This chapter took forever to write! But I finished the last 500/600 words in one day, which I was pretty proud of. I don't think I've written much of anything close to action before, which was why this took so long! But I finished the day the last chapter got posted, so I'm still ahead. I'm being reminded how much I enjoy (writing, creating, reading back) this story! And I hope you guys are having as much fun with it as I am!
Eve flew down Wyrmroost's main road on her horse, Freya, feeling strangely reminiscent of the night she'd snuck off on her own and found the Under Realm months ago now. She wasn't in the woods now, and she was on her horse, but both times she was somewhere she wasn't supposed to be in search of an adventure with a likely unfavorable outcome.
A thrill ran through her, feeling the wind in her hair and the pounding of the horse's hooves on the ground. Eve was a girl on a mission, and she intended to accomplish her goal.
Today, she was going to set in motion her plan to help Seth get his memories back. She'd spent multiple hours throughout multiple days researching, poring over books and scrolls from her family's library and the village library, anything that seemed at all helpful, and had come up with the shaky outlines of a plan.
Freya was on a path aiming for the part of Wyrmroost that used to be the Herdlands, from long before Eve was born up until the same week she'd first met Seth, when the Somber Knight, Wyrmroost's designated dragon slayer, had kicked the taurans out for supporting the dragons in the war against the human caretakers. It was now land fit only for the undead-and, if Eve had come to the right conclusion from her research, someone who could help her.
Eve ran through her mental checklist of supplies one more time. She had water and some food. Although she didn't plan to be gone very long, one could never be too careful. She had a map to make sure she knew where she was going. She'd opted to leave the button at home, just in case Seth tried to talk to her for some reason. He wasn't supposed to know about this mission either. Once more, the thought of how he would react if he found out about this beforehand tugged at her mind, but Eve shoved it away. No need to worry about it-he'd find out when the plan worked.
Luckily for her, the ex-Herdlands wasn't very far from Terrabelle in the grand scheme of Wyrmroost. She'd been riding for maybe an hour and a half, which meant she should have about another half an hour left to go. She figured it couldn't hurt to review the plan one more time before she got there.
She was looking for a local witch of some sort who she'd read about in her research. She was the most likely candidate Eve had found who would be able to do anything about Seth's memories-at least at Wyrmroost. She wasn't sure the memories were in the job description, but it didn't seem too far-fetched. If she were to look for a specialist, not that she was sure that even existed, she'd probably have to look outside Wyrmroost, which she wasn't sure how she'd do. But she wasn't picky, as long as it would get the job done.
Of course, she wouldn't be able to get assistance for free. Nothing was ever that easy in the magical world. Just like anything else, this help would come at a cost. Eve was prepared. She had a few bits of interesting knowledge up her sleeve that the witch might trade for. She knew things she wasn't supposed to know or talk about-details that she'd learned from eavesdropping on her father's meetings (even if they may only affect the inhabitants of Terrabelle) and a few details about the Under Realm that she'd learned from Seth (hopefully he would forgive her for giving them up since it was for his own good)-and ordinarily she wouldn't, but this type of characters weren't generally prone to sharing the knowledge they learned. Maybe to someone else looking for it with another price.
Sooner than she would've liked, Eve found herself arriving at her destination. The Herdlands used to look like it sounded-a vast expanse of plains, mostly, where the taurans lived. Some of them had built structures to function as homes for the weather. Now…
Since Eve had known what it looked like before the Somber Knight gave it over to be a domain of the undead (not that she'd actually ever been there; she was never allowed to travel much, but she'd seen pictures from her history books), she could see the resemblance to what it currently looked like. She doubted anyone who saw it for the first time like this would guess what it had used to be.
As far as Eve could tell, it still seemed to be a vast plains, but a heavy gray fog obscured most of her vision. Starting to feel a bit unnerved, she urged Freya forward slowly. Entering the mist felt very similar to when she had gone into the forest where she found the Under Realm. This was the domain of cursed, unnatural beings.
Doubts and second thoughts about the plan started to creep into her mind. What was she thinking? How was she supposed to navigate through an area haunted by the undead? Would she just assume they'd leave her alone? Why, because she was friends with someone who worked with them?
Eve took a deep breath and shook her head. There must be a lot of them here to be emitting such a large quantity of magical fear. She laughed quietly to herself.
The trick to getting past them was to reject the magical fear to the best of one's ability and to act as if one knew what one was doing. Eve kept her head up and encouraged Freya to go faster, attempting to look like she knew what she was doing. If she went fast enough, they might not even notice her pass by.
The place she was looking for shouldn't be too hard to find-and it wasn't. It was much sooner than Eve expected that she came across a small shack, the only structure remotely resembling a building in sight, that gave off positively malicious energy. This had to be the place. Eve dismounted and approached the door.
Staring at the door, the impression that this was a bad idea hit her harder than ever. She took another deep breath. Obviously it was a bad idea; she'd known that going into it. That was in no way going to stop her. She stepped forward and rapped on the door boldly.
She was met with silence.
She knocked again and received the same answer. Eve frowned, then sighed. It wasn't like she was being particularly careful here, so why pretend? She opened the rickety door herself.
An old woman looked up at her from her seat at a small table in the center of the room with distaste in her eyes. "And why is my house being barged into?" she asked in a no-nonsense tone of voice.
Eve blinked. "Um, I need help, and I've been told you might be able to help me."
The woman just grunted and looked back down at whatever she'd been holding in her hands. So she wasn't going to be purposefully helpful then. Great.
Eve pressed on anyway. "My friend is missing his memories. Some sort of demon or something used magic to take away everything he knew, about himself and everything else, and now he just doesn't remember anything from before that. He-"
"Save your voice. I don't care."
This wasn't what was supposed to happen. "I don't know any other way to fix it! I came to you because you were the only person I could find who might be able to help me at all."
The old woman turned away. "I'm not going to help you."
"But you have to help me. I need help." Eve was aware that she shouldn't admit something like that to a person like this, but she was starting to get more than a little desperate.
"I can't help you, girl," the old lady snapped. "And even if I could, why would I?"
Eve startled back at the threatening tone, then drew her shoulders back and stood her ground. "First of all, that's pretty rude. And second, you could've, I don't know, just told me that? You could've said 'I can't help you' right at the start and I would've left and quit bothering you. You should help me if you could because it's the right thing to do, but I don't suppose you care much about the right thing to do, do you?"
The witch cackled. "You're a smart one, aren't you?"
Eve's stomach dropped. She'd known this was a possible outcome, but she'd taken the optimistic approach and just assumed everything would go well. She silently scolded herself; assuming the best was never a good idea when it was of situations like this one. She eyed the woman. She didn't know what to say.
Fortunately, the woman continued. "Assistance always comes at a cost. You're lucky I didn't take your payment first without helping you at all."
Eve nodded. Should she say "thank you," or what? Wasn't that just common decency? "I understand," she said. She didn't really; she would never understand not helping someone in need, with or without payment. "Well, I guess I'll be going then, if you can't do anything to help me." She turned to leave, heart racing. No way would it be that easy.
And she was right. "You're leaving so soon? After coming all this way and interrupting my day, just for nothing?" The woman started to rise from her seat.
Eve backed toward the door. "Yeah, I think I will. Hopefully whatever I interrupted can be picked back up pretty quick. Good luck with that. Bye!" She whirled around and ran out the door, swinging it shut behind her, as the woman started to raise whatever she held in her hands. Eve didn't know or want to find out.
She hadn't had anywhere to tie Freya, but the horse hadn't wandered far. Eve sprinted to her and leapt up onto her back. The door to the hut creaked back open behind her, and, glancing back, Eve could see the old woman walking out, taking her time. As she told Freya to go, get away, she noticed what in her panic to get out she had not: hordes of the undead were approaching from nearly all angles.
Along with the slight sense of dread at the sight came a more pressing feeling of plain old irritation. She'd come all this way, and the witch she was looking for couldn't even help her, and now there were all manner of zombies and ghouls attacking her when all she wanted to do was go home! Eve scoffed and rolled her eyes, drawing her knife. Not much else to be done, she supposed.
loud like lions and as slick as wolves
desperately we hunt the other animals
