Eye of the Wind – Ch. 8 – 2: Change of Hands

• Posted by Kyrielle Atrinati October 28, 2012 - 340 views

  

  Images bombarded me as soon as my eyes closed.  Memories and thoughts--fragments of the world I barely recognized.  Sounds came to me in a garbled and indistinct dialect, as if I floated in deep water. And then I was floating in a tank filled with a low, red light.  Skin stretched over a candle.

  A world of night danced about the edges of my vision, figures and shapes flitting by nonsensically.  My perception reeling as the world spun rapidly on a new axis to focus on a lantern hanging off a tree, flickering in the late breeze.  The creak of the limbs warbling through my ears, a sharp contrast to the steady beating all around me.  It thundered through my entire being, and after several moments I understood it was hoofbeats of a horse.  

  My surroundings spun again and I saw green hands gripping the reins, and a worried sigh hissed through my consciousness.  Concern washed over me and images of myself, only disconcertingly different, flashed by in quick succession...

  Different scenes slipped by me and mingled with the memories of my possession by the briarheart.  Night wove into dreams that wound into memories.  Every shadow was the twisting poison that had leaked out of me.  Every gnarled tree a simulacrum of Derkeethus' grasping hands as I forced him to attempt to kill me.

  The thought of my friend's name sent a flicker of recognition and the horse below me was reined rudely short.  A feeling of greeting in this floating space and welcome.  I was pulled forward to stand side-by-side with my companion through so many adventures.  My vision cleared a little, and the images of the Outside became less scattered.

  His head turned and I saw torchbugs dancing in the cold night, searching for mates under the sickle moon before the snows fell and muffled their existence.  There was some meaning to this image, but I didn't quite catch it.  I saw it floating in front of me, teasingly just far enough beyond my grasp to elude me.  Even as I reached for it, it floated away.  Instead, I felt a soft smile fluttering about me, and a vague hope that one day I'll understand.

  Time slid away and blackness seeped through the edges of the images until, at last, all was dark.

  I awoke in a cold sweat, the furs of the inn bed drowning me with their weight.  Alarmed, I sat upright, glaring about me with wide eyes at the room.  Wasn't I just outside? I thought, but before I could answer myself, footsteps pattered down the hall from the main room.

  "Good!  You're awake.  I was just coming to clean you up and get you out of that armor, but now I see you'll be able to do it yourself," Tormir chirped, clearly glad she wouldn't have to scrub the ground in filth from my body.  She brought a basin of steaming liquid smelling of salts and flowers.  I sneered at it, wishing for animal fat and mineral powder.  "Don't give me that look," she scolded, shoving the cloth into my hand.

  I washed alone in silence, and as I slipped away into my mind, allowing it to idle quietly, I saw a flash of golden light set against dark and heavy clouds.  Dawn.

  Nael's breath huffed and I felt her straining to continue the breakneck pace up the hill.  Derkeethus's raspy voice urged her on.  The dawn breaking only signified hours lost to pointless rest and sleep.  Frustration brushed my muscles and I tensed, buoyed up on the wave of my friend's will to return quickly.  It was enough to wash me away...

  Pulling on my ragged commoner clothing, untouched since my visit to Windhelm, I shook my head and tried to clear it.  Tormir collected the basin, and I sighed, willing myself to not dissect the contents of the water.  At least, I didn't make it and didn't know about whatever she might have placed in there.  Y'ffre would grant me that exception, I hoped.

  For a while I puttered about the inn, walking slowly and feeling my muscles strain just to keep me upright. The briarheart poison did a surprising amount of damage to my entire body, and I could sense the pain and stretching of atrophied flesh.  My heart especially seemed battered and exhausted, and I found myself sitting by the fire dozing shortly after the farmers left to tend to their crops.

  The scream of a horse's terrified tramp and the snarl of a wolf.  Metal piercing flesh and the smell of burning hair.  A large shape rearing against the bright sky.

  Clenched fists swung the blazing, electrified axe head through the air, and my mind burned with the afterimage as a second wolf fell to the ground.  Nael reared to defend herself, but a second wolf latched on to her left flank.  Without a second thought, she bolted down the road, and my vision bounced erratically as Derkeethus sprinted to catch up with her.  After half a mile, the wolf let go and ran into the bush.  An arrow flew after it, but there was no time to waste.  Fear overwhelmed me.  I can't do this on foot. A familiar voice echoed through the strange space.

  To my surprise the voice was clear and unaltered by the watery substance I was suspended in.  It sounded brighter, more sure of itself than my memory of my friend's voice.  I thought of the whistle I used to call her back, and immediately, I heard the same tune hooted from the Argonian's nose.

  My horse slowed and the world jostled as Derk's mounted her in a running leap I didn't know he was capable of.  Hoofbeats filled my ears once more.Scenery blazed by as Nael found her second wind and in the distance, Whiterun inched closer under the midday sun.  For a moment, the image of delicate white flowers loomed before my eyes.  A memory.  Something close.  A mound covered in different white flowers, wild and poisonous, growing beneath a strange tree.  The tree was singing.  All the trees were singing along with reptilian creatures of every shape and size imaginable.  Most of them appeared hideous and terrifying.  Something my father would have had me hunt as a challenge.
  

  The image faded, but the sense of loss remained as well as a suggestion of isolation.  Homesickness filled both of our minds, and for a moment, we were joined in the same space of memory.  Then it was all gone, and the world rushed by once more.

  Glimpses of guards glaring in suspicion at us, but Nael thundered past them in a flash.  Suddenly, the smell of cooking meats, hay, horses, smoke, and people rose up above the dry, cinnamon scent of the tundra.  Whiterun.  Derk's relief was a palpable sensation, though it quickly became tinged by the worry.  What if Hrollod isn't there? I heard.

  

  Voices in the main room brought me back for a moment.  The farmers had come in for lunch, and many gazed at me furtively as they ate their meal.

  "What's a wood elf doing out here?"

  "You know I heard an Imperial Legate has been asking after her?"

  "Really?  For what reasons?"

  "Not sure, but he's placed a bounty on her head if anyone brings her in alive.  Double if she's dead."

  "A bounty?"

  "I could use that kind of money.  Get out of this gods forsaken place.  Become an adventurer just like the heroes of legend."

  "Shut it, Erik.  No one's taking my charge in for any bounty.  Not if Hrollod has anything to say about it," Tormir grouched, her voice cutting through the male grunts.

  "Yeah?  And where is he?  I haven't seen hide nor hair of him, yet you keep prattling on about him night and day," Erik retorted.

  "Must be some imaginary unrequited love," said a different voice.  Coarse, good-natured laughter greeted this, and in a daze of fury, Tormir led me away to my room and back to the bed.

   "Men!" she exclaimed as she left me to sleep.