?
?Rosin knew it almost instantly; she was in a bed. Days of sleeping on the earthen ground with only the leaves for covers had made her ache for the comforts of her house, shelter and warmth— and above all else, a bed. She ached now, deep in her back, and there was a soreness sunken in the pit of her head. Yet somehow she felt comfortable. There was warmth over her arms. Heavy warmth. A softness that seemed to cradle her sleeping body, so different from the inflexible ground. For what felt like a long while, she faded in and out of a state of awareness, comfort battling with a gnawing feeling at the back of her mind.
How could she possibly be in a bed?She jerked suddenly upright, chest heaving. Her eyes adjusted almost instantly to the light— it was nothing compared to the glow of the sun. She had grown used to waking up with dew on her face and the low sun glaring in her eyes. Now, a flame danced beside her inside a holder. A lantern. It cast a subdued, warm glow onto her arms— her bandaged arms.
After a few moments of fuzziness, the girl blinked. Rosin looked down at herself. She was in a bed. The brown furs tickled the skin of her elbows. But from her hands upwards, thick cream-coloured bandages had been looped around her skin, surely bound recently. Something underneath them felt tender... gashes from her scuffle with the snake, maybe. But the bandages were spotless. She found that her hair was still knotted at her shoulders, still filthy— no surprise there, but the white clothes she looked down at were clean... and not her own.If she had been unsettled before, that drove the feeling home. Not her clothes. Not her bed. And who- why- who had dressed her in these clothes? Her bag. Her own clothes— where were her things? Her head pivoted as she searched her unfamiliar surroundings.
Rosin was in a room. Inside. She tried to calm her breathing, unstick the hair that clung to her damp face. It was a perfect temperature in here, but she was burning up. Nerves, or did she have a temperature? Almost drowning in rainwater was a splendid way to give yourself a cold.
There was a ceiling of cool stone above her, grey and smooth to the touch, even at the parts where it jutted out. The floor was the same, maybe even the walls too, though it was impossible to tell. There were strips of wood lining each of the four walls around her. The room wasn't big— not cramped, because there was nothing in here aside from the bed she lay in and the small table text to it, but certainly not spacious either. She had it mapped in her mind in a second.And there was a man in the corner.
Rosin's breath stuttered when she caught sight of him. There in the furthest corner of the room, he stood cross-armed, his shadowed eyes on her. The lantern's dim glow only seemed to accentuate the severity of that face. Everything about him was contoured and veiled, from the heavy hair around his face to the colour of his skin. Considerably darker than Rosin's. His hair was maybe longer than hers as well. At first glance she thought it was black, black as raven's feathers, but when she managed to blink she found it was not black, but green. A deep, muddy green, like wet moss.
He stared at her. And her at him. But where hers felt like a shocked, vacant sort of staring at something she couldn't understand, the stranger seemed to be looking into her... or through her. Surveying, studying. That's what it felt like to her, at least. She was very careful not to move, though he must have been watching her since the first moment she jerked awake. How long had he been in this room, looking at her? Rosin found she didn't want to contemplate that. The glare felt somehow foreboding. His face gave nothing away, nothing at all, there was no hint as to what emotion he might feel towards her or her sudden stirring. Even when he blinked his heavy black eyelashes, he didn't seem to move— that little flittering of shadows on his face was the only change.
And she became aware suddenly she did not have her weapons.Rosin's eyes darted about the room. A reactionary movement, she had no control over it. A cornered animal looks for a way out. No windows, it was a kick in her already hammering heart, one door. There was only one way in or out of the little four-walled room, which was that wooden door standing directly opposite to her... and for some reason, she got a sinking feeling it was locked. She was probably trapped in here. With this stranger.
YOU ARE READING
Rosin
AdventureErnwood Forest is home to winged people no bigger than a person's hand. Hidden away from the eyes of all humans, they live within the woodlands in three secrete tribes. Things can be tough in a world so much bigger than you, but the tribes are stron...