Eivlys : consequences of rebellion

[wyrdgirluk]

There was no sign of the pixie in the cold evening air; the only sign of any other life in the immediate vicinity was a thin finger of smoke, still rising from the chimney into the darkening sky. Eivlys found that it was impossible to resist an involuntarily shudder, standing naked as she was by the pond. She had spent much of the day asleep in her swan form, shielded from the worst of the cold by her white down, but her maiden form gave her no such protection. It would be necessary to either change back to her swan form, or to seek shelter and warmth very soon.

More embarrassingly, her stomach emitted a distinct growl of hunger, and she realised that she was hungry... desperately so. It was time to find something to eat, something that would give her complaining innard something to work on.

[Eivlys]

She went to waters edge where she had left the clothing she wore the night before. Picking it up she dressed, covering her body at least. That would keep the chill away, the next duty was to find food. There was nothing in the cabin, this she was sure of. So the next best thing was to get going down the road and see if she could find an inn or tavern or someplace she could perhaps sing for her food or a temple. A temple would be nice, they would offer food and shelter to the worn traveler.

That is what she would have to do. She looked like a beggar dressed in rags, except for the cloak. She rolled the cloak up and hid it under the clothing she was wearing. It would stick out otherwise and that would not be what was needed.

She headed for the road, to see where it could take her.

[wyrdgirluk]

Eivlys started across the fields, with no real sense of where she was going. Eventually, the fields led to a rough dirt road, wet and muddy; it was still possible to make out the hoofmarks from the grey cloaked riders that had taken Eira.

She shivered in the cool late season air; the clothing she wore offered very little warmth, her stomach griped to remind her that it needed feeding. She felt strangely weak; her limbs were like water, and her head felt oddly light headed. Hungry, a voice murmured insistently in her ears...

It was a very simple choice; try and walk along the dirt road and hope that she would find something to eat, somewhere to shelter, someone to help her... or return to the cottage. It seemed very small, and distanct now; but there was a faint light in the window, and a thin finger of smoke drifting from the chinmey...

[Eivlys]

She looked down the road and then back to the cottage that seemed to have someone in it now. Did Ragwort come back. She could not leave the little thing on it’s own out here.

Down the road may be adventure, but perhaps she was not supposed to adventure. Perhaps she was meant to stay and roost. She felt sad at this idea, she was caged, and they were not bars of steel, but the limits of her own curse. It would get too cold to travel at night, so she would need to stay in a home. A home so far away and so alone it would be no better then the cage at the circus.

“I guess it will give me time to work on my skills.” She sighed to the night sky as she walked back to the cabin.

[wyrdgirluk]

It seemed a long, long way back to the cottage; Eivlys felt weak from hunger, and when she reached the door she simply collapsed on the rough grass and stone.

The earth felt cool and wet against her skin, and she gazed up into the cloudless sky and the stars that filled. It would be very easy to just lie there, and become colder and stiller, and just sleep...

Something pinched her nose. Eivlys blinked, her eyes dull and heavy. Again, something pinched her nose, something emitting a bright green glow. Focusing, she saw Ragwort perched on her chin, glaring at her.

"Look at ya now," the pixie scolded. "Lying in the earth like.. like.. some dead lumpy human, ya are. Get up and inside with ya, before ya freeze and the crows pick ya bones."

It certainly seemed a more inviting proposition that lying outside.

[Eivlys]

“I think I am dieing.” She whispered to the pixie. “I don’t know if I can stand up.” She said as she moved her limbs to pull herself off the cold ground. “Perhaps I should go back to being a swan, I can at least find food as a swan. There did not appear to be any human food here.”

She looked around for perhaps a garden, hoping there may be some food there that was left this late in the season. It was already turning very cold.

Once on her feet she would look for food in the house or around the house, something she could eat. If not, she would turn back to a swan and eat that way.

[wyrdgirluk]

"Don't be ridiculous," Ragwort snapped, grasping her firmly by the nose and tugging upwards sharply. "I'll not be having ya die on me and leave me in this Mother forsaken place. Besides, if you die, ye'll start rotting, and I never could abide the smell of things going green and runny."

Somehow Eivlys staggered to her feet; she felt like her blood had turned to water. Somehow, she managed to stagger around the side of the burnt out cottage, looking for something - anything - to eat. Ragwort flittered around her head; "That's the idea! We'll have ye running up a mountain next!"

At the back of the garden there were the remains of a garden, now sadly neglected and overgrown; canes lay broken amongst the weeds and the last of the wild flowers that sprouted from what had once been a neatly tended plot. Ragwort flickered between the tallest of the leaves; "Mostly weeds and burdock," she announced confidently. "Good for the insects, so they are." She swiped a careless beetle from one leaf, and crunched on it greedily. "There's other stuff too," she said, chewing noisily. "Root food. Neeps, carrits, uniuns. Some leafy stuff too, but they've been got at." She peered beneath the leaves of a well chewed cabbage, and emitted a cry of delight; "And here's ya fella!" She held up a protesting slug and swallowed it whole, before emitting a startlingly loud burp. "Grand," she announced. "You should be trying them - they're well fed."

[Eivlys]

She gathered what strength she had and stepped out to harvest some of the plants by hand. “I think I will eat the plants, you can have all the bugs you want. If I was a swan, I might find the bugs appetizing.”

She knelt down in the earth and started digging for the onions and the other root vegetables. Her fingers working in the soil looking for the plants the dark dirt hid away. She hummed a simple tune as she worked, singing at times softly to herself to keep herself awake, and to make the time pass quicker.

Anything she found she set to the side and would gather in her skirt once she was done. She could make a soup out of it, what ever she found. It was just a shame she did not have broth or stock to add to it.

[Vanadius]

OOC: Hey Eivlys. I'll be jumping in here to cover for Wyrdgirluk for a bit. If you'll be patient just a bit longer, I'm familiarizing myself with your plots and your sheet and I'll jump in with a new post and we'll continue very soon!

Thanks for your patience!

V.

[Vanadius]

The gathered vegetables would make a fine soup or stew once they cooked a bit. The carrots were thin and pale and much of the lettuce and cabbage was withered, but a few of the potatoes and onions were plump and healthy and would make for a good hearty meal.

A sudden wind blew, and with the chill came a distant tune that carried on the breeze. It was faint. So incredibly faint that it could scarcely be heard. It wasn't a voice that could be heard, but rather an instrument. A flute perhaps, or maybe even pipes. It melded with her humming gently as if the tune and her soft hums were working together to create a new song.

If Ragwort noticed there was no sign. For the pixie, there was only the hunt for more food to focus on.

Something floated on the breeze. It was tiny and barely noticeable from far away. It flew closer, borne on the breeze like a boat in a wide river. It came closer and closer still until it became recognizable.

It was a tiny white feather.

[Eivlys]

The music gave her pause, the music washed over her, pushing her fears away. The white feather made her smile as she watched it dance on the currents of the wind. The darkening skies made a lovely backdrop for the pure white dancer in the air. She wanted to swirl and dance like the feather, to feel beautiful and light.

She reached two delicate and thin fingers out and plucked the white downy feather from the air, touching it to her lips. As she hummed the tune back at the soft air, then let out in a song back at the flute music. Singing to the darkness, and starting to dance her way back to the cabin to make her soup. She let the music swallow her up, fill her and push all her fear and sorrow away. Music moved her, deeply and wonderfully, and this music seemed to come from the heavens themselves.

Stepping into the house she moved lieghtly, dancing across the floor setting the vegetables down and stocking the fire with what wood she could find. She moved fluidly and lightly as she prepared her dinner, singing the tune as she went.

[Vanadius]

Ragwort noticed the girl dancing as she went onwards towards the house. Another thick slug was wolfed down by the pixie and she eyed Eivlys suspiciously.

"What's this? Half a heartbeat ago you were dying, and now because some fool plays a flute you're ready to dance the night away?" Ragwort harrumphed loudly and sat down in a huff, folded arms across a tiny chest were all Eivlys could see before Ragwort's back was turned.

"Don't you even want to know where its coming from? What if its those men, coming back, now with their bellies full of Eira? Have you gone mad?"

Ragwort stalked off in the direction of the music angrily, rolling her eyes and shaking her head.

The low fire made for good cooking and easy preparation. Most of the vegetables would have to be torn by hand, making her soup a rough, unfinished looking dish, but it smelled good as it began to bubble and boil.

A cracked bowl would manage to hold her meal and a wooden spoon would need a good cleaning, but it would do. It would do.

The gentle song continued for a few more burns then suddenly, abruptly it came to an end. It did not end in a logical or musical place. It cut off in mid note and the quiet returned.

[Eivlys]

She paused in her dancing, and nodded to Ragwort. “I guess music has a way of doing that to a person. It is magical, I think. I mean, music inspires and lifts a soul, it can make you feel love and happiness, or sorrow and pain. It has real power over people, it is strange.” She sighed. “Perhaps it is the human part of me that responds to it, but I think it is the magical part more. Music is really magic.”

She continued making the meal as she hummed with the crude tools she was left with in the broken house. When the music stopped she felt a pang of fear. The silence crept in like some unwelcome guest, filling the place with a sense of cold and foreboding.

She continued to sing the song, just to keep the feelings at bay, and keep her moving until she could eat. Once she was eating, she sat next to the fire with a leg of a broken chair. She sipped her soup as she watched the dark of the night linger outside the light of the fire.

[Vanadius]

All was deathly silent. Except for her singing, there was no noise. Normally there would be the call of nightbirds and the chittering of insects, perhaps even the hoot of an owl. But there was nothing. Simply quiet eerie silence, as if the lands all around her were holding it's breath.

A chill floated upon the air, as if something dreadful had happened...

... or was about to happen...

[Eivlys]

As the chill set in, the pale woman drew closer to the fire. She picked up the piece of wood she was going to use as a weapon to fend off anything that may try to attack her. In the back of her mind she was remembering the tree and all the other things that had been violent to her and she wondered a bit if the chair leg was an effort in futility. What would it really fend off?

She looked at Ragwort. “You want to go see what is coming?” She asked with a half laugh, knowing the small pixie would not.

She tossed a few more pieces of wood on the fire to pick up the firelight.

[Vanadius]

Ragwort had already left some time ago, so Eivlys' question went unanswered.

Stillness and silence greeting her questions and there was only the feather to remind her there was any other living thing nearby. Her larger fire did not illuminate any other creatures or the source of the music.

For now, she was alone with only the questioning silence to speak to her.

[Eivlys]

With just the darkness looking back at her, she stepped forward. Holding her spoon in her right hand, she would be able to us it as a weak weapon if she was attacked. She squared her shoulders and looked at the blackness. “Ragwort?” She called out to the shadows.

She had known the house, having explored it the night before. She stepped into the darkness, waiting a moment for her eyes to adjust. She left the food to finish cooking, and started to find Ragwort, and the source of the music in the darkness.

[Vanadius]

No reply came, but strangely or perhaps not strangely, another white feather drifted towards Eivlys on the silent breeze. It caught against a tree branch and hung there, struggling and fluttering to free itself in the wind.

The house and the empty darkness around it seemed eerie and solemn with the indomitable spirit of Ragwort to fill it up. It was like coming home to mother and finding an empty house. The absence of her loomed larger than she ever could of she were there.

The music had ended abruptly, and that odd disquiet could be almost seen in the gloom that surrounded her.

A terrible scream pierced the night. Like a child's shrill screech, or the high pitch scream of a woman in terror. It seemed to have come from the copse of trees to her right, but in the dark and with the wind, it was difficult to tell for certain.

[Eivlys]

She almost jumped out of her skin at the shriek from the woods. She could feel her body trembling, from the cold as well as fear. She had seen a number of people die in the short span of these few days, and she was always just a breath away from getting killed herself.

She was slowly coming to realize that the world was a dark and evil place. “Why did I leave home?” She whispered to herself, she could have been safe and warm and working on a rug or something. “You will do no good just standing here.” She chided herself, having a debate about if she should go, or if she should stay. If she went and it was something dangerous, she could be killed. Of course, if she waited, it may just come find her and kill her anyway.

She stiffened her back and tried to keep from shaking too much, and took a step. One by one, her bare feet stepped across the ground. She was ready to change, change into her winged human form in case she had to fly away. She tugged on the cloak, making sure it was tight, and gripped the spoon in broken chair leg tighter. Heading for the group of trees.

[Vanadius]

Well back into the copse, an eerie green light burned, silhouetting the trunks of the trees and the leafy branches that hung from them. Another shrill scream pierced the night and the flicker of dancing shadows could be seen.

The soft footfalls of her feet made little noise and what little it did make was lost in the rustle of leaves in the breeze. Ahead of her the strange green light grew brighter and brighter until at last it illuminated the entire forest around her.

It was a bonfire. The source of the strange luminescent glow was a glowing green bonfire burning as tall as a man and twice as wide. Near it a hunched figure sat. The figure held something tiny and precious in it's hands and it clutched it close like a treasure. The figure wheezed and rocked to and fro near the large green flames, whining and cooing like an overgrown child too far from home.

The silhouette of the figure snapped its head to listen, and it was suddenly obvious that that this strange, lonely figure had heard Eivlys approach. Without warning, the strange green flames began to glow orange and yellow and as the fire changed color, it receded until it was a tiny, flickering blaze no larger than a human hand.

Another harsh cry filled the night, coming from the figure...

[Eivlys]

She rubbed her eyes; the bright light of the fire against the black of the night was slightly painful. When the fire died down, she blinked several times, trying to get her eyes to adjust to the changing light. She could hardly see anything now, let alone who or what was crying at the edge of the fire.

The cry was pitiful, and it frightened her as much as made her sad. What soul could mourn like this, could cry out with such pain. Truly it was a being who knew ultimate sadness. It was too big to be a child, and appeared to be human.

She slowly stepped forward, her toes carefully picking out the proper places to step. “Hello…” She said as she moved from the tree line into the clearing, looking at the creature across the fire, hoping she was not stepping into another trap. It could easily be one.

Her heart told her she could not let this be. She was compelled to offer solace to this sad thing. What could make a being feel this much pain. She knew pain, and loss. In a way, the cry of this creature was like her own cry, her own swansong, and the desire to go home.

[Vanadius]

In the near dark it was difficult to tell who Eivlys was speaking to. The strange green fire left blurry after-images, and her eyesight swam with dancing, moving figures at the edges of her vision.

As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she could see that sitting before her was an old woman. She was an ugly old crone, bent and hunched over with wild, untamed grey hair and crazed eyes. Around her wrinkled throat was a charm of paganism, a severed chicken foot hanging on a leather thong. In her good eye, for the other was clouded over by a milky white film, was a look of contempt and disdain for the young woman. She wore a filthy black robe that hung on her shriveled frame like a dress four sizes too big. In her hands she clutched something close, and in the flickering light of the tiny flames, it was revealed.

It was a small child, an infant, wrapped in a white. The child shrieked again, in obvious pain and the aged old woman began to rock back and forth again, trying to comfort the babe.

The woman's good eye stared at Eivlys intently.

"Come closer." She commanded, defying any argument.

[Eivlys]

She blinked a few more times, and rubbed her eyes, trying to get them to adjust to the light. Normally she would be in awe of the pretty green light, and in awe of the effect it would have on her. But now, it was just annoying and dangerous.

As she studied the woman before her, she wondered if this was her fate, to someday to grow old and disfigured and disgusting. Once upon a time this women may have been beautiful and had men from all over swooning at her feet. Time is a wicked thing though, and it does wicked things to a person’s body.

She was not cursed with such a thing though, not yet, she was immortal, and time would not touch her. This was a gift from the Father, and one she realized was very great right at this moment.

She tried to look too disgusted with the woman’s appearance. She did not need to look so, with the right look, the woman could be bearable. If she could tame the hair, and get the right clothing, of course, Eivlys realized she was not looking her best either in old rags and dirty face.

When the child cried, she stepped back, startled, at first, then she stepped forward, curious. She looked intently at the child; she had not seen many babies before. She drew closer when the woman commanded her, crouching down to look closely at the child. “Whose child is this? Why does it cry so? If it is hungry, I have broth we could feed it back at a house.” She looked at the old woman. “It is not my house, but it was abandoned.” She said as if explaining. She held up the broken chair leg. “Everything inside was broken and burned.”

She stopped, and wondered perhaps these were the people who owned the house. Or perhaps she knew them. “Did you know these people? I found no bodies, and soldiers came and took the body of a friend who had died when I was… away. I could not stop them.” It was nice to see another human; at least she hoped the croon was a human. She could easily be another magical creature.

She set the spoon and the chair leg down on the ground and looked at the child. “How can I help?”

[Vanadius]

The old crone seemed in no mood for idle chit-chat. She snapped sternly as Eivlys spoke of the details of her arrival in the house and its lack of inhabitants.

"Quiet! Now is not the time for blathering on about thatched roof huts and other nonsense. Now is the time to save this child's life. Give me your hand!"

In a suprisingly deft and nimble move, the old crone snatched up Eivlys' hand and placed it on the child's head.

Burning images flashed through Eivlys's mind...

... the waves tossed endlessly beneath her. Soaring high above, she glided gently on gossamer wings over the salty spray, over a large ship carrying hundreds of men. Humans. The sail was like a great, unblinking eye...

Blurry images rushed past, and she was unable to make them out until the vision came into focus again.

... a mighty warrior confronted her... tall and powerful, he rained blows upon her until at last her own sword shattered... the mighty warrior's next blow brought nothing but darkness...

The visions were suddenly gone and the babe shrieked again. Eivlys understood what it was, before the old woman ever unwrapped the pale cloth from around the infant. As the cloth unwound from the baby, so did her understanding. More white feathers suddenly floated on the night breeze.

The feet of the child were unnatural. In fact, they weren't human feet at all. They were webbed, like a duck. In fact they looked exactly like a duck's foot. This was a child, a swanmaiden child, trapped in her transformation between swan form and human form. A baby, unable to complete her transformation and trapped in a hellish in-between state.

The crone looked at Eivlys expectantly.

"Save her!" She insisted urgently.

[Eivlys]

The young girl looked back at the old women, still in shock. The should not be this young and able to take her mother’s mantle. She felt her insides twist with sadness, her poor mother. “I will take care of her.” She said, trying to keep her voice from cracking and crying. She did not need to look like a weak ninny now. This woman was counting on her, this child was. “Oh Father, there are only seven of us, and if I fail there will be only six.” She thought, the idea of it was heavy, her cloak suddenly felt much heavier then it was.

She quickly removed her clothing, all but the feathery cloak. The night air was cold, and the fist sized fire did nothing to press it back. The baby would need to be taken to the house just to keep warm. Her mother would have thrown a fit for having a baby out in this cold.

She took a deep breath, and reached out to take the child in her arms. “Calm, shhhh, don’t cry.” She sang a lullaby her mother would sing to her as she held the child, hoping to calm the young babe. She needed the child calm, and relaxed, the sensation of the change was a strange one. It was for her when she first did it when she was passed the mantel. This child was not given a chance to learn to change, but it would grow up knowing nothing but change. She would not play in the sunny field as a child, or dance in the flower fields. She would be forever cursed to spend her days as a swan, and her nights as a human. Eivlys kept singing though, the soft sweet song of her own childhood.

She focused her mind, she had always changed for herself, but never has she tried to change another. She focused and tried to feel the child, looking into the clear eyes of the babe. “Let’s change together.” She said to the child in a soft melodic voice. She tried to feel the child, feel the body and the shape. She focused hard, as if she was changing for the very first time.

She started to change, to metamorphous into her angelic form, trying to bring the child to the same form with her, the shape between the swan and the human. If all went well, there would be an angel and a cherub sitting in the grove with the old woman.