|
 |
|
|
Sign Up to Submit Articles and Earn Credibility! |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
Author: lani
1158 Views
10 Comments
|
The last time we saw little Gwen in this story, she was hiding under the supply backpacks of the dwarves while Brechnar called out the retreat.
Gwen was to choked up with fright to answer when Brechnar called out to her. She was paralysed with fear unable to react when he called out again and again and finally sounded the retreat. She heard how the sounds of combat dwindled until only the cracking of the treacherous bonfire was left. Still she dared not move, still she couldn't stir though she desperately wanted to.
Then she heard the sound of furtive movement. Fear and hope flashed through her simultaneously!
Maybe the Dwarves had doubled back, or it might be some of the monsters returning. She could not tell which from under her protective hiding place. The furtive sounds came closer, Gwen couldn't tell how many they were, but she got the distinct impression there was more than one being out there. Then she heard a sound she couldn't mistake if she wanted to, the grunting of a Skale. These skales were different from the ones she grew up around, they used magics for one, but the sounds they made were clearly the same. Mortified with fear Gwen found new depths of paralysis as she felt the pile of backpacks being shifted and picked up by clawed hands.
Gwen was so pent up with fright and energy, she had to do something, her mind wasn't working though, she couldn't think of something to do. Her little body had gone as taut as a bowstring and rigid as a shield, but that would do her no good when the Skales finally spotted her when they'd lifted and rummaged through enough packs. When another pack was lifted a surprised hoot sounded as she was spotted. This discovery finally triggered something deep inside Gwen, with a frightened yelp she jumped upright, throwing aside several heavy packs she wouldn't have been able to carry in the process. She immediately bolted away from the fire, not seeing where she went, and rushed of into the darkness. The half-dozen Skales around the scattered pile of packs were so stunned by this sudden apparition that they did not give immediate pursuit, but stared after her for several long moments. Giving her precious lead. Then the chase was on.
Little Gwen sped through the dark, starlit night, she could see branches flashing by and thought she saw a small bit of architecture like a shrine flash by in the night as she dashed on, away from the bright glow of the bonfire at her back. She could hear the hooting of the now pursuing Skales at her back. She was unable to tell how far they were. Then to her immense consternation, the hoots were answered from somewhere ahead and to their right. Of course. Her daddy had once told her this was how the Skales hunted, in multiple packs. Using their hooting calls to provide information on their quarry's location. As she passed what looked like another shrine, she swerved to her left, where no hooting had sounded. She was on a path now, which should lead to human civilization she reasoned as where the path was coming from was anything but. And paths normally had people on at least one end of them, right? But her adrenaline induced burst of speed and energy was starting to flag, she was distantly amazed at how far she'd gotten so far. She needed a hiding place and soon.
The path crested a hill and took a sharp turn to the right. Gwen nearly didn't. She narrowly managed to stop her forward momentum over the side and into something that smelled horrible by throwing her body down to the ground. And grasping hold of the grass. She was hanging down a steep hillside. Scrambling for food holds, Little Gwen really started to panic now. She could hear the Skales nearly on top of her. Panting for breath, she tried to climb up again, only to let the grass she was holding on, slip through her fingers. She was going to fall. Sliding down, she suddenly felt the pricking of branches in her back. In desperation she did something crazy, she gathered her legs and pushed of from the hillside with all her strength, twisting in mid air as she did so. Luck was with her. She hit a large tree branch which all but knocked the breath out of her frail body. She was up a tree. Not a moment to soon. Behind her she could hear the Skales hooting close by. They were up the ledge path she'd left moments before. Trying to stiffle her panting breath, Gwen held onto her branch for dear life.
One of the Skales let out a long morose sounding hoot, which seemed to linger in the air for seconds afterwards. It was soon answered by an equally long but more distant hoot from somewhere else. Gwen had lost all sense of direction by now, but she thought it was the direction she'd been heading in when she'd tumbled of the path's side. The skales above her started muttering as the distant hoot was repeated. It sounded angry this time to Gwen. As if the responding Skale was not pleased by something. Once more one of the Skales sounded that long morose hoot and then, she heard the Skales moving away. Exhausted from her mad dash through the night, little Gwen barely managed to crawl over her branch to the trunk, where she found a place to curl up, pressed against the mossy bark of the tree and slept.
The next day Gwen woke up to the myriad sounds and above all, smells of swamp life. As she opened up her eyes, she was immediately blinded by the warm midday sun. For long moments, Gwen just lay there, still curled up. Listening to the sounds and appreciating that she was still alive until.. “Say, hello there!”. “Huh, wha?”. “Whoaoompf!”, and with a soft thud Gwen found herself lying at the foot of the tree in a bed of moss, at the feet of an awfully strange woman. For a moment Gwen could only stare at her. She was brown for one, a skin color Gwen had hitherto not seen before and there were funny little pictures on her face and bare arms. She was also carrying a large wicker basket by means of a band slung over her left shoulder.
“I was going to harvest that.” the woman said. After an amused look at the bewildered Gwen, she smiled hesitantly. “The moss. I collect those for healing poultices for the guards.” she said as she pointed at the mossy bed which had caught Gwen's fall, but was now somewhat the worse for wear from having been fallen upon.
Gwen quickly scrambled upright and made a futile attempt to clean off her skirt a bit. Something about this woman made her extremely self-conscious. “Uh, hi. Sorry.” She said. “I was asleep.” she added. “Well now, and what is such a young Rinian girl like yourself, for that is what I take you to be, doing sleeping up in a tree. In a swamp. All alone and in the middle of the day I might add?”
Somehow Gwen got the impression that none of this surprised the woman but that sleeping late was a capital offence in this woman's household. “Uhm, I was chased by Skales all night and managed to get away in that tree” she explained. “I didn't mean to oversleep” she added in her own defence. Intent had always been a big thing with her mother, so she was sticking with what she knew.
“Hmmmpf. And where might your parents be young one, hmmm?” responded the woman, in no way mollified. Gwen immediately looked crestfallen as she recalled what in fact had happened to her parents. “Dead.” she muttered. “Ah. Poor thing. The Skales got them? No matter, let's get you home and cleaned up, then we'll talk” she beckoned “Come along now, of we go.” and took Gwen gently by the arm to navigate her across the swamp. Not really wanting to talk all that much, but feeling very dirty and hungry besides, Gwen went along docilely.
So it was that little over an hour later, little Gwen arrived at Miraba's cottage, the name having been supplied somewhere during the last hour and Gwen must've said hers as well as Miraba seemed to know it by now. Though she obviously preferred to call Gwen young one instead. Gwen was put through a bath, her clothes getting a good rinsing at the same time and was put behind a steaming bowl of stew all bundled up in a heavy blanket, the material of which she couldn't quite identify. All this Miraba managed to accomplish without any apparent effort, though she kept moving all the time and kept up a constant torrent of speech. Gwen was starting to get the impression Miraba was generally very lonely and didn't like it very much. Over the course of bath and dinner she'd been informed of her general whereabouts, just outside of Lion's Arch, capital of the country of Kryta and all about Miraba's family and how she lost her husband to the ranks of the White Mantle and more recently her daughter. The daughter was a Ranger, that peeked Gwen's interest for a minute. She'd always wanted to be one. That was some new religious order apparently, from what Gwen could tell. She did gather from Miraba that they weren't exactly her favourite people, or vice versa. When she'd finished her stew, which was oddly spiced, for more than half way, Gwen found herself getting drowsy and nodding of. With a motherly smile, Miraba said, “let's put you in the cubby here and you sleep it off, alright?” and put action to words. Soon Gwen was back in her dreams again.
The next day, Gwen woke to the distant sound of Miraba singing a song. It took her a bit to gather herself and recognize her surroundings. She'd not paid all that much attention to them the day before. In fact, she realized she probably wouldn't be able to find the tree she'd spent the previous night in. Not that it mattered, she had no idea where that tree was in relation to the Dwarven campfire. Looking around she realized that her clothes were not there. They probably were hanging outside, most likely dried by the wind and sun. Her floral wreath was on a wooden shelf next to her cubby thankfully. She could still hear Miraba singing to herself outside somewhere behind the cottage, so she bundled herself in her blanket and put on her wreath and went to get her clothes.
As she stepped outside, she got her first real look of the lush, beautiful landscape of Tyria.
She took in the gently rolling hills, the fertile fields and the quiet stream by the cottage, the vibrant flower beds and swaying trees across the stream. It reminded her of Ascalon. Ascalon as it was before...
Gwen took two steps on the porch and sank down on her knees. A great big sob escaped her lips. Suddenly, finally the grief for what had happened to her home country and everyone she knew and loved broke. The sob was soon followed by another. Tears streamed down her little face as the sobbing became bawling, which sent Miraba rushing from the back of the cottage where she'd been tending to the bee-hives. She dropped her smoke-lantern with which she'd been keeping the bee's at bay and rushed over to little Gwen and gathered her in her arms. “There there, what's the matter then?” she murmured. But Gwen was beyond discourse at this point, so Miraba did what she could. She cuddled the little girl and rocked her back and forth while Gwen poured out her heart.
After several minutes of rocking back and forth, Gwen subsided somewhat, exhausted from her efforts on an empty stomach. Miraba gathered the girl a bit closer and placed her chin on top of her head, gazing out at the sight that triggered Gwen's malaise. With a flash of insight she realized that this panorama, which had been a major aspect of choosing her cottage's location and disposition, had played a major role in Gwen's sudden outburst. “Tell me what happened, sweety” she said in her gentlest voice. And so, with many a sob in between and rambling from detail to detail Miraba was the first Krytan to get an account of the searing which had struck Ascalon. This was big, she realized. Very big. She also found it in her heart to forgive the White Mantle for letting her husband die in defending Kryta under the last command of General Saul d'Alessio. She still would not accept their “Unseen Gods”, the Old Gods, especially Dwayna had always been good enough for Miraba. Hmpf! But first to get the girl's mind of things for a while. She new just the thing.
“Let's get you inside and put some clothes on you honey.” she said and gathered up Gwen as she stood. Inside she placed Gwen on a chair by her table and rummaged through some drawers in her cabinet all the while muttering in a mock scolding at Gwen. “Silly girl, going traipsing around the half the world in a sixth-day dress. What were you thinking? And those Dwarves have no sense either, probably don't have the height for it!”. Gwen, hearing the tenderness in Miraba's voice took comfort from that. Then Miraba turned around with a bundle of clothes in her hands and laid thos on the table beside Gwen. “There you go, these should fit you. They were my daughter's”. Gwen saw what looked essentially like a pale, whitish leather tunic as worn by some Rangers. “She was always getting up in trees and trouble, just like you” Miraba added. “Won't she miss it?” was all Gwen could come up with at the sight of this lovely gift. “Nah, not my Saidra. She's all grown up now and happily, so she claims, married to one of those Mantle louts. A Justicar even.” Gingerly, Gwen reached out to stroke the leather of the over-tunic. It felt soft, like buck-skin. “Can I try it on?” she asked. This made Miraba chuckle. “Honey, it's yours you may wear it as long as it fits you. Which I bet will be at least half a year”. “Go on, put it on.”
As Gwen busied herself putting on the somewhat unfamiliar clothes with some very unusual but not impractical fastenings, with Miraba's aid. Miraba was considering what she should do. The terrible catastrophe that had befallen Ascalon must be made known to the authorities. The thing was, she wasn't sure who the proper authorities were these days. She didn't go into Lion's Arch much, but she did speak with her neighbours a lot and chatted with the peddlers and merchants coming from- and going to the Capital and she'd heard that a quite power struggle had arisen between the Lionguard and the White Mantle over who was in charge of municipal concerns. Frankly, she didn't know who was 'in charge' in Lion's Arch at the moment. Of course! She'd go with Gwen to her long time friend, the Loremaster Ermenred. If anyone could advise her on what to do and who to talk to, it'd be him.
So decided, she set out making a breakfast while Gwen admired her new outfit and seemed to have gotten over her heart-ache, for now. Miraba realized she'd be opening that wound again pretty soon when little Gwen would have to tell her story again. There was nothing she could do about that, except be there to comfort the little lass. After breakfast, they set out to Lion's Arch, a walk of little under an hour. Slowly Gwen saw the Capital emerge from between the hills of the countryside and got her first glimpse of the sea as well. The salty air and the exotic site of towering hilltop house-sprawls within the towering walls of the Capital made her forget her own sorrows for a while.
As they neared the city gates however, she began to feel something was wrong. She was not familiar with harbour-towns or cities, but she suspected that on the roads near the city, there'd be at least as much traffic as around the city of Ascalon. More presumably. Miraba also looked worried, but remained silent on the matter. Her lips set in a determined expression. As they arrived at the gates, the Gate guard, Lionguard as Miraba noted to her relieve, waved them through distractedly, more interested in the inner side of the gates himself rather than what was approaching from outside it seemed.
Inside the city proper all was abuzz with something. There was a huge crowd milling about in the city proper and it wasn't Market day. “They're arriving!”, “The poor souls” and “Bring food and blankets to the harbour” were phrases Miraba picked up. Something was definitely up. She could see an inordinate number of masts out in the harbour. A veritable forest of bare masts. Though not a shipwright or sailor herself, Miraba got the impression that a lot of those masts looked the worse for wear, as if they'd weathered mighty storms. She definitely saw the tattered remains of a ripped through sail on one of the nearest masts. Had a trading fleet from Cantha come in after being caught in a storm? Impelled by the crowd's general movement they were slowly forced into the direction of the harbour. The trading fleets of the Canthians could reach large numbers, but it looked like the entire harbour was filled with ships. As they got nearer and got a better view of the docks they saw a multitude of ships, many lashed together, nearly forming impromptu bridges from one side of the docks to the other. And from those ships came streaming bedraggled, horror-stricken looking people, in droves.
“What has happened?” Miraba asked of an elderly man nearby. “Who are those people?”. The elderly man turned to her with a deep sadness in his eyes. “They're Orrians” He said, “Orr has been destroyed, sunk below the waves after it was evaded by the Charr. The people you see down there are the last of that nation's people, who managed to flee the catastrophe.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
