((You'll have to forgive how rusty I am, and any errors I make with resuming this - I did read over a good half of what I'd written before to get the feel for this, though it had been a looong time.
It'll take me a little to find my voice so to speak, but hopefully, i'll do an acceptable job!))
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The gradual sway of the cart that you had been bundled into like some item of baggage felt bizzarely soothing.
You had been heavily sedated by the assortment of painkillers that you'd taken to help you cope with the injured state you'd been left in by the gunshot wounds you'd taken to your chest, followed by those injuries being further agitated as you'd removed the bullets from yourself with little more than a pair of oversized tweezers. While this was an experience that wasn't entirely new to you, removing bullets as opposed to other things - such as arrows - from your body was something you'd not had a great deal of experience with in the past. This, you figured was fortunate as it wasn't an experience you'd like to repeat any time soon.
Maybe you had more experience with this than you realised, maybe you were just so addled by your current state of mind that you were having difficulty remembering?
Difficulty with remembering things had been something of a theme these past weeks and months it seemed, though you knew that this was only to be expected considering that you'd dealt yourself a serious head wound at some point in the past. The fact that you had survived this and could still continue to remember thigns that should have otherwise been lost however, was testament to the fact that you were superior to those bastards that called themselves humans, mortals.
Civilised man.
The scenery that wobbled by blurred as it bled into itself, while the distant voices of the two women who accompanied you still tickled at the edge of your consciousness. It was nearly impossible for you to make out what the pair of them were talking about, though you could only hazard a guess that Anne was tormenting Joy, that Joy wasn't reacting to her in the slightest. This seemed somehow unimportant at this time however, as you drifted on the painkiller induced high, watching the colours flowing by like a stream of blossom caught in the wind.
Maybe taking so much in the way of everything they had that passed for painkillers hadn't been such a smart move, yet you knew that it wasn't going to have any lasting effect. Not when you couldn't possibly hope to kill yourself with an overdose of anything.
"That's the disadvantage of your condition, you cannot hope to die." came a whispering voice from before you, a voice that as you turned your attention back down from a sky that flowed like water, had you face to face with none other than yourself.
Blood caked the simple tunic that they were adorned with, blood that appeared to have seeped into it from a pinprick wound to their neck. Blood, like you had seen on your past selves bodies in such a similar manner many times.
"You cannot hope to die, thus you must cope with the creeping despair that you feel encroaching, despair both from the fact you cannot escape the cycle and from the fact that as long lived as you are, you witness horrors that even you cannot harden yourself to."
"Horrors..?" you echoed as the figure before you defied the worlds efforts to fold him into the fluid manner it blurred. You watched as he leaned forward, a smile that you could innately tell was one of infinite patience, of a man who had waited forever for an answer he may never get. A smile that remained even as you felt the distant sensation of pressure against your chin, as a hand took hold of you to turn you to face the one that possessed it.
It was Anne, you were almost certain.
It was Anne, but she clearly didn't respect you enough to stop herself blurring into the world about her like the figure who sat before you.
It was Anne, but her wings sparkled like the midnight sky as diamonds glittered in their cosmos, her eyes like emeralds and her hair crackled like a wild fire that refused to be tamed by the wind that caught it.
Her lips moved, a distant, drawn out sound escaping them as you found yourself unable to do more than gaze at her with a look of almost childish confusion.
"She says that you are cute, when you are too addled to be yourself."
"How do you know that?" you responded, while the flame haired figure shifted, sounds you couldn't hope to comprehend once more escaping her lips. It was like being drunk, like being in a dream, like being anything but yourself, and yet it wasn't entirely unfamiliar to you.
"She says that she watched you administer the painkillers herself, that if you give her any more lip like that, she'll put a bag over your head and see if you fall asleep like an animal."
You turned once more to face the figure who bore your face, scowling as best you were able, as best as your disconnection from the body that felt all too numb would permit.
"Listen to the wind, listen to the heartbeat of the world. Do you hear the cry of eternity lamenting for you, do you hear the heavens crying out for their lost child?"
"The stupid one cannot possibly hope to understand you normally, what makes you think that he who would put a bullet in his own head would understand your ramblings now, hermit?" came another voice, from a figure you were well familiar with, one bearing heavy armour, one who once more bore your face, one who's blood had stained the side of it where it had ran over his shoulder from a pinprick wound to his neck.
"Bastion of Glory, the irony of your statement is one that you cannot possibly ever hope to understand, considering you yourself were an uneducated fool, a savant in the art of warfare."
"So says the one who spent a thousand years in the forests, eating mushrooms and drinking bear piss."
"You two, please-" you started, as the two figures before you's exchange started to grow heated, "-if you could stop prodding away like this and show a little more respect-" you continued, only for a scream of anger to escape the figure who had been referred to as a hermit by the other as he lunged for the heavy armoured figure.
The cart trundled onward as the two figures toppled from the back of it, brawling in futility in the muddy ocean that spread out in the wooden boxes wake. Even as the two figures started to sink into the depths of that brown ocean, you sank backwards, the effort of remaining upright in your current state one that was too much for you, one that had your back meet with the hard surface of the cart, your head with the softness of Anne's lap.
Her lap was a lot softer than usual, you noted, as you watched the sky above running through the heavens, white streaks flowing through the liquid skies as they gushed over the horizon.
As your past selves had, your eyelids defied you too now, slowly drifting down as your entire world turned black.
When your eyes once more opened, the world about you seemed somehow dull by comparison to the rich tapestry of colours that you had seen running by before, the darkening skies seemed still, the terrain seemed static.
"Well hello there sleeping beauty, you had a lot to talk about in your sleep," came a familiar voice, a voice belonging to the womans lap that your head still occupied. A woman who was looking down at you, expectantly as her fingers ran through your hair.
"Two questions," you started as your protesting body resisted your attempts to pull yourself upright, a brief hiss escaping your lips as you decided you'd lay there for just a little longer before you tried that again. "Have we arrived at our destination yet, and what did I say?"
Anne's expression became a smile, a smile that quickly spread into a wide grin as she shook her head. "We're at the mine and you said nothing of any real interest, apart from telling me how beautiful my wings are. Three times. I was counting."
"I see. Could you help me up?" you asked as you pressed a hand to your chest, wincing as you felt the injury beneath your bandages, only for Anne to shake her head, grinning once more as she did so. "Joy, I need a hand getting to my feet."
"Understood," came her voice immediately as the sound of her climbing atop the cart echoed out with the sound of wooden groaning, of feet tapping against the boards beneath her feet. No sooner had you held your arms out, were you roughly pulled to your feet, your chest protesting as the petite woman pulled you to your feet, while you took in the details of your surroundings from your newly elevated position.
You were surrounded by barren hills on one side and light woodlands on the other, a muddy furrow of earth that had acted like a path for you to follow stretched out into the distance while the rocky hillside behind you had a gaping hole leading into it. A hole that beyond the entrance, had no light visible within it, telling you that this mine had no lanterns lit within it.
"I recall you two sitting in the cart with me, where's the person who was driving?" you asked as you glanced about once more, as your attention fell on Anne as she started to speak.
"Well," she started "Bill and Bob drove the cart and said they'd go take a peek in the mine while we waited for you to come too. That was maybe... Fifteen minutes ago, they've not been back yet, so the mine's either deep, or they're just glad to be away from you, given that you hate them so much."
"I see."
Your words hung heavy in the air as you glanced once more towards the mines, unable to shake a feeling of dread as you knew that something ancient lurked there, something that you had faced once before in the past. Something that was responsible for the taint that had twisted William and Robert, as they'd been named. Something that you knew had the advantage in the dark, due to your lack of ability to see in it as many of those who became tainted became able to do.
Tainted, like Anne and Joy.
They would have to be your eyes in the dark if you found no means to see within the darkened shafts of the mines.
The question was, how did you approach this.
Did you go in immediately and rely upon these two to be your eyes?
Did you search for means to illuminate the place for yourself, at the cost of their advantage in the dark?
Did you wait for Bill and Bob's return?
Or, was there another course of action that you believed to be better to pursue at this point?
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Topic: They told me I could be anything... (Read 78894 times)