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Swiftsure

This Rank 50, Rogue joined the Tuatha on June 14, 2019 as a member of Gaiscioch. Swiftsure is a Caomhnoir de na Iomproidh of the Tuatha. They were last seen on February 17, 2011. Swiftsure is played by Swiftsure.

Character Sheet:

Professions

The Story of Swiftsure

Part I - The Tale of Swiftsure or Punctuated Immortality

Standing before the loom, engaged in the mindlessly repetitive process of binding cloth into bolts, my thoughts drift off to the rhythmic chunk ka-chunk of the apparatus…to a time before my death and “rebirth,” before there was Swiftsure the Assassin…and there I am, a young Bahmi child standing before another loom, in another place and time. My father stands behind me, leaning over my shoulder and guiding my inexpert hands as I learn to weave the stubborn strands into a strong and workable fabric. He is a skilled artisan, my father, and I want more than anything to earn his approval. I wonder what he would say, now, if he were here? He would be happy to know I had honored my ancestors by becoming a trained outfitter myself, but what of the rest? I shake my head to clear away the thought, as in my mind I can begin to see the look of worried disapproval on his kind face. I force my attention once more to working the cloth, but soon my thoughts are carried off again…

I was born Shria Suren Bayaarbatjin, ‘Yellow Majesty daughter of Bayaarbat,’ so called, as my father delighted in telling anyone who’d listen, because the birth of his only child was marked by the most brilliant sunrise anyone in our village could remember before or since. After my Ascension, when I became an artisan of killing, I changed Shria Suren to Swiftsure, as my enemies’ deaths are both quick and certain. I was not a fighter long before my death, but I was good at it. I quickly came to see it as a ballet of death, a pas de deaux for killer and victim, in which the outcome is almost always decided before the first blow is ever struck. There are times, I confess, that I close my eyes for just a second and listen as my blades sing the killing-songs of my ancestors, their voices like the wind.

There isn’t much I remember from the time before my death. I don’t know if that is by design, or if I am unique in it. I know other Ascended, and fight by their side (and at times against them), but I am not one to engage in talk of ‘feelings’ and ‘thoughts.’ I overheard the Kelari assassin, Kira Thanos, telling Chuluun’s daughter that since her Ascension she has felt nothing. I don’t know how much Azul Viper could have felt before her Ascension, but I know I don’t share her sense of numbness. I wish I could. I have killed hundreds in my brief time as an Ascended, and my style of killing means I see the realization dawning on their faces, smell the desperation in their last breaths, hear the finality of their death rattle as I see the light go dim in their eyes. And each one feels as if it pulls me further away from who I am, or who I was; away from Shria Suren, until there is nothing left but Swiftsure, the quick and certain death. That’s not something Sylver Valis or any of his “technicians” ever told me to expect.

Another thing they didn’t talk about was my own pain. For I have also died many times since my “rebirth,” and each time the pain was the same as the first time. All that’s missing now (thank the Winds) is the fear of that first death, when I realized I was losing the fight. Fear of what was to come, what was to end, and what would befall those I loved and would leave behind. That fear is gone. In its place is the certainty that I will rise again, to fight again, to kill again, to die again. What was it that lapdog of the Endless Court, Frederick, said to me before I killed him, shortly after my Ascension? “Raise your weapon and prepare to defend your second life…”. Second life? Hah! This is not a life, nor a death. We do not live long, we are not dead long…this is not a second life. This is…punctuated immortality.

It is then that I realize my cloth has long since all been bolted, and I am merely standing before the loom, only now noticing the stares and whispers of those around me. Clumsily I gather up my things and go, my head held high but my eyes avoiding those of the others there…


Part II - Nighttime, the Droughtlands, during an invasion -
Swiftsure leaned close to the fallen Guardian Ascended, her erstwhile opponent in the brief but intense death dance just then concluded. As was her habit after countless such encounters, she began to wipe his blood from her blades, using the hem of his tunic for the purpose. The gentle tug must have awakened what little force of will he had remaining, for he opened his eyes with a start and a hiss of air escaped his slightly parted lips. She paused in her motion, ready to drive a blade into the base of his skull and sever the brain-body connection, but the look of death-resignation on his face stayed her hand. This one presented no further danger, let him pass easily.

“Sleep, brother, sleep and your gods will soon return you to the fight,” she said softly, almost comfortingly. While she spoke, she scanned the area around them for signs of another threat. It was a technique she had developed over time and it had kept her alive on many battlefields before her death and rebirth as an Ascended. She called it 5-15-50…a visual sweep of her surroundings five meters around, then out to 15 meters, finally 50 meters, in all directions. A quick sweep of the eye across the terrain, seeking movement, a shape out of the ordinary, an unnatural color, or perhaps a glint of metal. This time all was clear, and she turned her attention to the dying man over whose crumpled form she knelt.

“Why…why…why?” he tried to ask her something in a whisper that faded to a rustle like dry leaves in a faint breeze. He coughed, softly, and the crimson foam at the corners of his mouth told her that her offhand dagger had, indeed, found its way between his ribs and into his right lung, as she had hoped it would. She tried to ignore him, to move on mentally to wherever the fight was going to take her next, but he began to stir, grabbing her forearm with a grip surprisingly strong for one so close to death.

“Why any of this?” she said, looking down into his eyes for a moment. “Because I was born a Bahmi and you were born a Mathosian,” she told him, as she turned her eyes once more to the field around them. “Because your gods failed us, because our technomancy failed you, because we are all too wedded to old hatreds to find common ground when a deadlier foe stares us in the face.” She could hear another group of invaders moving through the darkness, not nearing them, probably passing on the road off to their left. Sounds of a brief scuffle, as they disposed of a roving Centaur and then moved on. Six of them, perhaps more. So there was a foothold or rift open nearby…if this fool would just die she would get on with the task of killing riftspawn, as he should have done rather than attacking a Defiant post. “Because we turned our back on your gods and replaced them with our own. Thedeor, Bahralt, Mariel-Taun…Asha Catari, Orphiel Farwind, Sylver Valis; a distinction without a difference. The lot of them together are still too leaky a vessel to hold the hopes of all Telara, don’t you think?” she asked, but looking down she realized that he had departed, gone to meet his Vigil and be returned to the fight. “I’ll see you again, Mathosian. But until then, there are others in need of killing.” (to be continued)