gallowglass

A Life Left To Kill - Day 0

A rush of sound moving fast through a tunnel and then...voices, the scrape of weapons being sheathed, feet stamping, names called out. a dull ache coming at me sideways. I can move my left hand a little. I'm holding something. I uncurl one finger experimentally. Someone shouts out and laughs. I understand the language being used so assume, hesitantly, that i am in a safe place. I decide to leave my eyes closed for now. There is warm stone under my cheek and a bitter smell like copper. I feel a wind blow up and rustle the hair on the back of my head. I wonder if that means there's a door behind me? Starting with my neck, moving down my arms to my hands, down my thorax to my buttocks, thighs, calves and feet, I slowly tense and un-tense my muscles. Checking for injury by rote, to the meter of some buried instinct i cannot control. there is pain in my back. Located centrally in the lumbar region, maybe around the bottom 2 vertebrae and blossoming out like a stain over my lower back to my hips where it sits throbbing. my right arm is numb also, but that may just be the result of it being under my weight, crushed against the ground. I find i am holding something in my right hand as well.

I'm breathing in and breathing out. both good signs, I think. I decide to try opening an eye, the left one first. It's a bit gummed shut but gradually it opens and is assaulted first by light and then by colour. I blink rapidly a few times and wait for it to adjust. I see large feet and large legs and a teeny person sitting among them like a nymph in her forest home, looking at me. She is smiling. I cast around a bit and see brightly coloured clothing and armour and shields. Weapons hanging from sides. Lots of weapons. I take it as a good omen that none of them look to be pointed in my direction and begin the un-sticking of my other eye.

There is movement among the gathered standing bodies and the cacophony dies away like water raining from a bath. I sense people in bright robes entering the throng and a low murmur begins. There is a blinding flash of bright light off to my right which I shut my eyes tight against, and a keening explosive sound which ends in a sort of POP. Then nothing else. The collective hum of bodies close together is vanished. A bird calls out to its mate nearby. A door creaks open and then slams shut. I open my eyes and see, shockingly, that the bodies have vanished also. What manner of deceit is this? I decide to sit up.

Spikes of pain shoot through my body as I roll onto my side and up into a sitting position. My face feels tight. I move my jaw a little and look around. I am in a courtyard bound by high stone walls with double doors set in them opposite each other. I'm sitting on a circular stone plinth that is slightly warm. I note the worn bricks are stained in patches by what looks like blood. There are armed guardians standing around idly. Where am i? better yet, who am i?

For the first time, I look down at myself. I'm wearing scuffed and torn armour of black and crimson. My body is of similar dimension to that of the nymph I saw sitting among the legs. There is a hole in the left knee of my strides. Oddly, my left hand is stained green in places. It holds a dagger. My right has a longer sword in it. Both weapons are marked with dried blood and have a ring of green up around the hilt.

-Roister doister!!

I look around. Another wee thing, and this one has a thrall in tow behind it, similarly proportioned and making magicks of its own.

-ROISTER DOISTER!!

-Are you talking to me?

-HAHA! Yeah, talkin' to you. That's a fun thin' to say! Roister Doister! What are you doin' sittin' here all lost and such? Shunt you be out killin' uglies?

-Killing...?

-Killin! Stabby Stabby! The little person makes sweeping motions in front of my face: Fighting the Breatunnach!

-The British! You shuld be out there slitting throats and dancing prettily on their bodies!

-Why do you think that?

-HAHA! Good to see the Path of Essence continues to attract the brightest and best! Well, for one, you're an assassin! That was my first clue! Roister Doister! HAHA! And with that the creature cast a rapture and sped away, laughing.

So I am an assassin it seems. Or dressed and armed like one at the very least. I reach deep inside myself for the memory of who I am, the things I've done, and find...nothing. Nothing but blurred images, the sense of something caught briefly from the corner of my eye and then lost. Why can't I remember?

posted by metta @ 6:13 PM