1. Venla Thiel

    Private A Bitter Pill

    Recovering well. Something in Venla's chest unknotted. She cleared her throat once, looked at the floor, looked back up. "That's good. Thank you." She held that. It was the only thing said in this room tonight that had mattered. When the bravery was mentioned she said nothing. Looked at a point...
  2. Venla Thiel

    Private A Bitter Pill

    Her eyes didn't move from Helena's. No heat in them. Just a kind of tired recognition. Venla had men and woman explain the world to her that way her whole life. Small words, small pictures, because surely the girl pouring the ale can't hold anything bigger than that. "A drunk who wants his...
  3. Venla Thiel

    Private A Bitter Pill

    You clean up your damn mess. Fair enough. She pushed herself up from the cot. Every muscle protested. The stitched wounds pulled, burned along her arms. Her body felt like something that had been dropped down a mountainside. Venla reached for the folded clothes and pulled the clean linen shirt...
  4. Venla Thiel

    Private A Bitter Pill

    Venla watched the black corruption on the floor. Watched it bubble. Change. Become something else. Something almost harmless. The sight unsettled her more than she expected. The thing had been inside her moments ago. In her blood. Truth be told, she was too tired to care much more. It was out of...
  5. Venla Thiel

    Private A Bitter Pill

    The scrape of iron. The rattle of keys. Venla saw them enter without rising from the cot. For a moment her eyes lingered on the basin. The clean cloth. The healer's tools. Such ordinary things. A few hours ago she had stood in the center of a maelstrom while the world came apart around her. It...
  6. Venla Thiel

    Private A Bitter Pill

    "Your actions have consequences far beyond our Order." Yes. She knew that. "I understand" she said. And she did. That was the uncomplicated part. She had known it before Helena said it and she would know it long after and the knowing of it was not the hard part. Consequences was like...
  7. Venla Thiel

    Private A Bitter Pill

    She heard Helena's boots before she heard her voice. Her eyes came up slowly. The hollowness in them that the Captain had noted earlier had not filled in the interim. The runes along the bars and brickwork pressed against her in a way that the body could not name. Only the constant awareness of...
  8. Venla Thiel

    Private The Boar King

    “Oh…” she said softly, almost to herself. “There you are.” Her eyes lifted to him at once as the door opened, careful and quick, taking only what was plain to see. The way he stood in the doorway. The way he had dressed like a man trying not to admit he needed help dressing. The cuirass held in...
  9. Venla Thiel

    Open The more I see, the less I know for sure.

    "Should you survive this, you will answer before the Captains what happened here today." Venla looked at the squire for a long moment. For a heartbeat, something almost like amusement flickered across her face. Not warmth. Not mockery either. Oh how small people sound when they’re trying to...
  10. Venla Thiel

    Open The more I see, the less I know for sure.

    The evening died around them. The last light caught wet across Venla's throat. Vaaga spoke of punishment like it was mercy. Some men seemed spend so long alone with their own suffering they start believing it makes them prophets. “You think I’ll look back on tonight and be thankful you for...
  11. Venla Thiel

    Open The more I see, the less I know for sure.

    “We leave as soon as the beast arrives,” she nodded to Haelyn. Venla drew a slow breath and wiped more blood from her hands onto already ruined fabric. It hardly mattered anymore. She looked like a slaughterhouse saint. Red from throat to hem. The strike caught her across the back of the head...
  12. Venla Thiel

    Open The more I see, the less I know for sure.

    Haelyn’s voice reached her. What did you do? Venla flinched. Her mouth opened. Closed. For a moment she just stared at the squire, eyes wide and glassy. "I…” she started, and stopped again. Her gaze dropped to the puddle of gore. Well now, Venla… you’ve done it proper this time. “I don’t...
  13. Venla Thiel

    Open The more I see, the less I know for sure.

    The world had gone strange. Mina was cold. Wrong cold. Not the way a person gets cold from wind or snow. Not river cold. That black, heavy blood slid slow and thick over Venla’s hands, flecked with silver dust that glittered faint in the dying light. It soaked into her sleeves. The glade still...
  14. Venla Thiel

    Private The Boar King

    The yard bathed in white. Dawn crept in thin and colorless. Mist lay low and woolly, wrapping horse and man alike in a damp hush. Leather creaked as saddles were checked and tightened. Bits rang between square teeth. The young stableboy murmured to the restless horses, his breath as visible as...
  15. Venla Thiel

    Open The more I see, the less I know for sure.

    When the abomination ruptured, it came apart at arm’s length. Blood hit Venla before sound did. A rain of it. Hot. Sticky. Metallic. It filled her mouth and nose, blinded her, glued her lashes shut. Chunks followed. Blood slapped against her shoulders, her throat, her ribs. Something wet and...
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