SatS - Chapter 3: Poison

Working in conjunction to Inktober I decided I am going to create a story based on the prompts of Inktober, along with the artwork, creating some cohesion of my pieces as well as a tale for you all to read (^_^)

Make sure to check out the other chapters to come — one posting every day of October 2017

And also check out the speed art videos for the art creations on youtube here!

Chapter 3: Poison

“Swift!” Barnes called, as I knocked into his body, but he held his form. His arms wrapped tight around me as he curled over, huffing in pain as do I.

What was that..? I thought through the haze in my mind and body.

It took a few minutes before feelings and senses returned and when they did I looked towards the direction of my attacker.

They hid within the shadows of the witches monsters, unaffected by their presence almost.

“Seven?” I said with disbelief, as the aged male stepped into the light, his blue irises locked on mine with little emotion. With his right hand, he swept back his white blonde hair in its sleek fashion, ruffling his royal, uncreased clothing; ever so vain as always within himself.

“Why?” I asked simply, both bitter and hurt.

He simply smirked at me.

“Well, you know what they say,” he said, stepping back to be shoulder to shoulder with the witch, who gaze turned to him with a soften glance.

“Mother is always right.”

A gasp ran around the ground.

No… I thought as I watched the image of the man I knew fall apart.

Before me is a nobody; somebody I have clearly never known. All the years we had known each other, all the actions we had done faded away, the image of the person he I thought he was, burnt away. And in its place takes the betrayer before me.

“You traitor!”

“Ah, ah, my dear,” he muttered in a painfully cheerful tone I am all to used to, “Not a traitor, just a guide in administering a new future, one I have always talked about!”

I froze.

“What future?!” Someone in the crowd around us shouted.

“Why, a future without the injustice of the current present of course!” Seven said, gratefully as he threw his arms in the air.

The crowd filled with mummers, with names of curses thrown here and there.

“It shall be a newer and brighter future! For all!” Seven called to the large crowd like a mother calling to her children, ignorant of their true feelings.

“And all those who should... deter from it,” his "mother" said, stepping forward. A wave of her energy and power splashed through the grounds, throwing some little ones of the balance completely as the older faltered in their stance.

Barnes' grip tightened on my arms.

“A brighter future? One laid down with blood? How can that be?” He spat with bitterness and force.

“With war comes peace, with destruction comes space, and with a blank canvas comes creativity," he said with a satisfied gleam in his eye.

His hand reached out towards me.

“Come, child. Join us!” he said his carefree smile, like the one he had given me on the first day we had met and he had saved me, and the one he gave the first day he offered to start mentoring me.

Oh how long ago that seems now...

“Come be on the right side of the world!”

“No!” I shouted, tears threatening to fall.

There is a falter in his act.

He didn't expect that... I thought as he quickly drew up his forces.

“And why not? Don't say you disagree with this!”

Another gasp ran through the field.

“And why would I not?” I spat, taking a step forward, Barnes followed.

“This is all that we talked about dear! As I taught you to shoot that bow and arrow. As I taught you to swing your first club to protect yourself!” Seven said, his cheerful tone straining.

“No!” I screamed as gasps of shock ran through the town square, “that is not what we talked about! That is what you talked about but I never thought you would... I never... never this!!”

His jaw clicked.

“And you dare say you did not agree? Did not agree that the poor should not be left for themselves but guided? That the children should not be left to face hardships? That the young should not face the burden of marks of the past upon them? That some people deserved to suffer for their negative actions? That justice should seep the lands properly, not like that, that the ‘So-called’ law provides?”

“I-I” I stuttered.

Sure, I had agreed with those… but this is wrong... I thought as I looked to the injured and hurt. People seemed to be losing their life quickly as the injured around me remained untreated.

This cannot go on any longer...

“I’ll take your silence for a yes, my dear Swift,” Seven said, his tone loosening once again, “So why deny this? Mother here will give you all that you wanted for the good of this town!”

His arms raised again, sweeping across the blood dripped field.

“No! This is not what I want!” I cried in protest, as anger flew through me, “A better future sure, but not one built on the slaughter of innocence!

“She is not going to give into your poison!” Barnes said, stepping up beside me.

The witch hummed as her son's featured turned bitter.

“Come Seven, You tried your best. Now is not the time to play makeup.”

He seems hesitant, his eyes pleading with me to give in, but I refused.

I looked away.

“You are right, there is no need… though you might not enjoy this ‘poison’ as you call it, your fellow neighbors do,” he said gesturing around.

What? I thought as I followed his gesture.

“Come,” the witch abruptly said, and this single command seemed to turn on a switch in many minds. As they, they started moving towards her, their eyes fogged over and expression delirious.

The fog... I thought with realization.

I had shaken off the effects but the others… it poisoned their minds.

I looked at the witch, whose eyes gleamed with magic as her lips twitched with it.

Her words… and his… Had they been spelled?

Though it had just been an insult it is a rightly given name. It had been a poison, once that had entered people's minds and was taking over.

I should not have let this happen... I should not have stayed talking to them!

I grabbed Barnes' arm.

“We have to stop them,” I pleaded, hopeful that the fog has not affected his mind.

I found success as a gleam of determinations. He nodded, and we spread out.

Turning to the one closest to me, I stood in his way, are out, attempting to hold him back.

“No! Huntington!” I pleased as he moved towards her in a mindless haze “Please! Stop.”

“Locksmith!” I heard Barton pled somewhere close by, “What are you doing? You're stronger than this!”

They continued walking forward,

The evil witches laughter crackled in the air.

“Come to me, my people! And let's join together and create a new kingdom upon the wastelands of this rotting one!”