Timeless

Chapter Four

Chapter 4

Ri's mind was fuzzy. Almost as fuzzy as whatever it was that she was enveloped in. She felt warm and comfortable, and very sleepy, but something would not let her fade back into the warm embrace of oblivion. Images flicked through her head, sounds, smells, sensations. She remembered a man, tall and dark and sinfully good looking. He had held her in his arms, his big, rough hands holding her with incredible strength, and yet with the utmost of care. The memories were so hazy, they had to belong to a dream.

He had shouted something about a horse, had made the big giant (who she was surprised could find a horse to support his bulk. Derek, did he call him? That did not sound quite right for some reason) dismount along with a boy that looked strangely like her brother. Then she remember the sound of drums, probably hooves pounding the earth now that she thought about it, and warm breath on her cheek and a voice in her ear telling her to hold on.

Ri tried, she really did. In fact, there was nothing she would have rather done more than to cling to the man holding her tightly against him. She was growing colder and colder, even beginning to shiver, and he was so warm and inviting. The hard planes of muscle she could feel under his shirt seemed like warm steel which bent and wrapped around her, enveloping her completely. She did not feel trapped, on the contrary, for the first time in her life, she felt safe. But she was still trembling with cold and wished he could stretch just a little farther in a few places.

She remembered loud noises, of stone and metal and wood but the specifics were all a blur. She remembered being bounced a little as some part of her mind realized that she was being carried up a flight of stairs. She remembered the steady, yet staccato rhythm of a heartbeat under her ear as the smell of sweat tickled her nostrils along with another warm and spicy scent she could not identify.

Then she remembered small spikes of pain, like the sharp pinpricks in her side she got when she ran too fast for too long, followed by a feeling like one small bit of skin being dragged along the carpet before being pinched and pulled just a bit. She had frowned and mumbled, only to find a steady hand cup her cheek and soft word of encouragement brush her ear. From there, she had faded back into darkness.

"Shaw," the name fell from her lips as it came to her, as though being dredged up from the depths of forgotten dreams. He had saved her, had ridden with her to his home, helped stitch her wound. Ri pulled in a deep breath for the first time since she had been stabbed. Her mind slowly began to clear. As did her ears.

". . . and I say we leave her and go home!"

"We can't do that! She saved us! How can we just leave her behind!?"

"Saved!? She's probably the one who sent us here in the first place! This is all probably her fault! Who knows what else she'll get us into!"

Ri groaned, forcing herself to sit up. The stiches in her side strained in protest under the layer of bandages that bound her torso, but she ignored the discomfort. Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she cast a cautious glance around the room.

It was huge. The headboard of a king sized bed rested against one wall, while the wall directly across from her supported a large fire place with two cushioned, high back chairs and a small couch arranged on a bear skin rug a safe distance in front of it. To her left, Ri saw a window protruding outwards from the wall, although she was not at an angle to take in its view, and a stone window bench covered by a long velvet cushion just below the sill. There were a few tapestries on the stone walls, more to keep out the chill than to provide decoration, she guessed, as the rest of the room held no trinkets or bobbles one might use to give personality to a frequently unused space.

There were, however, signs of someone living in this room. A man, by the large size of the clothes that had been tossed carelessly across the back of the couch. The opposite side of the bed was mussed, the covers thrown away. Obviously someone had been sleeping next to her. Ri could see a hunting bow and a quiver of arrows propped against a large chest at the end of the bed and a massive, two handed sword, a claymore, leaning against the door frame. From here, she could see bits of wood shavings in the rug beneath the left chair, most likely from the wood carvings she found cluttered atop the dresser to the left of the window. There was a tankard resting on the mantel, along with a trencher of crumbs and what looked like a whetting stone from this distance.