Private Tales Behind enemy lines..

[Katyr]

Katyr didn't have the energy to move.

It felt as though his very bones had frozen into place, like his whole body had turned into ice.

The warmth of the fire cast against his skin. It was almost painful, roiling against his flesh like some sort of attack. Yet as his eyes closed the sensation became more and more pleasant. Warmth began to spread through him, slowly, but there.

It was the first time in hours that he had felt any sort of comfort, and with Sorai's form pressed against his chest he could feel a sense of relief washing over him.

They would not die. Not yet.

Katyr could not have said how long they sat there. How long his arms remained wrapped around her or how long they allowed the fire to wash over them. Their clothes were still wet, their skin was still cold, but they had made it, at least for now.

A small spark of hope after the disaster they had endured. "N-need to dry our clothes."

The Elf said softly.

"U-u-use the f-fire." His voice still shook, his body still shivering.

 

[Sorai]

Her eyes were slowly drifting and had closed a moment before he'd spoken, causing her to flinch and promptly start shivering again. She frowned and mumbled something unintelligible in protest. She wanted to sleep so badly that she failed to care much if she never woke again. She shrugged off the shawl she had wrapped around her and shoved it closer to the fire, but she had no intention what-so-ever of taking off her dress. In her small clothes, outside, in front of a male?

Absolutely not.

She did however turn to nestle in against his chest, her face buried in the crook of his neck, seeking what warmth she could find as she let that blissful sleep tug at her consciousness again.

 

[Katyr]

His arms laced softly against her.

Katyr had never been taught modesty. Had never been told of any social contract. There had never been time, never been a moment to share those things with him.

In that moment all he cared about was the warmth of her skin, the comfort of her touch. A desperation sat within him, that little piece which sought nothing than survival. His fingers laced gently over her skin, his touch soft, bare.

It chased away the cold, pressed away the silent objection within the very back of his mind.

As they sat within that little cave, as the two of them enveloped one another all of history was forgotten. Every war, every battle was pushed to the back of the mind. It did not matter that they had born on opposite lines, didn't matter who they were.

They were alive.

More than that neither of them could ask for.

 

[Sorai]

A sleep deeper than any she could recall fell over her. One that teetered a little too close to death as her breathing shallowed and her heart slowed dangerously. But all she felt was peace as her body ceased its shivering and allowed itself to rest and gamble at life.

They soaked in what they could of the fire before it burnt out some time in the night, and after that shared whatever heat they had, cocooned together for survival's sake until the sun rose again.

 

[Katyr]

By the time dawn came Katyr had managed to find some measure of warmth, even sleep.

It was rare that he allowed him self such a thing, rarer still that he needed it. His people had always been gifted that way, something that humanity had always been envious of. Yet this night be slept, desperate for some much needed rest.

When dawn came his eyes did not snap open, but slowly drifted.

A haze clouded his mind, lips thinned as he glanced up in the cavern. The fire had burnt out hours ago, though a small tinge of warmth still lingered in the air thanks to the natural curve of the wall. He found himself wrapped around Sorai still, the heat of her body likely having saved his life.

A frown pluck at his lips as the thought.

Gently he nudged at her. "We can't linger here."

His voice was quiet, soft. Just loud enough to wake her.

 

[Sorai]

Her sleep was deep, and the gentle nudge was barely registered. His voice, however, elicited a ragged groan and she clung onto the arms wrapped around her for warmth's sake. She wanted to sleep, for another hour, a day, a week..

The thought of him letting go of her and the freezing air wrapping itself around her in his stead was almost painful. Sorai's skin was deathly pale, her lips a deeper shade of blue, and frost had clung to her lashes enough so that she could barely open her eyes.

"Mh.." she frowned, her mouth dry and throat raw from breathing the frigid air. She'd felt hours from death, and she wasn't entirely sure she wanted to resist it if it came for her. It felt.. inviting.

"Not yet.." she managed to croak out, her voice barely audible.

 

[Katyr]

"There's no time." Katyr said quietly.

In truth, he wanted the embrace of sleep more than Sorai did. He was tired, exhausted, broken. He could still feel the pain of his wounds, the ache that ran through them. It was an unpleasant sort that was difficult to ignore.

That wasn't even mentioning the absence of his magic.

He had used the last of it to save them from the river. His powers were near infinite, but only if he had the fuel. Out here there was nothing to take, nothing to seize. No Dreadlords, save for the one that was following them. "We have to go."

The Elf insisted.

"I can't risk a fight." Not with what had happened, not with his state.

 

[Sorai]

She wanted to plead with him just to leave her here and go, but she knew he'd be setting her free to die alone right here. It was everything she had to move, her entire body rigid and aching with cold and her skin was a ghastly shade of pale.

"I don't think.." she said as she sat up and hoped he'd help her the rest of the way.. "I can walk..very far.." she frowned. At the thought of walking as far as they had been over the last few days, she wanted to lay down and go back to sleep again. There wasn't an inch of her that wasn't in pain, and moving just made it worse.

 

[Katyr]

Katyr frowned for a moment. The tone of her voice, the soft pleading that ran through it. He couldn't help but feel a strand of sympathy. "Alright."

His people were hardier, stronger, faster, but they weren't eternal either.

The Elf felt the cloak of exhaustion just as much as Sorai did. He could likely have walked further and longer than she could, but even that would have been a meager fraction of what he was normally capable of. They couldn't afford to push themselves too much.

"We won't go far." He told her. "Just enough to get a little more distance."

For a moment he paused, then added. "And find somewhere safer to stop."

 

[Sorai]

Sorai held onto him, as much for some modicum of warmth as for stability. She had never felt so weak in all her life, but she put one foot in front of the other and forced herself to move.

"Tell me a s-story.." she whispered in a shuddered breath. "M-my m-mother and father wo-would tell me stories whenever I w-was travelling.. It always got me there f-aster." she laughed under her breath. She'd always been easily bored as a child, and the stories would give her something to focus on other than the tedious journeys.

 

[Katyr]

Katyr frowned a moment, trying to think as they slowly walked in tandem. "I don't know many stories."

The Elf admitted.

His had not been a life of tales and fictions, but of war. Still, there were some that he could still recall. Mostly those from when he had been a child himself. When his mother had still lived, and his father had been lost in the depths of the Falwood.

"It is said that there is a great Tree in the Falwood." He began softly. "A tree whose roots stretch the world over and keeps the earth together."

The Elf continued on. "It was once said that this tree began to whither, it's leaves falling, it's bark peeling."

He smiled softly.

"No one knew how to fix it. How to heal it. Until one day, in his simplicity, a child simply asked." Katyr continued. "To the surprise of even the Elders, the Tree answered."

His voice changed as he spoke again. "Oh little Elf. I am so very alone. So tired of carrying this burned on my own, so very tired."

Katyr glanced briefly at Sorai, ensuring she was still awake.

"So the little Elf made a promise, a promise that the tree would never be alone." A breath filled him. "And thus the second world tree was born. Standing in tandem, and holding the world together."

 

[Sorai]

Against all odds, Sorai moved. She could have been walking for five minutes or five hours, she wasn't sure, but she was sure she was walking. She was sure she was still here, still breathing. Alive.

Images burst to life in her mind as Katyr told his story, her eyes drifting heavily, though she remained awake to hear it. And then burst into tears.

She was cold. She was tired. She was hungry. She missed her home and her family, and she was afraid. Everything rose to the surface all at once, and she was as she felt - a complete emotional wreck.

"That was... Such...a n-nice....story." she sobbed and sniffled.

 

[Katyr]

Katyr watched as Sorai practically fell apart.

His fingers tightened on her for a brief moment, but he said nothing.

The Elf was...well...he was a broken man. He did not know anything to make her feel better, could not say anything to fix what had happened. A part of him hated the thought that he even wanted to. Sorai wasn't at fault for what had happened to him, hell, even her parents had not been alive when he'd been taken.

Yet the idea that he would feel pity for a human?

A century ago such a thing would have abhorred him to his core. Now he simply felt bad. Now he simply wanted to sit her down and have it all be over. So he clutched her a bit more tightly and kept walking, knowing that the sooner they reached shelter...the sooner this would be done.

All of it. As long as they made it.

He would keep that promise at least.

 

[Sorai]

The tears had dried up by the time they found shelter in the form of an old abandoned windmill. It was a rickety thing but it was dry inside and kept the icy wind off of their backs. The girl had all but fallen asleep in Katyr's hold, her feet dragging every few steps, and so she was grateful to be set down upon a pile of old grain sacks, pulling an empty one over her.

"How far away are we?" she asked weakly and coughed. She could feel the cold settling into her chest and her bones ached with it. Her eyes drifted closed until she forced them open again, afraid to fall asleep in case she didn't wake up again.

 

[Katyr]

Katyr had walked.

He had gone and gone until every part of his body had simply given out. By the time they reached the little windmill the Elf was all but spent. His muscles ached, his arms throbbed with pain, and his mind was on the edge of passing out.

Yet they had made it. Relative safety. An abandoned human building.

The world was so different than it had been one hundred years ago. It had changed so much while he'd wasted away within that cell. It seemed odd to him, and yet in that moment all he could feel was relief. Hope that perhaps they would be safe for a single nights sleep. "Ten...fifteen miles, maybe."

His voice was a rasp. He was so tired.

"Far enough." Katyr said as he sat himself on the same stacks as Sorai. "I think."

He hoped.

 

[Sorai]

Right now, ten or fifteen miles seemed like a few hundred. It felt impossible. She shook violently under the empty sack and a cough struck up.

"I'm not sure.. I'll make it that far..." she laughed mirthlessly under her breath, her eyes filled with tears. She was sick and she knew it, a fire wouldn't help her now.

"I really am sorry for what you s-suffered, Katyr.." she frowned.

 

[Katyr]

The words seemed to ring out, empty, forgotten, not enough.

A hundred years.

A century.

Half of that time had been spent beneath the knife. Fifty years enduring tortures at the hands of Nobles, Dreadlords, Archons. All of them trying to break him. All of them doing their best to ruin and shatter what he had been. A single apology, a few words...they didn't seem enough.

"It-" Katyr knew. He understood.

The anger still sat within his core. The rage still lingered. He knew that it always would. Knew that there was no ridding of it. "No-not your fault."

Yet at the same time he understood.

Sorai had not chosen the cruelty of her ancestors. She'd not guided the hand which had beaten him, tried to break him.

It was no more her fault than it was any others. "R-r-rest."

He told her.

"U-until dawn." The elf stammered. "Un-until both of us sleep."

 

[Sorai]

Sorai gave as much of a nod as she could manage, but she was reluctant to let her eyes close. Not that it mattered, she had no choice in the matter and sleep dragged her under. Her sleep was fitful and wild with hallucinations of horrors that she'd already seen, or those she feared.

Fever took hold of her - cold sweats and chills wracking her body despite her skin being dangerously hot.

 

[Katyr]

Katyr slept in fits and starts.

He drifted in and out of rest, dragging himself to consciousness every little while to ensure that they were both still alive. He felt Sorai struggle, saw the sheen of sweat on her skin. It was in the small hours of the morning, before the sun rose, that the Elf felt small flickers of recovery.

There was still an ache to him, but unlike Sorai he had no fever, no sickness. His constitution, trained at the hand of Dreadlords and Inquisitors alike, pulled through. His gaze flickered through the empty building they found themselves in.

He slowly moved around the old mill, pulling open closets and ancient chests. He found a blanket, buried and likely used to help in moving a long time ago.

Katyr carried it back to Sorai, wrapping her in the heavy wool as she shivered. "Sorai."

His words were quiet, soft. He was not even sure she would have heard him with a yell.

"I need to get some things." He was not much better off than her, Katyr knew that, but if he didn't venture out she would surely die. Water. Food. Wood for a fire.

Anything that might save their lives.

 

[Sorai]

She barely heard him at all, but her brow furrowed and she mumbled something at the distant sound of her name. Even with the heavy wool being wrapped around her she shivered as her body tried as hard as it could to fight the fever, but it was a fight she was currently losing.

She flinched at all of the terrible things that flashed through her mind, things she'd seen and vivid hallucinations that her mind created of its own accord.

"Katyr.." the shuddered whisper fell from her lips though her eyes remained closed and her brow furrowed as she continued to mumble incoherently.

 

[Katyr]

Katyr returned hours later.

He had known that Sorai sat on the edge of death, known that she was teetering back and forth. Yet he'd also known that they needed to survive. So he had pushed himself, ventured far into the wood and tried to find what he could that would help them.

These lands, after near two hundred years, were utterly foreign. Yet as he stepped back through the broken door of the windmill the Elf carried a stolen pack. It was slung over his shoulder, carrying herbs, clothes, and a few berries that he had scrounged up.

It all came from a village, one near ten miles away from here.

He'd not been able to go in, of course, but moving as a ghost he'd plucked what he could when he was beyond the sight of the humans within. "Sorai."

The Elf called out as he approached her, ragged and aching from his journey as well as the day before.

From the pack he pulled out the herbs, quickly working with them. Briefly...he wondered why he was working so hard to keep her alive. Why he would bother. Why so much had changed.

 

[Sorai]

"Hm.." Sorai gave a semi-conscious response to the sound of her name being spoken. She'd stopped shaking, only because she'd slipped past freezing to numbness. Her skin was pale and clammy and her dark tresses stuck to her face.

She tried to drag herself back from the abyss that continued its efforts to pull her under, uncertain whether she'd wake again if she gave over to the comfort of it. Her lashes fluttered open, though she could barely keep from closing them again. She frowned as she saw Katyr, unsure whether he was another hallucination, and so she quietly mumbled his name to make sure..

"Is it morning?" she croaked.

 

[Katyr]

"A night passed." Katyr had tried to get what he needed as fast as he could, but it had taken time. These lands were still unfamiliar to him, and he'd needed to explore and cut through the woods to find everything.

He knew better now where they were, but he had half expected Sorai to be all but dead when he returned.

A part of him was surprised she could even muster the strength to speak. "You need to have some of this."

The Elf said as he produced a small cup. It was filled with an odd green paste, then quickly filled with water which turned to a mixture nearly as solid as moss. The drink would suppress her fever, and help with her healing.

At least he hoped so.

"It will help." He said softly as he reached up and pressed the cup to her lips, softly running his hand under her neck to support her head.

 

[Sorai]

Sorai didn't seem to take in what he'd said, her eyes distant as she blinked heavily at him. "My father was here.. I t-told him you weren't ..here." she frowned and let a sigh loose.. "He's gone now.." she added as her eyes closed again.

Her head was heavy atop his hand and she groaned quietly at the scent of whatever he was pressing to her lips. She near choked at the taste of it, but she forced herself to swallow the putrid mixture.

"You are.." she grimaced. "An awful cook." she breathed.

 

[Katyr]

A frown touched his face. "Sad I missed him."

The Elf commented dryly, though he knew that Sorai was obviously hallucinating. No one had come in his time away, most certainly not Sorai's father. He shook his head for a moment, biting his tongue as he watched her drink a bit of the mixture.

"Yes." He agreed. "I am."

Katyr had never been allowed near the cookpots, even during the war. One of the others had always taken care of their meals. "But it will keep you alive."

The Elf pointed out quietly. "Drink it all."

He encouraged, putting the glass back to her lips.