storm winds will follow

Chapter 2 - Echoes of the past

By the time the cart with the coffin reached the gaveyard, Gwendolyn was deep in a dark vision of fire, blood and fear. Darkened, charred walls once white and gleaming, people screaming and the howling of wolves...

Gwen shoved the coffin lid off and stumbled out of the space into the dark, snowy graveyard. She reeled as she placed her hand on the wall of the chapel as the images layed over her reality, blending nightmare and truth. She fell down the steps, stumbled into the snow. Blood stained the white blanket. She doubled over and emptied her stomach onto the ground.

After a few heavy breaths, she stood and cast her gaze around the graveyard. The ghostly fires still burned, but if she focused on the freezing night air on her sweat soaked skin, she could ground herself enough to find a way out of here. Ideally before the gravediggers noticed the dilirious girl stumbling over the graves alone. If they were decent folk, they would call the guards, which was bad. If they weren't...

Gwendolyn stumbled over a withered headstone. This was the old graveyard, the one on the edge of town. Some of the graves still bore the symbols of the old gods, the one thing the soldiers of the late emperor had not dared to deface on their advance. She hurried on over the field. 

She felt the eyes before she noticed them. Bright and searing, and unblinking, watching, waiting. Gwendolyn's objective changed. Hide, run, get out of the open...

She darted towards the door of a mausoleum and rattled the handle until the door gave in, she fell, rolled down the steps... then everything went dark.

pale sunlight tickled Gwendolyn's face, waking her. Her body felt like it was filled with broken glass, naught but a sack of organs and sharp, searing pain. She forced herself up off the stone floor and touched her fingertips to her forehead. She felt a bit woozy from knocking her head- or maybe it was the warpstone dust, either way she was likely concussed. She patted her sides and sighed relief when she found her coinpurse was still where it had been before her little adventure. 

Bracing herself against the wall, she stood. Her stomach swam, but there was nothing left inside her body to vomit out. When she regained her composure, she took note of her surroundings, a small, but beautiful mausoleum... but it lacked a sarcophagus. The ceiling was painted to look like the stars, and the walls like a sunny forest. The pillars inbetween, shaped in naturalistic styles, were interrupted by small stained glass windows that let in coloured beams of light. There was indeed a podium in the middle, but it lacked a sarcophagus or coffin, where a body might have been laid to rest.

A shame, Gwen thought, to make such a beautiful place for a corpse, and then not even place whoever this beauty had been meant for inside. She sat on the steps and looked up at the paintings for a while. they were obviously old, faded, like a memory of a place from long ago, but so lifelike, Gwendolyn thought she might be able to step right through and into the idyllic landscape. Wherever this was, she wanted to be there right now, much more than she wanted to be in frozen, dirty Fenris.

She was torn from her daydream by her growling stomach. She hadn't eaten in a very long time, 24 hours at least, and Gwen was starving. Unsure whether she was safe to return to the city, however, she hesitated. How long could she fight the hunger before she had to dare consider a return to the streets. For the moment, at least, she was safe in the tomb. Nobody had been down here in a decade at least, and who would look for a girl in an ancient graveyard...

A loud growl resounded and she clutched her own gut. Maybe she could risk it now? It had been a while she had been passed out at the bottom of the stairs... Gwen turned to look back at the mausoleum again and... found a plate sitting on the stone table in the middle. She sniffled. Was she hallucinating? The air smelled of spices and magic, a sharp smell...

She slowly approached the podium and circled the plate for a moment. It held a dish she had never seen before, a blend of grain, vegetable and a lean meat, nothing like the rich, fatty foods of fenris. It smelled positively divine, however, and after a few more moments of deliberation, Gwen decided that it was certainly meant for her, and dug into the dish with delight. None of the flavours were familiar to her, but it tasted as good as it smelled. When she had finished the portion she looked up to the mausoleum.

"Thanks"
She muttered hesitantly. The scent of magic returned, along with a laugh Gwen almost thought she had imagined.

She wondered what was so funny to her unexpected supporter. A mage like her, helping her to escape the hounds. It made sense... but she didn't want to think about it too much. She decided to sit down and rest some more, and worry about the details of her escape later. Her head was still spinning, and she didn't want to make it worse for herself by possibly having to run again. 

Gwen sunk to the floor and leaned against the wall, focusing on inhaling and exhaling steadily.
"If you're still watching me..."
she hesitated before she continued to speak. Her tongue felt unnaturally thick in her mouth.
"... Just... stay."

The words surprised her. Gwendolyn liked to think of herself as self sufficient, she had nobody, because she needed nobody, but in this moment she felt as though... having someone just watching her was enough. If she died here, someone would witness it, and she would not have gone out as quietly as she lived. She did not receive an answer, as her breaths became more and more steady, and her eyes became heavy once more.

She drifted into an uneasy sleep, one thought permeating her mind. Over and over, like she was writing these new words on her soul in this moment.
"Witness me, let me survive."

Grass, moist air, the smell of incense soaked into skin, sweet and mellow. Smells unfamiliar to Gwen, sun warmed stone... water. The ground did not feel frozen, nor like stone or wood... soft grass unlike the scratchy tufts that dotted the frozen tundras of Fenris' inland side, tickled her face, like a thousand fingertips. Her eyes swam with tears from the sun that shone down on her, inhibited by the soft green of tender, new leaves. Spring... it was spring...

Gwendolyn had never experienced spring before, not like this. She was not wearing her tattered dress or her worn boots. She was barefoot, dressed in the lightest fabric she had ever felt, dyed a beautiful turqoise and embroidered with beads of blue and green stones. Through her wonderment and watering eyes she enjoyed the moment. Had she died and gone to whatever afterlife she had earned? Heaven, the workers called it...

She blinked her tears away, and found that the air was frigidly cold. No semblance of sunshine on her skin, no blues and greens and pastel browns around her to be seen. It was dark, and her fingers and toes felt numb. Gwendolyn wanted to weep. Having felt the warmth of the spring for the first time, just for a brief moment, she did not want to let go of it again. 

She rubbed her palms together to warm her stiff, unsettlingly blue fingers. What she was doing was dangerous, she would die, ironically, in this tomb, freeze to death never to be found. Perhaps... for the first time... she considered heading to the south. It had never occurred to her. The borders were kept tightly, she would never make it through... but it was worth a try, right? What did she have to lose except her life, and better to lose her life than her freedom...

She fumbled with her coinpurse and emptied the contents into her shaking hands. Seven thrones and three coppers. That might get her to... well inland. If she worked along the way, maybe she could make it over the border to Caliban somehow.

Hope was a cruel fire in her chest as she stood, and one more time, looked around the small mausoleum.
"thank you"
She whispered softly. It felt for a moment, like a warm wind caressed her hair, and her heart screamed. She could not stay in Fenris, not a day longer than necessary.