“Achoo!”
Evenin felt hot, and weak, and slimy. Her dwarven nose snotty and moist.
“Blessing of the gods be upon you, Minister Girl.” The voice of Irridiklara, it was close.
Evenin opened her eyes. She was lying in a soft bed in some ornate bedroom of stone brick walls. She looked to her left, there sat Irridiklara, reading a book with The Footstool of Gardamosh under her feet, and a comfy reading chair under her old hag of a butt. Irridiklara flipped a page.
“Achoo!” Evenin couldn’t help it, she just felt so, so, sooo very sick.
“I have a feeling that’s not going to stop anytime soon, so I’m just going to repeat myself once: blessing of the gods be upon you, and then let’s say that counts for all of your future and inevitable sneezes.”
“Uuuuh” Evenin tried to speak, but produce only some generic sick-person noises. “’hank ‘u”, she managed, then gave up further speaking.
She just lay there for a while, experiencing her own sickness in all its immediate flavors.
“Mmm” Irridiklara sounded, still not a single eye off her book. “Mmm, indeed, hmm... mmm...” out of the corner of Evenin’s eye, she could see the witch nod to herself. “Mmh? Mmm... ah.” The old witch was thinking noisely, and Evenin wanted to tell her to please don’t make so many pointless noises! But she couldn’t muster the will to say so. So instead, for a time, the dwarf just lay there, in sweat-soaked bedsheets, feeling too warm, too cold, both at the same time, and so, so, so very slimy. Her breathing turned into slurping noises ever so often, that’s how slimy she was. Every part of her face felt wet too. Her eyes were wet, her nose was wet, her mouth was certainly wet – more than usual – and she was everywhere sweating. Her vision was hazy, and she had practically no strength to lift her head or to sit up. And she had no Snowman. Where is my Snowman?
Stolen novel; please report.
“Iddiklara?” she half-mumbled to the older woman.
“Mmyes?” The witch didn’t look up.
“Snoomanh? Eh is Snoomanh?”
“He’s alive.” For a second Irrid glanced up to meet Evenin’s eyes, then she looked down again. “He’s being taken care of. He was damaged in the battle, but he’ll make it, mostly unscathed. Just a few, little, minor scars.”
Evenin swallowed. “Good.”
For the next few minutes, Evenin faded in and out of being awake. First her weakness drained her into the darkness of consciousness. However, only moments therein, she’d slowly wake up again, feeling the intense bright white magical ceiling light on her eyes, and hearing the mumbles of Irridklara, and of course, she’d already slept abundantly. All of this stirred her back. And then, bored and weak in her bed, she’d start to fade again.
SNAP! Irrid’s book closed together in an instant, loud soud, and Evenin woke up again. She turned her head to look, and saw the witch stand up. “An interesting work, unfortunately, it brings me no closer to helping you. However–” she took a step over, getting a little closer to Evenin’s bed. “–I’ve recently gotten acquainted with a man, a very curious and young fellow, who might be able to break this mystery that I am, at least for the time being, completely unable to.”
“’Ad myshery?”
“Your sickness.” Irrid replied. “It’s magical, and it won’t go away, and nobody appears to know how to get rid of it. But let me go and get him, I promised him I’d show you to him, as soon as you woke up.”
Evenin just stared back, and the witch didn’t bother to ask for the dwarf’s opinion. Instead, the old woman walked up to the room’s door, stepped out, and then, for a long time disappeared. By the time she was back, Evenin had fallen asleep again, but was woken up when the door flung open.
“Come inside” Irrid spoke to someone, and a figure appeared through the doorway. As Evenin looked the man over with her eyes, she thought he looked familiar, if just a little.
Irrid strode over to the bed with the man following lazily at her heels. Pointing a hand at the fella, the witch introduced them.
“This is Rum, a mage of Ermos, of sorts. Rum” Irrid switched hands and gestured at the dwarf in her bed, “this is Evenin of Redratall, The Envoy to Ermos of The Dwarven States.”
Evenin stared up at the mage called Rum, and he stared back down at her, smiling, and, is that fascination?
“Hello” the mage spoke, “it is interesting to meet such a thoroughly intriguing specimen. Things have truly changed, haven’t they, Irridiklara? The day you ask a godless mage, to break a curse of the gods.”