Battle of Vidonia cotinued, Part V
My posts
His posts
“He comes, and with His arrival, the Mask will fall and the old shall be forged anew!” The voice that came from Snow’s pale lips as he writhed against his restraints, the elven body rippling with thin, sweaty mucles. A bolt snapped the wall.
“That’s not Snow!” Gural cried.
The body thrashed against the curved wood like starving eels stiched in human skin. Another bolt snapped from the wall . . .
Gural was the first to die, his neck snapped, so that Legolas could see his slack face loll against his back as he toppled forward. A chain took her in the side, flinging her against the far wall, pain ripping through her left arm as bone protruded through fabric.
And she could hear a voice from the shadows. “No, blast you! NOOOO!” And then the sound of meat slapping against stone.
Pain overwhelmed her as darkness began to fill her vision, the warm embrace of unconsciousness settling in. That last thing she saw before her eyes closed completely was a pale man, holding the broken body of Gural in his arms, weeping.
**********************
Her first memories after that moment were of sweaty furs and smouldering fires. Animal pelts hung in sheaves from a low ceiling. Sacks and casks heaped the corners of a single room. The smell of smoke, grease, and rot crowded what little open space remained.
The hearth was large enough to hug all of the interior, including herself, in golden warmth. Beyond the walls, wind whistled through trackless leagues of forest, ignoring them for the most part, but periodically shaking the cabin hard enough to rock the furs on their hooks.
“You're awake. That’s good.”
Snow, or a man that looked incredibly like him, was sitting on a chair close to the fire, his long hair tied back with a leather strap. He was wearing what looked like a plain tunic and trousers, no mark of the Silver Wolves evident.
At his feet was a long bundle, about six feet long, wrapped up in a white blanket. From its shape and size, there was little question as to what was within it.
OOC: I apologize for the delay. My first class started 23 August and the assignments began immediately: readings and papers and such. I’ll try to post as often as I can. Hope I don’t Saint. If I do, please tell me and I’ll edit. My brain’s numb from all the Deep Thought and Study I’ve had to do and I’m writing this as it comes, so the quality might suffer. I hope it doesn’t, though; I think you’ll like this post, unless maybe you don’t. Did that make sense? Merf. Right. Posting now. *Smiles winningly*
Her first sensation upon waking was the warmth. Golden warmth, like a kiss from the sun. Healing warmth, which seeped into her with long gentle fingers to probe and sooth on sore spot after another. Time seemed to have folded in on itself: she could remember little of what had happened before this. She recalled, or thought she recalled, a voice drenched in pain and fury, the sound of bones breaking, the sound only heard when a bundle of wet leaves collides with a tree trunk: a squelchy, finalizing sort of sound...and a figure leaning over Gural...
Gural.
Feeling like a wounded bird, she awkwardly maneuvered herself into a sitting position and turned towards the white bundle at Snow’s feet, watching herself look. Had Snow spoken? She heard the voice but not the words. She was empty inside.
The man inside the bundle was Gural.
Gural. Elfling. Friend.
She wished she could cry; it didn’t seem right that tears did not come. Only a painfully exquisite ache. Deep. Consuming. But her eyes remained dry.
She continued watching herself look at the bundle. In the back of her mind, she knew she should feel something, anything, but she felt nothing. She was numb. Stunned. Frozen. Like a statue. She swallowed hard, not trusting herself to speak. What trick was this? Gural was not dead. It could not be. It was not possible. Did Snow think to pay her back for her blunder by making her think otherwise? A bundle filled with rocks, perhaps? An elaborate joke for his own cruel amusement?
She watched herself turn her head to look at Snow, absently noting, in the back of her mind, how well the firelight and flameheat played off his skin. She blinked and opened her mouth to speak, taking a deep breath, only to be caught in a violent fit of coughing. The air was close. Too close. Smoke and pelts and grease and offal...she was smothering. Drowning. Eyes streaming, she tottered unsteadily for a few minutes before regaining her footing.
When she trusted her voice, she said automatically, “Your pardon.” She swallowed hard, blinking furiously. The air was so close...claustrophobic...she felt small and lost and alone. Trapped. She scanned the inside of the hut fearfully: did the walls contract, moving in on her, or was that merely a trick of smoke-maddened fear? She closed her eyes and tried to breathe deeply, to not give into to her instinct to breathe quick, fast, shuddering. Mother give me strength...“Mother give me strength,” she whispered softly.
OOC: That’s all I could think of. I wrote from my own experiences with crowd-claustrophobia, so I hope it doesn’t sound contrived. I’ll wait until the next post for Legolas to be mightily brassed off about how she won’t be able to use her bow for...however long it takes her broken arm to heal.
OOC: Sorry for being late. Had to find my notes on the Wolves and Jurvese.
IC: His hands reaching up to cover his eyes, Snow's shoulders sagged. The air around him seemed to be filled with sorrow, almost so thick that one could touch it, but mixed within it was a small amount of anger.
“I apologise for our surroundings, my Lady,” he said softly, slowly regaining his composure as he leaned back in his chair. “But our hasty departure was surely sighted by some of Jurvese’s men.” He spat out the name as if it were a curse word and his fists tightened at his sides.
A small crack appeared in his hand as his pale skin began to crack away. Beneath it, she could see a hint of blue.
---------------------------------------------
"Even when all hope for the future is gone,
I struggle on, hoping, dreaming, that someone
out there could possibly love an ugly creature
like me and that I will feel whole once again."
--Dahvin D'Ardor
---------------------------------------------
OOC: S’OK. I'm just glad to hear from you. :)
IC: Legolas swallowed noisily, her eyes burning from smoke and sorrow. She tried not to look at the bundle swathed in white, but like moss to a tree, she could not help looking. She closed her eyes, feeling tears prick the corners, and a lump swelled in her throat heavy as an oak. She swallowed, swallowed...
If only...
If only she had known. If only she could have seen that the Snow in the tavern was naught but a disguise, a shadow-Snow. If only she had not tried to free him. If only...Her head whirled with unanswered questions, thoughts, regrets, torturing her as they danced on the edges of the what ifs and the maybes - and the if onlys. She tried to say that she could not have known that the scene before her was only a cleverly set stage. Indeed, how could she have known? Am I prophetess, that I can divine the future, strip away the shadow from the substance, recognize the difference between true light and false?
Grief was playing tricks on her ears. Had Snow spoken? Dimly, in the back of her mind, she recalled his words and tried to tease some meaning out of them.
I apologise for our surroundings, my Lady. But our hasty departure was surely sighted by some of Jurvese’s men.
Jurvese.
Snow had spat the name like a curse, a bitter taste.
Legolas unconsciously arched the fingers of her good hand into claws at the thought of Jurvese. He was the master pupeeter, pulling the strings of his men so they loosened or tightened at his will, making his men dance, or plead, or kill...
Her eyes flashed fire; but while in earlier times the fire had been somewhat tame, now it blazed hot, hotter, hottest, ready to scorch, to destroy, to embrace...White-hot bright-rush...
“Jurvese.”
Her voice was low and rough as unpolished diamonds, but there was no mistaking her tone; indeed, she had not so much said the word as snarled it. Her good hand suddenly flared with pain; glancing at it showed her hand clenched into a fist; for lack of anything else to tear, or rip, or scratch -- like that troll of a sargeant -- she had unconsciously dug her fingernails into the tender palm-flesh.
Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Snow's skin...cracking? Peeling away like snakeskin. A flash of blue caught her eye.
She mouthed the word, looking at him, her eyes questioning. “Blue?”
Irrelevantly she thought that, during winter, when the sky was just the right shade, the shadows it cast on the ground gave the snow a bluish tinge.
Her voice felt rusty, like an instrument once played but long forgotten, resigned to age and dust. It cracked a little, like Snow's skin, as she said, “Snow...?”
OOC: Apologize if the quality suffers -- I’m deeply entangled in my second semester of grad school (I’m trying for my Masters in Library Science) -- and just finished a take-home exam not five minutes ago, so my brain is still all bleh. But I did the best I could.
OOC: Sorry this isn’t my best. Kinda tired.
IC: Snow looked up, his eyes weary but filled with a hint of compassion. Placing the palm of his hands upon the hilt of the sword, his eyes danced across her features and a thin smile touched his lips.
With a soft grunt, he brought himself to his feet, the tip of the sword digging into the wooden planks of the floorboards. Sweat stung his eyes as the effort of moving seemed to cause pain to shoot through his left leg, causing him to limp slightly as he approached her.
A heavy rain began to drum softly on the glass window, and the tawdry gleam of the sun shone on the wet leaves outside. The moisture was causing the air in the cabin to fill with a fine mist and, surprisingly, Snow relished it.
Tilting his head up, the condensation began to drip down his face, small rivulets of blue beginning to appear. His free hand came up and his eyes closed as the moisture seemed to be gathering on him, drawn to him.
A puddle was beginning to form at his feet, but only at his feet. The rest of the cabin was still dry except for the slight hint of moisture in the air.
The paleness of his features washed away, replaced by light blue.
Tilting his head forward, water running down his face and hair, he gripped the hilt of the sword tightly before taking a tentative step towards her.
Staggering to a stop, he knelt before her and reached out for her hand and opened it, running his fingers across the marks in her palm. His skin felt slightly rubbery to the touch, and moist.
“Lady, don’t hurt yourself. Jurvese will get what’s coming to him,” he said softly, examining her palm intently. “And, Lady Elf, to explain why the moisture is gathering heavily on me, I am of the race of elves that took to the sea.”
He stopped running his fingers across her palm, his face contorting into a confused expression. Slowly, Snow removed his hand from hers and closed her palm.
“What is your name, my Lady?” he asked, falling back into a sitting position.
---------------------------------------------
"Even when all hope for the future is gone,
I struggle on, hoping, dreaming, that someone
out there could possibly love an ugly creature
like me and that I will feel whole once again."
--Dahvin D'Ardor
---------------------------------------------
Smooth sleek blue.
Moist.
Rain-washed pebbles.
Snow’s hand traced her palm for a minute or so.
She tried to focus on his words.
“Lady, don’t hurt yourself. Jurvese will get what’s coming to him.”
“Indeed,” she said in a low voice. Her eyes gleamed. “A long score lies between us. Does he call mercy a weakness? It is strength of the greatest caliber, for it above all else determines the difference between man and troll. And he is no man. And, perhaps, I will show no mercy. Perhaps. Perhaps not. But I will settle our reckoning.” Her voice was husky and rough, like unpolished diamonds, and there was no small amount of growl in it, like the fury of a she-bear robbed of her only cub. “Yes, by the gods, I will settle that. The Shekar will learn to fear the name Autumnleaf.” Her eyes glittered with rage.
As if to calm herself, she turned to the window, watching the sunlight play over the leaves. She breathed in the mist swirling around the room like a white veil. She walked over to a sunbeam and opened her mouth as if drinking the light.
She turned and walked back to Snow. “My name,” she said, “is Legolas Muriel Autumnleaf, daughter of Sanuil, daughter of Ravidi.”
She cocked her head like an inquisitive bird, gazing at him. “Snow...” she murmured, as if to herself. “The woods I know. I do not know the sea. I suppose you could call the forest a sort of sea, a green mossy sea...my grandfather told me stories of the sea, all silvery-blue and mysterious...I wonder,” she continued dreamily, “I wonder how sea-water feels? Is it like the streams which run through the hills? Or is it fresher, clearer, cleaner? My grandfather told me of great waves churning to foam, great white crests like white horses, pounding and galloping hither and thither against the shore...it sounds exciting, but frightening, too...”
Of a sudden, as though realizing she is staring at him, she stopped speaking, crimsoning with blushes, ducking her head and biting her lip. She raised her head after a minute or so: “Are we safe here? Dare we stay here any longer? Should we not seek that...” - she searched for a word vile enough to describe Jurvese, failed - “that troll of a sergeant? I may be a wounded bird,” she said, her lips pulling back into a grimace as she nodded at her useless arm, “but I still have my talons.” She shrugged, indicating her full quiver. “And they are sharp. So, too, is my sting.” She laid her good hand over the hilt of her sword. “It takes two hands to wield a bow, more’s the pity,” she muttered between her teeth. “Methinks it will be long, long, before I let fly another arrow. But only one hand is needed to wield a sword.” And she tightened her hand around the hilt so her knuckles turned white.
To be continued...
His posts
“He comes, and with His arrival, the Mask will fall and the old shall be forged anew!” The voice that came from Snow’s pale lips as he writhed against his restraints, the elven body rippling with thin, sweaty mucles. A bolt snapped the wall.
“That’s not Snow!” Gural cried.
The body thrashed against the curved wood like starving eels stiched in human skin. Another bolt snapped from the wall . . .
Gural was the first to die, his neck snapped, so that Legolas could see his slack face loll against his back as he toppled forward. A chain took her in the side, flinging her against the far wall, pain ripping through her left arm as bone protruded through fabric.
And she could hear a voice from the shadows. “No, blast you! NOOOO!” And then the sound of meat slapping against stone.
Pain overwhelmed her as darkness began to fill her vision, the warm embrace of unconsciousness settling in. That last thing she saw before her eyes closed completely was a pale man, holding the broken body of Gural in his arms, weeping.
**********************
Her first memories after that moment were of sweaty furs and smouldering fires. Animal pelts hung in sheaves from a low ceiling. Sacks and casks heaped the corners of a single room. The smell of smoke, grease, and rot crowded what little open space remained.
The hearth was large enough to hug all of the interior, including herself, in golden warmth. Beyond the walls, wind whistled through trackless leagues of forest, ignoring them for the most part, but periodically shaking the cabin hard enough to rock the furs on their hooks.
“You're awake. That’s good.”
Snow, or a man that looked incredibly like him, was sitting on a chair close to the fire, his long hair tied back with a leather strap. He was wearing what looked like a plain tunic and trousers, no mark of the Silver Wolves evident.
At his feet was a long bundle, about six feet long, wrapped up in a white blanket. From its shape and size, there was little question as to what was within it.
OOC: I apologize for the delay. My first class started 23 August and the assignments began immediately: readings and papers and such. I’ll try to post as often as I can. Hope I don’t Saint. If I do, please tell me and I’ll edit. My brain’s numb from all the Deep Thought and Study I’ve had to do and I’m writing this as it comes, so the quality might suffer. I hope it doesn’t, though; I think you’ll like this post, unless maybe you don’t. Did that make sense? Merf. Right. Posting now. *Smiles winningly*
Her first sensation upon waking was the warmth. Golden warmth, like a kiss from the sun. Healing warmth, which seeped into her with long gentle fingers to probe and sooth on sore spot after another. Time seemed to have folded in on itself: she could remember little of what had happened before this. She recalled, or thought she recalled, a voice drenched in pain and fury, the sound of bones breaking, the sound only heard when a bundle of wet leaves collides with a tree trunk: a squelchy, finalizing sort of sound...and a figure leaning over Gural...
Gural.
Feeling like a wounded bird, she awkwardly maneuvered herself into a sitting position and turned towards the white bundle at Snow’s feet, watching herself look. Had Snow spoken? She heard the voice but not the words. She was empty inside.
The man inside the bundle was Gural.
Gural. Elfling. Friend.
She wished she could cry; it didn’t seem right that tears did not come. Only a painfully exquisite ache. Deep. Consuming. But her eyes remained dry.
She continued watching herself look at the bundle. In the back of her mind, she knew she should feel something, anything, but she felt nothing. She was numb. Stunned. Frozen. Like a statue. She swallowed hard, not trusting herself to speak. What trick was this? Gural was not dead. It could not be. It was not possible. Did Snow think to pay her back for her blunder by making her think otherwise? A bundle filled with rocks, perhaps? An elaborate joke for his own cruel amusement?
She watched herself turn her head to look at Snow, absently noting, in the back of her mind, how well the firelight and flameheat played off his skin. She blinked and opened her mouth to speak, taking a deep breath, only to be caught in a violent fit of coughing. The air was close. Too close. Smoke and pelts and grease and offal...she was smothering. Drowning. Eyes streaming, she tottered unsteadily for a few minutes before regaining her footing.
When she trusted her voice, she said automatically, “Your pardon.” She swallowed hard, blinking furiously. The air was so close...claustrophobic...she felt small and lost and alone. Trapped. She scanned the inside of the hut fearfully: did the walls contract, moving in on her, or was that merely a trick of smoke-maddened fear? She closed her eyes and tried to breathe deeply, to not give into to her instinct to breathe quick, fast, shuddering. Mother give me strength...“Mother give me strength,” she whispered softly.
OOC: That’s all I could think of. I wrote from my own experiences with crowd-claustrophobia, so I hope it doesn’t sound contrived. I’ll wait until the next post for Legolas to be mightily brassed off about how she won’t be able to use her bow for...however long it takes her broken arm to heal.
OOC: Sorry for being late. Had to find my notes on the Wolves and Jurvese.
IC: His hands reaching up to cover his eyes, Snow's shoulders sagged. The air around him seemed to be filled with sorrow, almost so thick that one could touch it, but mixed within it was a small amount of anger.
“I apologise for our surroundings, my Lady,” he said softly, slowly regaining his composure as he leaned back in his chair. “But our hasty departure was surely sighted by some of Jurvese’s men.” He spat out the name as if it were a curse word and his fists tightened at his sides.
A small crack appeared in his hand as his pale skin began to crack away. Beneath it, she could see a hint of blue.
---------------------------------------------
"Even when all hope for the future is gone,
I struggle on, hoping, dreaming, that someone
out there could possibly love an ugly creature
like me and that I will feel whole once again."
--Dahvin D'Ardor
---------------------------------------------
OOC: S’OK. I'm just glad to hear from you. :)
IC: Legolas swallowed noisily, her eyes burning from smoke and sorrow. She tried not to look at the bundle swathed in white, but like moss to a tree, she could not help looking. She closed her eyes, feeling tears prick the corners, and a lump swelled in her throat heavy as an oak. She swallowed, swallowed...
If only...
If only she had known. If only she could have seen that the Snow in the tavern was naught but a disguise, a shadow-Snow. If only she had not tried to free him. If only...Her head whirled with unanswered questions, thoughts, regrets, torturing her as they danced on the edges of the what ifs and the maybes - and the if onlys. She tried to say that she could not have known that the scene before her was only a cleverly set stage. Indeed, how could she have known? Am I prophetess, that I can divine the future, strip away the shadow from the substance, recognize the difference between true light and false?
Grief was playing tricks on her ears. Had Snow spoken? Dimly, in the back of her mind, she recalled his words and tried to tease some meaning out of them.
I apologise for our surroundings, my Lady. But our hasty departure was surely sighted by some of Jurvese’s men.
Jurvese.
Snow had spat the name like a curse, a bitter taste.
Legolas unconsciously arched the fingers of her good hand into claws at the thought of Jurvese. He was the master pupeeter, pulling the strings of his men so they loosened or tightened at his will, making his men dance, or plead, or kill...
Her eyes flashed fire; but while in earlier times the fire had been somewhat tame, now it blazed hot, hotter, hottest, ready to scorch, to destroy, to embrace...White-hot bright-rush...
“Jurvese.”
Her voice was low and rough as unpolished diamonds, but there was no mistaking her tone; indeed, she had not so much said the word as snarled it. Her good hand suddenly flared with pain; glancing at it showed her hand clenched into a fist; for lack of anything else to tear, or rip, or scratch -- like that troll of a sargeant -- she had unconsciously dug her fingernails into the tender palm-flesh.
Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Snow's skin...cracking? Peeling away like snakeskin. A flash of blue caught her eye.
She mouthed the word, looking at him, her eyes questioning. “Blue?”
Irrelevantly she thought that, during winter, when the sky was just the right shade, the shadows it cast on the ground gave the snow a bluish tinge.
Her voice felt rusty, like an instrument once played but long forgotten, resigned to age and dust. It cracked a little, like Snow's skin, as she said, “Snow...?”
OOC: Apologize if the quality suffers -- I’m deeply entangled in my second semester of grad school (I’m trying for my Masters in Library Science) -- and just finished a take-home exam not five minutes ago, so my brain is still all bleh. But I did the best I could.
OOC: Sorry this isn’t my best. Kinda tired.
IC: Snow looked up, his eyes weary but filled with a hint of compassion. Placing the palm of his hands upon the hilt of the sword, his eyes danced across her features and a thin smile touched his lips.
With a soft grunt, he brought himself to his feet, the tip of the sword digging into the wooden planks of the floorboards. Sweat stung his eyes as the effort of moving seemed to cause pain to shoot through his left leg, causing him to limp slightly as he approached her.
A heavy rain began to drum softly on the glass window, and the tawdry gleam of the sun shone on the wet leaves outside. The moisture was causing the air in the cabin to fill with a fine mist and, surprisingly, Snow relished it.
Tilting his head up, the condensation began to drip down his face, small rivulets of blue beginning to appear. His free hand came up and his eyes closed as the moisture seemed to be gathering on him, drawn to him.
A puddle was beginning to form at his feet, but only at his feet. The rest of the cabin was still dry except for the slight hint of moisture in the air.
The paleness of his features washed away, replaced by light blue.
Tilting his head forward, water running down his face and hair, he gripped the hilt of the sword tightly before taking a tentative step towards her.
Staggering to a stop, he knelt before her and reached out for her hand and opened it, running his fingers across the marks in her palm. His skin felt slightly rubbery to the touch, and moist.
“Lady, don’t hurt yourself. Jurvese will get what’s coming to him,” he said softly, examining her palm intently. “And, Lady Elf, to explain why the moisture is gathering heavily on me, I am of the race of elves that took to the sea.”
He stopped running his fingers across her palm, his face contorting into a confused expression. Slowly, Snow removed his hand from hers and closed her palm.
“What is your name, my Lady?” he asked, falling back into a sitting position.
---------------------------------------------
"Even when all hope for the future is gone,
I struggle on, hoping, dreaming, that someone
out there could possibly love an ugly creature
like me and that I will feel whole once again."
--Dahvin D'Ardor
---------------------------------------------
Smooth sleek blue.
Moist.
Rain-washed pebbles.
Snow’s hand traced her palm for a minute or so.
She tried to focus on his words.
“Lady, don’t hurt yourself. Jurvese will get what’s coming to him.”
“Indeed,” she said in a low voice. Her eyes gleamed. “A long score lies between us. Does he call mercy a weakness? It is strength of the greatest caliber, for it above all else determines the difference between man and troll. And he is no man. And, perhaps, I will show no mercy. Perhaps. Perhaps not. But I will settle our reckoning.” Her voice was husky and rough, like unpolished diamonds, and there was no small amount of growl in it, like the fury of a she-bear robbed of her only cub. “Yes, by the gods, I will settle that. The Shekar will learn to fear the name Autumnleaf.” Her eyes glittered with rage.
As if to calm herself, she turned to the window, watching the sunlight play over the leaves. She breathed in the mist swirling around the room like a white veil. She walked over to a sunbeam and opened her mouth as if drinking the light.
She turned and walked back to Snow. “My name,” she said, “is Legolas Muriel Autumnleaf, daughter of Sanuil, daughter of Ravidi.”
She cocked her head like an inquisitive bird, gazing at him. “Snow...” she murmured, as if to herself. “The woods I know. I do not know the sea. I suppose you could call the forest a sort of sea, a green mossy sea...my grandfather told me stories of the sea, all silvery-blue and mysterious...I wonder,” she continued dreamily, “I wonder how sea-water feels? Is it like the streams which run through the hills? Or is it fresher, clearer, cleaner? My grandfather told me of great waves churning to foam, great white crests like white horses, pounding and galloping hither and thither against the shore...it sounds exciting, but frightening, too...”
Of a sudden, as though realizing she is staring at him, she stopped speaking, crimsoning with blushes, ducking her head and biting her lip. She raised her head after a minute or so: “Are we safe here? Dare we stay here any longer? Should we not seek that...” - she searched for a word vile enough to describe Jurvese, failed - “that troll of a sergeant? I may be a wounded bird,” she said, her lips pulling back into a grimace as she nodded at her useless arm, “but I still have my talons.” She shrugged, indicating her full quiver. “And they are sharp. So, too, is my sting.” She laid her good hand over the hilt of her sword. “It takes two hands to wield a bow, more’s the pity,” she muttered between her teeth. “Methinks it will be long, long, before I let fly another arrow. But only one hand is needed to wield a sword.” And she tightened her hand around the hilt so her knuckles turned white.
To be continued...