Private Tales Return to the hindlands.

[Sigrith]

Being told she had a weird aura was certainly not the worst thing a stranger had said about her, to her face. She chose not to look to far into it - witches were robed in weird, it was known.

Her gaze shifted from the crocodile (what on earth was that thing?) to the cat, "I am her guardian. I go nowhere without her. Why do you need help?"

 

[Sannoru]

The feline cleared her throat as she tried to wriggle past the bombastic crocodilian. Though before the little un could talk, the fox stepped ahead. "O-Sannoru of the thousand valleys...friend of the temple."
Her gaze wandered from the sleeping one to the one wide awake.
"If she could trust you, so could we. Would you perhaps, help us wake a kin of ours?"

 

[Sigrith]

Sigrith narrowed her eyes at the collection of them, finding the ask peculiar.

"There is a saying where I come from in letting sleeping bears lie. What need do you have of waking them?"

Often things slumbered for reasons. Important reasons.

 

[Sannoru]

»W-w-well perhaps you could help f-f-figure out why, « whispered the little cat. »Papa Atsui w-was always f-f-f-ist to w-w-ake up. B-but not anymore.«

 

[Sigrith]

Troublesome little things. Sigrith gave them an irritable grunt in reply.

"We shall see, after we have rested." They had traveled far and even fatigue had caught up to the tundra Witch. San seemed to be ill at ease in her homelands, which had made rest hard to come by. Now that she had found sleep, Sigrith was not keen on waking her.

"Go away now, leave us in peace."

 

[Sannoru]

The feline guardian seemed a little distraught, but took the hint from Sigrith when the tiny fox patted her shoulder.
Each step they took as they dispersed rocked the wood heavily. Surprisingly, San still would not wake up at such a ruckus. Perhaps there was some sort of nostalgia still left within her, of the days before the decades-long darkness that was her prison cell. Even then, there was no sense of freedom in the open.

Just the two and the tomb of a long-gone prophet.

 

[Sigrith]

Sigrith waited until the echoes of their visitors had faded into the distant silence beyond before tucking in to her elf companion and dozing off once again. The witch remained unbothered by the tomb-like ambiance of their present shelter. Given her proclivity for things beyond the living realm, the stillness of age and history and death was naught but a place of comfort and familiarity.

She stirred only when rays of sunlight peeked through the uncovered windows of the temple.

"San," Sigrith withdrew her arms from around the smaller figure nestled into her, feeling the chill of dissipating warmth as she pulled the wolfpelt away, "we need to keep moving."

 

[Sannoru]

"we need to keep moving."

The elf woke up, but remained on the ground, eyes blinking slowly as they took in the blinding contrast of the starting light. Never quite able to see the inate beauty of the sunrise as other races could.
What she did spot though, were tiny footprints left in the thin layer of dust of the temple.

She roused fully, getting up and stretching her arms, eventually taking a good look over the flower-patterned sheet of theirs, before starting to fold it neatly.
»Looks like the temple guardians took notice of us.«
The morning air was colder, still, it could barely compare to the nights spent in Eretejva.
And San back then thought of this land as frigid.