AVftS-5
 Part of a series of archived posts in AVftS | |
| AVftS-5 | |
|---|---|
| Author: | Emily |
| Date Posted: | December 26, 2018 |
| Forum Post: | Linked! |
| Word Count: | 842 |
| Characters: | Síne, Leeva |
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Síne took a deep breath of the night air and closed her eyes. A small headache had started to form just above and to the outside of her left eyebrow, which was ultimately something that seemed to happen fairly often when she'd spent an entire day reading or focusing too hard on one specific thing. She'd noticed it happening more and more over the past few years, but dismissed it as part of getting older. Her mother had certainly found no shortage of things to complain about, in increasing quantity and variety, as she'd aged. Beyond that, other older people in the village lamented of aches and pains that had not been there when they were younger. Though she was only thirty and four, Síne believed she was starting to enter that age, so maybe this was the new way of things. The best thing for what ailed her, to her knowledge and experience, was fresh air.
Much in that way that happens to all people at all times, Síne had intended to come outside and smell the air, to experience the humidity and cool temperature of the night, but had not gotten around to it. She had been promising the experience to herself as a reward for when she got through just one more paper. Or maybe one more beyond that. Or one more, and so on and so on and so on until the night had practically left her behind. She would have to be in bed soon, to allow those few small scraps another night of being unread, due most specifically to her body collapsing in on itself. Fye, the curses she could reap onto getting older.
And then two things happened that would likely be forever remembered as life-changing, though in the moment the only word she could think of was terrifying. First, a distant burst shook her from her own silent lamentations. She opened her eyes and looked, with no small amount of shock and horror, toward the south. That sounded like a gunpowder blast, the type that the traders had brought as objects of interest in case the people of Ceadaichte Mòir had ever thought to do some mining. They hadn't, but the sounds of distant bursts and the smell of smoke that was somehow more sour than what came from the fireplaces entertained the men and children to seemingly no end. The second thing that happened was that she was attacked. A force like an iron ball hit her just even with her left hip, wrapping whips of vine around her body and pinning her arms to her sides. Despite her best efforts, the woman couldn't remain standing, and fell over onto the soft ground, her hair flying all around her face and her chin sinking slightly into the moist dirt.
At first, the women was stunned; she didn't know what had hit her and had no proper way of knowing exactly how to deal with it. Oh, if only Eoin would come out of his home. The old mayor of the village lived a couple homes away from hers, and he always knew what to do. But if he came out to respond to the distant explosion, there was no way for her to notice; Síne's head was conveniently facing away from the direction of Eoin's house, and no doubt her penchant for brown clothing and her brown hair would blend her in for the night. Her vision tunnelled as she remembered her own thoughts- whips of vine - just like the story she had told the children. Was this Kingfisher Forest finally reaching out and taking her life? Was it because she hadn't been careful enough, was it bad luck? She started to hyperventilate, but closed her eyes tight and did her best to calm down.
She wasn't dead. Whatever it was clearly hadn't intended to kill her, only to incapacitate her. Which it had done.
After a few seconds, after properly working through her situation with as much logic as she could muster with a face full of dirt and no ability to move her arms, the woman got her breathing under control. She had been prone to anxiety attacks her entire life, and though she couldn't always control them, sometimes she could stave off the worst effects if she tried hard enough, early enough. That seemed to be the case, and it brought her no small amount of pride to acknowledge the change. That pride fuelled some self confidence, with which she attempted to struggle one of her arms free- the left one, which was exposed to the main body of whatever had attacked her, but also wasn't pinned against the ground. She grunted with the exertion, then spoke in a quiet voice as level in tone as she could muster. Even so, the fear tinged her voice with a waver and an outside chance of panic. "Who... what... are you, and what do you want from me? I have no money, and I don't have any belongings of great value."