Ynsidia was disappointed.
Her Ink Raven was annihilated in seconds when she penetrated the mist with it, she stepped in expecting the same, likely awful, but equally quick demise. Instead, she was met with only poor visibility. At first anxious, then suspicious, and finally disappointed, Ynsidia wondered what the big deal was all about. Clearly, this phenomenon couldn’t be all that bad. Sure! It caused her to bleed from the eyes when she sent a Conjure into it, but the Conjure was magic. Here she was, flesh and bone and bored as all Hells!
Maybe magic had decided to sort of distort, become polluted, and this was the result of such a thing. Maybe some dumb experiment in the arcane had happened somewhere and unleashed a distortion across
Arethil’s spiritual lay-lines, lit them up like black powder along a path of dead leaves. ‘Maybe’ was endless. It was like asking ‘Why?’, there was no end in that as well! But Maybe is what preoccupied Ynsidia’s mind right then as she stepped about with limited sight, trying to make out anything hostile under the rosy haze she was enveloped in.
A sound? A distortion?
She turned about on the heels of her booted feet.
Nothing.
Another let down. She’d lunged in expecting...well, anything! Life had been good at throwing everything at her, why should a ghastly cloud of anti-magic mist be any damned different? She wanted it to be lethal. Some part of her needed it to be a threat.
Then, suddenly…
But a fleeting glimpse as the haze lifted...then a flash and-
“Elveszett! El-ves-zett!” a sweet voice called
Ynsidia bolted upright...in bed??? She blinked blurry vision, a tremble thrilling its way down her spine. Cold sweat clung to her face like the kisses of passionate lovers she’d only dreamt of in the bad-girl fantasies of a virgin like herself.
“There there, Elveszett; no need to startle, it’s just me!” the sweet voice, comforted.
Vision clearing, Ynsidia blinked. The impossible hovered before her.
“Mother!?!” she managed with a shocked tremble in her voice.
*****
“What happened earlier? Madelle?” Gurath asked, coming from the small oven that took up most of the living room area of the hovel, a pile of eggs steaming upon a large plate in hand. Madelle shrugged, looking over at Elveszett, who, still regarded her with wide, wet eyed awe.
“She must have had a rather awful night with her pillow, Dear; she hugged me like she hadn’t seen me in years!”
This was impossible, Elveszett thought to herself, but didn’t understand why. Her dreams had been vague...awful really. Dreams of sharp, steel edges breaching her flesh. Of blood and black pools, of filthy
cities, and violent
battles in alleyways...she shuddered in her chair at the table.
“I’ll be okay...” she managed as her father set the plate of eggs down in the center of the table.
Her mother grinned.
“I think you’re just having cold feet dear; with your sixteenth birthday tomorrow and all...”
Elveszett perked up at this.
“The sweetest one, no?” she said, taking up a fork, her parents doing the same. They said a quick grace to a specific goddess of domestic fowl, and dug into the piled high plate of yellow, scrambled protein. Munching in silence for awhile.
“Why would I have cold feet about turning sixteen?” Elveszett asked, realizing how odd her mother’s remark was. Her mother promptly swallowed a mouthful of egg.
“Well, most brides are on their wedding day, child!”
At that, Elveszett froze, the egg on her fork falling back down to the plate it was scooped from.
*****
“He’s a good match, as you well know! Now quite asking about a young man you’re more familiar with than myself, Kiddo, and help me shape some of this clay!” her father said, getting the wheel going, the space next to him with chair and wheel also, he indicated with a nod. Elveszett sat down, and started rotating the wheel, her feet and hands in simultaneous motion. Wheel and clay. Solid and malleable converging on her senses, a clay pot forming in moments. A simple, wonderful passage of silence and creativity.
“Blaight is handsome, yes?” she asked.
“That’s up to the woman to decide, El; I still don’t know if your mother married me because I was good looking, or because I had land, a dwelling, and an established trade!”
At this they shared a laugh together, Elveszett stopping her motions suddenly, her smile dissolved into a pensive frown.
“Father?”
“Yes, El?”
“I have a question...and unkind one...”
Gurath answered her before she could ask, stopping his motions too.
“Mother loved you on sight...I had reservations, but I was wrong to have them; my biggest regrets. I bought you from the traders because your mother was lonely and needed a companion, but feel I’m the one who benefited most. Me. You. Here...”
And he fanned his arms out, indicating the whole of his pottery shop.
“I can’t imagine life, this place, without you, Elveszett...I can’t go on without you now...You are my daughter, a treasure I cherish above all things...I love you.”
Elveszett’s eyes started to water, continuing the motions she’d aborted moments ago, she set her misting sights on refining the pot’s form.
“Th-thank you, father...I love you too...”
*****
“Gods, you're acting strange...stranger than normal, that is!” Blaight said, his face like a sunrise when his lips smiled, powder blue eyes grinning too. His wavy, chestnut brown hair was a bit long and a bit more unkempt, the soft breeze trembling it. Careless, and carefree. He was the same age as her, and yes – very, very HANDSOME.
“Just humor me!” Elveszett said with a bit of playful force behind her words. Blaight sidled up close, throwing an arm about her shoulders. His other hand he used to point and trace the idyllic little hamlet of thatched roofs and mortar walls. Atop a hill, afternoon was well on, Blaight pointed out the stream running along side the village, the dense edge of the forest about a mile off, a mill, the road leading to the nearby
Vel Anir, etc.
“...and there's my house next to your father's shop; we met on your first day working there with him.”
Elveszett nodded, a toothy smirk surfaced on her face.
“Oooh, I remember! I was use to shaping clay by hand, but not with a wheel involved. The clay was a lot wetter than I was used to and I ended up spattering a bunch of it about the shop walls, father, and you.”
Blaight guffawed.
“It took me almost a year to trust you after that fiasco; us being just kids and all then, you were one of the few girls my age, and I was being pressured by my old man to go find someone to play with to get me out of the house.”
Elveszett placed a hand on Blaight's back, firm, youthful muscles she found there, and lightly pressed her fingers to them.
“I think your father was trying to get you and me familiar with each other enough to justify an arrangement.”
Laughing again, Blaight shook his head.
“If so, I wonder why.”
A low chuckle sounded from Elveszett.
“That's a simple explanation, my dear; your dad wants free pots!”
*****
“You're a lucky girl, you know that?”
Blaight said as they walked along the stream, sunset painting it orange. A soft breeze was at their backs. Elveszett regarded him, noticing his intonation was a bit somber. His expression matched.
“Brighten up!” she said cheerfully.
“I mean, with what you've been through; you suffered so much before coming here, you're lucky to have survived, I...I just want to make sure you're comfortable with me...okay with us, this...” and he indicated the village ahead with a wave of his hand. Elveszett nudged into Blaight as they walked along, leaning her shoulder against his arm. She clasped his near hand with both of hers, and looked up into his eyes.
“I am. Everything you and I need is right here. What more could I want?” she replied.
“Adventure?” he replied back.
Evleszett was reminded of her dream, the images and experiences that made her shiver. Who was she in those dreams? She shook her head presently.
“Last night, I dreamt a life time of adventure. How could I ever want such a chaotic life? No, its me and you forever after we exchange vows tomorrow. Blaight and...” she started
“...Iphigenia. The woman I love above all others...”
Realization dawned, her black eyes narrowing. Deep down Elveszett knew that somehow, none of this was ever real.
*****
She went back to the shop. Moon high, the wheels and tools for pottery gleamed silvery under the light. Elveszett couldn't go home, otherwise she would never be able to follow through with what she was about to do. She felt along the waistline of her simple, yet charming peasant dress. They'd be there, she'd have them, otherwise…
No.
A wave of disappointment.
“None of this is real...”
Elveszett said to herself, finding one of the knives in the shop, she held out her right hand, palm down, and closed her eyes, dwelling wholly on the 'dream' as she brought the knife's edge against the skin of her palm. She halted there.
Words? WORDS! There was words to be said!
They came to her lips almost too easily, too familiar and it scared her as her voice was something darker, harsher.
"Over thee I cast,
Myself is thine canvas blank.
Possibilities."
Shivering at the painful, cold bite of a fine edge as she moved the blade across her palm, Elveszett continued.
"My blood is dawn red,
Coaxing you to awake now.
Breath your first morning!"
*****
Ynsidia's eyes shot open, and she gasped aloud. Her magic words had activated the arcane qualities within her, qualities that the that the nightmare landscape she currently occupied made scalding as it flowed through her. It was intensely uncomfortable. She was awake though, but not free. Thin, pale, gray tendrils were coiled about her legs and torso. It took every inch of self control and discipline to not come out of her skin, not to panic and scream. Taking stock of herself, she noted that she was being dragged away from most of her clothes (the heavy robes) rather slowly. A disheveled pile of garish finery with her slave shackles, and Rapier on top that was narrowly within reach, her finger tips caught the ornate pommel and held it firm. She then took stock of what was dragging her. A crab-like creature was the owner of the tendrils, the tendrils anchored into bulbous sockets that ran just underneath its spiky brown shell.
The tendrils emanated slurping noises, her blood trickling from where their tips met her bare skin. Like leaches, the were drinking, feeding off of her. Eight stocky legs with intermittent horns protruding from their respective lengths stabbed into the dead surface of the cursed earth and progressed them forward.
“Why are you awake? Go back to sleep...Iphigenia, my love.” the grotesque creature spoke from some unseen maw tenderly. The voice sounded all to familiar.
“Blaight?” she managed weakly.
“Yes, Iphigenia?” it answered back, almost obediently.
“How?”
“What do you mean?”
“My parents. My home. My village. The whole dream world. ”
A mirthless cackle followed her question.
“Isn't life but that? You strayed into it. My weaving. It snares those who are awake, and puts them into slumber. I crafted it when I saw you, Iphigenia; I wanted it to be special. I can get you back into it; I can make you happy there. My mind can weave a world without pain or want for you…but now that you are aware you're going to have to make this easier for me. You have to go back asleep. I can make you happy again, Iphigenia; we can be together there for as long as you last...please sleep.”
It pleaded. Rapier handle now in hand, and as weak as Ynsidia felt, she gripped it firmly.
“I still don't know how you awoke from my weaving. You must sleeper lighter than others.”
Groaning, Ynsidia raised her Rapier up.
“You used my name...my real name in the dream; I have not, and never would have, told anyone my actual name.”
Blaight made a humming sound at this, as if considering what she said.
“Trust me, you never will...Iphigenia.”
Ynsidia continued.
“You also got rid of my shackles in the dream...”
“Shackles? Oh, yes, those; why do you carry them wrapped around your waist like a belt?”
Ynsidia aimed the strike, hoping to catch as many of the myriad tentacles.
“Because I don't want to forget what happened to me.”
Another cackle from Blaight.
“I can give you your little gray cloud in our sunny dream, Iphigenia. Go back to sleep and you will have your chains; no harm done!”
“I beg to differ.” Ynsidia snarled, bringing the strike she prepared down with all her might.
The
monster, or demon, or whatever the Hells it was, screamed as its various tendrils were severed. Stocky legs stiffening, it waved two massive serrated pincers at the end of carapace covered arms. Ynsidia swung again, and again, severing more tendrils. The prehensile appendages slackened and some fell from her person. She stood, feeling woozy, and wobbling like a drunkard. The tendrils that had not let go still clung to her person, twitching as she moved forward.
Blaight turned about, its hideous face contorted in pain. Ynsidia stabbed into an open, toothy maw with a furious bellow. The armored monstrosity chocked and gurgled out a moan, then dropped down dead, its legs fanning out beneath it. Ynsidia heaved a sigh of relief before tearing off the tendrils that hung from her. Each on removed drew a cry from her lips.
When she went to pull her Rapier free from the insides of Blaight, she froze. The dead monster's eyes still open, they were a bright, beautiful powder blue, looking shocked and betrayed.
With a sob, Ynsidia began weeping.
And long she did until she felt the caress of familiar energies. Not of herself but deeper into the Hellscape a great force seamed to flow. Managing to pull the Rapier free, she wiped the gore off on Blaight's shell, then went about sorting herself out. Putting herself together one article of clothing at a time.
She had no idea where she was. But she could sense something greater than herself beyond. Ynsidia intended to find it.
Anything to take her mind off of losing what she never had...
