I was able to move about the cabin a few days later, and discover more of the body I inhabited. Yet, the outlines of my hourglass contours and bony limbs still felt weird. Strong and solid is what I kept telling myself I should be. Also, my face was too smooth and small. I was still coming to terms with its soft pale features, thin lips, button nose and opaque almond eyes. Not to mention tufts of dark wavy locks that hung, annoyingly, over my brows. I suppose I was cute for a girl. Albeit a common one.
On the plus, I was functioning as any other average human.
Although, I would feel a pang from a plugged up hole near my right rib cage whenever I exerted too much movement in that area. As my mind had no memory of how the wound came about, I made an assumption it was caused by arrow penetration. Although it could’ve been from anything. The idea of being wounded whilst fighting a battle was a cooler explanation for dying, so ’wound by arrow’ it was.
“I see what I am. What’s my name?” I asked myself as I scrubbed at a knotted pattern on the table; hoping the answer would leap before my eyes. Nothing.
That’s not right. Surely, I had a name. I had to have something of an identity. Nothing was returned, no matter how hard I pressed my mind. It was as if I had actually died and was revived as a blank slate.
“Too confusing,” I brushed off and moved my scrubbing to the rest of the table surface until it was gleaming. Fortunately, the cabin held a lot of distractions in the form of work.
The old man issued light chores for me to do whilst he was out earning a keep. He also left me a dress to wear. Actually, it was more like a potato sack with a rope belt to hold everything up. The thick cotton sometimes irritated my skin like one, too. I couldn’t complain. He was being kind and providing what he could to help me recover my strength. It would be rude to speak against his gesture.
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A gentle breeze sailed through the partially opened window. It carried the scent of crisp pine and fresh fish across my nose. It riled up soot from the corner of the hearth I had yet to clean. Charcoal clouds swirled unnaturally in the air, drawing my attention towards its dance.
My mind drifted in time to an aged memory. Envisioning a hopeless battle before a pair of gigantic monoliths; standing as dark as night itself. They towered over ant-like warriors engrossed in their bloodshed. My heart thumped feverishly against my chest. I pressed a fist against my wound to dull an ache and the feeling of worry.
Marsilien. A voice sighed into my ears on the back of a breeze. Was that my name? It felt as alien as the body I moved in.
I shook the memory and other thoughts away. No. There was no way I could’ve been in such a battle. My body felt it wasn’t so. Besides, I didn’t look as old as 14 or maybe 15 summers. Aside from my arrow wound, the rest of my body didn’t show further signs of battle wear.
“I must have good imagination,” I concluded, and felt reassured when the soot came to rest as a haphazard pile again.
I picked up the broom from the corner nearby and began sweeping the hearth clean. A smile touched my lips as I felt comfort in the back and forth motion. A ditty tune claimed my thoughts. I started singing it out loud.
> A red sky burns,
> One thousand men bleed,
> A fire breathes,
> The wyrd is freed,
> Thrice it burns,
> Twice they churn,
> Four score, a host of the darkest night bring.
I frowned and stopped my sweeping. Where did this song come from? It didn’t sound like a common bard tale, but it was somehow etched into my mind.
“Don’t analyze it,” I said out loud as I shook the song from my mind. I continued my work in the comfort of silence.