The TwiceBorn

A Winged Cupid, Painted Blind

     "Sometimes life hands us a mirror and dares us to take a look."--L.M.Fields

  What was taking her so long? 

Alora got to her feet and threw more sticks from her dwindling woodpile into the crackling flames.  The room was cozily-warm now and she’d put on the nightshirt, hung their clothes along the mantle to dry, checked her saddlebags to see how wet her supplies may have gotten, and engaged in the endless repetition of running her fingers through her hair, searching for tangles. And Islinn still hadn’t appeared.  She sat back down on the worn bed. 

Of course, being the exalted slave owner, she should have had first choice on the bathwater and Islinn could have been the one impatiently waiting for her turn. 

Slave owner.

It was a title she had no use for yet here she was.  Of course, she hadn’t hung around long enough for the official bill of sale to pass hands.  Behrin had been too busy plotting her death to mark down her fast shuffle of his property.  She smiled to herself.  The outcome was turning out to be more than she bargained for but the memory of his shocked face was still sweet in her memory.

She glanced towards the door as she heard footsteps in the hallway then looked back into the fire as they passed by. 

What did she want with the girl?

She didn’t know. But when she thought of Islinn, that maddening sense of light came to mind and it clung to each thought like a stubborn shadow and haunted her emotions like a ghost.  She had never felt this way before.  Of course, she had never been around something or someone who was inherently good.   She hadn’t thought that truly existed.  Brede was nothing but a faker, someone the peasants kowtowed to in an attempt to appease the poverty they were mired in.  

Was the light she sensed in Islinn, the power of Brede?  Or…was it Islinn?

Even after what she'd envisioned earlier when she'd touched Islinn's back, she still wasn't sure.  But she didn’t like it, either way.  If she had run across the girl as a complete stranger she would have taken her blade and cut that light out and scattered it to the winds.

A light tap on the door interrupted her thoughts.

“I got ya food.” 

For someone who kept such an eagle eye on the goings-on of her establishment, Winnie had somehow found the time to leave the bar and check out her newest patrons, Alora noted wryly.  She walked over and silently opened the door then headed back to the fire.  She held no more hope that Winnie would quietly put the food tray down on the bed and leave then she did of having even a semblance of hot water by the time Islinn exited the tub.  She listened to Winnie’s footfalls as the woman shuffled across the room towards the bed.

“Here ya go.  As intended.  Meat pies is hotted up, so’s the soup.  Et ya fill, iffen ya please and iffen ya need more, send ya slopgal down ta tell me.”

There was an undertone of challenge in Winnie’s gruff announcement. Alora turned around to face the woman. 

“I’ll do just that.” She replied in a mild tone.  “I’ll be needing more wood.  Think you could have one of your slopgals carry some up?”

Winnie’s beady eyes slowly sized Alora up.  All of the blustery good humor she’d displayed out on the bar floor was gone and Alora saw her true face. The doughy countenance was pinched with greed and some type of outrage she couldn’t put her finger on.

“I’ll have more wood piggyback’d up, dontcha worry.  Tell me somethin’ though.  Why?  Why’d ya have to mark her up like that?  That’s a piss-ugly thing to do to someone, I’m a-sayin.”