This story is in some ways a continuation of "What May Turn Ice into Fire" and in other ways a stand-alone story as well. So if you haven't read the other story fear not, you don't have to unless you so desire, you will still be able to follow along with this story. I own nothing but my OC's and the rating is based off of violence, some language, and sexuality. I welcome critiques and praise both, I prefer the former as it allows me to perfect the craft and the story. Hope you enjoy!
"No one…waited for reparation from his plundering claws…that shadow of death hunted in the darkness…"
The phrase echoed away into the darkness and a shape, perhaps that of a man, shifted back and forth in the shadows before her. There was a distant drumming sounding louder then fainter then louder once more, keeping time with the shifting man in front of her. From his lips she heard the words, "Qatsi'nangwa*" repeated over and over again in a melodic chant. The dark shadows behind the shifting, near shapeless, chanting man morphed into a spiral, glowing bright red and spinning faster and faster as the drum beats grew more frenzied, the chanting from the man also increasing in volume and energy. Suddenly the spiral winked out, the drums ceased, and the man stopped his movements. When he finally moved towards her out of the shadows she did not see the face of a man but instead what looked to be a benevolent sun, half white and half red, with six sets of three pronged feathers bursting out of his face on all sides. The sun opened its mouth and spoke, "Naavaasqatsi*." Next, ears of of fiery corn fell from the sun's mouth and drowned her within their golden shapes. The weight of corn pushed her backwards and once more she was falling through the darkness...
The force with which she returned to the land of the living was such that it pained her. The air rushing into her lungs was too fast, the return of her heartbeat was too solid, the sensations of sound and pain and smell reported to her brain by her senses nauseatingly strong. She gripped hard the object in her right hand and reached over with her left to latch onto it as well, as if to anchor herself more fully this side of death. It had been death where she'd been. The man, the sun, the drums, all of it had been the threshold of death.
"Sshh," a deep voice from above sounded in her ears, "be still. You are safe now."
She tried to use her grip on the object, now recognizable as a hand attached to the voice, to sit up but she stopped when another hand gently pressed down on her shoulder to keep her lying on her back. As she continued gasping in air, unsure of how long she'd been without it—or even why she'd been without it—she also tried to regain control her heartbeat and breathing. She'd been dead, or near enough to it, she felt that keenly in every molecule of her body. Something strange had brought her back from the shadows and the benevolent sun-man guarding the way, and now she lay cold and wet on a hard surface with no notion of what had transpired prior to her waking or why it was she was waking with a man at her side. Her mind could only recall the death-dream and the present moment. That very realization had her heart speeding up and her grip tightening once more upon that man's hand who had yet to move away.
"Ssh," the man's voice again sounded next to her and she felt his hand briefly pass over her forehead as if checking the temperature.
Whilst she began to meditate on her heartrate in order to slow it down, she blinked the world into focus. The first object to be fully formed in her sight was that of the man: mid to late thirties, shoulder-length black hair, with contrastingly bright blue eyes, age and weather-worn wrinkles set about his lips and eyes, and with a firm grip set about her hand. His expression was that of unhurried concern and confusion, as if he felt both in equal amounts, and though his visage brought forth no recollection from her muddled mind, she felt immediately a deeper sense of peace when his features came into better focus, gathered directly from his presence by her side.
"Wh-" her throat burned as if she'd last used it to scream and she raised her left hand to press it against her neck.
The man reached down with his free hand to smooth some of her hair away from her face—she'd not been aware of it being there until he did so, "Don't try to speak too suddenly." He began to pull away and she immediately tightened her grip on his hand. He must've sensed her panic as he offered her a soft smile and squeezed her hand in response. "I am only going back to my boat to get a flask. I will return."
The soothing quality of his voice combined with the earnest nature of his face gave her the courage to let go. Indeed, he was only gone long enough for her to manage to push herself to a semi-seated position in order that she may look around at her surroundings. She first glanced down to see that she was wearing a grey/green tunic and brown breeches with moccasin like boots laced halfway up her calves. At the sight of them she felt strange, as if she wasn't accustomed to wearing such clothing. As she gingerly drank of the strong drink mixture in his flask once he'd returned and handed it to her, she looked around. She was on a rocky riverbank, a thick forest to her left and right and directly in front of her. Handing the flask back to him once she felt the scratchiness of her throat ease, she fought a newfound panic at the realization that she didn't know where she was.
She looked back to the man who had since crouched down at her side. Seeing the confusion in her face, no doubt, he leaned forward and spoke, "I fished you out of the river along with the barrels." He pointed just over her shoulder, in the general direction of where he'd disappeared to moments before, and she carefully turned her head—mindful of the cricks and pains the movement caused—to see his boat and loaded upon it numerous barrels. "Are you injured?"
She closed her eyes briefly, in order to assess all her limbs, and found that aside from soreness, over-extension of some of her joints, and what felt to be a few abrasions or cuts on her back and side, she was unharmed—just bone-deep cold. She shook her head, still unsure if her voice would work properly just yet.
The man nodded, his expression one of relief. But then he glanced down at the river again and his voice held a note of cautious curiosity when he uttered his next question, "How did you come to be in the river?"
She opened her mouth to answer but stopped. She couldn't remember. Whereas before she'd only known of the death-dream and the current moment, she realized now that her mind was becoming a befuddled mess of strange faces that were somehow familiar and equally strange places that also struck a familiar cord with her, mixed together with unknown and unfamiliar ones. She could recall that her grandfather had taught her healing techniques and that she could wield a knife expertly, but she couldn't remember where he grandfather was or why it was she knew how to wield a knife. Neither could she recall her name nor how she'd come to be floating in a river with barrels for this man to find.
She felt the warmth of his hand on her back and glanced over at him in response. He was making that shushing sound again and it was only then that she realized she'd begun to pant, this time out of panic.
"There is no need to fret. You are safe with me and I can help you return to your people. Only, we should move quickly as daylight will soon be lost and the voyage back to Laketown is not an easy feat at night."
She felt him shift his body weight in order to stand. She quickly reached up and took hold of his wrist to stay him. He paused in his movements and waited patiently as she swallowed past her panic, and still sore throat restrictions, in order to speak.
"I don't know."
He frowned and repeated her statement, "You don't know?"
"I don't know how I ended up in the river." She paused to swallow again. "I don't know where my people are." She looked back up at his face after her eyes had wandered to the river momentarily. "I don't even know who I am."
She watched as his facial expressions morphed from shock to confusion to one of what she assumed to be firm resolve. He leaned down then and took hold of her shoulders and helped her stand, accepting the majority of her weight on his shoulder when she near toppled over almost immediately. He steered them both towards his boat and she didn't fight his unvoiced decision; she had no other option aside from lying by the riverbank to freeze to death. Once onboard, he reached inside a small box near the bow of the ship and pulled out an old burlap. Quickly he wrapped it around her shoulders and bid her sit near the stern. She watched quietly as he finished loading and securing the barrels, all the while recalling other tidbits of information about herself. She came from a loving family with very strong traditions that centered on nature and other worldly realms-perhaps that had been the foundation of her death-dream. She was unmarried and had no children and couldn't recall ever being involved or interested in someone romantically. For some reason she recalled strange machines that flew in the air and raced across the ground on four wheels but couldn't remember their names, and their forms seemed strange in juxtaposition with her current surroundings.
"Do you remember anything now?" The man asked once he'd pushed away from shore and the boat began to drift further into the lake's interior.
She frowned and shook her head, "I can recall little details here and there but none of it seems related to each other and none of it seems to be helpful right now either." She rubbed her fingers against her temples, the beginnings of a headache coming on.
"Well at least you can talk more now," when she glanced up at him he offered her a small smile, "and don't try to remember everything at once. Maybe once you've had a warm meal and good night's rest you'll remember more." He gave a quick nod with his head, as if by doing so he could make it so. She wished it could be so true and so easy.
"I don't want to be a burden to you." She suddenly realized that he was most likely taking her to his home or something along those lines. She had not been long acquainted with him but there was something about his nature that made her certain that he had now assumed responsibility for her safety. While that was heartening it also had her feeling exceedingly guilty. She'd not long been of the world, in the present state, but she knew enough about herself to know that normally she could take care of herself. "You have already done so much."
His sharp chuckle had her looking back towards him again. "I merely pulled you from the waters and by tonight's end I will have given you food and shelter. That is not much." He paused long enough to steer the boat around what looked to be the remains of a once great tree still decomposing in the lake. "You will not be a burden. In fact, I'm certain Sigrid and Tilda would love to have more female company, if only temporarily."
"Who are they?" the names were strange as she repeated them in her mind, as if they belonged to a culture not her own.
"My daughters. My son Bain may not be as keen, though, since he finds his sister's company tedious enough." His lips quirked upward in a half smile and she felt her own lips mirror the motion.
"And what of your wife?"
The smile disappeared in the same instance that he jerked the boat around another floating object, the action sudden and it near jarred her from her seat. He didn't offer an apology, instead he kept his focus on the water, as he continued to maneuver the boat through the floating debris. She got the feeling that she should not have asked that particular question and yet, how was she to know not to ask?
"My wife died some time ago. It is just myself and my three children now." His eyes finally moved from the horizon back down to her and the formally hard lines in his face softened a little. "You will not be a burden for as long as you need to stay."
She broke eye contact first, giving a nod before resting her eyes on the horizon as he'd been doing. The weather grew steadily colder the further from shore they traveled and she wrapped the burlap tighter around her. Her clothes were still damp, though not soaking as they had been before, and combined with the chill in the air it caused her whole body to shake and her teeth to clack together. The man had little more to offer her by way of warmth and comfort and so could only, on occasion, inquire after her well-being. She appreciated the gesture, it was very telling of his gentle nature, but the gentle rocking of the boat hypnotized her away from the pain in her body and soon enough she was lost once more from the wakeful world.
When she woke again it was to the man's shaking. She could see his lips moving but her mind was so fuzzy that she couldn't understand what it was he was saying. She tried to stand up but fell backwards, her body no longer responding correctly to her bidding. She felt on fire at the same time she felt filled with ice. Behind the man she saw three more forms appear on what looked to be a dock. More voices, murmured as if from a distance, and then suddenly she was weightless. Vaguely she was aware of the fact that she couldn't very well be weightless, that it had to be the man who carried her, but her mind refused to focus on one thing long enough for anything to register clearly.
She was taken upwards then, inside a room or a house, and then laid upon something soft yet cold. The man began to move away, it had been the man carrying her after all, but she reached out and with the last of her strength she held onto his arm. He couldn't leave her now. He said he'd help her. He said she wouldn't be a burden. He said-
"Sshh," his hand smoothed across her brow and she felt a sense of peace almost immediately, "be still. You are safe now."
She fell back into the darkness that bid to her, clinging to the hope that by the morn his words would prove true.
*These are Hopi words that denote the belief in a life cycle/life force and communal living and care for one another. They have a strong belief and affinity for spirals signifying life's journey. And they worship the sun, since their culture is based on agriculture, and many of their religious symbols feature various depictions of suns.