The TwiceBorn

She Is Like The Moon, A Part Of Her Hidden

  The Last of the Tribes of the Dark Moon had forgotten to purchase food for herself and it was too dark to forage.  Alora scowled and scraped her fingers through her hair.  Loki watched her calmly as he chewed his grain.

"Yeah. You have food."  She said,her voice loud in the stillness.

Well, she did too if you wanted to call it that.  She'd ridden through a squalid little town called Holden and bought some dried pepper fish from a tiny woman who'd run out and greeted her with a frightening intensity.

 Clad in rags, the crone had referred to herself as a "spellt woman" and considered it a true honor from the UnderRealms to have The Twiceborn ride through.  Her eager eyes and birdlike movements gave away her plans to spend the day swapping infernal recipes with the Last of the Tribes of the Dark Moon. She'd been  bitterly disappointed when she realized the fish that hung over her smoking fire was the main attraction.  Alora had liked the fish, at first.  But three days of it was enough.  

She laughed softly and held her hands out towards the fire.  She could still feel the woman's twisted hand tugging at her stirrup.

"Hairballs." The crone had whispered.

 One lonely tooth jutted from her upper gum.

 "Get y'self some of ye own hair,black as shad, and roll it up with beeswax.  Chuck this at your enemies and it'll go right through their skin.  Kill 'em deader-n-dead.  Belly up for the sun goes down."

The crone had given her two crisp pats on the knee then wandered away, humming an off-key tune.

                  Alora looked up at Loki as she leaned back against her saddle and stretched her toes towards the fire.

"How dead is deader-n-dead? Huh?"

Her voice sounded unnatural, out of place, and she fell silent.  She watched him graze.  She might find out about "deader-n-dead" if she kept eating the fish.  It had been properly dried (according to a one-toothed, not-right-in-the-head "spellt woman".  What in the hell had she been thinking when she bought it??) but how long could anything last in this heat?  Thinking about the heat made her think of the pond outside of Leomedon.  Which, in turn, made her think of why she wasn't there at the present moment.  She reached for a waterskin and took a long drink.

Sar and his men, all wrapped in homemade armor, had practiced and practiced. Their fierce war cries  had carried to her on the evening breeze.  She wondered briefly how many of them had keeled over in the heat.  And what the odds were of Gareth being one of them.

 She pictured him as he lay there, his face carrot red from all the blood pushed upward from his lower extremities due to his too-tight pants.  One hand resting protectively against his crotch.  All the village women would wail with their grief. Or, if they were smart, dance with joy.  

This little fantasy was quite satisfactory and she laid her head back against her saddle to watch the first stars tear a hole in the black sky.  Something crunched underfoot off in the brush and she started, caught off guard.  She sat up, and stared hard into the darkness.  Good. Sar had showed up earlier than expected and that meant she might get a full night's sleep.  Usually she waited up while they paced around down in their village, wringing their hands and thinking, "Should I go, should I stay, should I go,should I stay?" over and over until she wanted to scream.

The figure strolled towards her and she recognized the cheeky walk long before the firelight lit up his features.  

"Great." She thought sourly as Gareth snapped to a halt and stuck his arms out over the fire.  A sense of bad things coming back around went through her, a wild, blinding shoot-the-moon embodiment she could no more control then she could not play the part she'd been given.  It was a helpless feeling, as deep and dark and blue as the night.  She got to her feet and stared into the flames.She slanted a quick glance towards the leathers she'd stripped off and tossed into a haphazard pile.  Another bad call.