Private Tales Lost In the Woods

[Fraeya]

They would be dead on the ground. She was more than tempted to leave him there while she climbed the tree to relative safety. She even found the weight tipping to the balls of her toes to turn around and start climbing. A sharp claw at her back caused her to pause and face the boy again.

Ugh, seriously Ember?

She sighed. Hands fell to her hips. Her own arm was feeling better by the minute. "Take off your armor. I need to take a look. Are you opposed to magic healing?"

If he was, well. Then she'd leave him on the ground alone and climb the tree.

 

[Talus]

He frowned for a second, wondering if he wanted to let the Elf's magic even touch him. The idea was...disgusting, but at this point it was either that or death. Fingers tightened, and then after a moment he let out a sigh. "No."

It was a very begrudging answer.

Talus did not like being healed, though that might have been because the only healing magic he'd ever experienced had come at the hands of a Dreadlord. The act and the sensation itself was far from pleasant, almost painful.

He didn't think this would be any different.

"It's just my forearm." He said as he used his left hand to strip the gauntlet and glove away from his right. "Above the elbow is fine."

Part of his training had been to diagnose injuries. Had she not been here he would have put a splint on it soon.

 

[Fraeya]

She stepped closer. He'd catch the smell of juniper, mint, and pine on the elf. Fingers reached out and gingerly took him arm. It looked like a bruise, swollen, and fat pig. Definitely messed it up real good.

The moons weren't full tonight. Luckily for him, it was summer and not winter, so her magic wouldn't be completely weakened - tied to nature. Take a long, steady breath, she closed her eyes. With fingers light on his skin, she began drawing in the magic of the forest. Of the moons. Of the summer.

This would not be like the Dreadlord healing.

This would be like the touch of a soft breeze in the summer air. It wouldn't be without pain. But it would be a lot gentler. More of a tickling and pulling sensation that a snapping and pushing sensation. His bones began to knit back in place. Pieces coming together. Swelling subsiding.

 

[Talus]

The sensation that ran through him arm was not painful, but not exactly pleasant either.

Talus, like other Apprentice Dreadlords, had been forced into a high tolerance of pain. He could manage well in agony, so the healing touch Fraeya offered him was no more uncomfortable than bandaging an ordinary wound.

His face lit up with no small amount of shock.

He felt his bones slowly move, the muscles knitting back together, everything falling into place where it should be. The sensation was odd, goosebumps running over his flesh as he took in a sharp breath.

When she was finished Talus slowly curled his hand, almost as if checking that everything had been returned to it's rightful place. "Th-thank you."

The apprentice managed to stutter out.

 

[Fraeya]

Fingers slid free from his arm and her eyes opened. She stepped back and gave a quick, curt nod with a grunt in response to his thanks. He was making her uncomfortable. Adjusting her pack, she turned and eyed one particularly tall and large tree that had a good amount of branches for hand and footholds.

"We'd better get pretty high until first light," she whispered.

And even though she'd called upon her connection with nature to heal him, she still felt the weariness. There was still a cost of energy there. And she was still healing herself.

Stepping up to the tree, she began pulling herself skyward with the grace of a dancer.

 

[Talus]

Talus spent a few moments replacing the gauntlet of his armor. The plate-mail was thin, but forged from Anirian Steel and made with the hands of a Fourth Level Dreadlord. It had been a reward for him when he'd managed to win his first duel.

The student he'd faced had been an older lad, three years his senior and a group above him. Talus had managed to skewer the boy and throw him off the tower.

He remembered it well, the boys face, the blood, and how the Proctors had treated him with immense pride after. It wouldn't due to leave any of the armor behind. After settling the glove back on his fingers the Apprentice grasped onto a low branch and began to pull himself up.

His progress was slower than the elves', he was less lithe and carried more weight, but he managed to pull himself up.

 

[Fraeya]

Finding a wide branch high enough with a fork, she paused. This would do. Wide enough she wouldn't have to worry about tipping in her sleep and falling over the edge. Wide enough, she could place her pack down without worry about losing that either. And there was another branch just beneath her that would probably suit the human.

Glancing down, she realized he was a good ways beneath her.

The armor was probably making him slower. Then again, humans were slower in general. More body mass. Unshouldering her pack carefully, she untied the top. A little dragon head poked cautiously out. Fraeya whispered in a strange language, quiet enough that Talus probably wouldn't hear it.

 

[Talus]

"What!?" Talus called up to her as she said something he couldn't quite hear.

He wasn't really sure if the Elf intended to sleep, but he certainly did not.

In situations like this rest was all well and good, but they were surrounded by monsters and a thousand other things that wanted to see them dead. Even if it took three days to leave this forest, sleep was not something he could afford.

Especially up in a tree.

No. Sleep would not come to him. Instead he would do as his Masters at the Academy had taught him. The technique was dangerous, and quite truthfully not much better than blood magic, but it would have to do while he was in here.

When the Elf wasn't watching he would carve a symbol into himself. A type of Rune Magic really. It would allow him to keep awake longer, essentially 'stealing' stamina from his later self. The price could be bad, even deadly, but he didn't see that he had much of a choice.

There were things lurking in the dark, and he didn't exactly trust the Elf either.

 

[Fraeya]

"Nothing," she called down quickly. Fraeya was tempted to ignore him but chose instead to respond. Ember flicked his tongue in her direction and hopped out of the pack, scurrying up the tree out of site. Fraeya gave him one last look before turning around and checking on the boy's progress.

He'd be fine.

She didn't want to have to heal his broken bones again.

Moving her lighter pack behind her, she eased down on her back, using her pack to rest her head. Arms fanned out on either side of her head, hands cradling her neck. Chest rose and fell in a deep breath.

Felt good to lie down.

"You should get some sleep," she called out, letting her legs cross at her ankles. Pointed ears twitched, picking up sounds of the creatures around them. But really listening for one familiar sound.

 

[Talus]

Talus wondered if the Elf even understood the danger that they were in. Perhaps her species was a bit more careless in places like this, but Talus?

Talus wasn't going to get eaten.

"I'll do my best." He called back to her as he pushed himself back onto a thicker branch and pulled out a small knife. He glanced up at her, making sure that she did not look down at him as he pulled back a small piece of leather covering the inside of his thigh.

There he would work quickly in carving the symbol.

He'd done this once before during a survival test. The Proctors had tossed him and a few others into the Falwood, told them to make their way back and survive if they could. Some of the other students had banded together and thought they could eliminate their eventual competition.

He, Hal, Sierra, and Luther had taught them other wise. It was one of the few times they had all managed to work together without being at each others throat. A third of their class had died during that week, but the Proctors had never asked now.

The thoughts on that time, Talus dug the knife into his skin.

 

[Fraeya]

That magic she'd used earlier combined with the last effects of the poison leaving her system made it easy for Fraeya to close her eyes. To surrender to sleep. She wasn't as worried as the human.

After her enslavement in Elbion, well. Perhaps death was better than getting caught again. She couldn't help the shiver that ran down her spine if they caught her again. Would they erase her memories? Would she become a mindless slave?

Eyes closed and she was quickly asleep, surrounded by her dark and brooding thoughts.

 

[Talus]

The minute he finished carving the symbol a hit of exhilaration struck him. It was impossible to describe, not unlike waking up from a dream in which one died.

It struck him in an instant, landing on him like an edge and causing his eyes to pop open. Lips thinned, and he let out a slow grunt as the knife pulled away from the now glowing symbol.

Slowly the leathers were drawn over it.

"Okay." He whispered to himself as he looked up at the Elf and cleaned the blood of his blade.

Now it was a matter of waiting and seeing if the Elf would actually stick to her word or if he would end up dead in some pond. His fingers tightened, and in the back of his head he wished he had something more familiar close.

 

[Fraeya]

Fraeya could feel it was morning. The shift in nature. The baby's breath stretching to get the first rays. Nocturnal animals turning in while the daylighters began to stir. Warmth from the light that managed to break through the surrounding canopy.

Eyes beneath lids stirred as she slowly woke.

It would seem that had not gotten eaten in the night. Sitting up, heels of her hands pushed the remaining sleep from her eyes. Head would peak over the wide-branch she'd slept on, searching for the boy.

 

[Talus]

Talus was already on the ground of the forest, having climbed down from the branch nearly an hour before when he'd thought something moved around them.

There was an odd tick to his body, an energy that had not been there the night before. He seemed awake, alert, more so than he should have been after waking up even an hour ago. The young Apprentice glanced up, almost as if he knew Fraeya had moved.

"We should go." He called up towards her.

He did not know why, but for some reason he felt as though something were out there, something watching them. It was unsettling, and he could feel the sensation slowly crawling up his spine.

This forest felt haunted.

 

[Fraeya]

Eyes narrowed in suspicion and surprise. Up already? Strange. Most humans lazed about in the mornings.

"Be down in a sec," she called, then stepped from view and craned her neck upward. That whispered, foreign language carried up into the trees. She was calling Ember back. The little dragon's belly would be full of forest mice by now. With the skittering of little claws, he made his way back to his elf companion.

She made sure he climbed on the opposite side of the tree's trunk, so the human wouldn't see him before tucking him safely back in her pack. The dragon would most likely sleep through the day.

"What's your name?" Fraeya began making her way down.

 

[Talus]

Talus watched her for a brief moment before glancing back around the clearing.

He'd decided that among the creatures out there the Elf was least likely to hurt him. If she had intended to stab him in the back then healing him would have been idiotic. Due to that act alone he trusted her...if only just a tiny little bit.

"Talus." The young Apprentice said quietly, still watching the lines of the clearing they were standing in.

Perhaps giving her his real name was not the smartest idea, but he didn't really think about it. Lessons of the Great Game came much later in the development of Dreadlords, and for now he still only thought really about surviving all of this.

Despite the misery waiting for him at home, he did not want to die. "Yours?"

 

[Fraeya]

As gracefully as she climbed up, down seemed two-fold. In nearly no time at all, her soft-booted feet his the forest floor. She looked to Talus. There was something to be said about surviving an ordeal with another. Even if there was a very clear fence they stood on opposite sides of.

"Fraeya," she admitted slowly. Wanted posters of her spread far and wide. But there was a good enough chance that if he didn't recognize her then he probably wouldn't know her name. And it seemed surviving was the one thing on his mind. And besides, she doubted he'd be able to take her in.

He'd never be able to catch her.

"This way," her chin tipped toward the sound of a burbling river.

 

[Talus]

As far as Elf names went, it was pronounceable.

He supposed that was a check in the win column of this whole thing. Hal had once talked about an Elf Lord that lead an army during the second Elven War whose name had been an absolutely nightmare to say out loud. Talus was pretty sure he'd blocked it from his memory in order not to have to try and even speak it within his own mind.

Shaking his head Talus placed his off hand on the hilt of his sword and quickly followed after Fraeya. Paranoia still clung to him. He didn't know what this forest contained or who, at any moment he was expecting another beast to jump out and attack them.

"These woods." He prompted as they walked.

Vel Anir technically owned this Grove, or at least the city claimed to. It was far north of the Falwood and closer to the Savanah than the home of the Elves. It was odd to him that she would be here, near enough a thousand leagues away from Fal'Addas and the rest of her people. "Are they your home?"

Talus doubted she would be truthful, but asking didn't hurt.

 

[Fraeya]

The small scales on the corners of her eyes scrunched as her eyes temporarily squeezed closed. Just as quickly, eyes snapped open. Talus didn't deserve the truth. Nor could she trust him. But sometimes, the truth was easier to tell.

"I don't have a home." Hand came forward as she drew back bush and branches. The river was getting louder now. More of a roar than a burble. "I suppose you could say wherever I travel is my home. Temporarily."

Eyes flickered around cautiously.

"Even this place." The truth was, her family was her home. And her only family left was nestled and napping in her pack.

 

[Talus]

"That's depressing." Talus said quietly.

Even he had a home, granted that home was broken and filled with people that beat him daily, but it was still a place to go back to. He wondered if that was any better at all.

Oddly, he thought about the others at that moment. Hal, Sierra, and even Luther. The four of them had survived in a forest much like this one to eventually make it hope. Now he was doing the same side by side with an elf. It felt…odd, yet strangely familiar. A frown settled on his face as the sound of rushing water echoed throughout the trees surrounding them.

"We should stop for water." He called. "Otherwise I won't make it far."

The words were said as a massive waterfall came into view in front of them.

 

[Fraeya]

"It wasn't always like this," she murmured and knew it would probably be missed by Talus. Maybe that's what made it more painful. Her upbringing had been a charmed, carefree life. And all that had been stripped and beaten away from her. Mind-washed away by the mages of Alliria, or so they thought.

The girl nodded back to him.

Swinging her pack off her shoulders, she flipped the top and took out a waterskin. Just as quickly the pack was closed and re-hefted onto one shoulder. She stepped toward the edge of the water, keeping a watchful eye on any river sirens, sprites, or nymphs that might want to pull them under.

 

[Talus]

It was funny. Though perhaps neither of then realized it they practically shared the same experience. For Talus it had been ongoing, and there was no escape for him, but the two had at least for the last couple of years been undergoing the same thing.

They were slaves to a system that they did not necessarily support.

Fraeya had managed to escape her fate, had even had a life before it. Talus remembered nothing of the time with his parents, even their faces were but washed memories replaced by the blood and slaughter he'd endured in his years at the Academy.

He leaned down and filled his water skin, watching the rippling waves and searching for anything dangerous.

When nothing came he took a few step backs, his gaze falling on the opposite side of the small river where the trees held an odd sort of darkness to them. He knew that it was daytime, but none of the sun seemed to reach the earth ahead of them. "Is that where we're going?"

The Apprentice asked quietly.

 

[Fraeya]

Fraeya took a swig from the water before working the skin back in her pack. Straps were adjusted and she straightened. Purple-gaze turned toward the dark trees Talus pointed to. Head panned up and down the river. They needed a way across.

"Yes. Fastest way to get to the edge." It was unfortunate that he couldn't just travel north with her. The fastest way may not be the safest.

"Might be a crossing further down river." She pointed ahead of them. She didn't like being this close to the river. The white noise made it harder to hear the woods around them.

 

[Talus]

He nodded his head. "Further down."

Briefly Talus wondered if it was a good idea to follow the Elf at all. He knew what the other Apprentices would think, knew what the Proctors would say.

Vel Anir had a deep seeded hatred of Elven Kind. The four Ruling Houses were trying to change that for as long as he remembered, but most adults he knew still insisted on carrying on their xenophobia. The nobility especially.

There was no laws against helping an Elf or seeking help from one, but...

"I don't trust the noise." He told her. "And I think..."

Lips thinned. "Something might be waiting over there."

 

[Fraeya]

Perhaps he was more intuitive than she first thought.

"I think you're right," she agreed, eyeing the woods carefully. "Not much else we can do. If...whatever it is, is already stalking us then it won't give up the hunt."

She picked up her pace to a light jog. "What were you doing out here alone, anyway? You seem...young." So was she but this was a question about him.