arm, he gestured toward where he kept clean bandages.

“There,” he said. And like that, he allowed his Servant - his Master - Cain, the First Murderer, to help him.










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I started this in 2016 and haven't touched it since. I'm trying to throw off some writers' block and have been thinking about it and various other languishing projects. This seemed like the lowest pressure since my vague plan was back in mind and OCs can't be OOC until you establish them, so. Please let me know if you like this. Servant Sheet for Cain Here.

[34]

Never seen this one before. Quite interesting so far, let's see where this is going. Anyways, Cain is a surprisingly chill dude.

[Imperial]

You have no idea how jazzed I am to see this one rise from its grave.

It sucked me in way back in 2016 with the slow, deliberate, even haunting sort of prose. I love that you dwell on the place and the players instead of jumping straight into people smashing Noble Phantasms against each other. You've always had a knack for this writing thing, Prix, and I am dying to see this one continue.