How can you remain, Staring at the rain, Maddened by the stars?
It was one of those nights. Azure's rest hadn't been peaceful. She'd shiver in her sleep. From time to time she'd jolt and mutter, incoherently and loudly, before slipping back into restless unconsciousness.
When the thick fog of sleep finally parted, as suddenly as it had come, exhaustion lingered. Like she hadn't slept at all. Like her mind had trapped her in a nightmare too persistent to escape. She must have rolled out of her blanket. And she'd let the fire go out.
Azure opened her eyes to the cold and dark. In the corner they caught only the inkling of dawn, the faintest of lights coming in from the right. It was the deep, dull ache in her forehead that made her squint. Then there was the stinging in her neck, the strange smell, and a distinct presence.
And then, like a bolt of lightning, memories of the night rushed in. In torn bits and pieces she put together what had happened before the world had gone black and her hand jolted up to her neck in panic. When the tips of her fingers touched fabric, she froze for a beat, her mind sluggishly trying to make sense of this fact. The hand lingered, protectively pressing against the bandages. The pulse of pain that came with the touch made her jaw clench.
She saw him then, in the corner of her eye, a dark shape on the cave wall, little more than a shadow. And the fear stepped back in. It was as if it had never left, but waited, like the third presence in the damp cave, beside the unconscious girl and the watchful Ascended.
She watched him through heavy lids as she recognized the strange smell she'd woken up to. It was the smell that drenched the snow when her father would come home from the hunt. The smell that scattered when he'd cut into an animal, revealing the meat below. It wasn't as heavy as it had been, but it lingered. On her clothes, in the ground, on the figure just a small distance away, shrouded in darkness. She shivered. Gods, it was cold in this place.
"Where am I?", she quietly asked. What was happening? What did the Ascended say just before she'd passed out? Azure couldn't remember.
Azure
