Cyclical
He had always known she would come back.
An odd premonition to hold about a stranger, but nigh on forty years at the mercy of the ocean made a man wise to such things. Enconeg Holn, like all Varani, was a son of the water, and like all children of the element of foresight, he had inklings and could read the signs in the world. Such signs had persisted since the month before she had first entered his life, when he'd lost a game of Knuckles for the first time in years, the bone dice rolling snake eyes. Within that same month, the Ettin of the mere had stolen his Imelda's grave charm, and after that, he had fallen prey to the crooning of a blighted leanashe.
'Twas in that muddled thralldom she had first found him, her viper-eyes glowing a feral yellow-green in the shaded twilight of Ettinmere's watery domain. She had come striding out of the mists with all the predatory grace of a barghest, her very presence commanding a sort of rapt attention. He had seen such a mien on the best captains to traverse the Icebrine Coast, had recognized a kindred spirit roiling within her. Had he not been so enraptured by the leanashe, he might've thought to question why the very essence of the marsh seemed to crackle around her.
Instead, they'd spoken few words. Dellach, she had stated, the word loaded with meaning. Further on, he had replied, waving her off deeper into the Ettinmere. He had not seen her again until the dark hours of the next morn, when she had knocked once upon his door and silently paid to use the bedroll out by the shed. Though it would take her breaking him free of the leanashe's mesmerization to realize it, the fact was that she had known from the moment she'd first seen him that he was enraptured. Fate had led her to him, he liked to believe, but the lack thereof had brought her back.
Just as it did now, her whims carrying her through the fog, wanderlust and something more sparking in her eyes as she laid them upon him again.
I don't really know why I fell for a random side character like Enconeg, but he inspired a whole list of possibilities for my muse. This was just one of those snippets that made it to paper.
I'm not sure if anyone else will enjoy this, but I hope someone does. :] Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning and all recognizable content are © Electronic Arts and 38 Studios.
~Swiftlet