[WoW fic] And She Wakes...
Look, two posts in one day. With a third to come. As soon as I read over it again ;). Same character, slightly different setting. Different tense. Really meandering at the end. Not my best work, but necessary to make the third one make sense. This is me being lazy. I shall be lashed later :P.
It’s dark and cool when she wakes up.
Like a dream, she remembers blue horizon and rolling hills. She was searching for something.
She is lying on a bed, and if it isn’t the finest she’s ever slept on, it’s certainly not the poorest. Sitting up, she looks around. It’s a large, long room, a dormitory if all the other beds are any indication, with a window to the outside at one end. About half of the beds are full, everyone in them asleep.
Syrce pads quietly to the window and looks out. The ground is a good ways below her, far enough that it would hurt to jump. The solid stone of the sill and the walls around it is telling. Not an ordinary farm house or inn. This is a place owned by someone wealthy.
Woods surround the compound and if she strains hard enough, she can hear the quiet chatter of what must be guards. The moon is full and bright enough through the trees that she can see below her, but only that. Darkness closes in under the forest.
“Where am I?” she murmurs to herself.
A light flares at the other end of the room, drawing her attention. A bearded, older man - who has never gone without, if his girth is any indication - is standing at the door, a lit candle in one hand and a matchstick still alight in flame in the other. “This way, miss,” he says very quietly, blowing out the matchstick. Syrce pads after him, not sure if he’s friend or foe, not sure what she could do even if she knew the answer.
He leads her down stairs and through a sizeable library. The stone is cold on her feet and Syrce takes stock of herself. She’s wearing little more than a plain white gown, probably cotton. No shoes, no jewelry, though she remembers having both in… her other life.
The man, unkempt white hair falling over his shoulders, sits at a table in the kitchen just off the library. He smiles pleasantly and gestures to another chair. “Sit, please.”
“Where am I?” she asks again, this time with the intent of finding actual answers.
“Ah, well, miss,” he begins, smiling, “a better question is where do you think you are?”
Syrce closes her eyes, blows a slow breath from between her lips. She’s calmer when she answers, less likely to reach across and strangle the man. “I’m not in my home, which is why I asked you, since you seem to be comfortable in this place.”
“Aye, that I am,” he replied. “Still, tell me where you’re from. Humor me.”
“I’m from Qeynos,” she almost says Erudin, but her heart knows that’s a lie and has been for a long, long time.
“Ku-ey-nos,” he sounds the word out and Syrce blinks in surprise and the beginning of panic. Everyone knows Qeynos. He shakes his head slightly. “I don’t think you are anymore, girl. You’re a good piece farther from home than you’ve ever been before.”
“I’ve been to the outer planes,” Syrce says quickly, her mind trying to spin away from her. “Can’t be farther than that.”
“I don’t know these outer planes,” he says, his voice infuriatingly calm, “but from my experience, they aren’t anywhere close to Azeroth.”
“Azeroth?” Syrce grasps onto the name like a lifeline, wracking her brain to come up with a clue as to where this place might be. The name of a small village or a settlement outside Kelethin that she’s never been to, maybe?
“The name of the world you’re standing on,” he nods.
“Not Norrath?” her voice is small.
“I’ve never heard of it before,” he says calmly. “But I’m sure Qeynos on Norrath was a good place. This is also a good place. We are in an abbey outside the great city of Stormwind. There is more you should know. Would you hear it?”
Syrce nods, one hand held to her head as though something vital might leak out.
The story he tells is tremendous, one in which there are no gods, strangely - not that she had ever particularly believed that the beings who called themselves such on Norrath were gods. But there are battles for survival and near misses at being obliterated completely. It’s a compelling tale, makes Syrce’s blood surge to hear of great heroes and bitter victories that are so close to defeat it’s hard to celebrate when it’s done.
And at the end of it, Ayron, for that’s his name, tells her she has a choice. She can help out around the abbey, doing odd jobs in return for her room and board. Pay off the debt she’s been accruing for the last two months - and how surprising is that, to find that she’s been asleep for two months? - and then do what she wants in the world, whether that’s become a farmer or a merchant or a juggler in the middle of the town square. Or she can have a hand in the battle, take up sword and shield again, despite the fact that she’s never wielded either, and go out to help those heroes who are so awe-inspiring.
The idea of the choice is laughable, so Syrce does. “I was a warrior before,” she can hardly bring herself to put into words what is in the past. “I couldn’t turn my back on that kind of life now that I’m here. Not when it’s obvious your people need more of my sort.”
Ayron sags in obvious relief. “Then your initial training will be paid for by the King of Stormwind, for he needs more warriors for the cause. And when you are ready, you may leave our dear abbey and find your way in the world.”
“What sort of training will that entail?” she asks, suddenly curious. A magician’s lessons from the beginning again would be boring - she can feel the magic around her, but it doesn’t sit in her bones the way it used to and maybe that means she has the same options she did when she was little.
Ayron shakes his head and pats her hand. “That’s a discussion for the morning, my dear, to be given by those more experience than I.”
“Well I’m not tired,” she smiles at him winningly. Surely he won’t send her back to bed like a child. “You could tell me about yourself, about why I’m here and not where I used to be. Is it a common occurrence?”
He chuckles and leans back in the chair, folding his hands across his prodigious stomach. “No, girl, it’s happening more and more all the time. The wizards and priests conjecture that there is a portal from wherever you all went to after you left your homes that touches down around here.”
“Wherever we went?” she asks. She doesn’t remember anything between the blue horizon and waking up.
“Well, yes,” his brow wrinkles, he cocks his head and looks at her questioningly. “You left your world, didn’t you? None that we’ve met before have been forced out.”
Syrce stares at her hands a moment, remembering. Her companion - the wrong word, but she can’t think of the right one - had left, she had let him go. She had been about to give away her mount, a strange, lizard-like creature. The word for it was short and rolling, almost filling her mouth, but stopping short of her tongue. She couldn’t remember it. But before that could happen, she had looked out at green fields and the horizon just outside Qeynos - she’s going to write that down, that and Erudin, so she doesn’t lose either one - then she was gone.
“I was making ready to leave, but I hadn’t actually gone. I was there one minute, then I woke up here,” she looks at him, searching his face for her answers.
He’s nodding. “Many are like that if they loved where they were. As though they let go even as they longed to stay. Your world must have been a nice place.”
“It was.” She remembered the warm feelings associated with places whose names were scattering, with friends whose faces she couldn’t remember anymore. An obvious question occurs to her. “Why am I forgetting everything?”
“That is normal as well,” Ayron replies. “Most who come here have very few memories left. It may be the amount of time you spend asleep, because we don’t have any way to compare the passage of time in your worlds. Or it may be simply that your memories cannot come with you. I do not know and mere speculation would not help you.”
“Do you have a pen and parchment, then? There are a few things I would like to write down so that I remember them.” Syrce’s hands itch with the need to put things to paper. Qeynos. Erudin. Something about a brave minotaur with bracers. Haughty elves and evil, vile smelling trolls and orcs.
“Of course,” Ayron stands and pulls a roll of parchment and a quill and ink from a drawer that looks to hold a large array of writing implements. He sets them before her and Syrce quickly begins to write. More returns to her, but not enough. As she scrambles to write down the sentences scurrying through her head, they disappear like mist. Finally, her mind tired and her hand cramping, Syrce lays the quill down. The disappointment is crushing.
A warm, weighty hand comes down gently on her shoulder. “Don’t worry, girl,” Ayron says quietly. “You have more than many who come through this place. Some don’t even remember their old home, just vague impressions.”
“What about you?” she looks up at him. “Are you native to Azeroth? Or did you come from somewhere else?”
He chuckles. “There’s a question I don’t get very often. You’re quite collected after all this. The instructors will be fighting over you in the morning.”
“That’s not an answer.” Syrce turns toward him, pinning him with her stare. He holds his hands up in mock surrender, a smile still on his face. He seems a jolly fellow.
Leaning against the counter, Ayron begins, “I have been in Azeroth for a very long time indeed. But there was a place I lived before I came here. It was called Mystara, according to my very earliest journal entries. I wrote them much the same way you did, hurriedly in the night when I first woke. They’re my only memories of that place now.”
“That’s terribly sad,” Syrce says quietly.
“It’s not so much anymore,” he smiles at her, dispelling the aura of quiet. “I have a life here that I enjoy. It’s not better or worse than the one I had before. Just different. I still show weary travelers where to rest their bones. I see new people all the time. Occasionally I get to help someone. It pleases me.”
“What were you before?” she asks.
“An innkeep,” his smile widens, like he’s holding a secret. “A very unique and special innkeep.”
She bothers him about it in all the ways she knows how for the rest of the night, but he never reveals what made him so unique as an innkeep.
When morning light streams in the window, it finds them both nursing large cups of black coffee, a constant in all worlds, Ayron tells her. She laughs at that, but doesn't mock it. The coffee is too good and things are just starting to feel right to her here.
With the light of the day comes the clatter of those just waking. Ayron busies himself with making the first meal of the day and Syrce watches him, content.
Farmers and field hands make their way down for breakfast, crowding the kitchen in a steady stream before flowing outside to sit in the sun. There are men and women of many different heights and weights, skin and hair colors of varying shades.
"Paying off debts?" Syrce asks softly when they've cleared out.
Ayron looks up at her from a soapy bucket of dishes. "Some," he smiles at her and continues to wash. "Others just like it here. It's peaceful, quiet. You'd be surprised how many people can be content in that."
"Not I," she mutters.
"Then it's almost time for you to go," he dries his hands on a towel, nods at the window. "The instructors are gathering."
Syrce stands to look out the window. A small group of people are lining up, several of them wearing robes and looking rather scholarly, the rest looking more martial. She grins. "I suppose I'd better go out and meet them."
Ayron points her to a room and she hurries to dress for the day. As she slips a light linen dress over her head, the cool fabric a soft touch against her skin, Syrce realizes just how familiar and comforting this all feels. Like she’s done it before a million times. Looking out the window, she feels something warm settle in her chest, a feeling of home. This is her home now. And she will fight with everything she has to protect it.
It’s dark and cool when she wakes up.
Like a dream, she remembers blue horizon and rolling hills. She was searching for something.
She is lying on a bed, and if it isn’t the finest she’s ever slept on, it’s certainly not the poorest. Sitting up, she looks around. It’s a large, long room, a dormitory if all the other beds are any indication, with a window to the outside at one end. About half of the beds are full, everyone in them asleep.
Syrce pads quietly to the window and looks out. The ground is a good ways below her, far enough that it would hurt to jump. The solid stone of the sill and the walls around it is telling. Not an ordinary farm house or inn. This is a place owned by someone wealthy.
Woods surround the compound and if she strains hard enough, she can hear the quiet chatter of what must be guards. The moon is full and bright enough through the trees that she can see below her, but only that. Darkness closes in under the forest.
“Where am I?” she murmurs to herself.
A light flares at the other end of the room, drawing her attention. A bearded, older man - who has never gone without, if his girth is any indication - is standing at the door, a lit candle in one hand and a matchstick still alight in flame in the other. “This way, miss,” he says very quietly, blowing out the matchstick. Syrce pads after him, not sure if he’s friend or foe, not sure what she could do even if she knew the answer.
He leads her down stairs and through a sizeable library. The stone is cold on her feet and Syrce takes stock of herself. She’s wearing little more than a plain white gown, probably cotton. No shoes, no jewelry, though she remembers having both in… her other life.
The man, unkempt white hair falling over his shoulders, sits at a table in the kitchen just off the library. He smiles pleasantly and gestures to another chair. “Sit, please.”
“Where am I?” she asks again, this time with the intent of finding actual answers.
“Ah, well, miss,” he begins, smiling, “a better question is where do you think you are?”
Syrce closes her eyes, blows a slow breath from between her lips. She’s calmer when she answers, less likely to reach across and strangle the man. “I’m not in my home, which is why I asked you, since you seem to be comfortable in this place.”
“Aye, that I am,” he replied. “Still, tell me where you’re from. Humor me.”
“I’m from Qeynos,” she almost says Erudin, but her heart knows that’s a lie and has been for a long, long time.
“Ku-ey-nos,” he sounds the word out and Syrce blinks in surprise and the beginning of panic. Everyone knows Qeynos. He shakes his head slightly. “I don’t think you are anymore, girl. You’re a good piece farther from home than you’ve ever been before.”
“I’ve been to the outer planes,” Syrce says quickly, her mind trying to spin away from her. “Can’t be farther than that.”
“I don’t know these outer planes,” he says, his voice infuriatingly calm, “but from my experience, they aren’t anywhere close to Azeroth.”
“Azeroth?” Syrce grasps onto the name like a lifeline, wracking her brain to come up with a clue as to where this place might be. The name of a small village or a settlement outside Kelethin that she’s never been to, maybe?
“The name of the world you’re standing on,” he nods.
“Not Norrath?” her voice is small.
“I’ve never heard of it before,” he says calmly. “But I’m sure Qeynos on Norrath was a good place. This is also a good place. We are in an abbey outside the great city of Stormwind. There is more you should know. Would you hear it?”
Syrce nods, one hand held to her head as though something vital might leak out.
The story he tells is tremendous, one in which there are no gods, strangely - not that she had ever particularly believed that the beings who called themselves such on Norrath were gods. But there are battles for survival and near misses at being obliterated completely. It’s a compelling tale, makes Syrce’s blood surge to hear of great heroes and bitter victories that are so close to defeat it’s hard to celebrate when it’s done.
And at the end of it, Ayron, for that’s his name, tells her she has a choice. She can help out around the abbey, doing odd jobs in return for her room and board. Pay off the debt she’s been accruing for the last two months - and how surprising is that, to find that she’s been asleep for two months? - and then do what she wants in the world, whether that’s become a farmer or a merchant or a juggler in the middle of the town square. Or she can have a hand in the battle, take up sword and shield again, despite the fact that she’s never wielded either, and go out to help those heroes who are so awe-inspiring.
The idea of the choice is laughable, so Syrce does. “I was a warrior before,” she can hardly bring herself to put into words what is in the past. “I couldn’t turn my back on that kind of life now that I’m here. Not when it’s obvious your people need more of my sort.”
Ayron sags in obvious relief. “Then your initial training will be paid for by the King of Stormwind, for he needs more warriors for the cause. And when you are ready, you may leave our dear abbey and find your way in the world.”
“What sort of training will that entail?” she asks, suddenly curious. A magician’s lessons from the beginning again would be boring - she can feel the magic around her, but it doesn’t sit in her bones the way it used to and maybe that means she has the same options she did when she was little.
Ayron shakes his head and pats her hand. “That’s a discussion for the morning, my dear, to be given by those more experience than I.”
“Well I’m not tired,” she smiles at him winningly. Surely he won’t send her back to bed like a child. “You could tell me about yourself, about why I’m here and not where I used to be. Is it a common occurrence?”
He chuckles and leans back in the chair, folding his hands across his prodigious stomach. “No, girl, it’s happening more and more all the time. The wizards and priests conjecture that there is a portal from wherever you all went to after you left your homes that touches down around here.”
“Wherever we went?” she asks. She doesn’t remember anything between the blue horizon and waking up.
“Well, yes,” his brow wrinkles, he cocks his head and looks at her questioningly. “You left your world, didn’t you? None that we’ve met before have been forced out.”
Syrce stares at her hands a moment, remembering. Her companion - the wrong word, but she can’t think of the right one - had left, she had let him go. She had been about to give away her mount, a strange, lizard-like creature. The word for it was short and rolling, almost filling her mouth, but stopping short of her tongue. She couldn’t remember it. But before that could happen, she had looked out at green fields and the horizon just outside Qeynos - she’s going to write that down, that and Erudin, so she doesn’t lose either one - then she was gone.
“I was making ready to leave, but I hadn’t actually gone. I was there one minute, then I woke up here,” she looks at him, searching his face for her answers.
He’s nodding. “Many are like that if they loved where they were. As though they let go even as they longed to stay. Your world must have been a nice place.”
“It was.” She remembered the warm feelings associated with places whose names were scattering, with friends whose faces she couldn’t remember anymore. An obvious question occurs to her. “Why am I forgetting everything?”
“That is normal as well,” Ayron replies. “Most who come here have very few memories left. It may be the amount of time you spend asleep, because we don’t have any way to compare the passage of time in your worlds. Or it may be simply that your memories cannot come with you. I do not know and mere speculation would not help you.”
“Do you have a pen and parchment, then? There are a few things I would like to write down so that I remember them.” Syrce’s hands itch with the need to put things to paper. Qeynos. Erudin. Something about a brave minotaur with bracers. Haughty elves and evil, vile smelling trolls and orcs.
“Of course,” Ayron stands and pulls a roll of parchment and a quill and ink from a drawer that looks to hold a large array of writing implements. He sets them before her and Syrce quickly begins to write. More returns to her, but not enough. As she scrambles to write down the sentences scurrying through her head, they disappear like mist. Finally, her mind tired and her hand cramping, Syrce lays the quill down. The disappointment is crushing.
A warm, weighty hand comes down gently on her shoulder. “Don’t worry, girl,” Ayron says quietly. “You have more than many who come through this place. Some don’t even remember their old home, just vague impressions.”
“What about you?” she looks up at him. “Are you native to Azeroth? Or did you come from somewhere else?”
He chuckles. “There’s a question I don’t get very often. You’re quite collected after all this. The instructors will be fighting over you in the morning.”
“That’s not an answer.” Syrce turns toward him, pinning him with her stare. He holds his hands up in mock surrender, a smile still on his face. He seems a jolly fellow.
Leaning against the counter, Ayron begins, “I have been in Azeroth for a very long time indeed. But there was a place I lived before I came here. It was called Mystara, according to my very earliest journal entries. I wrote them much the same way you did, hurriedly in the night when I first woke. They’re my only memories of that place now.”
“That’s terribly sad,” Syrce says quietly.
“It’s not so much anymore,” he smiles at her, dispelling the aura of quiet. “I have a life here that I enjoy. It’s not better or worse than the one I had before. Just different. I still show weary travelers where to rest their bones. I see new people all the time. Occasionally I get to help someone. It pleases me.”
“What were you before?” she asks.
“An innkeep,” his smile widens, like he’s holding a secret. “A very unique and special innkeep.”
She bothers him about it in all the ways she knows how for the rest of the night, but he never reveals what made him so unique as an innkeep.
When morning light streams in the window, it finds them both nursing large cups of black coffee, a constant in all worlds, Ayron tells her. She laughs at that, but doesn't mock it. The coffee is too good and things are just starting to feel right to her here.
With the light of the day comes the clatter of those just waking. Ayron busies himself with making the first meal of the day and Syrce watches him, content.
Farmers and field hands make their way down for breakfast, crowding the kitchen in a steady stream before flowing outside to sit in the sun. There are men and women of many different heights and weights, skin and hair colors of varying shades.
"Paying off debts?" Syrce asks softly when they've cleared out.
Ayron looks up at her from a soapy bucket of dishes. "Some," he smiles at her and continues to wash. "Others just like it here. It's peaceful, quiet. You'd be surprised how many people can be content in that."
"Not I," she mutters.
"Then it's almost time for you to go," he dries his hands on a towel, nods at the window. "The instructors are gathering."
Syrce stands to look out the window. A small group of people are lining up, several of them wearing robes and looking rather scholarly, the rest looking more martial. She grins. "I suppose I'd better go out and meet them."
Ayron points her to a room and she hurries to dress for the day. As she slips a light linen dress over her head, the cool fabric a soft touch against her skin, Syrce realizes just how familiar and comforting this all feels. Like she’s done it before a million times. Looking out the window, she feels something warm settle in her chest, a feeling of home. This is her home now. And she will fight with everything she has to protect it.