The Isle of The WayFolk

Mary wasn't sure who she was scared of more - the giant mutated monster or the little man who stood in between her and it. At least he was on her side - well, he was on his own side, actually. Any remaining uncertainty about her place in relation to the Wayfolk, any niggling sense of equal respect that may have remained after the chimera's harsh words, that was shattered the minute Durag started calling her slave.

She looked calm on the outside - still as a statue, actually - but on the inside she was panicking. Slave? That had not been what she meant! A few weeks work for the Wayfolk fellow, a month maybe, until he was satisfied that she had paid him what she 'owed'. That she could deal with. But, but, slave? That implied a lot, lot longer. Too long. Even more so, when she started thinking about how old the Wayfolk must be, and how they must see time very differently, which was proven today when Durag had started ranting about how her ancestors had trespassed his kind as if it were her fault! Hadn't it been him who stole her shoes? Wasn't it his fault that she had to stay out this late? The fact that she had to pay him back at all would of been ludicrous to most, many would of just taken back what was theirs and left. But not Mary, no. Foolish girl!

Her head was spinning. How long would she have to work? What impossible tasks would the Wayfolk set her? Would she ever see her home, her family? Would she have to move into the forest among the chimera and whatever other monstrosities lurked out there? But, what was her alternative? Her eyes darted between Durag and the lioness head. If she were to run now, no doubt the chimera would catch her. She'd rather live to see the morning then die in the claws of that mangy beast. Anyway, she'd told the dwarf her home, and if she were to move elsewhere on the island, if she made it back to town in one piece, no doubt he'd one day find her or her descendants. The branch in her hands creaked under the pressure of her frightened, vice grip. No, she'd just have to go with it... for now. She had no chance against the beast or Durag. Maybe he was just trying to scare the chimera off... yes, that's right... but deep down, Mary didn't believe it.

The chimera's lips turned upwards in a wrathful snarl and she lowered her head to stare the dwarf right in the eye. "So humanlike your kin are, but to go so far as to protect one, slave or no! Can you blame us for feasting on them, when here we have a prime example of all that is wrong among the Wayfolk? You would make a sister go hungry to keep a meager slave! I do not regret eating your brethren, if this is how you would treat those that share the same magic in your blood."

Her yellow eyes turned towards the human then, a hatred in her eyes so cold it chilled Mary to the bone. "Stay close to your master little girl! Cower in his shadow, for if I should find you out on your own, well..." she glanced at the dwarf, her voice dropping to a low hum "I'm sure no one would blame me if I thought you had been abandoned. No court of our kind would punish me for such an easily-made mistake." She pulled her lips into what may have passed as a grin for her kind, before backtracking into the shadows, her tail the last thing to be seen as she disappeared into the darkness.

"Maybe I shall pay a visit to your lands to hunt for food, mmm? I'm sure there is a dwarf or two who wouldn't mind helping me out..." came the last echo of the darkness, and then the noises of the forest returned. It was safe now.

Amidst her muddled, panicked thoughts, a quiet voice of reason managed to contemplate the situation. oh, he's a dwarf, that's nice.. it told her simply as she dropped her branch to the floor with a thunk.
 
His sisters putrid breath filled his nostrils as she spoke, "Yes... no court of ours would ever punish for such an easily made mistake sister" He pushed the head back with the blunt end of his hammer. "But her time on the circle has not yet expired... and you will not go against the fates plan!" His eyes glowed with fury as he spoke "That is what her kind did, if you've any sense left in your thick skulls to remember! they went against the fates and look what happened!"

He watched the Chimera go a final thought collecting in his mind, "If I catch you hunting my kin again, no court will blame me when all three of your heads decorate my door frame!" He called as the beast left. The hammer evaporated into dust as he attached the sled back to his harness, "Well, c'mon girl" he motioned to her. "We've still a walk ahead of us." His footsteps fell solidly on the path again, followed by the grinding of the sled on the earth. The sounds of the forest had started up again, as if the blanket that had enveloped them had suddenly been lifted. The dwarves hated the Chimeras, on the Council they always fought, and in bygone days it was not uncommon for council disputes to be settled in battle.
 
Mary stood their for a long time, dizzy, staring at where the chimera had been. After a while, it finally registered that Durag was on the move again, and so she trotted after him, tripping over a troublesome root along the way. Her mind was swimming with questions. What was this about a circle? and fate? But more importantly,

"Hey, um, Durag? What do you mean by slave?" she asked, her tone flat, her eyes searching his back as if the answer was written plain as day on his back. Mary looked down at her clogs. If that was the cost of a safe journey home, she would gladly try to convince him that her clogs were of great value to him. Maybe he'd still be interested in them, she tried to convince herself. You never knew your luck.

Although, she couldn't help thinking that luck wasn't with her today. After all, what had turned out as avoiding a daily chore had become life-endangering. Maybe the fates were punishing her for her frivolity. She frowned. Well, had she known what she knew now, she never would of gone to the beach, or stayed out so late. Heck, she'd even help collecting firewood, if it meant she didn't have to come out this way. Alas, hindsight was such a punishing thing.
 
He snorted in response to her question "Girl, i'd rather chew the meat off that creature that just left us than suffer you as a slave". "You will go home, continue on your path, and I shall return to my generally less-than-excitable existence" he paused and once again all that could be heard was the dragging of the sled while crickets chirruped around them. "My choices were two..." he started again. "Either fight off that wretched creature, or lie to it." "And as I don't feel like fighting for you, I opted for the the lie, Chimeras are gullible creatures" He finished. "From this night forward however, I suggest that you do not find yourself in the woods alone"

He stopped on a small hill overlooking the town, staring at it reflectively.
 
The backhanded compliment, if you could even call it that, hit Mary with a blow of guilt to the stomach. She really had thought he'd meant to force her to work in some damp horribly Wayfolk Cave somewhere, with gruel for supper if she was lucky and never seeing her family again... Letting her imagination get the better of her, she supposed. A lump formed in her throat. She walked the rest of the journey in silence, until they reached the hilltop by the town. By then Mary could no longer bear it.

"I'm so sorry! I honestly thought you were going to lock me up somewhere and then I got really angry and I thought you were really mean even though you got rid of that chimera thing and took me back home safely through the forest and it was really ungrateful of me to think those things while you were being so brave.. you could of just let the chimera ate me..." she blurted out, eventually trailing off into a squeak and then silence. Any person with two brain cells to rub together would of kept silent.

She wasn't sure if she felt better or worse. The guilt was still there.

"Yeah...sorry.." she said awkwardly, staring at her clogs, waiting from the incoming torrent of rage from her dwarven companion.
 
There was no torrent of rage, his head was swimming with the massive explosion that was her explanation, "Your explanations are unnecessary" he replied bluntly. He started down the hill, the town was further away than it looked, "Come along, we're still about an hours walk from the edge of town". He started forward, sidling around a tree. The thought of keeping a human slave turned his stomach, he liked his life simple, anybody in the same domicile as him would almost assuredly remove the simplicity from his life. That was something he just couldn't bear. "Understand girl, your time along the circle hasn't been completed, that is why the Chimera could not eat you, you have something else; an achievement of some sort that you will be required to fulfill."

He ducked under a fallen log, the sled dragging behind him.
 
Mary looked up sheepishly, watching the dwarf continue on his way without so much as an angry word. She found her guilt slowly receding and her curiosity swirled to the surface. The Circle? An achievement? That sounded terribly exciting! Not to mention terrifying. The chimera incident receded to the back of her mind, for now, and she summoned her courage to walk alongside the dwarf.

"What's the circle? What kind of achievement? Is it dangerous? Hey, you're a Dwarf right Durag? What are Dwarfs like?" she asked, questions spilling out one after another. "You said something about a council, too. So the Wayfolk are ruled by a council? And what's your sled for? Why were you out at the beach today?" she asked, her fear for Durag temporarily dulled as she chattered on, leaning forward a little to get a good look at his face.

"Thankyou for escorting me back to town, by the way." she added, almost as an afterthought.
 
Taking a deep breath he pulled his sled around another tree, before he answered her questions. "The circle is your life, it represents the continuous affect you have on the world." He paused suddenly in his explanation, they had come to a field just outside the town. "I have not the time nor interest in explaining such things to you girl" He finished grumpily, dwarves never discuss such things, unless they are close... even then it is considered taboo, a dwarves life should be spent in solitude or working, none of this talky-talky. Mentally he reprimanded himself for allowing even a mention of the circle.

"Dwarves like silence" He nodded to her. "This is where we part ways. You have your kin and I have my quiet existence to return to. You may visit me at my home but only during the day, and that is if you are smart enough to find your way, travel north for two hours and if your wits are keen enough, you'll find it" With a quiet "POP" he disappeared before her eyes. He didn't believe for a minute that she'd find the courage to enter the forest again
 
"Oooh." Mary replied knowingly, although really, she didn't understand fully what he was suggesting. Mary was not the type of individual who gave a second thought to death, when she was healthy and not faced with a fatal situation, that is. Already the chimera incident had faded to something much less severe, although her worry of the dwarf had been the same. Maybe it was a coping mechanism, maybe it was carelessness, but whether she got run trampled by a herd of horses tomorrow or live to a ripe old age was neither here or there for her.

Her mouth closed shut as he explained his like for silence, although by now it was too late for her to show any sort of respect for that. Probably wouldn't have it in her, anyway, the talkative type she was. Mary nodded her head in silence, committing the directions to memory, then *pop!* he was gone.

She held her hands out, rushing to where he had been standing. The lass twirled about on the spot, as if expecting to see a dwarf-shaped shadow scuttling off into the forest. But there was nothing, just the quiet chirping that had accompanied them through the forest, the occasional hoot of a far away owl. Mary took a step back, her eyes lingering on where he had stood. "Just like that!" she murmured breathlessly, a cheerful expression on her face.

of course she was going to see him in the morning! Could he teach her that nifty trick too? It would be so useful-! With a quick glance at the forest up on the hill she decided now was no time to think of these things, but instead, rushed to her home on the outskirts of town.
The light of a wavering candle, and the quiet crackling of the fireplace, warned her that someone had stayed up. Mary silenced a sneeze, slipping off her noisy clog and pushing open the heavy front door. It seemed the house was on her side today, and she closed it without so much as a whisper, avoiding the creaky floorboards and tiptoeing past the main room.

She was in luck. Her farther had fallen asleep waiting for her, the light of the fireplace beginning to dim. A grin crossed her face as the girl made her way through the small cottage, finding a woolly blanket before returning. Her heart beating like a drum, she placed the blanket over him as quietly as she could before coaxing the fire to life, placing another log to keep it going for a while. There'd be ice on the inside of the windows by morning, so she'd like him to be as comfortable as possible.

Escaped his wraith for the night, maybe. If she were up early, maybe she could avoid him a little while longer... Mary grinned and headed to bed, excited thoughts lulling her to sleep. She dreamed of Wayfolk, and giant crabs, and angry little men with big hammers swatting down chimeras from the sky.
 
He appeared a hundred yards or so away form the edge of the forest, pulling his little sled along. Soon after, he wandered down a small ravine between a pair of large boulders and disappeared between some bushes, carefully rearranging them after he passed through. To the common passerby it would look like nothing more than a bush, the path behind it wasn't visible. There was a tinge of gray on the horizon when he he arrived at a small clearing with a rock face that crept into the sky, at the base of the outcropping there was a small round red door, a smoke hole had been bored through the cliff above the door, soft whisps of wood smoke drifted out and into the sky . Pulling his sled to the door, he disappeared through it. Dropping a large wooden bar across the door he put the wood onto a wood stack then kicked his boots off and sat down in a large overstuffed armchair. What was supposed to be just a short excursion to pick up more wood had turned into a horribly complicated ordeal. He was glad to be rid of it all.

Lighting a pipe, he stuffed a wad of dried plant into the bowl and lit it, puffing thoughtfully he stared at the fire for a spell. Later he was found asleep in his chair, the pipe on a small table next to him while the fire burned low.
 
Mary woke early the next morning, just as the sun was breaking the horizon. It was cold, and she scuttled about quietly as a mouse, grabbing some things together preparing to spend the day out and about. There was a slight mist in the air, and the dewy fields were touched by a dusting of gossamer. Mary quietly left the cottage, blowing her hands to keep them warm. It hadn't been this cold yesterday, not that she'd been out so early the previous morning. Maybe it would warm up later - or so she hoped.

Sluggishly she began her treck towards the forest edge. She yawned, taking her time, a touch of the sandman's dust still clouding her head. Mary kept herself occupied, admiring the eerie landscape and imagining how dwarves spent their morning. It was not long before she was deep in the northern forest. Thinking about it, Mary had never really came this way before.
 
He'd woken in his chair, to a cool dark room; the fire nothing more than struggling embers in the fire place. Tossing some more kindle and logs onto it he stoked it back up, then proceeded to fry up a little breakfast. He'd spend the day tending to his little plot garden fending off the crows and other scavengers that always seemed to show up when he was picking vegetables, and later that day he'd probably go fetch some more wood. Grabbing the skillet from the fire, he grabbed a fork and proceeded outside. The cool morning air was always the perfect wake up call, sitting down on a chair outside the door he chewed quietly, enjoying the sounds of the morning.
 
Dwarves rarely lost their directional sense, especially in relation to their homes. However, Durag had on occasion; found himself not knowing where he was. Typically this was when something was on his mind that was a little more pressing than the actual journey home. So a number of symbols could be found carved into rock and wood througout the island. Each symbol indicated the direction to follow, and for how long. For security reasons though, each symbol was carved in a manner that didn't stand out. Generally, one would have to gaze at the symbol at the right angle for it to stand out.

The symbol could be described as a circle with a small arrow in the center, the arrow dictated the direction to go. A series of dashes within the circle indicated how many hours of travel until the next marker, dots indicated minutes. The marking between the boulders that Durag had left through, was on the opposite side, with the arrow indicating the direction he went, it was near the bottom of the boulder concealed in the bushes.
 
A gentle-looking girl, Seraphin always got along well with others. She had a mentality that allowed her to keep a cool head in rough situations so when things got tense she was usually involved with trying to sort things out. It was this trait exactly that landed her in the middle of this current situation.

Her small feet were protected by simple leather calf-high boots. Those were not attention-grabbers, though, as they were hidden beneath the long gown that was expected to be worn by the women in her little village. Humans were a people of tradition, she guessed, despite the fact that she often disagreed with what was 'expected' of her. The dulcet colors and simple design just weren't something she could agree with. It didn't match her personality.

The hands, small to match her feet, rubbed softly at her face as she listened to the argument continue between the men. It all started when the Wayfolk woman dropped off a strange rock. At first everyone was afraid of it. Then people began to be curious about it. It had only taken a week now, since the woman left the object, and already they were beginning to fight over the curiously colored piece of stone. She had a feeling that it was only going to get worse from here. Things were unraveling into chaos and it was all due to that accursed rock.

As they continued, she gave in and sighed. "Alright, why don't we have a council meeting to decide who gets the rock and when? The Elders will surely be fair, right?" Her pleading voice got through to them as both grudgingly agreed to the proposal. Even as they were still reaching out to shake hands on the deal, Seraphin was on her way out towards the forest. The only way to stop this, that she knew of, was to go find someone or something that could break the curse on the rock. It would've been easier, of course, to just get rid of the rock but it was under lock and key. There was no way she could get her hands on it and get it out. It had a round-the-clock guard.

Seraphin had never left the town before. This was going to be her first little adventure. Thus, she had no idea what preparations she should make for a long journey. Her ignorance on the matter left her wandering off into the trees and away from her home to explore the island without a thing but the clothes on her back and an irritated mind full of chaotic ideas to keep her company.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back