Very first fic..be nice and I'll give you a cookie!
Hope you enjoy at least a little bit of it!
Chapter Uno!
A lone figure staggered brokenly over the charcoal colored landscape of bare rock and ash. She stumbled, using the last reserves of energy to regain her balance and stagger forward a few dozen more feet before she stumbled again. She fell to her knees, ignorant of the sharp rocks that sliced her once khaki cargo pants. Had times been better Ali would have been clean and beautiful with creamy skin and coppery bronze hair and bright blue eyes, as it were she was exhausted beyond the limits of man, her throat so dry it hurt to swallow, bruises and cuts and ash covering her slender body. She willed herself to move forward on hands and knees, she didn't want to die, not out here. Not in the open, not alone. She kept moving, knowing if she stopped she would die there.
Creedy sighed softly as he sipped his weak coffee. More like muddy water he thought. He was sitting out on the front steps of the castle enjoying a few solitary moments alone before he returned to the beehive of activity that was the inside of the castle. They would be leaving for the fields in a few minutes, just to make sure everything was as it should be. Quinn was adamant about harvesting the food before it was ripe-Creedy didn't blame him, nor did he envy his friend for having to carry all the burden of worry among the people of the castle. He stood up, stretched that 6 foot muscular frame of his that most of the women in the castle would kill to have with them in bed at night and turned to go inside. Out of the corner of his eye a slight movement in the distance, beyond the wall, caught his attention. He turned fully to inspect it, knowing at once it wasn't a dragon but some other living form.
"It can't be..." He dashed off down the stairs calling for Quinn. Through the gate and up the road just a slight bit he came to stand over the by now still form of an exhausted and very dirty...woman. He knelt down beside her and touched her forehead. She made a small noise in her throat between a gasp of air and a moan.
"Easy girl, it's alright Creedy's got ya." He picked her up gently and carried her back to the gate where he was met by Quinn. Quinn had a look of concern on his face as he watched Creedy come through.
"Get her to Isabell. She'll fix her up in no time." Creedy nodded and headed up to the castle,
Quinn cast one more look around to the blackened hills and one to the sky beyond before shutting the gate.
She groaned, moving her hand up to her head as she attempted to get her thoughts in order. 'Okay this is good, Im still alive, still in one piece...' Her eyes popped open when she realized she was laying on something soft. A bed. A dingy little room, clean but gray just like everything else in this world, two dim lights hung by a cord from the ceiling and three or four other beds were around the tiny closet of a room. When the door at the far end of the room opened she sat up a little to fast and sent her head swimming with blackness closing in over her eyes making her momentarily blind.
"Good to see you awake. You stirred up quite a commotion with your arrival." Her vision cleared and she watched as an older woman with signs of gray and crows feet around deep eyes that had already seen a lifetime worth of destruction handed her a small glass of water.
"Not to fast. We'll try some food in a little while." The old woman sat down on a creaky old chair next to the bed.
"Your name child?"
"Alyssa Glasno but everyone calls me Ali." Isabella smiled.
"Nice to meet you Ali. My nameis Isabell but most everyone just calls me Isa." Ali nodded and drank some more of the water.
"Little scare you gave us there,when you were brought in."
"Where am I?"
"Youare in a castle in Northumberland. It's not much but its better than being out there with no shelter."
"Yes, yes it is." Isabela patted her leg and popped out of the chair.
"Get some rest from the looks of you when you came in you could use it." Ali nodded and laid back down, asleep in almost an instant.