Orphic || Prince Caspian

seven

Ahren woke to whispers and muttered arguments. It was slow his drift to consciousness. His head was heavy and he was groggy. Mouth tasting like fabric and every joint hurt. His eyes felt glued shut but he could just about smell the scent of burning herbs, earth and campfire smoke. The whispers and mutters on the edge of his hearing. It sounded like five of them. Three women and two men. The sounds made terror fill his veins as he remembered what had happened. The fire, Othello, the forest. A whimper of pain a fear escaped him before he could stop it.

The voices stopped with startling suddenness. There was a noise almost like footsteps but also like hooves. They thudded on earth, hooves clopping as they drew closer. Ahren let loose another noise as a hand gently rested on his forehead. It was warm. He struggled to open his eyes. For a few seconds, his vision blurred as his eyes took a moment to focus. What was a blur of browns and reds took shape and detail. Ahren screamed and with uncoordinated limbs far too sore to move, he scrambled back as quickly as he could.

He was on a bed, or what was a wooden frame covered in furs and animal skins. A blanket had been draped over him and it fell back as he pressed his back to a cold stone wall. It was a rough stone that dug painfully into a wound in his shoulder that made him cry out. Harsh against his bare skin and catching on the bandages wrapped around his chest. Other than that and the trousers on his legs, he was completely bare. "Tello! Tello! Where's Tello?" He cried as his eyes began to well. "I want Tello!"

This was no place he recognised. It was a cave that twisted and turned. The ceilings rose high above him, high enough for two grown men to stand on each other's shoulders. A cooking fire was in the centre of the cave chamber, directly under a small hole where smoke exited. A pot was suspended over the flames and animal skins were drying on a nearby rack. One corner of the cave had been filled with hay like a stable, which made sense considering who was in the cave with him.

The person who had rested their hand on his forehead was closest. She was a woman in her late twenties, with pale skin and long loose red hair that tumbles over her shoulders. She wore a vest made from leather and a belt with various items hanging from it. There was a small knife, a hip flask and few pouches. Under the belt was where she was different. Where hips and human legs would be was a horse's body, legs bent down in a kneeling position and a coat of a rich russet colour that almost matched her hair.

In the doorway stood four more humanoid beings. One in the doorway was a young man with curly blonde hair, barely out of his teens. He was bare chested except for a pack slung over his shoulder and a similar leather belt. His hips were covered in fur and two goat legs stood in place of human limbs.

There was another two women like him. One smaller, slight and young. She did not seem fully grown yet. Her hair was braided back, a more wheat colour to the man's golden blonde. She wore a leather vest dyed dark green and there was freckles across her skin and a flower in her hair. A buttercup. The second woman was older. Her face was wrinkled and her light brown hair had streaks of grey. She shared the same green eyes as the two other satyrs and she wore a tunic in a red brown.

The last one was a man with a horse' body. He was dark skinned with sunbleached brown curls hanging around his face. Bare chested and skin matching his horse hall exactly. He was the same age as the woman, with a resting stern expression that was not helped by the bow and quiver across his back.

"Little one. It's okay. You're safe", The redheaded centaur had her hands out as if soothing a startled animal. Ahren stared at her, arms hugging himself as he pressed as close to the wall as possible. It made the wound on his shoulder throb and he whimpered.

"We won't hurt you. You are safe here", her voice was soft and low. It reminded him of a distant memory of his mother, half forgotten and lying in the back of his mind. "Will you tell us your name?"