Much to Learn...
This is apart of The Great Ones, a Camp Willow plot. Read the [[[The_Great_Ones_Aren%27t_Here|introduction]]] and [[[The_Great_Ones%2C_Part_One%3A_Under_Siege|Part One]]].
Setting:
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<----> Camp Willow - Beneath the Willow Tree - Grand Parlor <---->
This room is by far one of the largest of the whole section of the tree. Technically its not part of the tree, more of the area underneath it. The room is carpeted with a green moss, and is very comforatable on the foot paws. The room is well lit by the marvellous chandiler that hangs from the roof of the room. It is very cozy in here, as there is a nice sized fireplace set in one wall, and is usually kept well stocked during the winter months. In the middle of the room is a green shag rug, with the words "Camp Willow" sewn into it. Atop of this rug is a large coffe table with a L shaped couch around it. A number of stumps have been carved and made into seats and are placed in various spots around the room. The roots of the willow tree run along the walls and make the perfect place for storing assorted knick-knacks and such. The doorway leading to the outside can be seen lumbering up the stairwell. The doorway on oneside of the room leads down a long corridor.
Characters:
Kolbjorn, Viking chief
Ayita, a captive healer
==
<----> Much to Learn <---->
==
Kolbjorn stands in the middle of the parlor, in front of the fireplace. It still simmers warmly with embers and flames, casting a gentle light around the room, and silhouetting the large hob as a dark shadow with a halo of orange. His arms crossed, legs slightly apart, without armor and covered in bandages, he seems strangely quiet and introspective. The rest of the Camp has been ransacked, survivors enslaved, newly-taken thralls shown their place. Kolbjorn has taken several, but the chief among them, the one who showed the spirit he is drawn to, has been called for. /Again./ Kol has introduced himself to Ayita once already, but unfortunately for her, he has proven... attentive to the taking and breaking of new peoples. The parlor, in fact, has been relatively untouched - save for the mangled rug and the words 'Camp Willow' torn out.
The young jill is dragged down the stairs, eyes downcast from the beast doing the dragging. While she may be able to stand on her own, she is not so keen on the destination - and settles for making the /act/ of dragging her to their symbolic Willow Tree the most annoying she can muster. What's the worst they will do to her? Destroy her home? Slaughter her people? Torture her? /Kill/ her? They only have the latter to do. Ayita, dead weight and growling soft insults, is brought to Kolbjorn. There is only hatred in the gaze she turns up towards him.
"I've seen that look before," is the first thing Kolbjorn says, before he even turns to face her. "I've seen it in a hundred villages on a hundred faces. Yet..." He swivels around and spreads his paws, as if to say, 'what now?' "Yet they are always the ones in fetters." He gestures to the couch. "Sit down. One of my bandages chafes, and you will change it."
The ottermaid is still stuck and caked with blood, dried and crusted over her body and clothes. Very little of it is hers. Ayita's gaze does not drift away, and the look does not waver or dissipate: merely stays on the marten's face - the loathing palpable. Pulling her feet beneath her, she stands up on her own, though there is still a paw clenched around her upper arm. She says nothing, though her brow furrows in deepening disdain, one lip curling upwards in the hint of a snarl. Ayita, though, does not sit.
"No?" Kolbjorn asks, his tone hovering somewhere between amused and outraged. He leans towards the jill so that his snout nearly touches her ear. "Have I not humbled you enough? Must we spend more time getting acquainted?" he asks. "I have one already who will come to me without even being called. Do not think that I /need/ you. That you are impeding me with this..." He shakes his head, gesturing his paws up and down. "Whatever it is. Your home is broken and your people scattered. What are you fighting for? Your pride? I have already taken that." He grabs her by the shoulder, shoving her onto the couch. "Perhaps you have forgotten your duty and I must show it to you? You are /filthy./ I thought otters were cleaner than this." He snatches up a rag and roughly begins to clean Ayita of what dry blood remains. "You are being taught. So /learn./"
Ayita has never been a creature of notable ferocity. Save the times that she has snapped at the odd guard or dibbun impeding her work, she has always been rather passive and mild - she's a Redwall brat, at the end of the day. However, the loss of her home, the slaughtering of her people... Everything this /beast/ has done to her and to her beloved Camp... A growl starts in her throat as he approaches her, slowly building until he pushes her to a seat. She snaps at his paw, then, with a strangled cry, wrenching her arm free of the other Viking's hold. "Dinnae /touch/ me!" She gasps out, one paw swiping at him out of reflex, claws raking across anything they are speedy enough to catch. She knows the error of this as soon as it happens, but rationality has gone out the window. She has lost everything, so what has she to fear? What does she have left except the smoldering remains of what she once called 'home'?
Kolbjorn fought with the mighty otter who clawed his flesh. The pinpricks of this dainty maiden are of little consequence, but it still makes him growl. He is either angry... or excited. He suddenly pounces Ayita, wrestling her down with his larger size and weight. "I think I will," he snarls, grabbing her wrists, ruthlessly trying to wrench them behind her back or above her head, whichever comes first. "/I/ think that you are foolish to struggle beyond hope. But that does not mean I don't appreciate a good fight." His gaze is savage and implacable. He's not going anywhere, not loosening his grip one inch, until she stops her thrashing. "Is it hate? You waste it. Is it despair? Then you wouldn't struggle so much. Tell me! What are you still fighting for?"
This is not a question that Ayita knows the answer to, however she continues to struggle in the full understanding of its vanity. Hatred is too simple a word to describe the rage bubbling in the pretty jill, and she has long passed the point of despair. It is something else, and she isn't going to award Kolbjorn the conversation on it. Slammed against the ground, she lets out a grunt, still trying to snap and kick out at the huge marten in vain. Despite her outward violence, the tears brim at the corners of her eyes - even as she spits at his face.
She will not stop fighting, and neither does Kolbjorn. The spit does little to perturb him, though he does raise one paw to wipe it away, and then smacks Ayita across the cheek. Just one paw is necessary to hold both her paws in place above her head as he looms over her, giving her barely any room to struggle, or even breathe, without being reminded that he is still here, still in charge. He puts his other paw around her throat and /squeezes,/ just enough to remind her of the terrible strength that can snap her neck like a twig with just a flick. He's already killed one otter that way. "Enough," he snarls. "This place is mine. Its people are mine. You. Are /mine./ You will learn this." He leans in closer, peering into her hate-filled eyes. "You. Will. /Learn./"
This is fury unlike any that Ayita has ever had to contend with. Her life has been cake: orphaned too young to miss a mother's touch, raised in an Abbey of plenty, cared for her whole childhood, happy and wanting little as she entered adulthood. And now it's all gone, and the only thing left inside her is something twisted and raw. The slap takes her with a gasp of pain ; a sharp cry, quickly smothered by her own pride - and then by his grip on her throat. Eyes squeezing shut, her struggling fails beneath his heavy handed 'teaching' methods. "Rorri!" She gasps out, voice hoarse, when she is again able to breathe. "Rorri an' the others I was with. Th'wounded. Wha' happened t'them?"
"The strong will live and the weak will die," is Kolbjorn's only answer. "As far as I know, 'Rorri' has proven strong." He slowly releases the pressure on her neck, but doesn't lean away. "As have you. Do you not even wonder why I spared you? Claimed you? Or do you look at us and see monsters? The caricatures running around you call 'vermin'?" He stands again, taking his weight off her, and without waiting for her assent, pulls her up and literally deposits her on the couch. There he stands, tall and immovable before her. "Everyone in these godless lands suckles at the teat of bounty and complains when their meal is interrupted. You enslaved /yourselves/ to this fate with your inaction and gluttony. And as the eagle takes the fish that grows fat, so have we." Then he kneels, and puts a paw on her knee. Heavy. Possessive. "Yet a few have chosen /life/ over mere /living./"
"Stop /lying/." Ayita finally hisses, eyes narrowing. Every fiber of being seems to pull away from him, and as he lays his paw on her, she shrinks away even further. "Destruction f'the sake of destruction is not /honor/." She continues to growl, even as she mocks him, pressing her smaller form back against the couch in a sad attempt to create any space between them that she can. "Y'think you're on some great conquest but y'no different from common thieves." Her muzzle wrinkles into another snarl, though this one she makes no attempt to hide. "Y'nothing but scum."
"Hm. You are much less open-minded than another I know." Kolbjorn smirks and sits down on the couch next to Ayita. He seems to enjoy her discomfort. The spite she throws at him is simply fuel on the fire. "We are what we were made to be. Until you have lived where the wind can strip the flesh from your bones and wolves wait to eat your children in the night, do not judge what we do as /common thievery./ But you are no common ottermaid either. You are a healer." He gestures to the bandage on his arm, where Zade tore into him with his teeth. It is dark and in need of changing. "So heal. Or are you just a pretty face?"
"Forgive my closed-mindedness." Ayita snorts, disdain in her voice. "I should be more understanding of the monsters who've destroyed /everything/." That glare wavers, misplaced by the fear which still lingers there - whatever hasn't been destroyed by having 'nothing to lose'. There are still other captives, and she fears the repercussions her actions may have. Still, she hesitates - his proximity leaves her stomach in knots, the idea of helping him brings the bile to the back of her throat.
Kolbjorn chuffs. "You hesitate only when it pleases you now?" He stares at her hard, her uncertainty and anger and fear, and then his paw shoots out to grab hers, and lay it on the bandage for her. "You are afraid. Afraid of what will happen if you do as I say, afraid of what will happen if you don't. You fear me, you fear loss, you fear death. You are even afraid... of not being afraid of me anymore, aren't you? You fear what that will mean." His stare is hard and unwavering. "You and everyone in this village is ruled by fear," he tells her. "That is why your people died."
Ayita immediately yanks her paw away from his arm with a snarl. "And you called /me/ closed minded." The terrified otter snaps back. "We were at peace. That is not /fear/." She continues to sink away from him, paws curling at her chest as she draws in a ragged breath. Her neighbors, dragged from their homes and slaughtered. Dibbuns murdered, homes burned; wanton pointless destruction. She fights the urge to vomit - glaring at the wound she's been ordered to redress. "/No./"
Kolbjorn tilts his head slowly. Ominously. His eyelids twitch downward, narrowing. "No?" he wonders. He slides forward, and his arm shoots out to grab the back of the couch, blocking further retreat from him. "No. /No./ For something so simple, no." He shakes his head, and his lips peel back to show his teeth. "It seems you have much more to learn."
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