The Undertow: Session Nine

Mikansia: the main character, a female elf played by Lena. Last session she was called the Yetekaida, which is sort of the dark elf messiah. Had the dark elves known she was the Yetekaida they never would have besieged the fort in the first place. Obviously this is a bit of a problem.

Yngvar: Mikansia's firstsword. Yngvar had been treating Mikansia unfairly because of the actions of her mother, Makirta, who had been a dark elf spy. He has now turned around from the events of last session, where Mikansia single-handedly embarrassed everyone in her group.

Akseli: Mikansia's commander. He had been in love with her mother, Makirta, and had rejected her when she had revealed herself to him in an effort to make the relationship they had more honest. Shortly thereafter he had been critically wounded by the Nameless and spent the better part of two decades recovering from said wound.

Krakeru: Mikansia's father. He works for a sect of dark elves called The Lone Keep, who are all about letting the eldritch horrors known as the Nameless onto the planet. When Mikansia first met him she asked to be taught about the Nameless. Krakeru's response was to rape his daughter and then channel the discordant song of the Nameless inside of Fort Elfwatch, causing the humans within it to start forgetting who they were. Krakeru promised he'd see Mikansia again and left her in the fort to stew in the gathering insanity.

Makirta: Mikansia's mother, a former dark elf spy for the Lone Keep. After being rejected by Akseli she had willingly conceived Mikansia with Krakeru, ran away from him, gave birth to Mikansia, and then left for the Void of Space, where the hearts of all grief-broken elves are said to be eventually mended. Mikansia hasn't quite forgiven Makirta for it.

When the three men with Mikansia and Yngvar, Arthur, Gabriel, and Victor, saw the dark elves paying deference to Mikansia and calling her Yetekaida, they began to panic. They said it all made sense, and accused Mikansia of the most vile sexual things she could have possibly done with them. They swore up and down she had down these things. Yngvar looked over at Mikansia, saw her utter disgust, and stopped, taking a deep breath. Yngvar sucker punched Gabriel. The others backed off, as Yngvar began to scream at them for their idiocy. Mikansia had volunteered to go on this mission, had worked tirelessly to help the humans, and no elf would have done what these vile humans were saying she had done. Mikansia added in her disgust for the cowardice and lying that had been perpetrated against her. 

Victor apologized, as the other two stared at the ground in shame. Victor admitted he had been lying about Mikansia, behind her back, this whole time. He wasn't OK with what had done. Mikansia nodded. Besides, Victor said with a grimace, he'd never have done those things himself, to any woman. And that made Mikansia laugh: she wouldn't have done those things either!

The dark elves are looking at Mikansia with a lot of confusion. Why would she show mercy to these humans? She was Yetekaida, she should be killing humans! Yngvar told them to shut up, because they really needed to be killed, and Yngvar did not need much of an excuse to do so. Arthur was appalled; they'd just been talking about a lack of honor in the humans, but Yngvar was willing to kill prisoners in cold blood? Another dark elf spoke up, saying no dark elf would afford them any mercy either. Yngvar slit his throat with one smooth sword swing. He told the others to shut up if they wanted to live. Yngvar told hte humans they hadn't thought the logistics through: they couldn't lug their prisoners through the line, back to to Fort Elfwatch. Nor could they take the dark elves with them on their expedition to Fort Priesdefair. Their compatriots had a head start; they could catch catch up, but with prisoners? And what, were they seriously considering letting the dark elves go?? That was trust insanity. They'd report Mikansia's existence.

Mikansia asked if that was a bad thing.

Yngvar snapped that Mikansia could not be serious. she was not going to turn herself in to the dark elves. Mikansia said they really didn't have that much of a choice. She refused to to let everyone at Fort Elfwatch suffer needlessly on her account, not when she could save them. Yngvar gave a direct order to forbid it. Doing that would break Akseli, all over again. It had taken Akseli ten years after facing the Nameless to remember his own name. The next thing he said, right after remembering his own name, was Makirta's. Finding out that Mikansia had been taken by dark elves would drive Akseli crazy. Yngvar couldn't watch that, not again. Mikansia asked if Akseli would really want a whole fort to fall because of his feelings, a fort that he just so happened to be in, to boot! If Mikansia went Akseli woud live to fight another day, as would everyone else. Yngvar remarked that was something Akseli would say. And it would have been something Akseli would do. Yngvar choked on those words. Victor, Gabriel, and Arthur said they'd come with them. The dark elves allowed themselves to remain tied as they went to see their compatriots.

As they walked Yngvar put his arm around Mikansia. She leaned into his chest, snuggling into him as they walked. Yngvar began to sing a lament, one Mikansia had never heard. She realized it was Yngvar's own composition. Yngvar sang of loves lost, soldiers killed, friends driven insane, and yet time moved on. Yngvar remembered it all, treasured it all, still. Still. Mikansia wept.

A cold laugh came from behind them. A dark elf strode up, out of the darkness. A ring of elves appeared. The dark elf said he'd heard nonsense and stupidity and felt an overwhelming desire to punish it. He took one look at Mikansia and he stopped laughing. "Yetekaida", he breathed. The other elves knelt before Mikansia, taking up the refrain. The elf who stepped up apologized to her: he thought she was another myth, chattered about by the likes of Krakeru.

"Oh, she's real alright", said a familiar voice.

Out stepped Krakeru

He looked pissed.

Everyone else backed up.

Mikansia froze.

Krakeru saw Yngvar and Mikansia, and his expression abruptly changed. Krakeru walked up to Yngvar, calling him "Utesl", and asked, jovially, if Yngvar remembered what he had told Krakeru when "Utesl" had gutted him during their last encounter. Pale, Yngvar said he did remember Krakeru told him that he shouldn't be surprised then, as a knife flashed in the moonlight.

Mikansia's sword rang in response.

Three dark elf arrows whizzed by her. she didn't blink. Her sword sent Krakeru's arm back from the force of her block. Krakeru chuckled: such fire in his daughter! Mikansia demanded everyone that came with her be let go. Krakeru asked why she thought she had any bargaining power. She was surrounded! Krakeru had all the power here. And, on top of it, Mikansia was traveling with humans! Humans! His sword moved so fast, so fine, that the cut didn't show up on Arthur's throat for a second. Same thing with Gabriel. By the time he was moving against Victor Mikansia had a knife against her own throat.  If they wanted Mikansia alive then Krakeru needed to stop. He looked at her with admiration.

Krakeru grabbed Yngvar and told told him that, after Akseli had rejected Makirta, she had come crawling back to him, to be accepted back into the fold. That was why Mikansia existed, now. Yngvar fell over. Krakeru told Yngvar he had won with Makirta, and here was Mikansia, returned to him as well! Krakeru always won. And, one day, Krakeru would take "Utesl's" miserable life. But not today. Today, Krakeru would settle for humiliation. Yngvar's clothes were removed. He was sent running with Victor. Yngvar promised he would come back for Mikansia. No matter how long it took, Yngvar would return for her.

Krakeru made Mikansia walk beside her. In a low voice, so low that no other elf could hear, he told Mikansia to ask as many questions as she liked as she liked. With a dark chuckle he promised that Mikansia was not the Yetekaida. Mikansia asked what the Yetekaida was, and why she wasn't it. Krakeru told her the Yetekaida had to bred, from generations of inbreeding, torture, rape, and every form of horror imaginable. Mikansia asked, and Krakeru confirmed: he was Makirta's elder brother. He had been spared death as a baby so that, if the girl of that generation wasn't the Yetekaida, she could be conditioned into being the mother of the next possible Yetekaida. And how Makirta had resisted! She never saw the Nameless how Krakeru had, and could never. For years she ahd resisted the systemic rape and torture Krakeru had been forced (at least at first) to inflict upon her, including killing their first eight children, all boys, in front of her. 

Everything after baby number three had been easy for Krakeru. 

The Yetekaida also needed to be a virgin which, given the amount of horrors she would inherit, would be easy to endure. Mikansia considered her years of isolation, traveling the Ring of Tears, winced. Most of all, however, the Yetekaida could not have experienced the Nameless in any capacity before the hulling, when the Nameless would scoop her out of her own body and eternally use it as their instrument. And, since Mikansia could now here them, constantly - Mikansia interjected that she couldn't hear them constantly, just at certain points. 

Krakeru looked surprised and enraged for just one second, and told her that the discordant one off notes heard from people who were fully experiencing the Music was not enough for what he had in mind. 

But that was OK. 

Makirta broke down eventually, too. 

So would Mikansia.

Mikansia wanted to know what Krakeru wanted, if she was no could not be the Yetekaida. Laughing, he told her there were other ways to serve the Nameless. Besides, Krakeru had a new goal: burning the world down so Mikansia could rule it after he was gone.

Dedicated to Audrey, which is always how she wanted me to know her. 

I get you now. 

I understand. 

Took me 25 years to do it, but I did it.

I do not approve, but I do understand. And, somehow, this story of darkness and pain has helped me forgive you, even if just a little bit more. I hope I can tell you that someday, with a heart wiped clean from resentments and hatred. 

Until then, be at peace.