10-04-2020, 07:15 PM
Her lips tipped into a smile. The world was swimming a little strangely, but since there was very little she could do about it, Nimeda simply weathered the distraction. It pulled like deep drowning waters, beckoning just one fall deeper into its womb-like embrace. Maybe her body needed the true healing of rest with no dreaming at all. Or maybe it was the promise of worse, the swift fall of a more eternal anchor. Either way it pulled, and for a moment she wondered whether she ought to push the child gently from the dream, lest her own control prove dangerous in such unpredictable waters. Even now the pebbles beneath Nim’s legs were shifting, vibrating to the heartbeat strident at her temple -- like her very soul came loose and she could not tell where flesh ended and dream began. In such disarray Mara's pets might find the rarest of banquets, an unusual delight for them indeed. It might even have proved a novelty for Nimeda herself, except she would not countenance a child caught in the current.
Still, for now, all she said was, “I like stories.”
“Have you met the boy with the birds?” the girl asked eagerly. Her shy reticence all at once melted away, and her eyes were large and insistent, like she beheld a treasure in her small hands. Whoever she believed Nimeda to be, it warmed her like a flower that suddenly found the sun. “Or the Ash Prince?”
Nim drew her legs up, clasped them with her arms, and rested her chin upon the foundation of her knees like it might steady her. The loneliness stirred in her despite better judgement, and she stayed, her world narrowing to those spritely amber eyes and the wonder of a young expression. She pulled her senses in carefully tight, so that she might leave no inadvertent mark on the world around them. Did not even impose her will to smooth the blood from her brow, or realign the strange clothes to her usual proclivity. “I do not believe so. Will you tell me about them?”
But distraction already beckoned, and the girl’s attention shifted beyond the closed edges of Nimeda’s horizons. Her voice drew quiet again, an ardent whisper. “Who is that?”
Nimeda blinked. Cool pricked her skin in a swift tide, and left the bones of old fear revealed when it passed. For a moment it was not a who, but a what: shadows and skulls and circling ravens that dwarfed the man-shape beneath. Perhaps that was just the warm rush of blood spilling her vision, summoning all the ancient ghosts that sometimes circled those who spread roots deep and old. Most likely it was the sharp intrusion of their last remembered meeting; the threats spilled, not against Nimeda, but the vulnerable flesh and bone harbour that carried her waking life. The fingers of her scarred hand reflexively tightened a little against her leg.
She knew who it was.
But for a moment the spill of her thoughts instead remembered how Noctua had so fiercely vowed his protections against this of-the-time enemy; had called himself a fiercer wolf in a way that amused her at the time, and simply hurt now. She shuddered; let that hollow tide recede. Did not contemplate how disappointing he had apparently discovered her waking self to be, for him to have so carefully demanded the comparison of her like the wound had been intentional. It wasn’t his protection she had ever really needed, and she did not blame him, but nor could she afford to dwell on the sting when her focus now was both so slippery and so very precious.
She unfurled carefully, fighting the tide of her wavering vision. It was an unfamiliar need for stillness. Her hand reached for the girl’s and captured it softly.
The man the child had spotted -- and he was just a man now -- stood quietly by the shore, his back to them. Somewhere distant, Nimeda felt a summons against her shoulder. A wrench between worlds, like an arm thrust to the hilt into basalt stone. But she was stubborn. And she would not leave the child before she could be nudged gently to her sleeping body. Nor, glancing at the smooth glass of undisturbed water into which the tall man frowned, would she leave knowing how close he stood to the woman who made home beneath its waves.
How did he find this place? She had told him he never would.
“That,” she said quietly, and it chimed like a warning, “is the grimnir.”
Still, for now, all she said was, “I like stories.”
“Have you met the boy with the birds?” the girl asked eagerly. Her shy reticence all at once melted away, and her eyes were large and insistent, like she beheld a treasure in her small hands. Whoever she believed Nimeda to be, it warmed her like a flower that suddenly found the sun. “Or the Ash Prince?”
Nim drew her legs up, clasped them with her arms, and rested her chin upon the foundation of her knees like it might steady her. The loneliness stirred in her despite better judgement, and she stayed, her world narrowing to those spritely amber eyes and the wonder of a young expression. She pulled her senses in carefully tight, so that she might leave no inadvertent mark on the world around them. Did not even impose her will to smooth the blood from her brow, or realign the strange clothes to her usual proclivity. “I do not believe so. Will you tell me about them?”
But distraction already beckoned, and the girl’s attention shifted beyond the closed edges of Nimeda’s horizons. Her voice drew quiet again, an ardent whisper. “Who is that?”
Nimeda blinked. Cool pricked her skin in a swift tide, and left the bones of old fear revealed when it passed. For a moment it was not a who, but a what: shadows and skulls and circling ravens that dwarfed the man-shape beneath. Perhaps that was just the warm rush of blood spilling her vision, summoning all the ancient ghosts that sometimes circled those who spread roots deep and old. Most likely it was the sharp intrusion of their last remembered meeting; the threats spilled, not against Nimeda, but the vulnerable flesh and bone harbour that carried her waking life. The fingers of her scarred hand reflexively tightened a little against her leg.
She knew who it was.
But for a moment the spill of her thoughts instead remembered how Noctua had so fiercely vowed his protections against this of-the-time enemy; had called himself a fiercer wolf in a way that amused her at the time, and simply hurt now. She shuddered; let that hollow tide recede. Did not contemplate how disappointing he had apparently discovered her waking self to be, for him to have so carefully demanded the comparison of her like the wound had been intentional. It wasn’t his protection she had ever really needed, and she did not blame him, but nor could she afford to dwell on the sting when her focus now was both so slippery and so very precious.
She unfurled carefully, fighting the tide of her wavering vision. It was an unfamiliar need for stillness. Her hand reached for the girl’s and captured it softly.
The man the child had spotted -- and he was just a man now -- stood quietly by the shore, his back to them. Somewhere distant, Nimeda felt a summons against her shoulder. A wrench between worlds, like an arm thrust to the hilt into basalt stone. But she was stubborn. And she would not leave the child before she could be nudged gently to her sleeping body. Nor, glancing at the smooth glass of undisturbed water into which the tall man frowned, would she leave knowing how close he stood to the woman who made home beneath its waves.
How did he find this place? She had told him he never would.
“That,” she said quietly, and it chimed like a warning, “is the grimnir.”
![[Image: thal-banner-scaled.jpg]](http://thefirstage.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/thal-banner-scaled.jpg)