A Choice in Soulwood
Sep. 13th, 2022 01:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mylandmyrules[Events taken from Blood of the Earth by Faith Hunter.
Some liberties have been taken to merge canon with Fandom.
CW for attempted sexual assault, animal death, and mention of child sexual abuse.]
About four months before her twenty-fourth - or twenty-eighth - birthday, Jane Yellowrock, the Cherokee vampire hunter, surprised her outside the library. The woods had warned Nell of an approach and she pulled a gun on Jane. She'd never have out-fought her, but Nell wasn't going down easy.
Turned out that Jane needed her help, wanted access and permission to go through her woods onto the church land to rescue a kidnapped vampire. Nell agreed, but had a demand of her own.
Together they'd helped damage the church.
Together they'd gotten one hundred and thirty-eight children, some of them sexually abused, out of the hands of God's Cloud of Glory church.
But the Church didn't take kindly to this.
It had been the end of her peaceful life.
One day she came home to find her two beagles and her old bird dog dead on her porch. They'd killed them and dragged them onto her doorstep as a warning. She'd buried them and piled their graves with stones. And grieved. Maybe more than she ever had for John or Leah.
Still she kept going. Nell brought her goods to the market, then went to the library to return her books and check her email on one of the library's computers. One otherwise normal day she stopped dead when she saw the sender of the latest message. Portalocity, they wrote, had finally established a steady portal to her area, which would allow her to come and go whenever she chose. They apologized for the delay in establishing it, but assured her that it was now up and running reliably.
She could go back to Fandom. She could be safe and free and accepted - even if her friends might very well be long gone. It might be the answer to her prayers, and God help her she considered it. But to leave her sisters? They might not want to leave now, but someday they might and she wanted to be there. She couldn't do it.
The church became more fervent than ever in their desire to take her land and bring her back into the church for punishment and to force her to submit to their will over the next few months. They sent men to watch her from a deer stand just off the edge of the property, sent elders to lecture and threaten, and one night they decided not to take no for an answer.
Soulwood warned her, giving her time to gather John's guns and enough ammunition. There weren't enough to burn her out, as they'd threatened, but still enough to be dangerous. She listened to them coming, felt them through the land, and when they were close enough, yelled for them to stop.
It wouldn't be enough. They fired at the back of her house and Nell could hear the sound of breaking glass and things inside the house shattering. John's nephew, Joshua Purdy, was one of their leaders. He'd been trying to court her to get back the land that he felt was rightfully his before John had even been dead a week. Tonight he'd come for her.
Nell fired the shotgun, all she needed was a drop of their blood to be able to claim their lives, but her shot missed. She reloaded as fast as she could and took aim again, but the blast made the gun slip off the flagpole she'd been bracing it on and the recoil sent her rolling across the yard. She saw Joshua as she tried to right herself, tried to pull the shotgun into place, but the last thing she saw was Joshua's fist coming at her.
She woke with her face in the water, feeling like she was drowning. He'd cut the straps to her overalls and torn away her shirt, leaving her chest exposed. He'd beaten her, and knowing he had her, he'd sent the rest of them away. He'd have his way with her, Joshua said, then the church would marry them in front of witnessess to protect the reputation of a widder woman. Then he'd have her land and her, the way it should have been.
One drop of his blood, that's all she needed, but she couldn't get to him.
He'd tried to have his way with her before, when she was fourteen. John had caught him then and administered vengeance with his fists. Now Joshua was once again putting her virtue and her life at risk.
Nell dug her hands and feet into the ground desperately, sending her mind searching Soulwood for something, anything, that would help. There was a bobcat not far away and she reached out to it, claiming it for her own and for the land, calling it to her. Joshua's rage and determination beat at her through the ground, but she refused to submit.
He ordered her to strip and she taunted him, distracting him, even as the bobcat approached and leapt onto Joshua, slashing at his chest.
Blood on the ground.
And yet she didn't want to kill him and held the bobcat still, offering him mercy. He ran.
But she knew he'd be back. They all would.
Some liberties have been taken to merge canon with Fandom.
CW for attempted sexual assault, animal death, and mention of child sexual abuse.]
About four months before her twenty-fourth - or twenty-eighth - birthday, Jane Yellowrock, the Cherokee vampire hunter, surprised her outside the library. The woods had warned Nell of an approach and she pulled a gun on Jane. She'd never have out-fought her, but Nell wasn't going down easy.
Turned out that Jane needed her help, wanted access and permission to go through her woods onto the church land to rescue a kidnapped vampire. Nell agreed, but had a demand of her own.
Together they'd helped damage the church.
Together they'd gotten one hundred and thirty-eight children, some of them sexually abused, out of the hands of God's Cloud of Glory church.
But the Church didn't take kindly to this.
It had been the end of her peaceful life.
One day she came home to find her two beagles and her old bird dog dead on her porch. They'd killed them and dragged them onto her doorstep as a warning. She'd buried them and piled their graves with stones. And grieved. Maybe more than she ever had for John or Leah.
Still she kept going. Nell brought her goods to the market, then went to the library to return her books and check her email on one of the library's computers. One otherwise normal day she stopped dead when she saw the sender of the latest message. Portalocity, they wrote, had finally established a steady portal to her area, which would allow her to come and go whenever she chose. They apologized for the delay in establishing it, but assured her that it was now up and running reliably.
She could go back to Fandom. She could be safe and free and accepted - even if her friends might very well be long gone. It might be the answer to her prayers, and God help her she considered it. But to leave her sisters? They might not want to leave now, but someday they might and she wanted to be there. She couldn't do it.
The church became more fervent than ever in their desire to take her land and bring her back into the church for punishment and to force her to submit to their will over the next few months. They sent men to watch her from a deer stand just off the edge of the property, sent elders to lecture and threaten, and one night they decided not to take no for an answer.
Soulwood warned her, giving her time to gather John's guns and enough ammunition. There weren't enough to burn her out, as they'd threatened, but still enough to be dangerous. She listened to them coming, felt them through the land, and when they were close enough, yelled for them to stop.
It wouldn't be enough. They fired at the back of her house and Nell could hear the sound of breaking glass and things inside the house shattering. John's nephew, Joshua Purdy, was one of their leaders. He'd been trying to court her to get back the land that he felt was rightfully his before John had even been dead a week. Tonight he'd come for her.
Nell fired the shotgun, all she needed was a drop of their blood to be able to claim their lives, but her shot missed. She reloaded as fast as she could and took aim again, but the blast made the gun slip off the flagpole she'd been bracing it on and the recoil sent her rolling across the yard. She saw Joshua as she tried to right herself, tried to pull the shotgun into place, but the last thing she saw was Joshua's fist coming at her.
She woke with her face in the water, feeling like she was drowning. He'd cut the straps to her overalls and torn away her shirt, leaving her chest exposed. He'd beaten her, and knowing he had her, he'd sent the rest of them away. He'd have his way with her, Joshua said, then the church would marry them in front of witnessess to protect the reputation of a widder woman. Then he'd have her land and her, the way it should have been.
One drop of his blood, that's all she needed, but she couldn't get to him.
He'd tried to have his way with her before, when she was fourteen. John had caught him then and administered vengeance with his fists. Now Joshua was once again putting her virtue and her life at risk.
Nell dug her hands and feet into the ground desperately, sending her mind searching Soulwood for something, anything, that would help. There was a bobcat not far away and she reached out to it, claiming it for her own and for the land, calling it to her. Joshua's rage and determination beat at her through the ground, but she refused to submit.
He ordered her to strip and she taunted him, distracting him, even as the bobcat approached and leapt onto Joshua, slashing at his chest.
Blood on the ground.
And yet she didn't want to kill him and held the bobcat still, offering him mercy. He ran.
But she knew he'd be back. They all would.