The vicious beasts lay down and were quieted;
The meek lambs became bold
And rose up, casting aside their shepherds.
Exaltations 6:5-8
The woman did not know how long she'd lain there, amid the fallen, wet leaves and dry, fallen branches. They felt damp and rough on her nude skin, but the sensation, the first one to return to her, was pleasantly familiar, thus, amid leaves and branches, she remained curled, enjoying what would doubtlessly turn out to be another dream.
She'd increasingly been having these, over the past few months, and though she'd only found torment upon waking, she had lustfully indulged, as if the feeling of the forest's floor had been the caress of a long-lost lover. Perhaps if these visions had been the same each time, she might have found a way to quench them, yet…they were not. They did not follow each other, as dreams spun of ardent wishes did, nor was she always in the same place; at times, she lay on fragrant grass, great trees above her. At others, she found herself running on open fields, waist deep in flowers – at others still, she kneeled on soft, deep moss, listening, without remembering what she was listening for.
All better places for a dream than this one, the woman told herself. Still, for some reason, she liked this one far more. The cold felt real, as did the crackling of the leaves and little branches when she finally turned on her back to behold the sky. Even her skin felt real this time, she thought, despite the fact that faint light of the moon above was enough to sting her eyes and make them water.
How odd…She vividly remembered dreaming of the sun, and it had not hurt so; in other dreams, she'd smelled only the most pleasant scents – the grass, the flowers, perhaps the sea…Now she smelled everything, the good scents and the bad: the rot of leaves, the markings of the lynx, the whiff of a herd of deer who'd crossed the place where she lay, not an hour past.
Within, something urged her to stand and take to the trail of either animal. The lynx's coat could keep her warm, but the deer would have fed her; wisely filtering moonlight between her long eyelashes, to glance up at the sky, the woman greatly pondered whether she needed food or shelter first, then realised that naked and weak as she was, she should probably have feared the prowling lynx…she needed to get up, she thought.
She needed to make fire.
The urgency of both sensations startled her so much that her eyes unwillingly flew open – she sought to bring her forearm across them, for the light truly stung, but found her movements slow, her body heavy, then, before the fear that either realisation could engulf her, she caught another smell. Fire, at first, one made with oil and rag, a trace of incense, but underneath that…
Underneath that, there was a scent she could not place, some beast who'd never before crossed her path.
A beast that wields made fire? Her mind queried, with surprising clarity. What manner of beast can it be?
Though she knew not the answer, her instincts told her that it was far more dangerous than the lynx. She needed to get up, up and out of its way, because now, she could hear it approaching as well as smell it, and whatever it was, it was large, had many legs, and no fear of the forest's creatures, for it did not try to disguise its presence in the least way. No woodland creature, predator or prey, conducted itself thus – she dug her heels in the ground, and desperately tried to rise.
Her panic driven efforts resulted in nought but noise, horrible noise of shuffled leaves and crackling twigs - she fell back, dizzy and awed at the fact that her legs, her nimble, powerful legs, did not obey her…And, as she fell to the deceitful and treacherous cushion which covered the cold ground, she knew, she understood the truth.
This was no dream. It was a nightmare.
The notion that none of it was real, which might have given others the comfort of knowing it was the step that almost always preceded awakening brought her no solace. The very same, strange instinct that had tugged at her to stand and take to the trail of the animals she'd smelled told her that the fact that she was still asleep would not ward off death.
I can still die, in dreams, she thought. In fact, it is only I dreams that I can die…
The beast had heard her; the sound of its footsteps had changed direction. It was coming her way.
But panic would not serve.
She tried to rise again, employing grace, rather than strength; she took a deep breath, to calm her heartbeat once she was on her knees.
Panic, more than this wondrous beast, she knew, was the enemy. It was in panic that the deer lost their minds and ran away from their heard. It was panic that shrunk their senses to such an extent that they thought not of the noise that they made, while running, it was in panic that their noses caught the scent of only one…only one…
One wolf, her mind recited. One wolf, and not the pack he leads; it is so that the deer falls to the hunt.
She shakily stood fully upright. Rather than try to run, she gazed about herself, her heart and breath under control, despite the fact that the smell of the creature was now truly getting strong. It could not smell her, though, and this she knew because if it had been able to, it would not have depended on her initial, loud mistake to track her. Maybe it hunted by hearing and sight, the woman considered, and if so…
She looked down to the forest floor, no longer seeing leaves and twigs, but the spaces between them where she could step, reading the ground as others might have read deep etchings upon marble. A tentative and quiet step was followed by another – the path ahead was clear, and with it in mind, she sought to see to what kind of hiding place it might have led her. The trees about her were bare in winter's deep embrace…and shrubs…she could find none in sight.
It was to be distance, then. Upon the trail she'd already found she hasted, trying to find a balance between stealth and speed – the former, she seemed to have regained, but the latter was not sufficient. The light of fire glistened upon the wet leaves, still in the distance yet too close for comfort, and she knew that she was not fast enough when she heard the beast on her trail begin to murmur, on many voices, as though it had had many heads. So loud it was, that above her, birds took to flight, and smaller creatures scurried to hide in their dens.
The upheaval of nature showed that this thing was indeed to be feared, yet provided equal opportunity for cover, and so, the woman's pace quickened, more and more, and she set herself running, despite the fact that her own height made her dizzy. She stumbled from her course…
'Who goes there?' the beast shouted, in a single voice – the words she did not understand, and did not need to; it was simply a howl to her ears, distance her only saviour now.
She ran in earnest then, and it set pursuit; for a few heartbeats, she saw that this was how she'd die: trampled under the creature's many legs, or roasting in its fire, while its countless mouths chewed on her flesh…Still, even in the nightmare there was respite, or, maybe, the vision's torment was simply giving hope – the pace at which she fled by far surpassed the pace of her hunter, and she ran steady while it clumsily ambled.
Faster and faster the woman went; she glided amid trees and shrubs, and vaulted over creeks of melting snow, so light on her bare feet that the rocks and twigs she stepped on did not even scratch her. So light, in fact, that her bones felt hollow and that she felt as if she'd spread out her arms, she would not only flee, but actually take to flight.
The air itself coursed differently upon her skin, no longer cold, but as if she had been running in a cocoon of some sort. She glanced down at her arm and saw feathers growing upon it. This did not frighten her, though, somewhere, in a corner of her mind she knew that it might have, had she not felt herself so light and had her sight not grown keener. It was not only her steps that carried no sound now, but the hissing of the wind through long hair had stopped, thus she truly surrendered to her instinct's tug and leaped into the air, bringing her shortening legs to her chest and spreading her arms, and soaring.
She often ran, in dreams, the woman who had just turned into a bird thought, as her fantastic body rose above the treeline. Yet, dreams of flight had not been given her, this was the first, and she surrendered to it as if it had truly been a dream of long lost love.
What else could it be described as? She thought. From prey to predator, in but a heartbeat. She saw small creatures in their dens and hollows, she heard their heartbeats, she smelled their fur. She could all but taste their flesh, feel herself crush them in her talons, know herself satiated as she rent open their soft bellies…
What fear have I of wolves, or fire wielding beasts, when such is my power, she thought; drunk on her strength and on the heights she'd soared to, she turned to behold the thing that had so frightened her. She flew above the herd of deer she'd earlier sensed, only realising how far away from her attacker she had come when she noted that miles separated the herd from the beast.
The night air was crisp and clear; the hunter within her saw the lynx hiding from the beast's path too, but she was still not scared. She followed heat and smell of oil and rag set alight, the smell that was unnatural. She saw the beast.
Surprise at its sight was injury to focus of the mind, not body. And, as she tumbled from the clear sky, feeling the lashes of many a tree's limbs on her skin, the woman finally learned the truth.
This was not dream. It was no nightmare, either.
It was reality.
She was awake.
'I'll have no nonsense out of you!' the captain of the border guard of northern Starkheaven shouted, grabbing one of his soldiers by the chest of his leather armour and shaking him mightily.
'I swear to the Maker and back that I saw it,' the soldier answered.
'And I swear that you'll spend so much time in a cell for being drunk on duty, that you'll forget you ever saw anything, including your wife's cunt!'
The rest of the company laughed. 'Aye, he's the only one here who hasn't seen his wife's cunt in the past three years anyway,' one of the troop said. 'Not that it's that memorable.'
'Gentlemen, please,' Mother Petunia intervened, not making it sound as if she thought any of them gentlemen, or that her words had been anything else than an order. 'Lord Sebastian Vael would not countenance such speech, and neither shall I.'
'Apologies, Mother,' Rylan Ostwyn, the captain of the guard replied, letting go of his scout. He nonetheless inwardly sighed, and cursed, using words that neither the Prince of Starkheaven nor Mother Petunia would have cared to hear.
The words had much to do with intercourse between, and the private parts of both Mother Petunia and a Prince so wise that he saw it fit to reward one of his longest serving troop by sending him to patrol the nether end of nowhere.
Rylan Ostwyn was a man rushing upon his sixth decade. The cold got to his bones; let alone that, he had a wife who was two decades younger, three daughters to marry off, and so little tolerance for spiritual nonsense that one might have searched for it for years on end, with an Orlesian looking glass, and not found any. He nonetheless served, precisely because of those reasons, and he would have appreciated not serving.
As far as he was concerned, Starkheaven was patrolling these woods because it needed to keep its overly large army busy and its citizens distracted. Nothing happened, in these woods – nothing ever happened, unless something made it happen all in one night, which, of course, was bound to be the coldest and shittiest night of the year.
At first, it had been one of the few mages that remained in the city that had warned the prince of a further disturbance in the veil, for whatever that was meant to mean. Then, it took only one Templar, whose brain was so lyrium addled that he'd forgotten how it felt to march through deep woods, in the middle of fucking winter and in full armour, to confirm it, and here he stood. Not only with a Revered Mother spouting shite about language, but in the company of beer-sagged men who would have liked to show both Revered Mother and her new-found charge how they could get them warmed up while warming themselves up in turn.
He dispersed the gathering of his soldiers about the Reverend Mother's charge with a few nudges and grunts, then beheld the thing that had all of them so riled. Though he did dispense earnest attention to it, for none had gotten so far within the ranks if they were lax, he only saw what his eyes saw, and it was undeniable.
Mother Petunia's charge was a young Elvhen woman, naked as if just had just been brought into the world. Whipped as if someone had sought to take her out of the world fast, too, he thought.
'Someone get me a blanket,' he spoke.
'We don't carry blankets for the enemy,' one man said; Mother Petunia rose to her feet faster than a snake might have.
'This woman!' she preached, in a voice so piercing that it was unfitting her stout form, 'this woman was cast out!'
'Eh?' he unwillingly questioned. 'Cast out from where, and by whom?'
'She fell from the sky!' the scout wailed, hiding his face in his hands. 'I saw it, I saw it,' he screamed, moving about the group of his companions, and seeking to find their glances. It was no wonder he could not – their feet were wet with fast freezing muck, their breaths were ragged, and it was all because they'd just given chase to something only he saw, only to find…this. A naked woman, in a hole, and even that after they'd run into a full circle to the place where they'd just come from, because he'd said he'd seen something.
Nonetheless, Rylan Ostwyn pulled the cape from his shoulders, and draped it about the woman's form – some part of him knew that he did it because she looked like his middle-born daughter. Another part of him did it because he knew his daughters needed dowries, his wife wanted fresh furs, and that it was unwise to challenge a Reverend Mother, in Starkheaven, where the Chantry ruled.
His motions pleased Mother Petunia; she once more kneeled next to the naked elf, took her hand in hers, and loudly prayed.
She prayed so loud that she drowned out the chatter of his men, as well as the protestations of the scout who said the Elvhen woman had fallen from the sky.
'Andraste, guide me!' Mother Petunia said; all men as one were scared enough of their Prince that they repeated the words. 'Maker, take me to your side!'
The Elvhen woman woke at the words, and she glanced about herself, looking wild with fright, her green eyes rolling, rolling, with fright and fear, he thought.
'Aaa…' she tried to speak, still shivering beneath his cloak.
'Andraste guide me,' Mother Petunia helpfully led. The naked Elvhen woman only managed an 'a', and a bowel guided sigh after, and who was he, Ostwyn thought, to refute evidence, when the Mother once more stood and told all that the woman had been cast out from her community of rebels and heretics because she believed in Andraste, and the Maker of all Creation.
'Aaaa,' the naked woman still tried to say.
Mother Petunia saw it as evidence, and his feet were wet and freezing. He cared not stand in the freezing muck for longer.
'Lift both, move out,' he commanded. 'Let's go home; we'll march both further and faster if we carry them.'
His men obeyed, in testimony to the effect that not-quite-frozen mud had on iron shoes. They lifted both women, one on a stretcher made of hastily shaped branches, the other, on their shoulders.
The only one who did not join the march was his scout, and, tired of the man's arguments, Ostwyn brought an argument of his own, by pushing him, lifting him and hitting him against a tree three times.
'You will shut up,' he said. 'We march home. Where we are warm and safe.'
'I saw a woman made owl made woman fall from the heights of the sky,' his man insanely repeated. 'It was as if I'd seen a dragon of Tevinter. I've seen…'
'You're mad, that's what you are,' Ostwyn said, dryly. 'If you want to stay here freezing, do it – maybe the cold will sober you up, or maybe the drink will make you fall asleep and then the cold will spare me a bother. In any event, I'm going. Enjoy howling at the moon.'
He made true on his words, and left, not before giving the scout another healthy shake. He guessed the other man's resolve would last just until the company's torches were barely out of sight; then, reason would prevail over any notions of women, or owls, or, even better, owl-women, falling from the sky, and the scout would eventually follow.
And if not, well…
It was only upon reaching one of the small settlements that surrounded the city proper that Rylan Ostwyn understood his grave error – the madman had not followed the rest of the troop, and now, he had to haggle with a few of the others to turn back for him, and put up with more of Mother Petunia's displeased, pursed lips, when most of the men remarked upon the fact that if the man was not home, it simply meant his wife's cunt was lonely and in need of comfort. It also meant that he could not return to his own wife while the fool was still unaccounted for, thus, he'd have to wait for news inside the Chantry – the only building with a warm fire that would welcome him at such time in the night.
He felt uneasy, but told himself that it was probably the fact that the last time he had set foot in that sort of building of his own accord had been his second wedding day.
Well, Ostwyn reasoned, letting himself drop in a pew, and watching the Mothers and Sisters buzz around the young Elvhen woman, he hadn't come into the Chantry of his own accord on his wedding day either. It had simply been that his fur-loving wife, then, his fur-loving mistress, had begun to show rounded belly, and taking vows had been as good an opportunity as any to pray that this third child would be a boy who needed no dowry.
Showed how much the Maker cared, he thought. Hours later, when this latter dispatched group had still not returned, and he'd remained alone in the great hall with the young woman, whom the sisters had bundled by the fireside and left to sleep, Rylan Ostwyn reached the conclusion that there really was no Maker, just as he had suspected all along.
If there had been one, and he could have read the old soldier's mind, he might have struck him down with lightning…
The sound of hurried footsteps woke him with a great start; but for the fact that the face of the man who was now vigorously shaking him awake was pale as marble, he might have given in to his first instinct and punched him in the face.
'Commander Ostwyn,' the man rasped.
'What in thundering…'
''s dead,' the man said, wiping his face of sweat and tears with the back of his sleeve. He must have discarded his armour to gain speed and bring the news, Ostwyn thought, still feeling dazed by warmth and sleep.
'Who's dead?' he asked, shaking his head.
'Locke,' the other answered, speaking the scout's name. ''e's dead…'
Ostwyn hoisted himself to sit back up in the pew, feeling each and every one of his years and all of his bones. Above all, feeling dread he dared not show.
'Froze to death, did he?' he asked, managing irony he did not feel. 'The idiot…'
The carrier of ill news shook his head. 'Nay,' he said, then noisily breathed snot back into his nose. 'That's just it, 'e didn't, 'e…Maker's mercy, Sir…'
'Will you just speak?'
And there is no such thing as Maker's mercy.
'I rushed ahead to tell you,' the soldier said. 'The others stayed a bit back to bring 'his body, but, Sir…I ain't sure his wife will want to look at it. I ain't sure I wanted to look at it, Andraste help me, I ain't gonna forget it.'
Realising that pressing the visibly incoherent and terrified man with further questions, Ostwyn patiently waited, and patted the man's shoulder, with genuine warmth, for he too was now fully awake and saw his own wretchedness.
I should not have left him behind, he thought. He was mad with drink and I lost my patience, and now…
''e stepped on a snake,' the courier said.
'Impossible,' Ostwyn breathed; the other nodded, tears still streaming down his face. 'Locke was a fool with drink, and had not the best taste in women or jokes, but he knows those forests like no other, drink or not, night or day. He wouldn't…just…step on a snake!'
'Aye,' the other man replied. 'And it ain't just that, Sir. 'e's bloated and blue, and bursting out 'is skin. 'e don't much look like he stepped on a snake. 'e look like he stepped on a bleeding ball of them! Ain't no part of 'im that ain't been bit, lest parts we got to see…Andraste guide me, they ate 'is eyes!'
'This is madness!' Ostwyn exclaimed, darting to his feet. 'It's the middle of bleeding winter, there are no snake nests in winter…Also, what kind of snake can bite through armour?'
'What kindda snake eats a man's eyes?' the courier asked back. 'Only 'is eyes? What if,' the man whispered, throwing a terrified glance at the young Elvhen woman, who had been awoken by the ruckus and was now staring at them, wide eyes filled with fright at the raised voices. 'What if…'
Ostwyn breathed out heavily, and shook his head, once more patting the man's shoulder.
'Come on,' he calmly said. 'We're better men than this – look at her,' he said. 'She's a scared little girl, in rags the sisters gave her. Maker knows how she ended up alone and naked in those woods. Maybe she was thrown out by her own people. Maybe she got thrown out by one of us, who had no further use for her. Whatever happened to Locke, it's not her fault.'
'Well, she's a bloody elf, ain't she,' the courier whispered. 'They can hex, you know…'
'We're better and braver men than to take this out on a little girl, no matter if she's an elf or not,' Ostwyn repeated, kindly; the courier swallowed dry, and his glance lingered upon the young woman for what seemed like eternity. She simply gathered the rags that the good sisters had given her for clothes, as well as the rags they'd given her for bedding about herself, and gazed back at them like one wrongfully condemned who knew they were about to die.
'You're right,' the courier said, in a low sigh. 'She's but a girl. I guess, then…I guess I'll be telling Locke's wife…'
'No,' Ostwyn whispered. 'I left him out there. I will tell her; go home to your own wife. You've seen and done enough tonight.'
With heavy, reluctant, and guilt ridden steps, the bearer of ill news withdrew. It was one thing, Ostwyn guessed, to make fun of another man's wife, and of the man himself – it was but talk. It was another thing to tell another man's wife that her man was dead, and that snakes had eaten his eyes, and he would have to do that, because...
Because it was fair, and he'd left the fool out there, thinking him less of a fool than the man actually was. But not just yet.
He shifted towards the young elven woman, thinking that he could somehow reassure her that she would not be whipped or set ablaze. He'd have to leave one helpless woman in tears today, least he could do was help another.
She darted to her feet and ran, at the doors first, but she found them too heavy to push open. At the fire, next, but she could not turn into mist and disappear out the chimney – thus trapped, she pressed her back against the painted wall, and pointed up at what the wall depicted: the Maiden of the Alamarr, with sword and shield in hand.
'I won't hurt you, child,' Ostwyn said.
'Ahhndrasshte!' the woman hissed, taking the pose of a fist-fighter; despite the pain in his heart, he struggled not to laugh at the display.
'Do you even speak our language?' he asked.
'Aaaandrasteeee!' she repeated, banging her tiny fist on the wall.
'Other than saying Andraste?' he now laughed. Truly…
He approached her slowly, and distantly noted she was beautiful. The potato sack the sisters, in their great mercy, had chosen to gift her with barely covered her sex or her behind, and was so wide for her shoulders that one of her breasts was exposed.
To his eyes, she still looked like his daughter. Had the same look of a tantrum about her as his daughter had had when she was two as well, and he could only hope she would look like a daughter to the many who'd see her thus exposed once the good sisters had her scrubbing floors in exchange for thin potato broth thinned further with water.
'Do you speak our language?' he asked again, staying six feet away from her, as she looked as she was truly going to melt into the wall.
'uh…hour langh…u?' she queried.
'You don't,' Ostwyn said, kindly; at least the kindness would carry, he thought. It did, for the young woman relaxed, and went out of her ill-advised fighter pose.
Still, she pointed at the picture behind her.
'Andraste,' she said, this time, correctly.
'Yes, Andraste.' Ostwyn repeated.
'Yes?' she said.
He pointed at the wall behind her. 'Andraste.'
She decisively nodded, then said 'yes' again, and she did not shy from him as he led her to her poor bedding by the fire, but then withdrew to safe distance – a sign that he'd not intended to make use of her that must have been common to women of all nations.
He wrapped the dirty sheets about her, when her breath had eased to a soft, regular and light snore; upon second thought, he added another hefty log to the fire. He left one woman sleeping, and left her knowing that there was a woman he'd have to wake up.
The doors closed behind the animal she'd never seen before, and she stood, ridding herself of what had been placed upon her with a mere shake of her shoulders.
She walked free, and naked, and strode along the walls of the large hall with many pews.
She strived to follow what the walls depicted, but was at a loss.
So, she thought, there was a female animal, that looked like the people but was not one of the people, with long golden hair, that once carried a sword, as well as a spear, and a shield, despite having only two arms, against some dragons and some males of the same animal kind, dressed in black cloaks. Then a male in a black cloak had killed this female, when she was already dying in a fire, then…The animals who looked like the people had built…temples, in her honour?
This made no sense.
She placed her hand on the wall, and sensed nothing but cold stone.
'Andraste,' she said, loudly. The golden haired female still stared down at her, dead and silent in her stern contemplation.
'What are you doing pacing about naked? People come here to pray!'
She turned to the sound of alarm, and she was hit across the face so hard as to make her fall on her knees.
'Pray to the Maker of all Creation,' the female who had hit her said. 'Pray he forgives you!'
'…yes?' she asked, arousing more ire; the female of the animal species she'd just met wrapped her hair round her fist and dragged her back to the fire, then held her face so close to the flame that she could only scream one name.
'Andraste! Andraste!' she screamed, as the flame caught her hair. The woman's fist loosened.
'You do well to remember the Maker's Bride! Crawl back to the sheets he gave you in his mercy. And don't wake us up again, you hear?'
She nodded, remembering that the predator walked in silence, and pleased with a lesson well delivered, the sister withdrew.
She did not stand up again, but once more looked about herself, to the walls of this strange temple. Was this, she wondered, what the people had turned into? Were these more than animals, somehow?
Well, she considered, they clearly were, because they could make fire, and spoke, and built temples, but…They could not be people, she concluded; as they had moved around her, she could already smell them dying; she even knew of what they would die – such as, for instance, the mad woman who'd just pulled her hair would die of a hole in her stomach. She didn't know it was there, but its whiff carried on her breath. It would be two years, three at the most until it burst open and bleeding, and the madwoman would die, never knowing the hole had ever been there.
The other, the armoured male who had a kind voice, was dying too, but not of any disease. His body, somehow severed from the Fade, was not mending itself as it should have been. He would last longer, but eventually…
This, like the figures on the walls, made no sense – whatever story the depictions were meant to represent…It truly had no logic, and at some points, the non-people must have understood it, because the walls had been painted over several times, some things scratched out, others added. In one such hasty, visual retelling, she could actually see one of the true people; he appeared twice – once, kneeling before the woman with the golden hair, but then, in the panel that followed, one that showed the same man receiving a sword from the woman's hands, the points of his ears had been scratched out, and some clumsy painter had made a brave attempt at rounding his eyes and bulking up his figure, to transform him into one of these...things, whatever they were.
She had no doubt these alterations were old, and that none who lacked her keen eye could actually see them, yet they were doubtlessly there. She instinctively ran her fingers though her hair, and touched the pointy tips of her own ears, as if to reassure herself they were still there, because at least these two panels made sense, now: the non-people liked the people when they kneeled before them, but had, at some point become less keen on the people if they stood as equals.
Had the people lost a war in her absence? She wondered, turning on her back and staring to the ceiling. To these? And, more importantly, would they try to do away with the tips of her ears?
She smirked to herself.
Let them try.
She almost laughed out loud, but then remembered the madwoman, and stifled her chuckles.
Above mere beasts as these things must have been, they were still far beneath the people; their temples had no magic, they themselves were walking about in flawed, magic-less flesh, and…And more importantly, they were stupid.
We do not paint our temples, the Elvhen woman thought. We use mosaics, and we do that because if we want a particular story to be forgotten, we can dismantle the entire depiction of it and build it anew, and none, even those with the keenest eyes would ever discern that an inconvenient, different truth might have existed in the first place.
'Hm,' she said to herself.
All that aside, though, she was still weak and in need of nourishment and shelter, and she would have to depend upon these until she was restored and she got her bearings. So, something told her that if Andraste's name served as passkey to survival, as it obviously did, she'd have to make sense of the pictures on the wall and of the odd, ill-sounding tongue the non-people spoke.
'Yes, Andraste,' she said, under her breath; it was not perfect but…
She fancied she'd come far for one night. It would take many more days and nights, and many more words for her to tell them any sort of truth.
Andruil, she nonetheless thought. My name is Andruil, the Great Huntress, mistress of all lesser creatures – like deer, and lynx, and snakes, and non-people. I am Andruil, I am awoken, and I have come awake to reclaim what is mine.
Well, hello there! Thank you for reading and commenting, one and all - and, hello Andruil.
Why, everyone was just hoping you would show...Ok, they weren't but who are we to judge?
We did say it was about to get interesting, did we not?
Thank you for reading and commenting,
Cheers,
Abstract & IvI