24th of Hearthfire, 4E 201
"Do you think she will wake up?"
"It's hard to say, she's malnourished and the wound at her side was thick with infection. The cuts are washed and bound everyday with healing medicines and I have prayed much to Kyne, but the fever is yet to break and she is still to eat or drink."
"Well, I suppose if she dies then it saves us a job. The guards say she's so addled she can't even speak, interrogating her would be a nightmare."
"Aela, that's cruel. We don't know for sure that she's an enemy."
Voices drift towards Alopexin, the soft whispers grinding like shouts in her ears. Alopexin can decipher three voices from jumble, two females and one male. She can feel a breeze gliding over her skin, and a thin cover draping painfully over her protruding bones. The air is thick with the musk of incense and the fleshy sweetness of deathbells. Everywhere is bright and glowing gold, the stone walls glowing like sunbleached bones. Alopexin blinked and squinted in the dizzying light before giving in to the drowning depths of sleep.
"She smells like death. We better tell Kodlak."
The voices retreated, whispers still ringing bell-clear in the marbled temple accompanied by the soft-soled smack of boots on stone. Alopexin shimmered in and out of consciousness, dreams of childhood and her mother's face invading her lucidity.
Danica Pure-Spring retreated into a shaded recess in the corner of the temple. It had been three days now since the red-haired stranger had been brought to her. She had poulticed the girl's cracked skin, drained infection from her wound and dispensed fever-breaking and pain-killing herbs. She had offered small morsels of pre-chewed food and held a damp rag to her lips spilling small droplets of water into her throat. And she had prayed. Every day leaving offerings to the kindness of Kyne. But the benevolent deity was yet to answer the call. She could only conclude that the strangers spirit was slowly leaving and the God was willing only to take her.
26th of Hearthfire, 4E 201
The trilling song of a pine thrush floated around the temple, calling to Alopexin, lulling her from a deep, dark slumber. Her skin felt thin and stretched over ancient bones, and her throat was burning with a sore, scratchiness. The light was so bright that her vision was blurred, a haze of colours and shapes. And then the healer's hand settled on her shoulder.
"You're awake. Can you hear me? Can you move? Speak?"
With a mammoth effort Alopexin took the hand in her cold fingers. She searched the healer's face for an understanding, only to find puzzlement at the lack of speech. It was time for Alopexin to break her avowed silence. She understood immediately that she was at the mercy of the healer, and without her, she could have, might still die.
"Water." Her scratched throat and underused voice oozed together into a whisper. "Water. Please."
"The pine thrush. She told me that you would awake. Did you know the thrush is the avatar of Kyne? She saved you. I believe it, truly." Danica sat earnestly opposite the stranger. " I had prayed for many days for your soul's return, and she answered my call."
Alopexin gulped the water greedily, before subsiding into heaving coughs. She sat on the marble bed, covered only by the thin, white sheet provided by Danica.
"Drink slowly, you body isn't used to it. You've been sleeping for 5 days. You raged with such a fever I thought you would never return. And you're so thin. Where did you come from? "
Alopexin turned her face from the healer, she was uncomfortable with conversation still and she could not explain the events leading to her shunning civilisation for wilderness living. Not to this kind-faced priestess, it was impossible. The burden was yoked to her tired shoulders, but she knew if was not to be shared.
"Your secrets are your own for now, but I should warn you The Companions will not be so understanding. You caused quite a stir in town, waving your weapon at the guards. They have been here every day that you have, awaiting your return from the spirit world. Here, I will make you some food. You sit and relax, you are not yet well. I will ask Acolyte Jenssen to bring for some clothes for you to wear."
As the healer retreated from her stone bed Alopexin felt the tug of tightened, sore muscles and the dull thudding ache of fever return to her. She could see that during her slumber she had been rudimentary washed, her skin was free on blood and dirt, but she could feel her hair was still matted and thick, hanging in heavy hanks down her back. Moving her fingers to her side, she could feel swollen ridges where the putrid wound in her side had throbbed. There was a scar, but no pain and the mark was coated in a sticky, greasy oil that clung to her fingertips. Her sour smell had been replaced by the medicinal tang of herbs and healing fats, and her bruised and blistered feet were swaddled in medicated bandages.
As Danica prepared a simple meal of rice and vegetables she pondered over the appearance of the pine thrush, and the stranger. Danica watched her as she cooked, long, loose limbs encased in pale white skin that gleamed with a slightly unearthly blue pallor, and the long, tangled red hair that jangled with metal beads and plaits. Danica had never seen a Breton, or any race with hair this colour. It was like the pelt of the mountain fox, although filthy and clumped in knots. She could never be called beautiful, but there was striking, quiet strength in her. A kind of purity. The appearance of the pine thrush in the temple had to be a sign. The clear beautiful song ringing off the walls as the stranger opened her eyes. Kyne truly had given her blessing.
"Here, it's plain but it will keep you alive. And maybe even add some flesh to your bones." Danica slid the meal over to the girl. "I'm Danica Pure-Spring, the priestess of Kyne. Who are you?"
Alopexin scooped the food into her mouth, her lack of grace betraying her near-starvation. She turned her eyes to Danica. Again a flush of gratitude swept her. As damaged as she was, as misanthropic as she felt, she did not want to die. "Alopexin. My name…"
"Well Alopexin, at least we've got somewhere today. Do you know where you are?"
"Whiterun. I am still in Whiterun?"
"Yes, you're in the temple of Kynareth. It is befitting really that you end up in the temple of the Matron of travellers, you look like you have been travelling for a long time. "
Alopexin shifted uncomfortably. She was still not able to divulge her past, and she hoped that the kind-faced healer understood that.
"You have been here for five days now. Do you remember what happened? You arrived at the gate looking feverish and broken, brandishing a weapon at the guards before collapsing at their feet. They summoned me and The Companions and together we brought you here. And here you are. They will be here soon, perhaps it is time to get dressed? I will help you."
Alopexin raised her arms with a grimace of pain as Danica slipped a white, cotton shift over her withered skin, belting it around the middle before slipping loose white trousers over the pale, long legs.
"It's a start. We tried to wash your hair while you slept, but it's too matted. Perhaps if we cut it? You owe Kyne the debt of life, perhaps it could be repaid with this small part of you? You have little else to spare right now." Danica smiled.
"You may cut the hair, but the beads stay." Pain crossed Alopexin's face, not the injured grimace of earlier, but a deep, drowning type of pain.
"I think I can manage that." Danica laid her hand gently on Alopexin's shoulder. "Come."