The constant sound of birds chirping, a quiet forest eerily devoid of any predators, trees that still gnarl themselves for reasons no man can understand. Awaking once again, the terrible beat of my heartbeat like drums in my ears, and the feeling of having no power in my body reminds me that I need to find drink or food. Or rather, that drink and food had found me.
On top of a strangely large leaf, meat and berries stared at me. Even despite this being the middle of fall, when the trees should becoming bare and the leaves any color other than green, the leaf that these items laid on wasn't orange or yellow, it was a vibrant green. The meat was brown, meaning cooked, and the berries black. A waterskin was next to the entire meal, looking very oddly like the one I actually owned.
My eyes shot awake at both the smell and the realization that food was in front of me, but perhaps slightly more importantly the fact that my waterskin was filled once again with water. I checked, the waterskin that should've been tied to my belt was no longer there. I looked around the forest, the same constant, almost monotonous, vibrancy of the ground and on top of the trees still faced me. No matter where I looked, right, left, back, forward, up, or down, I couldn't find anyone or anything. The sun was still up, in fact it barely moved from where last I saw him. I could hear nothing but the birds singing their melodies. Whoever gave me this didn't want to be seen.
I looked back down to the food. My stomach growled, and my mouth mustered up as much saliva as it could find. I crouched down, slapped away as much dirt as I could off of my hand, and touched the meat with a finger. It was still warm, almost burning hot. If this were poisoned, it wouldn't matter. If I didn't eat this now, I would die, I feel. But being slightly cautious wouldn't hurt me much. I first picked up the waterskin and uncorked it, looking inside for anything odd or out of place. Only liquid inside, and from the smell, or lack of it, it was water. I tipped the waterskin into my mouth and tasted a bit of the water.
Divine. I've not tasted water so crisp, either out of my thirst or this water coming from the purest springs of mag mell it didn't matter. I took long gulps, feeling the characteristic pain of my stomach expanding against a new volume of matter. But I shouldn't drink this all in one go, as I fear I'd vomit out the contents. Corking back the water I looked greedily at the solid foods on the floor. Eating the meat, whatever kind of meat it was I didn't know, would be troublesome, as I had only my hands to eat it with. So I first started by taking a single berry and smelling it. Well, I couldn't smell it much but it smelt like any other blackberry I've picked or eaten. I placed that in my mouth and chewed.
Yep. A blackberry, almost painful in sweetness but otherwise as I've always known it to be. Good, I grabbed the handful and ate them one by one with some level of patience. I'm not starving to the point of incoherency, although perhaps with the sleep it's getting to that point, and the water had helped me sate some level of appetite. Regretfully the berries soon ran out, and I had only the troublesome, dead beast known as a still steaming slice of meat left to handle. Am I supposed to grab and eat this with my hands? I'd prefer not to, but this shouldn't matter.
Grabbing the thick slice by one end of it, not minding the burning sensation of my fingers, dragging the piece of meat quickly over my mouth, making sure to not let any drops of fat land anywhere but within my maw, and chomped on it. It burnt the inside of my mouth but I couldn't care, while not tender and soft it was definitely palatable, it was well salted and the flavor of the fat made this piece on par with the taste of the crispness of the water.
Before I knew it, the last chunk of meat was eaten, my face grimy with grease and my hands equally so. I didn't know from where the meat came from, but it didn't matter. The only thing left was the water, but I didn't want to drink the rest of it now. I was full, but not painfully so, and there might again come a time when I'd need something to fill my stomach and no water was found.
Oh right. I've forgotten a crucial bit of information. Why was there food in front of me? Why did I suddenly decide to fall asleep? Am I actually still dreaming right now? There's almost a surreal sensation of this being reality, but from this feeling a deep anxiety over something being wrong, twisted, like something within me was being guided away from noticing something extremely important.
Whatever. Perhaps I'm still sleep deprived. I've got food in me and new motivation to explore my surroundings, hopefully I'm not poisoned. I'm still cold but it's not enough to leave me shivering anymore, I'll survive for a while.
I walked back to the wood apple tree I abused earlier today to see if there truly weren't any apples good enough for eating. The tree was barren, without leaves anymore, all the fruits were fallen and the apples rotting on the ground. Yeah, this isn't natural. Adding the food that I was presented with suddenly, and possibly both how little I slept and how quick sleep took me, there's something out here and it's either trying to kill me or devising something much more sinister for my end.
No, I shouldn't be so ungrateful. I've been given food and water, and I've not been killed in my sleep, when I was most vulnerable. Adding to that, just like how Brenna had managed her magic, whatever happened to this tree was most likely something of a similar magnitude. The faery tales I've heard as a kid came up, people being taken to strange and wonderful, or terrible, lands, children eaten by magical beasts and the importance of common courtesy as you never truly know who you are really dealing with jumped into my mind. A source of food had been taken from me, and in return something else was given. Not enough to make up for the amount of apples I could've gathered and eaten, but the sour and acidic taste of an apple was less appetizing than the berries and meat I've been given.
Something was odd but I couldn't do anything about it. The pain of the guilt, the same black mass eating at my spirit, remained, but as the starving pains didn't push me into the deeper dark pits of my mind I could ignore it for now. Continuing on my walk, looking for any game trails or signs of other life this time. As there were no slopes, I'd have to rely on other animals to find where water may be. Perhaps getting a bearing of where I exactly was would also be helpful.
I walked for a long while, looking for anything that might lead to water or more food. I saw nothing, only squirrels, birds, and more trees, bushes occasionally. It was as if the forest itself was barren of any life outside of those four types. No matter how I walked, or where I walked, I couldn't find or see anything. I couldn't even tell where I was, outside of how more or less flat the land was there wasn't anything to discern where exactly I was.
This is getting bad. Am I becoming delirious? Or insane? I feel like I've spotted the same exact same trees over and over, and no matter how much I walk there's nothing that I could call new. Just trees, an uncountable amount of trees. The mountains in the far distance I could still see, the ollmhór mountain in its overwhelming size always being visible no matter where I stood. It doesn't serve as a good landmark for me now. There would be less people the closer I got to ollmhór, but equally it would become much more difficult to survive in the harsh weather it gave shelter to.
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I was alone. Perhaps insane. Not even my thoughts made sense, as in the back of my mind I could only wonder what had allowed me to survive all these encounters. Something was watching me, either malevolent or kind, and I could do nothing to stop it. My life is on the whims of nature, in her apathetic hands, never giving either relief or true release of my suffering. Even in her lands I couldn't find where I stood, neither her waters I could find no matter how far I walked.
Eventually it came to night again. My legs were tired, and my posture had worsened. A terrible slouch has taken me, something to hide the abyss flowing from my heart and sapping me of any energy to continue. Both from without and from within I was being trampled and mocked. There was no shelter, and I didn't at all feel like building one. Absolutely pathetic. I slept on the ground, under a tree, in the middle of day. I could do it again, especially with the aid of the night. If wolves come to take me away, to deprive me of my life, then so be it.
Finding a nice tree, I laid next to the trunk and placed my head on top of my hands like a pillow. This time I did sleep. But it wasn't a deep sleep, almost like my mind wasn't allowed to leave the confines of wakefulness, like I was forced to view the workings of my inner mind while awake. Images went by, words and arguments for why I was not in the wrong, guilts made painfully present. Terror wracked me as I realized just how deep the crimes I've committed ran in me, wishing to and fruitlessly begging to an unknown voice for forgiveness, of release, for a chance to make things right.
Angers I didn't know I held, and sadness I didn't know existed, assaulted me in my sleep. Forms that clasped at my neck and bit into my flesh, there a second and gone another. Shadows that didn't exist beyond the fringes of my eyes, when looked at and judged turn and disappear the moment they took pity in my actions. Or booming voices that wished to destroy my ears and mind in threat, telling me of what will come to pass if I didn't do what they told.
The things that wished to make me naked in my fragility, those who wished to take away the image of myself and reveal to me my true image, only burned in me my own weakness. Anger swelled in me, threatening to release and burn those who only wanted to reveal the world its wicked deformity, fundamental power, fire, that I was forced to hold if I wished to survive the onslaught of their gazes and demands. Why did I? Like being forced to stretch, the pulling of limbs and the tearing of muscle, I only had to stop straining so much and find release then. Like a string held taut I only had to pull harder, push harder, and break through the barrier of my guilt in order to enact retributive justice against those who wished to strip me naked.
So I pulled against that metaphorical string. I found release in its destruction, I burned the shadows that wanted to drag me into the underworld. They deserved nothing else from me but my wrath, those who wanted to only see me suffer and provide to me nothing.
You're on fire.
My eyes shot open. White hot flames licked at the skin of my right hand, burning my flesh, nipping at my clothes. Why did I have a new tunic? As if my flesh was the fuel of its combustion, the white fire ran across my arm in slow, dreadful dance. It hurt, almost above everything I've felt physically. The bear's attack hurt less, the time the herbalist treated me with an old remedy for cuts hurt less, each fiber of my being wanted my arm to be chopped off and if not, for death to take me.
You're hurting yourself.
No, I'm not, the fire is! It needed to get off me, and no matter how I flailed it didn't go out. Neither did the air seem to affect it, it was as if the elementals themselves were being sucked into it. Fuel for its heat. My clothes, while burning somewhat, weren't really catching the same flames. My skin wasn't melting, instead cracking under the heat, the flame slowly making its way up from my elbow to my shoulder.
Circulate it. Don't release, take in the pain.
Circulate it? How? I can barely think, where is this voice coming from? Am I still asleep?
Calm down. Look at it carefully.
Shut up. I tried patting out the flame, hitting my skin and causing me to convulse in pain after flakes of my own flesh fell to the ground. The tips of my fingers started to fall off like ash, blood dripped out in slow droplets, burning as they fall to the ground. Not evaporating, but the blood too turned to dust as it landed on the dirt, the fire finally releasing its grip once there was no more solid blood to grasp.
Look.
I looked. Against all odds, I looked at my hands as they burnt. Blood dripped across it as more skin cracked, but beyond that, there was something more. These weren't normal flames. My new found tunic slowly burned, but unlike true flame these fires didn't jump and feed off of it.
Not with those eyes. Look, deeper, at the truth of it.
Elemental sight? True sight? I looked, clawing against the ground as I did so, trying to drag my body away from the arm that was on fire. The task was of course fruitless, but my mind wasn't working. Elementals were being sucked in, but the fire wasn't truly a fire elemental. It was something deeper. It looked familiar, as if it was something I had known before. As if it was something I knew to be within me.
Take it in. Circulate it. Don't let it burn your flesh.
It's an elemental? Take it in? I've only ever meditated for the sake of being able to see clearer, not for the sake of taking in an elemental. But I've manipulated elementals enough, and if this fire was truly something within me essentially, then I could move it. Taking in long breaths I tried to control it, and found that I had ample control. Near natural control, as simple as breathing. I took it in, deeper into my body, my innards felt like they were the new target of this terrible flame.
Circulate it. Ignore the burning.
Hot fire boiled my internal organs. Visibly sweating, drips of salty water flowed down my face and into the ground below. I slowly moved the fire around my body, slowly spreading it as if like a thin membrane, a new one, within my body. The feeling of a string being held taut once again swelling within me. This time I didn't break it. The feeling of stretching muscle grew, feeling as if muscles truly will tear.
Don't break it. Just grit through it.
Of course. If breaking this string was what caused my flesh to ignite, then I wouldn't break it no matter how painful it got. The feeling of tearing muscle, perhaps closer to a terrible cramp, was still less painful than the pain the fire provided to me. I would hold this until I didn't need to hold it anymore.
Just a little longer.
There's a time limit? Thank all that is divine, there will be release. I just had to stay still, to keep the string taut but not taut enough to break. A masterful game of balance, neither going too far in one direction or the other. My eyes were clenched closed, and soon the pain of stretching and cramping muscles left me. As if it were all a nightmare, the trembling pains left me in an instant. All that was left was my still bleeding arms, and the sweat soaked clothes I still wore.
I rolled over, looking at my hands with once again open eyes. My eyesight was blurry, I could barely see a thing beyond this haze of blurriness. My right hand was red. My pinkie finger was gone, my ring finger partially so. And along all other fingers the tips were burnt off. There wasn't black char, but rather red cracks that ran across my arms. A lot of skin seemed to have burnt off, or rather chipped off, and the flesh beneath it could be seen. It hurt, but compared to the pain I had felt before, it was barely an afterthought.
I collapsed once again into sleep, wondering whose voice I had listened to, and why it had helped me. This time no nightmares intruded within my mind.