Innocence Rekindled

Will A. Sanborn

10/15 - 10/16/96

"We've heard all the evidence from both sides now. Do you have anything further to add before the court passes its judgment, Ms. Hrral?"

"No, I've already told you my story, more times than I care to repeat it" the griffiness replied, her voice hollow as she sat there, looking up at the lupine form of the judge.

"May I remind you, and the other members of the court, that although you have alleged to Captain Jarroth's wrong-doing in the death of civilians in the war, that matter was cleared years ago. There was a full investigation and he was acquitted of all charges."

'Found innocent by those who fought beside him,' she thought bitterly, but did not bother to voice her sentiments. She'd known that things would most likely turn out the way they had, and was resigned to the fate about to be cast down upon her.

"Further more," the judge continued, "Captain Jarroth had been retired from the military for over four years. Now while I do sympathize with what happened to you and your family those years ago, it was a war and unfortunately those in the military are not the only casualties, civilians do get hurt. This does not excuse your actions Ms. Hrral, what you did was an act done in cold-blood, calculated and heinous, there can be no mercy from the court towards you."

With his eyes narrowing and his muzzle twitching ever-so-slightly, he delivered the verdict. "It is the court's findings then that Karyn Hrral is guilty of the death of Captain Rowwel Jarroth, a crime that she committed in the full knowledge of her actions. Given the bloody nature of the crime and the calculated planning of it, the court finds Ms. Hrral guilty of murder in the highest degree. For this crime she will pay with her life, and is sentenced to death by firing squad at sunrise tomorrow."

Even though she'd expected it to be the way that things would end, the final scene of the dark drama that had been her life, she still reacted when she heard the judge's words. Pulling her wings tighter to her body, she shivered as the finality of sentence forced its way through the cold haze clouding her consciousness; looking back at the judge, a small glimmer of emotion washed across her avian visage.

The room was silent as the members of the court, those who had prosecuted her, and the people watching in the audience received the ruling of justice they were so hoping to hear. As the guards led her away, her taloned hands chained, her leonine tail dragging limply behind her, the cool stares of multiple pairs of lupine eyes watched her, surely many of those present would return at sunrise to see the matter ended.

The stone floor was cool against the pads of her feet, but it didn't matter, she was silent as the two guards escorted her to her cell with stoic precision. Reaching the small chamber which had been her home for the last few weeks, she was left alone with her thoughts once again. Another guard came a few hours later to silently present her with her last meal, she ate it in a gloomy silence like all the others, barely noticing the improvement in the cuisine.

Finished with the meal, she sat on the cot, still lost in her thoughts. How long had it been, the years so hard to count since she'd lost the innocence of her youth, the wonder of the life before her eclipsed by the coming of the war. Her village was a small one and they'd been spared from the fighting at first, she'd remembered hearing about it, but not quite understanding, it seeming so far away.

The war had ensnared them in its grasp eventually though, as the fighting had moved in their direction, and within days it surrounded what had been their peaceful home. She could still remember it all with perfect clarity, that one summer when things should have all gone right for her, nearing the time of adulthood when she was planning on marrying her beloved fiancé, Thall. Things had changed so quickly, the fragments of her life erupting with the flames of violence that had swept through the village.

The fighting had been burst in upon them, and everyone was lost in the madness. Like every other night since then, she could still see the fires of the buildings burning, hearing the cries of those shot down. She hadn't seen how Thall had been killed, only finding his bloody remains afterwards, while wandering dazed through the chaos, but she had seen the deaths of her parents and sister. She'd managed to find a hiding place, but the rest of her family hadn't been so fortunate.

The lupine soldiers had burst into their home, and had started yelling for information and surrender. Her father had brandished his sword, a small weapon against the wolves' guns, but he'd been intent on protecting his family. It had been Captain Jarroth himself who'd shot him, watching him fall to the ground. He and his men had then opened fire on her mother and younger sister when she'd panicked and had tried to fight them, the talons of her hands no use against the steel of the soldiers' bullets as they ripped into her.

How Karyn had managed to live through the slaughter as the two forces battled over her village was a miracle. When the fighting had ceased at last, the griffin army pushed back into the wilderness, she'd crawled out from the pile of rubble she'd hid herself in to face the horror of the carnage and destruction that met her. There had been other survivors besides herself, but all whom she had loved had died that day, her soul burned black along with the remains of the village.

Over the years she'd grown older, her life destroyed, she'd wandered through expanse of her nation as people struggled to rebuild it, the war finally over, but its scars left deep within the land and its people. Finally as the years had worn on, she'd made her way across the sea to the place she found herself in now, slowly learning the language, dragging herself through her mission, until she'd finally managed to track down Captain Jarroth.

The years had been hard on her, her soul barely a flicker, a small ember of wrath urging her on, burning brightest at night when her dreams were consumed with the hollow faces of the dead calling out to her for revenge. The journey had been a long one, but she still had a glimmer of her youthful beauty to her, and that had been enough.

Her long search over, she'd met the Captain Jarroth at some almost-forgotten dive of a bar. Like most of the other patrons in the bar, he hadn't been exactly overjoyed when she'd entered, the war had been over for many years, but old resentments die hard. Still, she was tolerated, most likely because she was a female, and she caught several not-so-discrete gazes thrown her way from several of the dirty and tired lupines who sat in the darkness nursing their drinks, not to mention one or two from the good Captain himself.

Watching and waiting, she made sure he was good and drunk before approaching him, forcing herself against him, brushing a wing against his back coyly. She'd been good, all the planning in the dark of countless nights had worked, as she managed a saccharine smile, holding back her hatred, cloaking it from him and offering him another drink, then working up to a proposition of a more intimate nature.

Knowing where he lived, she'd rented a room nearby the bar, making it easy to persuade him to come back to her place, rather than somewhere else, luring him in to her den with gropes and false promises. Then bedding down with him, fighting back the shivers as her flesh touched his, she'd kept him busy, preoccupied, until striking, her blind fury catching him by surprise, she plunged the knife into him. Stabbing him again, fighting back against his claws gripping her in a panicked frenzy, she choked off his screams the best she could.

With all the rehearsing, no matter how well she'd thought out the plan, she'd have never been prepared for how much blood there was, or the look on his tortured face as she cut the life from him. In the end she hadn't been able to move quick enough, as the blood had stained the sheets, her fur and her feathers. She'd been there cowering in the carnage, like so many years before, when the cops had come to the scene of the crime.

Thinking about it, seeing the tortured look on his face as she forced the knife into him for the final time, holding him down, her weight against his, she trembled, a shiver of revulsion passing through her, clutching at the frame of the cot for support.

The war and Captain Jarroth had taken away her life, and even his death couldn't give it back to her. She'd died on that day, along with her family and lover, all that remained had been the hatred and a blind desire for vengeance. Her nights were still haunted with the dark dreams, her days spent in a cold daze, killing him had done nothing to ease her withered soul.

Instead he'd dragged her down with her, using the last of his strength to hold her there, laying against him in the gore, unable to escape. Revenge hadn't stopped the nightmares, it had just augmented them with a host of new ones. She still saw the faces of the dead in those nightly visits, the memories of her family not sated by her act of revenge. It wasn't enough, how could it be, and now Captain Jarroth did his best to haunt her frenzied dreams, as she lay there with her body covered in blood, stabbing at him again and again, trying to kill the demons.

He hadn't been a demon after all though, and in the light of day she realized that he was just as mortal as her, just as mortal as her family. No matter what, he'd been made to pay for what he had done though, just as she would pay the price for her vengeance tomorrow. Still shaking the image of the dying captain from her mind, she focused on that fact, and the certainty with which the end was near.

She'd struggled and fought all these years for an ending to this suffering, thinking that the captain's death held the key to it, but perhaps instead what lay ahead was the way, a final deliverance from a life consumed by a war that had never ended for her. She'd lost her family on that day, but she hadn't needed to have lost her life too, she'd let him take it from her, allowed herself to be consumed by the fire of vengeance.

He'd been mortal, but she'd allowed the shadowy demon of his actions to leach away at her soul, burning in a cold fire, so even killing him had not set her free. 'We all bury our dead though,' she thought, as she had done so long ago with her family and the broken remains of her life. Someone had buried him, and tomorrow they would end up burying her.

With her passing, the cycle of revenge would be over, the embers of malice finally dying and hopefully the nightmares would end. The thought of that, the finality of the coming dawn and the possibility of freedom, no matter how strange its unknown expanses might be, actually came as a small measure of relief.

With that she felt long-forgotten emotions welling within her, as her eyes began to water, stinging slightly with the coming tears. Crying for the first time in years, she let the tears drench out the slow fires burning within her, washing down the wrath which had consumed her life. Finding the grieving sadness, repressed within her for so long, she wept openly, falling back onto the cot, freeing her sorrow at last.

The sobs wracking her body, she remembered the loss of her family, not as the lifeless tool which had spurred her on for all those years, but the true meaning of her grieving. Letting it wash over her, the sadness of lost loves forced the bitter taste of revenge from her mouth. Lying there, sobbing into the pillow she held against her, she wept for what she had lost, but not what had taken it from her.

Crying into the night, she finally fell into a sleep, but for the first time in years it wasn't a fitful one, her breathing becoming slow and steady. She dreamed once again, but instead of the burned remains of her village or the blood-bath of the captain's demise, she was standing in a grassy field, not unlike the one near the outskirts of her village. Remembering running through that field as a child, a small smile crept across her snout as she walked along, feeling the grass caress her feet, the gentle breeze wafting through her outstretched wings.

Looking down she saw the knife she still held in her hand, its tip covered in blood, a shudder running through her, she dropped it. Looking at it where it lay, its silver blade shining brilliantly against the green of the turf, she stepped away, walking from it, towards the direction where her village should be.

As she walked along, a figure appeared in the distance, moving quickly towards her. Within moments she saw who it was and her heart leapt with an almost-forgotten joy, running to meet him as his pace quickened too.

Reaching the fellow griffin, she threw her arms around him, gripping his back, right below the juncture where his wings joined his body. Looking at him, for a moment doubting it could be true, she saw the warmth in his eyes and let out an excited "Thall, it's you!"

"Hello Karyn, we've missed you for so long," he replied warmly.

"But I..." she stammered.

"I know, Karyn, I know..." placing a finger on her snout, quieting her, "but that's over now. You've been away from us for so long, but now you've returned. It's good to have you back." With that he held her tightly, feeling the mixed tears of joy and sorrow that escaped her.


Copyright 1996, Will A. Sanborn - was1@shore.net