< Originally posted in 2005>
<Harsh, shrill air whipped over her face with a violent sting, bringing tears to her blood-shot eyes. The cold of the mountain made the muscles of her face burn deep into the nerves. With a hopeless sigh, she turned and looked at the darkness that surrounded her, icy crags shrouded in grey fog. It would not be much different than the maze exercises her Order had insisted that she practice. Her watery gaze studied the incline for an extended moment and then the lithe elf shut her eyes. Inside her mind a pattern developed --each twist and turn, each rock and ravine she would be able to surmount and comb through. After calculating erratically the position of where the Black Temple had fallen, she began her ascension up the Dragonspine.>
<Her movement was sluggish as she trudged along in the deep snow, sinking into her knees with each step. The thin silk skirt that was draped over her legs was dampened by the wet fall. Like a thousand slivers digging into her feet, she could feel every crack and point of unleveled ground beneath her. Feebly, she tried to keep her hands warm by sheltering them within her sleeves but it was only a matter of hours before the painful sensations that plagued them were replaced with consuming numbness.>
<It was difficult for her to focus on the white-capped peaks ahead, even where she stood now the wind howled and clawed at her exposed skin. She took a gasping breath of frozen air that made her lungs burn in her chest and cried out, agonized voice echoing among the looming alpines, “Eryael!”>
<Warm tears flooded her eyes until they breached the edges, succumbing to the frigid environment. Stumbling under a large conifer the girl huddled against the tree to shield herself from the unrelenting chill. The wind peeled at the layers of her cracked lips, while she parted them to murmur, “I will find you…”.>
*Autumn 5105*
How long had it been since she was found atop the side of the mountain? When she was found her extremities were a dark blue-purple with frostbite, malnourished and near completely under the influence of Zelia. She was recovering but her delicate elven features were now gaunt and sickly, her lips still healing from the deep chapped cracks. In the past months she spent most of her time laying on a chaise longue next to the window in her room that faced the Dragonspine. Days were spent in eerie silence as she looked at the mountain forlornly.
After all this time, she finally sent for him in the midst of getting her ringleted hair brushed. She did not dismiss her handmaiden as she spoke but neither turned to look at him either. “Is it true?”
He took a step where she reclined and nodded to dismiss the handmaiden. He claimed the brush from her before she left and began to pull through the black cherry-hued strands with a loving gentleness. “The City-State is calling in your loans,” pausing to add for clarity, “all of them.”
She made no sound but stretched out her legs from next to her, extending them to the end of the chaise. “Then we return home, for now,” she responded.
The hesitation was almost paralyzing as her servant spoke, “there is more. Our sources have stated they have seen a warrant being drafted at the magistrate’s office. They know that the expedition is not a recovery but a rescue. Evidence has mounted and it is only a matter of days before you are formally charged with treason and high-crimes against the Shining City. It seems reasonable that the Sapphire Guard will be at our door within the week.”
He couldn’t see her smile but he could hear the musing in her soft voice, “then we had better pack fast.”
The idle brushing continued as he delivered a grim counter, “we would have been safe from extradition had the state of the accounts not been so vast. The debt is nearly immeasurable. Nalfein will deliver us without hesitation.”
“Oh,” was the simple reply and it was followed by a length of silence with only the subtle rustle of the horsehair brush through her dark red hair. Then she sat up, pulling away and stated with no urgency, “have Samiel lay out the cardinal dupioni silk gown, the gold and eahnor pendant that goes with it. Then I want you to give whatever we have left to the remaining servants and dismiss them under the cover of night.” Standing up then, she turns towards her servant, “you have been the truest and given more than I ever had the right to ask for. There is a bottle in the cellar that is marked with a faint golden script near the bottom of the middle rack. Inside are the details of a seaside villa that has no ties to me or my family in the Bay of Black Pearls. It is yours with my deepest gratitude.” Another pause was taken so that she could place her hands upon his, clutching them around the brush. “This is my final ask of you and I will hear no retort.”
