Lexson of Aerolite

Chapter 6 Clemency

Luminosity, a warm glow fluttered across her eyelids. Fuzzy, incandescent rays drew her unopened eyes, piercing through a canopy of trees. She blinked, all else seemed numb, beyond heavy. Her limbs were inflexible no matter what she tried. It was difficult to hold a steady rhythmic breath. The air was cold and coarse as she tried to fill her lungs. Her trachea felt as if fine grit sandpaper had been turned loose upon it.

"Where am I." she tried to say, finally forming a clear thought. Only a puff of air, a short murmur, escaped her barely vibrating lips. She tried to remember, flashes filled the empty chasm: vivid images-entered sharply but each was hazy. She prayed for one fragment of clarity. A face, a voice, anything. She felt her eyes fill with tears, almost preparatory. Touch... I remember touch. Her palm carelessly brushed across her face. The tips of her fingers traced across her temple. Her body felt ablaze. A strange momento, gentle and determined aura, fed the sensual fire beneath the thin layer of skin. She felt her body twist and an inferno well up inside, as a fever brewed. Each mark was like a delicate flower, where pain and pleasure blossomed. She felt it. It? She couldn't muster the words to action.

"The one." her voice rose above the silence. Brown hair... face bloodied, for a moment she saw him clearly. Felt his touch resonate with his image. Then it passed, she couldn't call up his distinct features. It was dim, cloudy. Then, the colour of his hair, his soothing voice, it was all gone. She looked around frantically, her eyes searching the present moment. "Help!" She wanted to cry out. She restrained herself, desperation, even slight hysteria, that would not sit well with others.

"Only... who was he?" She thought aloud. It wasn't quite what she wanted to say, but the message seemed correct. "It all feels like a dream... like I have only just woken up. Torn away from it. It all feels so fuzzy. Where is he!?" She kept rambling. Her attendants noticed her rising, manic voice.

"He...? We pulled a body off of you. A spent corpse. He looked old by our account. Grey haired lad, though we didn't stop to make sure." Estraza blinked, shocked. That could not be him... Must not be him she thought, drowning in icy perplexity. She passed through the camp her body limp on a stretcher. Carried by a team of large masked men. She suddenly felt faint. Her mind went blank and a dread spread through her. Her breath became quick and frivolous. She twisted her head and saw her drake begin to beat its tail near its enclosure. She noticed its snout puffing steam, and the lip pulling back and forward. That crushing look of distress with rapid-fire blinking. Another raw wound Aranara didn't deserve.

"Sorry," she whispered eyes affectionately locked with hers. Alexa did her best to put on a reassuring face. Her hand reached out across the camp to comfort the beast. It reached a peak and then slumped, hanging limply over the stretcher. The shouts persisted growing in volume.

"Alexa!" Marcy shouted as she dashed beside the stretcher while the men shuffled past. She tried to shove past them through to her. She came at them with a wild embarrassing flurry but could not move past their hulking unified mass.

"Shorty," A heavy monotone boomed from an indiscriminate source within the team. "She lost a lot of blood. Her visage lacks colour. She could barely move... even when she regained consciousness and desired to do so. She is drained.... Her wounds are still, possibly grave. Supposedly she fell out the sky, straight from the back of her beast. According to anyone we spoke to, nearby. They told us she ought to have died riddled with arrows, like a pin-up doll. Seems like she found a hidden saviour out of some nook or cranny or called upon her incredible luck... for the second time. But internal bleeding and broken bones are still a possibility, though the potential exists for far worse damage." Marcy slowed herself to a placid saunter. She saw the worn face of the speaker, a man wearing a thick black mustache. His hairline beginning to thin and his eyes trained on her, absorbed in an eerie calm. On his shoulder sat the magpie insignia, a black design across a white patch. It belonged to the retrieval unit.