- 15th Winter 519 AV
When Ciraaci awoke the fifth day after Ennoia's last visit, she did so at an ungodly early hour well before the daily shifting overtook her and brought her into the divinity of her celestial form. It was dark in the cell, the candles outside currently unlit. It was cold in her cell, her moist straw bed and the stone underneath leeching away her heat every moment she lay against it. Being awake in this way without even the distant comfort that the sun would surely rise this day spooked Ciraaci right up out of bed and to her feet.
Everything ached as she stood there. Her bones were tired and her skin pulled tight over the taut muscle underneath just barely holding it all together. Her fingers were sore from clenching tight into her palms overnight. Her eyes watered like they'd been open while she slept and she couldn't ever moisturize them again. Her head pounded with the start of a headache born from dehydration and chronically poor sleeping conditions.
Were this a common establishment, say in Kenash or Riverfall, Ciraaci would have graciously commented to the owner of the building about the poor quality of amenities provided and then ride away onto the open Sea where she belonged and never look back at the inn again. A stay in the cell of some dark god's city merely further impressed upon her the simple truth that men were not meant to live stagnant like this, that she was not meant to live like this.
She'd trade just about anything to have fresh saddle sores again as opposed to these nasty itchy lice and bed sores.
There was nothing to do at this hour in the pitch black of her cell so Ciraaci did as she used to do when she first began her stay here: she paced. It started with carefully measuring the space with her arms out and every step cautiously taken to prevent stubbed toes, something learned after trial and error on the earliest sleepless nights in the starless dark.
The cell was about five of her strides across and just under six in the other direction, but she assumed that both sizes were similar and she should aim for five. With this in mind she lowered her arms and started properly pacing in four-stride intervals across the room avoiding both corners with her straw pile and chamberpot. As her captors hadn't been feeding her over the last two days and they hadn't emptied it in more, she had no desire to vomit out whatever fluid was still in her stomach over the smell.
As she paced, the Drykas woman that Ciraaci had become pondered the things that Ennoia had last said to her for the nth time in the past few days. She obsessed over his words nearly to the point of madness in an attempt to pick out new meanings from them.
He'd mentioned other gods-Forsaken creatures like her which, as she'd previously assumed, meant Ethaefal had come to the city which itself meant that the city was near a significant enough body of water to produce a pitiful thing like her -- although she was far from versed in the means of Ethaefal 'birth' in Mizahar as she'd encountered only one in her life and they'd never exchanged the means of their arrival. She had experience with her own, of course, and that was the only thing she could be certain of.
But she had questions.
Was the sea they came in as rough as the Suvan? Did they come in storms, tossed against rocks and half-drowned under wild whitecaps as the gods fought to kill them? Did they ever make it to shore? Why would they want to stay in a city that must reek of the shyke kept in the basement of a building like this? Did they live better lives in the mud and brick houses of humans? Were they slaves?
Oh, they must be slaves. It made sense that they would be.
Ciraaci wheeled around with a sharp turn and nearly collided with the wall she'd inadvertently angled towards. Fortunately it was one of the two corners without signs of habitation so she didn't have to worry about a mess, but she cursed nonetheless.
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Everything ached as she stood there. Her bones were tired and her skin pulled tight over the taut muscle underneath just barely holding it all together. Her fingers were sore from clenching tight into her palms overnight. Her eyes watered like they'd been open while she slept and she couldn't ever moisturize them again. Her head pounded with the start of a headache born from dehydration and chronically poor sleeping conditions.
Were this a common establishment, say in Kenash or Riverfall, Ciraaci would have graciously commented to the owner of the building about the poor quality of amenities provided and then ride away onto the open Sea where she belonged and never look back at the inn again. A stay in the cell of some dark god's city merely further impressed upon her the simple truth that men were not meant to live stagnant like this, that she was not meant to live like this.
She'd trade just about anything to have fresh saddle sores again as opposed to these nasty itchy lice and bed sores.
There was nothing to do at this hour in the pitch black of her cell so Ciraaci did as she used to do when she first began her stay here: she paced. It started with carefully measuring the space with her arms out and every step cautiously taken to prevent stubbed toes, something learned after trial and error on the earliest sleepless nights in the starless dark.
The cell was about five of her strides across and just under six in the other direction, but she assumed that both sizes were similar and she should aim for five. With this in mind she lowered her arms and started properly pacing in four-stride intervals across the room avoiding both corners with her straw pile and chamberpot. As her captors hadn't been feeding her over the last two days and they hadn't emptied it in more, she had no desire to vomit out whatever fluid was still in her stomach over the smell.
As she paced, the Drykas woman that Ciraaci had become pondered the things that Ennoia had last said to her for the nth time in the past few days. She obsessed over his words nearly to the point of madness in an attempt to pick out new meanings from them.
He'd mentioned other gods-Forsaken creatures like her which, as she'd previously assumed, meant Ethaefal had come to the city which itself meant that the city was near a significant enough body of water to produce a pitiful thing like her -- although she was far from versed in the means of Ethaefal 'birth' in Mizahar as she'd encountered only one in her life and they'd never exchanged the means of their arrival. She had experience with her own, of course, and that was the only thing she could be certain of.
But she had questions.
Was the sea they came in as rough as the Suvan? Did they come in storms, tossed against rocks and half-drowned under wild whitecaps as the gods fought to kill them? Did they ever make it to shore? Why would they want to stay in a city that must reek of the shyke kept in the basement of a building like this? Did they live better lives in the mud and brick houses of humans? Were they slaves?
Oh, they must be slaves. It made sense that they would be.
Ciraaci wheeled around with a sharp turn and nearly collided with the wall she'd inadvertently angled towards. Fortunately it was one of the two corners without signs of habitation so she didn't have to worry about a mess, but she cursed nonetheless.
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