Indebted

31

Esti woke up, the world was painted in tones of grey under a thick layer of clouds. Strong winds blowing, whipping her hair around her face. The metallic scent of blood, rich on the breeze, coating her airways. Her body felt sore and achy. Not like she had been hurt, the kind of ache she had known after a particularly hard day working the fields. The feel of muscles that have been exercised to their limit.

Esti looked at her naked arms, down at her completely bare body. Mud splotched on her skin, brown, fallen leaves crunching into flakes as she ran her fingers through her hair. Her mind coming back to her. Esti's head shot up from her groggy fog and remembered, she had grappled her way down the castle wall. When she had landed on the ground, she had looked up, her body shifting into a dragon. Esti knew she was a dragon. Had watched through her beasts eyes had risen up from the ground, to look Quwent right in the eyes. Then. . .

Then Esti woke up, here. Esti didn't feel any different than she had yesterday. She thought a true dragon would have more of a presence. Esti got to her feet, following the scent of blood. So strong it was making her nose burn. Her face scrunched to try and guard against the choking stench. Her hands too busy trying to cover her nakedness as she skuttle walked through the woods barefoot. Thankful for the thick carpet of deep green moss under her bare feet.

Esti saw an arm first. Ignoring her senses, Esti kept moving forward, until she saw the head. Quwent, the blood was all Quwent's. She knew it by scent now and didn't understand how that was possible. This didn't make sense. Esti didn't want Quwent dead. Esti looked around the small clearing where Quwent lay scattered in pieces. The brown decaying leaves spattered red with blood, that was quickly congealing and oxidizing in the air of the new day.

Esti had her hands in her hair. Spinning around in a circle over and over, looking at the carnage. Frozen in place. "No, no, no." She started to pant over and over. Memories of another scene of carnage repeating in her head. A strobe light pulse of nightmare images. Atticus and his dragon, half shifted, tearing her rapists apart. The smell of their blood filling her nose instead of Quwent's lifeblood. The memory and reality of right now blending together into one enormous nightmare.

Esti heard the sound of a dead-fall limb breaking in the woods behind her. Turning in a panic as a voice she didn't know uttered a prayer to Selene, Esti whirled, head spinning as too little oxygen reached her brain while she hyperventilated. "I need to get you to Norman." Doros said. Taking Esti's hand and dragging her to a passage she didn't know about, a basement access that likely should already had been walled in, but neglected. The builders division was known to cut corners to reap better profit.

Doros rummaged in a linen chest near the well concealed doorway he had dragged her through. Tossing a plain dark tunic to her, barely giving her enough time to pull the garment made for a tall man over her head before he grabbed her arm and started to pull her onward. Esti wasn't able to appreciate the fact that there were still passageways and secrets in the castle that not even she knew as Doros dragged her at speed down the cobweb strewn hallway. Puddles scattered over the floor. "Where are you taking me?" She finally managed to ask. Her feet slowing. Unwilling to be led into another trap. She needed more time, she needed her brain to stop spinning like a top so she could figure out what to do. Where Atticus was. He was looking for her, why did he leave her?

Dorus ran his hands over his shaved smooth head. Breathing out in a heavy breath as he let go of Esti's hand. Looking at Esti like she was a dangerous animal or a bomb. "Fuck." he said at a reasonable volume. "Fuck!" he screamed again, louder. Looking at Esti, his guilt so heavy Esti could scent and name it.

Doros turned towards the nearest stone wall. Arm against the stone, head on his arm, other hand slamming against the immovable ancient stones. "Fuck!!" He bellowed one more time, making Esti wince at the volume. "Your face has haunted me since that morning, I hate myself for standing there. I should have-" Doros turned back to look at Esti, healthy, hale and recovered from that morning so many months ago. Trying to forget how he had seen her, purge the nightmare that wouldn't stop replaying in his mind.

Doros looked at Esti. "I got married." Doros said quietly. "I love my wife, I love her so f-ing much," Erin didn't want him swearing around the baby. Doros wanted nothing more than to just do right by Erin. "At night I dream of what I let happen to you. I dream- I dream of- it happening to Erin-" Doros beat his hand against the wall once. It was taking all of his effort to not break down and cry. He hated himself so much and he just wanted to fix one thing. If he helped Esti, it wouldn't ever undo the past, just a chance for a future where he didn't hate his own reflection. 

Esti watched him compose himself, before grabbing her hand he was again yanking her down the hallway once more. His little breakdown had been enough to get Esti's mind to stop reeling out of control.

Doros was now rambling as he pulled Esti along with him. "I didn't know how to help before, I know what to do this time. Norman and Nigella will help.." Followed by incoherent muttering from Doros as Esti was finally entering corridors she was familiar with. Areas she knew well.

Doros had learned quickly. Esti would have been using these same corridors in the morning, the maids were less likely to cross paths here, no crossing the public halls or anywhere near the royal wing. "Mr, Norman? We're going to him?" Esit dared to ask, unable to mask the hope in her voice. Norman and Nigella's names sang in her ears of home. They told her themselves they would help. Her mind was still slow, but she was starting to come back.

A sputtering sound almost like a laugh,"I am just going to assume the shock of everything is why you don't seem to remember that Norman and Nigella would do anything for you, of course we are going to them." Muttering under his breath again. "They can fix this." The only thing Esti could make out in his ramblings. Letting herself be taken back to the last place she had dared to consider as her home. Home is where your heart is, and Esti had left pieces of herself in both Nigella and Norman.

Doros knocked on a particular pipe. The scratches fresh showing in the metal letting Esti know this was an established communication method. Not a new call. Esti felt a second of jealousy thinking Mr. Norman and Doros had a connection she did not have with the head boiler.

While Esti had a moment of jealousy, Mr. Norman had heard the call from Dorus, had heard the morning gossip from the maids already. Esti and her mate had not returned to the royal apartments the Fitzprince had been staying in after the wedding. No one had seen either of them since they left the wedding hall.

The fact that neither had been seen yet worried Norman that the specter of death that had been chasing Esti finally caught her. Except he refused to truly consider that Esti was dead, believing if she died, he would feel it. Esti was alive and she needed to leave court before anything else befell her. Norman and Nigella were ready. They had planned to help Esti escape. If it was only her, all the better, their plans had only tangentially included Atticus at best. The head of the kitchens and the head of the boilers had a solid plan for Esti. The Ghost Network would certainly decide Esti was worth helping they both believed.

Norman had been up late with Nigella, first cementing their plans, knowing that while the nobility were all busy with the largest wedding of the season, there would be fewer eyes on the lower class. Then once Norman and Nigella had planned a perfect escape for Esti, a new life to live on her own terms; they had stayed up together, first in the hot spring tub, then tangled together under sheets.

Norman, already in a good mood, could not believe his eyes when he saw his latest apprentice bringing him his last. Alive, and while Esti did not look at ease, Norman could read her face, she was unharmed.

Then Doros bleated out, "She shifted into something and killed Quwent, she needs to go. Now!" Doros was a man who was quiet, listen, learn, stand back, out of sight, out of the action- It was out of character entirely for him to have spoken so loudly. Norman looked at Esti, she nodded. It was time to go.