The Wolf in a Sheepwhite Hood

by **Dovey** on June 3rd, 2018, 12:13 pm

1 Summer, 518 AV
"Speech"
"Others"

They had been drinking since the night began, celebrating the season's change, when he had turned to her with a grin on his scarred face. "Come with me," he had said. "Come past the Maw. I know a hill - there's no place like it to see the Watchtower flare. But we've gotta hurry!"

Sober, she would never have gone, not even with Collins who was the sweetest six-foot bruiser she'd ever met; but three cups deep and drunk as much on the cheer of the day as on the ale, she had taken his hand and let him lead her into the darkened streets.

Now they stood without the city, a fitful wind blowing the rough grass about their legs as Dovey caught her breath. Collins hummed and swung their clasped hands back and forth. He seemed as full of energy as when they had begun, despite the difficult path they had already traveled - Alvadas had made them walk uphill all the way from the tavern to the Maw, and the journey had only grown more arduous once Collins had taken them off the road.

"Is it much farther?" she asked him.

"We're halfway there already," he replied - which was probably meant to be encouraging, but only made Dovey groan. He clapped her bracingly on the back. "'S all right. Lean on me, I can take it." He offered his elbow like a proper gentleman, and Dovey giggled as she tucked her fingers into its crook, reaching up with the other hand to adjust her headscarf for the wind. Together the two moved on through the shadowy meadow.

Soon they reached the base of one of Kalea's foothills, its forested slopes overshadowed by the first of the stony mountains which loomed beyond. "Just up to the top now," said Collins.

"Not the top of the mountain?" Dovey cried, drunkenly dismayed.

Collins laughed. "Nah, silly, just the hill," he replied. "You'll see, it's gorgeous up there. All the trees on the slope below you, and you can spy the Watchtower to one side and the Suvan to the other... it's more'n worth the climb." He was already guiding her forward, kicking a path through the thickening undergrowth for the petite girl to walk in. "Come on now. We'll be there in half a bell or less, just in time for the Watchtower to change."

Boxcode credit: Karin Ironyach

by **Dovey** on June 8th, 2018, 2:51 am

1 Summer, 518 AV
"Speech"
"Others"

They trod on through the gathering night, Dovey growing ever wearier but Collins always managing to keep her spirits up with a joke or a bit of flirting. The tree cover grew thicker and thicker around them as they went, hiding the night sky behind the inky black silhouettes of fluttering leaves. Dovey could hardly see where she was putting her feet, but Collins seemed to know exactly where he was going.

"Aren't there wild animals?" she whispered to him at one point, struck with sudden fear. She could hear nothing but the wind in the trees and the crunch of undergrowth beneath their boots, but the stillness was not comforting; it gave her an eerie feeling, like cold fingers down her back.

"No-o-o," he assured her. "We're too near to Alvadas for big cats. And anything small will hear us and run away."

With no knowledge of her own, she had no choice but to believe him. Still she pressed closer to his side, and shivered.

The trees seemed to melt away before them as they reached the crest of the hill, leaving the pair standing in the open beneath the bright moon. Dovey's jaw fell slack a little at the view. It seemed the whole world was spread out for them to see; more foothills sprang up in the distance, as thickly forested as the one they had just climbed, while the first of the mountains before them stood stark and rocky against the sky. Remembering Collins's words, she searched the distance for the sea, and was rewarded with a hint of indigo blue in the corner of the panorama, which did not quite blend into the darkness above it.

"Come on," said Collins, too loudly, from where he had lingered behind her. "Let's look at the Watchtower now."

He came forward and she felt his body press warmly into her back, hands running down her bare arms. "This way," he murmured, steering her towards the side of the clearing; she could see the Watchtower, a little line of gray in the far distance, topped with a faint smudge of green light. They hadn't missed the flare, but any tick now, it was coming...

A breath of cold wind blew suddenly by them, rattling through the grass and sweeping the edge of Dovey's headscarf over her eye. Collins held both her hands now in his; she pulled at one, meaning to adjust the scarf -

what?

He wasn't letting go. In fact his grip had tightened when she'd tried to pull loose, trapping her small hand; she pulled again, frowning, confused, and his grip began to crush. "Collins, that hurts," she complained, twisting towards him -

and the wind dropped. Now she heard the crunch of boots in the grass, moving quickly. Near. Alarm stirred in her and her mouth opened -

A flash of motion. Then bursting pain, sharp and dull at once, above her temple.

an instant of nausea an explosion of light

Boxcode credit: Karin Ironyach

by **Dovey** on June 16th, 2018, 3:06 am

1 Summer, 518 AV
"Speech"
"Others"

She could not have been unconscious for more than half a chime, yet when she came to she was lying in the grass, hands already bound before her. Sick and dizzy, she blinked at the dirt beneath her for several ticks before the blur cleared from her vision and the fog from her thoughts.

Hands about her ankles and rope, rough, threaded beneath them - they were binding her feet too! Who were they? "Get off!" She kicked with both feet; connected awkwardly with a wrist or arm. At once her legs were wrestled back into position to be tied. "Collins!"

"Hold still, you'll hurt yourself." His voice from behind her. Then he was a part of this - she thought she remembered - yes, he had held her for that other man to hit over the head! Traitor!

She squirmed violently, trying to flip onto her back. She heard a curse and then a sigh, and then a great and crushing weight on her shoulders put paid to her attempts. It took her a moment to realize what it was. One of the men had sat on her!

She would have shrieked at the indignity, but her wind was gone - in fact it was all she could do to draw breath with that enormous pressure upon her lungs. Her ankles were manhandled swiftly behind her, the rope drawn up snug around them and secured, and then the pressure was lifted and almost before she could choke in a breath she was lifted too - hauled over a man's shoulder like a sack of flour.

She immediately kicked him in the stomach, but what with the angle and the necessity of swinging both her legs together like some sort of misbegotten porpoise, the blow hardly hit. He - Collins, that was Collins's woolen shirt - put an arm over her ankles so they could not move from his chest.

He began to walk. She tried to shriek but found herself without enough breath to do much except cough, tried to kick again but found his arm too strong a prison. His shoulder was digging into her ribs; her head grew achy with the rush of blood as she dangled down his back. She whacked at his spine with her bound hands, to utterly no effect, for what felt like chimes. But she was desperate for air; she had to stop, to find how she could get a proper breath.

He took the moment of respite to readjust his grip on her; the thought that she was helping him would have been enough for her to begin fighting again, except that his shoulder had moved from her ribs to her gut, and her sudden ability to gulp down air was distracting. So she lay there limp for a chime or so, watching the grass turn to underbrush beneath Collins's feet.

Boxcode credit: Karin Ironyach

by **Dovey** on June 23rd, 2018, 3:32 am

1 Summer, 518 AV
"Speech"
"Others"

What is happening to me?

The worst thing about having to rest from the struggle was the chance it had given her to think.

What do they want?

Where are we going?

It could not be back to Alvadas. Collins was not taking the path he'd broken for her on the way up; the rough growth flattened beneath his boots had not been trodden on before just now. And she didn't think he'd ever turned them around, so as to be heading in the city's direction.

Into the mountains?

What could they want there?

Her spine arched away from Collins's shoulder; her body tensed once more as she tried to squirm free. If she could make herself fall to the ground... but his arm around her waist was vicelike. Her bound hands pushed awkwardly at his back. Earlier she had hit at him, in fury and incomprehension; but now cold panic had begun to stir in her belly.

She tried to wriggle forward, down his back, her legs straining to pull away from her captor's grip. So he lowered his other arm to hold them, and at once she changed tactics, with the speed only blind instinct could lend, attempting instead to roll sideways to the forest floor. That twisted her painfully at the thighs, but she could not stop, gravity bore her upper body downward - Collins swore, dropped her legs, and got one arm clumsily beneath her, slowing her before she hit the ground and scooping her up again immediately after.

"Petch, woman, you trying to hit your head?" he said. "Thought you were smarter than that. And you!" He was shouting over his far shoulder now. "She's flopping all around and you can't help?"

"I'm guarding you from back here," came the laconic reply, from somewhere up the hill.

"From what?" Collins snorted loudly. "You think anyone's - "

"What do you want?" said Dovey unsteadily.

His voice had reminded her who he was. She had fancied this man, had gone out drinking with him, had come up this godsforsaken hill with him hoping for a romantic moment - and now he was carting her off to petching Rhysol knew where, but still, she had gotten along with the fellow. If he would only tell her what was going to happen to her - then maybe she could figure out what the petch to do.

"What do you want?" she said again, as firmly as she could manage.

Collins coughed with a hint of awkwardness. "Just money, that's all," he said, and fell silent.

That reassured her, perhaps too much. "I've got money!" she cried. "I'll give it to you, just take me back - "

"Not that kind," Collins said. "We're not muggers. 'Sides, you'd run off and we'd never set eyes on you again." He cleared his throat. "You shouldn't worry. Lots of people get sold. You're a good worker..."

Sold.

It was strange. She didn't know what she'd thought was happening, instead of this.

"I'm a Freeborn," she said stupidly. "I'm a Freeborn, you can't sell me, look at my wrist, my left wrist, I - "

"Yeah," interrupted Collins, "I been to Kenash and I'm not going back."

"But I'm a Freeborn."

He said nothing. Dovey's head hurt. They kept going downhill and downhill, her bumping on his back. They could not be headed for the mountains. Besides, where did you sell people in the mountains? Not the mountains, not Alvadas. Down to the Suvan, then, but not to Kenash.

"Where are you taking me?" she asked. Just to know.

"Sunberth." His voice warmed. "Home."

Boxcode credit: Karin Ironyach

by **Dovey** on July 11th, 2018, 3:13 am

Grades

Dovey :

Skills	Amount
Endurance	2
Escape Artist	1
Observation	3
Rhetoric	1
Persuasion	1
Socialization	2
Unarmed Combat	1

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