Hehe~ Enjoy the chap...
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Blood painted the tent red like a splatter painting, on the ground, the bodies of my mother, father and his 3 bloodriders lay cold.
Slash marks were all over their bodies, and one of the blood riders had his neck cut open while the other hand had his abdomen slashed wide, making his intestines spill out.
My mother had a stab wound to the heart while my father had tens of cuts all over his body, evidence he'd put up a fierce fight.
I walk over shakily and with teary eyes, my race seems to quill down my emotions by quite a lot, yet my eyes still teared.
Father was always nice (relatively), but I knew dying while fighting was the death he longed for, and not one in a bed as an old man. While mother... she's been my support all this while, the only one who congratulated me after training, and the only one who punished me for the mistakes I made.
I sit on the floor and place her head on my lap, then begin to caress her long hair. Mia was standing by the door, shocked and scared but not to the point of passing out, which I was sure any kid from my old world would have done.
It seems people in this world are more accustomed to death.
Revival? I would be lying if the thought didn't cross my mind, and I would be able to purchase a skill of similar effect if I used all my Blood Essence, but no.
She already died, I'll have to deal with it and not be a little bitch about it. I need to think of something else to get my mind off this.
Looking around again, I see another body I didn't recognize. It was a Dothraki with a slash wound on his chest, but his tattoos were from a different khalasar. In fact, our rival khalasar is the one that roams around Pentos alongside us.
We had several skirmishes when attacking Pentoshi convoys but nothing major. In fact, a Dothraki would rather gallop with his horse into enemy spears than go around them, never mind assassination. Dothraki couldn't have done this.
So this is someone else's handy work. Sensing the foreign Dothraki's blood with my SENSE, I can tell he was already dead when he arrived here. Also, all the wounds on the Bloodriders and my parents are made with arakhs, not regular daggers or swords. This was staged by someone.
The person who organised this made the assassins use arakhs s that it looked like a Dothraki did it, he even brought a dead Dothraki and threw him in so that it looked like a fallen enemy. A Dothraki of our rival Khalasar at that.
Whoever did this is smart to plan this far ahead, as he wins either way. A death of a khal can only lead to one of two outcomes.
Either a new khal emerges, which will lead the khalasar to be disorganized for a while, so the rival khalasar using this time will attack unexpectedly, incurring great losses.
Or the khalasar will split into several smaller Khalasars, weakening it, either way, he benefits.
Yet despite all this, he failed to take into account one thing, Dothraki culture. We don't do assassination, and we prefer fighting an enemy at his strongest, so our rival khalasar attacking us like this is unlikely, even if they did, it would be to merge our khalasar into theirs and not to wipe us out.
Question of the day is, who benefits the most from the Dothraki being paralyzed or weakened for a while? Who have we made so many losses to, that he would pay a hefty price to assassinate my father?
The reason a hefty price was paid was that killing my father requires a man of similar or superior skill, which is hard to find, therefore expensive.
The obvious result of those questions is someone from the magistrate of Pentos. As they are the ones who pay us the most tributes to allow their caravans passage, we didn't accept all the tributes and sometimes attacked nonetheless.
But who in Pentos? The Prince of Pentos? No.
The Prince supposedly holds the powers of trade, justice, and war, and on every new year, he must deflower the Maid of the Field and the Maid of the Seas to bring good fortune to the city(Lucky Bastard).
However, the title is mostly ceremonial; should a crop fail or a war be lost, the Magisters will slit the current Prince's throat and choose a new Prince.
The Prince of Pentos is the nominal ruler of the Free City of Pentos. He is chosen by the Magisters of the city from among the Pentoshi noble families.
But for them, the prince is but an ornamental puppet they control, merely ceremonial. So he couldn't have been behind this.
So the Magisters perhaps? I will have to personally investigate but it will have to wait. For now, I need to organise and take firm control over the khalasar, else it will break off.
So I have a lot on my plate. I need to start my next evolution already, and explore any new abilities I gain as result. Reorganising the entire Dothraki structure from disorganized war mongrels and into proper soldiers.
Right now, however, I need to deal with the corpses and pay the proper goodbyes.
It is now night, and In standing in front of several wooden pyres with bodies on top, ready to be cremated.
A pyre has big posts at each end, a platform at head height and the body exposed on the top for all to see, wrapped in a loose thin textile 'shroud'.
I walk towards the pyres that have my parents, and light them one by one first, then move on to the other four. I decided to give the foreign Dothraki a funeral pyre too.
For a Dothraki soul to enter the Night Lands to ride with his or her ancestors, the body must be burned in a funeral pyre. It is a major insult to the dead to leave his or her body unburned.
(The Nightlands are the afterlife Dothraki equivalent.)
The fire of the pyre was reflecting in my blue eyes, I was still a little sad, but the grief was manageable.
Suddenly, I felt a warm little hand clutch mine, I look down to see Mia holding my hand comfortingly, and looking as if she understands my pain. Any Dothraki in my place won't feel that sad at the loss of his parents, but I was not always a Dothraki, so some of my feelings are complicated at best.
I smile. Mia can be such a sweetheart at times. I bend down and pick her up, holding her in my arms, she leans into my chest and I can feel her body melting in my embrace.
I also lean my head onto hers and wait in silence as the smoke and fire from the funeral reaches out into the starry sky. Which is mesmerising, you had to go to the north pole to see a sight like this in my previous life, but now- this just gave me an idea.
I twisted my hand a little and used Weather Control, making colourful blue, red, yellow, green, and orange lights shift gently and change shape like softly blowing curtains.
These were auroras, also known as gorgeous dancing Northern Lights back on Earth. Rich, vibrant colours glitter and light up the night sky in a display of natural beauty.
I can see the gasps of awe from the crowd behind me, especially little Mia who had stars in her eyes and a mouth wide enough to fit my dic- an egg...
I smiled and after the funeral finished, I took the now sleeping Mia and me to my personal tent, where a wounded Mary was sleeping.
I close my eyes to see if there were any healing magic in my singularity, and I found one that is suitable.
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SKILL: Healing Light
- Heals small cuts and bruises.
Blood Essence Required: 20
Experience Integration: 40
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I then use Experience Integration, and I feel a warm soft energy coming from the center of my body, eventually settling in my palms.
And like a light switch, I activated the skill, a bright light then burst forth from my hands. A more accurate description will be that my hands glowed white like glow sticks, emitting a gentle light that didn't hurt my eyes when I looked at them.
I wave my hand like a searchlight all over Mary's bruised body, watching the black and blue spots return to their original colour and Mary's tense expression to ease.
I get into the sheets of the bed, which are made of animal furs and big spoon Mary, with Mia squashed in between us, but I can tell by her happy smile she didn't mind.
Then exhausted, mentally as my body is still overloaded with stamina, I close my eyes and sleep. Tomorrow I would begin my evolution, and delay the reorganising of the khalasar to a later date, I don't think anything major will occur with my display today.