Horrors in Timbrethinil

[Ataraxis]

It had taken them over five hours to catch that rabbit, and Lillian had half a mind to criticize their preparedness, survival skills and general worth as men from one of the most respected races in Althanas. The victorious smile on Rávion’s face contrasted with that hangdog look on Orophin’s, however, were too antithetic to their personalities for her to ignore. Unfortunately, she could get nothing out of her prying except their diversionary promise that they would skin, clean gut, empty, debone, slice and cook their catch on their own. Just as well, since those extra centuries they had on her at least came with extensive culinary skills. With the sun gone and the evening repast done with, they quickly fell asleep, knowing that every minute wasted awake at night was another wasted after dawn.

The next morning had been similar to the previous, with Orophin setting up a soundproof field around the hilltop so that the noise from Lillian's lessons would not reach across the forest and into the area of corruption. After all, they always said that trees had ears – quite literally at that, for the ones that had fallen victim to the dark infection. That afternoon, they decided to fish instead, and the haul was much more abundant than it had been before, thanks to some of Orophin’s slightly more sublime songs. Rávion would keep working on that crystal rod, or pore through a book he had already read countless times whenever he hit a snag.

As the days and nights cycled, few pins had vibrated. One time, they had caught several squirrels passing through, and that had made for a very unusual supper. Another had been a rather auspicious catch: a deer had wandered into the spider’s den, and while the imagery did not quite match reality, they still devoured it whole over the course of a week like a pack of famished beasts armed with sharp teeth and only a modicum of table manners. The rest of the time, undead sentries had wanderered through, but as was the protocol for multiple pins that oscillated in unison, they never bothered to investigate until the scouts made their exit on the opposite end. While they had to be careful in case of stragglers, they never ran into any actual trouble: the enemy was as oblivious to their presence as ever.

“How long until they come, do you think?” Lillian asked the soundsmith as they sat against the cavern walls. The girl’s back was resting snugly against his chest, and he loosely cradled her waist in the crook of his arm. Orophin had found it a strange picture, but what surprised him most was that there was nothing more to it than what he saw. Unlike those fictional tales where harsh circumstances were all it took for dreadfully codependent characters to unite under a flimsy banner of love, these two were ever the realists, simply finding comfort in amiable contact. Rávion, he guessed, must have realized since their rabbit hunt how inappropriate the difference in their ages was, and Lillian… well he had never seen her display any interest in males or the concept of love. That was something he would have found worrying, if Rávion had not revealed to him that only days ago, he had been just as clueless as the girl in that respect. He then mused on the possibility that she found her romantic interests in the fairer half of humanity, a preference not uncommon amongst elves as well. The gender one knows best is one’s own, after all.

“I wouldn’t want us to get our hopes up with too early an estimate,” Rávion replied at last. “I think it’s fair to think they’ll come before the infection overruns the whole of Timbrethinil, at the very least. They couldn’t risk it spilling out into the rest of the country, if it hasn’t already. I doubt they’d wait long enough for the undead to recuperate their losses either.”

“Sounds reasonable. That would give us a few months, I think.” Lillian looked at Orophin, who had been silent for far too long considering his usual talkativeness and and incorrigible tendency to boast. “I think we should be able to last... If the rot spreads to the cave, we’ll probably have to find shelter somewhere else, though. We could even leave the forest and wait outside until we eventually hear the sounds of battle. What do you think?”

“I think,” Orophin began, pointing to the wall they were leaning on, “that those five pins are vibrating.”