Cutting the Strings
Dryad Eyes vol. 2
Episode One
"You."
The sibilant hiss was barely more than a whisper, but it cut through the air in the stuffy little room like a knife. Eyrenya had just returned from one of her many excursions to Keeper's Gateway's equally many taverns, and had not yet even had time to fling open the window that the maid, Kella, always pulled shut in her absence. Still, far from put off by surprise or the tone of her visitor's voice, the young looking wind nymph's face split into a grin.
"Charis!" She exclaimed. "It's so good to see you! Where have you been?"
In the doorway, the taller woman gaped at her. True, they were technically friends, and true, Charis had not been around so much in recent days. There were reasons for that, of course. More immediately important, however, was the sword in her white-knuckled hand. Who greets an obviously hostile, armed visitor in that manner?
"I... ah... arrgh!"
Pain swept in. Charis hadn't realized until it reasserted itself that Erek's control, the invisible strings by which she was made a puppet to his vile will, had slipped for a moment. How was that possible? The little talisman that Haron had given her to slip those bonds rested quiet and undisturbed between her breasts, protecting just enough of her mind that she could cringe inwardly in horror at what things were expected of her. Erek knew that it was there. He had made clear that he did just minutes after Haron handed it to her. Rather than remove it or rage at her for taking it in the first place, the blonde demon had only laughed and dared her to use it. She could not. Even when he ordered her to murder one of the guardsmen that had, like her, fallen under his sway, she could not. Neither could she remove it. That hateful little device only served to increase the torment that Erek inflicted on her, and he liked that quite a lot.
How, then, had Eyrenya caused her to slip those bonds? Even for a moment? How was that possible?
"How did you do that?" Charis voice the question, stalking forward. Real, passionate anger and resentment mixed with the puppet's hostility in her voice. "Why?!"
"What do you mean?" Eyrenya backed away on her nimble little feet as the warrior woman approached, her careful eyes shifting from exposed blade to snarling face. "This is my room, Charis, honestly. I may not use it much, but I'm allowed to say hello when I've got a visitor!"
"You little bitch!" Charis roared. The flush of red rage beneath her short, sandy blonde hair would have looked almost funny if not for the homicidal glint in her eye. Her chapped lips worked as she chewed on her next words. How to say what needed to be said, what needed to be said. It was too hard to focus. Suddenly, she snapped and lunged forward, swinging her short sword wildly. Sparks exploded in her face as she struck the stone wall once, twice, and again.
Eyrenya had never been in any danger at all. Dancing smoothly aside with a quickness and grace that few women would ever be able to match, she slipped away from the weapon and moved behind the attack. When Charis righted herself and turned around, the nymph was standing on her bed with her hands on her hips. If her eyes were a bit wild, who could blame her? Somebody she had every reason to trust had just tried to kill her.
"Charis!" Eyrenya exclaimed. "What did I do?!"
"You cost me pain!" came the response, half-screamed through a sob and was followed by another lunge.
Charis found herself face down and awkwardly flailing against the huge mattress the nymph had been standing on, her sword buried and tangled within it. Eyrenya moved like a swift summer breeze, and seemed even harder to strike with a bladed weapon. That served only to frustrate the already berserk woman even further. Releasing the sword, she rolled free of the bed and fell to the floor with a heavy thud. There she lurched to her feet and drew a wicked looking dagger, glaring the same at the little woman who had moved to stand before the shuttered window.
"I think this calls for an outside perspective," Eyrenya commented as she reached out to flick the window open.
A terribly cold wind ripped and bit it's way into the little, sparsely decorated room. The earsplitting howl that accompanied it did not seem natural. Grandfather, Eyrenya realized, had already been trying to reach her. With widened eyes, she listened, and appraised Charis with the full range of her senses rather than the sparse five that being cooped up like a normal human had limited her to.
"Oh." She said, tears and horror welling up across her fair features. "Oh, Charis. What did you do?"
Again the taller woman could only gape at her intended victim. Could she see what was upon her? Truly? Revulsion swept across her face, more intense than the pain that had lashed at her following the brief severance of Erek's control.
"No! Don't you look at me!" Charis cried. With a keening shriek she lead with her knife as she jerked herself forward, flinging her free arm across her face as she stabbed at her quarry.
This time it was different. Eyrenya understood what she was facing, and she did not slip away. With Grandfather's wintery fury whipping all about her, she flowed instead directly into the attack. With a hand at Charis' wrist and an elbow in her solar plexus, the little nymph brought her winded opponent forward, over and down to the floor. The knife, flung either by Eyrenya or the wind itself, streaked across the room to stick into the headboard of the bed and quivered there for several minutes.
"Calm down." Eyrenya told the dazed and incoherently babbling soldier as she straddled her belly and pinned those deadly hands beneath her knees. "Please calm down."
"Let me go!"
"I can't do that."
"You have to." Charis answered, sobbing through a face contorted with all of the terror and self-loathing that had been heaped upon her. "I don't know how, but I'm me again. I'm me! But he'll take me back any moment now, or he'll come for me, and you... you can't be here! You have to get away from me!"
"I just told you that I can't."
"You have to! Why won't you?!"
"Because you're hurting. And I don't like that."
Charis screamed at her. The sound of it was not high and piercing as if in fear, nor was it guttural and filled with hate. It was raw. It was pain, pure and simple, confirmation of what Eyrenya had just so plainly stated. Then, because she had not the breath to excise all of it at once, she screamed again. It took only a few minutes of crying and screaming and occasionally struggling weakly as the pain of Erek's control wracked her body again and again before she began to babble her story at her captor. It was broken, it was barely coherent, but she told the wind nymph everything. From the first time Erek approached her, to her decision to allow him to ensnare her so as to get nearer to help Geran, to the realization that the trap in question was far more insidious than she had guess, to the talisman that Haron had given her and the guardsman that had died by her hand.
Eyrenya tugged the little talisman out from Charis' shirt and peered at it. "This little thing?"
"It doesn't work!"
"Maybe it all it needs is a little help."
She gave Charis a smile that was almost sunny, then lifted her head for a moment as if listening to something from somewhere else. Then she clasped the talisman in both hands and leaned in close, bringing it to her lips. The wind picked up as she moved, swirling over and about the two of them until all was lost in a dull roar and white snow.
From somewhere within Keeper's Gateway, though no one could pin down the source of the sound, there came an answering bellow as if something horrible were suddenly in a great deal of pain.
Then there was silence.
Episode One
"You."
The sibilant hiss was barely more than a whisper, but it cut through the air in the stuffy little room like a knife. Eyrenya had just returned from one of her many excursions to Keeper's Gateway's equally many taverns, and had not yet even had time to fling open the window that the maid, Kella, always pulled shut in her absence. Still, far from put off by surprise or the tone of her visitor's voice, the young looking wind nymph's face split into a grin.
"Charis!" She exclaimed. "It's so good to see you! Where have you been?"
In the doorway, the taller woman gaped at her. True, they were technically friends, and true, Charis had not been around so much in recent days. There were reasons for that, of course. More immediately important, however, was the sword in her white-knuckled hand. Who greets an obviously hostile, armed visitor in that manner?
"I... ah... arrgh!"
Pain swept in. Charis hadn't realized until it reasserted itself that Erek's control, the invisible strings by which she was made a puppet to his vile will, had slipped for a moment. How was that possible? The little talisman that Haron had given her to slip those bonds rested quiet and undisturbed between her breasts, protecting just enough of her mind that she could cringe inwardly in horror at what things were expected of her. Erek knew that it was there. He had made clear that he did just minutes after Haron handed it to her. Rather than remove it or rage at her for taking it in the first place, the blonde demon had only laughed and dared her to use it. She could not. Even when he ordered her to murder one of the guardsmen that had, like her, fallen under his sway, she could not. Neither could she remove it. That hateful little device only served to increase the torment that Erek inflicted on her, and he liked that quite a lot.
How, then, had Eyrenya caused her to slip those bonds? Even for a moment? How was that possible?
"How did you do that?" Charis voice the question, stalking forward. Real, passionate anger and resentment mixed with the puppet's hostility in her voice. "Why?!"
"What do you mean?" Eyrenya backed away on her nimble little feet as the warrior woman approached, her careful eyes shifting from exposed blade to snarling face. "This is my room, Charis, honestly. I may not use it much, but I'm allowed to say hello when I've got a visitor!"
"You little bitch!" Charis roared. The flush of red rage beneath her short, sandy blonde hair would have looked almost funny if not for the homicidal glint in her eye. Her chapped lips worked as she chewed on her next words. How to say what needed to be said, what needed to be said. It was too hard to focus. Suddenly, she snapped and lunged forward, swinging her short sword wildly. Sparks exploded in her face as she struck the stone wall once, twice, and again.
Eyrenya had never been in any danger at all. Dancing smoothly aside with a quickness and grace that few women would ever be able to match, she slipped away from the weapon and moved behind the attack. When Charis righted herself and turned around, the nymph was standing on her bed with her hands on her hips. If her eyes were a bit wild, who could blame her? Somebody she had every reason to trust had just tried to kill her.
"Charis!" Eyrenya exclaimed. "What did I do?!"
"You cost me pain!" came the response, half-screamed through a sob and was followed by another lunge.
Charis found herself face down and awkwardly flailing against the huge mattress the nymph had been standing on, her sword buried and tangled within it. Eyrenya moved like a swift summer breeze, and seemed even harder to strike with a bladed weapon. That served only to frustrate the already berserk woman even further. Releasing the sword, she rolled free of the bed and fell to the floor with a heavy thud. There she lurched to her feet and drew a wicked looking dagger, glaring the same at the little woman who had moved to stand before the shuttered window.
"I think this calls for an outside perspective," Eyrenya commented as she reached out to flick the window open.
A terribly cold wind ripped and bit it's way into the little, sparsely decorated room. The earsplitting howl that accompanied it did not seem natural. Grandfather, Eyrenya realized, had already been trying to reach her. With widened eyes, she listened, and appraised Charis with the full range of her senses rather than the sparse five that being cooped up like a normal human had limited her to.
"Oh." She said, tears and horror welling up across her fair features. "Oh, Charis. What did you do?"
Again the taller woman could only gape at her intended victim. Could she see what was upon her? Truly? Revulsion swept across her face, more intense than the pain that had lashed at her following the brief severance of Erek's control.
"No! Don't you look at me!" Charis cried. With a keening shriek she lead with her knife as she jerked herself forward, flinging her free arm across her face as she stabbed at her quarry.
This time it was different. Eyrenya understood what she was facing, and she did not slip away. With Grandfather's wintery fury whipping all about her, she flowed instead directly into the attack. With a hand at Charis' wrist and an elbow in her solar plexus, the little nymph brought her winded opponent forward, over and down to the floor. The knife, flung either by Eyrenya or the wind itself, streaked across the room to stick into the headboard of the bed and quivered there for several minutes.
"Calm down." Eyrenya told the dazed and incoherently babbling soldier as she straddled her belly and pinned those deadly hands beneath her knees. "Please calm down."
"Let me go!"
"I can't do that."
"You have to." Charis answered, sobbing through a face contorted with all of the terror and self-loathing that had been heaped upon her. "I don't know how, but I'm me again. I'm me! But he'll take me back any moment now, or he'll come for me, and you... you can't be here! You have to get away from me!"
"I just told you that I can't."
"You have to! Why won't you?!"
"Because you're hurting. And I don't like that."
Charis screamed at her. The sound of it was not high and piercing as if in fear, nor was it guttural and filled with hate. It was raw. It was pain, pure and simple, confirmation of what Eyrenya had just so plainly stated. Then, because she had not the breath to excise all of it at once, she screamed again. It took only a few minutes of crying and screaming and occasionally struggling weakly as the pain of Erek's control wracked her body again and again before she began to babble her story at her captor. It was broken, it was barely coherent, but she told the wind nymph everything. From the first time Erek approached her, to her decision to allow him to ensnare her so as to get nearer to help Geran, to the realization that the trap in question was far more insidious than she had guess, to the talisman that Haron had given her and the guardsman that had died by her hand.
Eyrenya tugged the little talisman out from Charis' shirt and peered at it. "This little thing?"
"It doesn't work!"
"Maybe it all it needs is a little help."
She gave Charis a smile that was almost sunny, then lifted her head for a moment as if listening to something from somewhere else. Then she clasped the talisman in both hands and leaned in close, bringing it to her lips. The wind picked up as she moved, swirling over and about the two of them until all was lost in a dull roar and white snow.
From somewhere within Keeper's Gateway, though no one could pin down the source of the sound, there came an answering bellow as if something horrible were suddenly in a great deal of pain.
Then there was silence.