Sweet Cinnamoth
EXP: 37,766, Level: 8
Level completed: 31%,
EXP required for next Level: 6,234
Sometimes, when one was exploring, they found the most wonderous things.
Fenn stood in a field as red as mortal blood. Its color came not from anything that horrendous, however; it came from flowers. A wide, downy carpet of royal catchfly, cloaking dry Coronian prairie. Over in the distance, Daugi’s dark canid figure tore through the blooms, barking at grouses.
Fenn felt a little strange wading through the flowers. They were soft and tall, coming nearly up to his chest. A nectar-sweet scent wafted off of them. Their touch was gentle. Feeling as if he were in a dream — a feeling he knew very well from lucid dives into his actual dreams — he picked one of the slender blooms from where it grew. It was all very welcoming, and yet… the color here was too familiar too him. His breath caught.
Red. The opposite of green.
His first thought flitted to a very particular shade of scarlet. Red eyes and red hair, as seen through blackened iron bars.
Fenn shook his head as if to clear away the thought. The flower, he lifted to his nose, hoping to distract himself from the intrusion.
But he didn’t smell nectar.
~ § ~ § ~ § ~
He smelled iron, burning flesh, and his own sour blood.
His world shrunk to a square meter of iron bars and rust. The cold, black-grey ceiling of his cage loomed above him as he laid against the floor. Wherever his bare skin touched the cold metal beneath him, it burned, burned him to his bones. Burning had become its own numbness now. He barely felt the weight around his wrists and ankles now; more importantly, he didn’t dare to look at them and their charred, flaking skin. It was bettering that he didn’t move, anyway. What energy he had left could only spent on breathing.
He was pretty sure that something was going to give way to oblivion soon. The bloodloss. The burns. The dehydration and hunger. One of them was going to kill him. Why didn’t they just hurry up already?
He knew no-one was coming for him. Even his magic had abandoned him — he hadn’t generated a lick of frost for… however long it’d been since he had been abandoned here. Days. He was well and truly alone. But in his dreamy, barely-alive state, he had moments of uncertainty. Sometimes he imagined he saw shadowy silhouettes stirring outside the bars, in the derelict kitchen; sometimes, he thought he heard voices. These phantasms swarmed under his skin like ants. He heard breathing, but it was only his own. It was only Daugi. Was it Daugi? Was she still… there?
Sometimes, he worried that she was going to come back. Sometimes he worried that Amari wasn’t done with him. But no; those red irises were another wandering ghost. Another trick of his mind.
The boy shut his eyes to the ceaseless presence of the iron-grey ceiling.
~ § ~ § ~ § ~
Fenn opened his eyes and let out a deep breath. One, two, three, four…
His hands tore at the frost-flecked flower he held. He wished he could release it all as easily as plucking off red, red petals, and letting them scatter on the wind.
Last edited by FennWenn; 06-09-2018 at 07:07 PM.
