2007 Figgies Trubolon Clip
The following is what I think of as the essential moment in Trubolon's journey as a villian, and as a character.
--Nick 11:08, 16 March 2007 (CDT)
In the afternoon shadows, Efwen drew images in the dirt. The manacles around her ankles weren’t as tight as the gag and other bindings had been, and despite the fact they kept her from moving much (as they were staked in the ground), she much preferred them to any other restraint she’d been forced to endure.
On the Windian plains, she made the best of her captivity. She drew her village as she remembered it, her mother, her grandfather. First she drew her grandfather stern and unimpressed, as she often remembered him, but then she drew him smiling. Efwen almost forgot she was chained. A few Highlanders kept watch around her. To the north, she heard the sounds of battle and gunfire. Fast-moving black-dots filled the sky.
The afternoon wore into dusk, and she was fed. A shadow fell across her, and a bloody body tumbled onto the dirt where she had drawn the picture of her smiling grandfather.
Trubolon knelt before Efwen. He was bloody, breath rattling. The point of a lance had taken him in the high shoulder and the other half jutted from his stomach, where dark blood oozed. Over his shoulder he bore a Windian, also near death.
“I don’t have long, child,” Trubolon said. Slowly, almost gently, he put his clawed hands around Efwen’s neck. “Fuse this one with me, that I may live.”
Efwen felt the pressure of his claws. She was too frightened to scream.
“Do it.”
The claws tightened. Efwen pulled the power up from within herself and latched her palms onto the essences of the Highlander and the Windian. Both were very weak. Even combined, there was no certainty of life.
“Quickly,” Trubolon commanded.
She had him there, his soul dangling from her small hand. In a deep corner of her mind, she thought that she must crush it, destroy this creature and end the terror. But that deep corner was surrounded by thick layers of fear and despair. Efwen heard only his command.
And she obeyed.
