#mrau Kite origin story

[rideboldlyride]

Embers - MRAU Kite Branwen pt. 2

Back again with Part 2 of the MRAU Kite origin story (again, with approval and glee from @elleleh , which makes me so happy 😁)

I'll link Part One at the end, and Part Three when I finish it.

***

Even though he had walked through the night, by the time the sun rose, he could still see the inky black column of smoke blotting the horizon. His village was still smoldering.

Kite Branwen knew the feeling well.

Like the night after a binge, his entire body ached, even as his aura worked frantically to heal what could be mended. There were scars he knew he would carry for the remainder of his life, and the physical ones were the lesser. The bleeding from his useless eye had finally stopped, along with all the rest of his wounds, but singed and caked with blood and ash, he looked a mad man. But few traveled the beaches south of Volgenest, and none that were lost. He crossed paths with noone. 

His body begged for respite, his mind for the blackness of sleep, but his soul spurred him on. 

There was a town- it wasn't far- his men often traded at their port. It was a quick stop for the men, one final jaunt before home, but there had been a ship due there any day. Hardly even a day's walk away, and since he had been on foot since nightfall prior, he entered the town at midday, under the gaze of bewildered eyes.

Stopping to speak to no living soul, he walked with purpose. 

"You'd think," one man whispered in hushed tones to another, as what remained of Kite Branwen strode past, "that he was a king of this land, how he's walking through here."

"Maybe a mad king." The man's compatriot nodded, a brow raised.

The young man continued his trek through the town, pausing only once, at the docks, to scan the ships at port. Spotting the ship bearing the colors of Volgenest, he returned to his steady pace.

As his foot hit the dock to which they were moored, he heard the whispers go out among the crew.

"Chief Branwen? What's he doing here?"

"Has something happened?"

"He looks like hell."

Turning up the gangplank, he mounted the steps with ease. But as his foot hit the deck, the whispers ceased. He paused to scan the crew.

The post captain moved to address him, a question on his brow. What remained of Kite Branwen rose his hand to ward it off.

"Bed." 

He hardly recognized his own voice. Rough, scratchy, it felt guttural and unearthly, as if he hadn't spoken in years. Swallowing, he spoke no more. Doing more would cause more damage, and the fire, the roar in his belly was already growing as he looked upon the men that had yet to learn that there was no going home.

The post captain nodded.

"As I'm sure you know, Captain Reed died on the last run. Have yet to find his replacement, sir. The main cabin can be yours?"

Nodding, he turned aft, and without a word more, entered the cabin and locked the door.

***

The next two days were spent in a seesaw of the exhaustion-fueled black void of sleep, or replays of the destruction- both real and imagined. It was after one of the latter - a particularly gruesome possibility - that Kite Branwen awoke with a start. 

Still in his tattered clothes, he reeked of old smoke, sweat and blood. He wrinkled his nose in disgust. Stripping, he was surprised to find water in a jug waiting for him beside the wash basin. Someone must have entered and prepared it for him. 

Slowly he began to clean, taking stock of the multiple injuries now new to his body. He began with the most obvious- the one that had nearly killed him. Gently cleansing the healing wound, he was surprised to find the skin under the old blood was pink. The scar would be small and deceptive in regards to the damage it had wrought. It was still tender to the touch, and he wondered if it would ever be completely whole.

The small cuts and lacerations had become mostly razor thin lines across his skin, and the burns to his hands and forearms were minimal.

Saving his face for last, he hesitantly took in his new visage in the mirror.

Even before cleaning, he knew there had been no saving his eye. If he had been brutally honest, he had known since the moment the wound was inflicted. He surprised himself to find his hands shaking as he began to clear away the detris. The water was replaced multiple times before the wound was fully revealed. 

His socket lay empty. There had been nothing left to heal. This hasn't surprised him. However, the cascading scar underneath it did. 

Gently, he touched the edges of the wound and shied away. It was tender, unnaturally so, that even the slightest breeze felt like a toothache, and any pressure felt akin to a fire. He was going to need something to protect it, now that the caked blood had been removed.

Taking a moment, he scanned his body in the mirror. There were three times in his life, that Kite Branwen was broken. It took the third one to leave nothing behind to remake. Like a clay pot broken too many times, the pieces were dust, and the wind had taken too many away.

No, the man before him looked like Kite; the correct scars, the right build, the striking hair color. Even the few days worth of scruff, though out of place, was not disjointed. But the eyes; they belonged to someone else. Broken, feral, and with nothing to live for, their copper color had grown dark.

A small breeze slipped through the aft windows, and he noticed the sea stretching for miles. It chilled him. His heart always longed for the sea, but it's wind was bitingly cold on his skin, for the first time. He yearned anew for the fires of destruction and their indiscriminate cleansing power, to warm away the chill.

Rubbing his chilled fingers together, he moved to a nearby sea chest, searching for something to wear. Reeds had been mostly similar in build, but he was lucky to find a simple shirt and pants to fit him. Stopping at the door, he took in a deep breath, preparing to face his men. A brown naval coat sat on a hook near the door frame. Respectable and well-maintained, he shrugged as he put it on. It fit well, but felt… off. It would do to keep the cold off his back for the time being, and that was enough. 

Taking another look at himself in the mirror, he allowed a small moment of sorrow, but the embers in his belly grew, and they begged for more than resigned woe. They lusted for revenge, and the man who used to be Kite Branwen agreed.

Lips thin, jaw set, he opened the door to a new world. One he was going to set ablaze one city at a time.

***

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3

#mrau kite #mrau #misfortunate remnant au #misfortunate remnant #kite branwen #mrau Kite origin story #elleleh #elleusive #ellelehman