NaNo '24 - The Undergloam

The fire died away and I sat huddled in the darkness looking from the window to the barricaded entrance. An indeterminable amount of time passed. I grew cold, yet I was as still as I could be. Let him come to me if he so chose to.  Yet there was nothing save the anticipation, which after some time of gnawing away at me eventually spurned me to action. Not least because if I did not move I feared I would freeze. The fire was faint orange embers when I stepped across it, moving between the gap made between two of the box beds and my hanging garments. I crept over to the window, the lack of footwear and heavy outer garments affording me more stealth than I would have otherwise had.  I peered through the small opening into the darkness beyond. The sky had cleared once more as it had the previous night and the moonlight afforded me a view of an atonal etching of my surroundings. I could see the few trees that lay between the dwelling and the trail which I had followed, the standing...

Hours must have passed and the progress was slow. I still walked along a rutted track and the rain still beat down upon me. My temperament was perhaps at it’s lowest since I had left the safety of the wall, yet I had at least been buoyed up by the mushrooms I had consumed earlier. In addition to eating my fill, I had scavenged what others I could and placed them in a thin cotton shirt from my pack, wrapped them up, and secured them in the top of it. I at least then had the confidence - since I had suffered no ill effects - to know what to look for in future, should I come across any others like this.  The air was still wet, the mist hanging frustratingly close. I still could not espy the mountains nor the sun and because of this I began to have my doubts as to were I was going in the correct direction. I had turned due north on to the track, that much I was certain. However with the lack of bearings I found it difficult to be sure that I had stayed north.  Over grown fields ...

I had known so little of the world.  Schooling was mandatory but learning was not. I had attended classes with my two brothers yet retained little, so fixed was I on my own possibilities. I as not a warmonger like Ashe, nor a gambler like Bryln. I was quiet and I was reserved, yet I was not an academic. I had no time for geography nor history, and as such, I knew little of what lay beyond, and our place in it.  Until she arrived, of course. Then everything changed and my eyes were wrenched open, the veil torn from my sight. She taught me so much in so little time. In part due to my list for her and my taking hold and coveting every word that left her lips. In part also because of the way in which she spoke to me, from the very first time I saw her. After her treachery was exposed and she was brought before my father, my brothers, and I.  The way she looked to me then. The way she looked through me. There were nuances of that first meeting I had missed. Things that my mi...