Awakened
Silence.
And then the sound of life, a rough, hacking cough alerting anyone in the area to the fact that a girl is still alive, still breathing, and still choking on golden dust.
The dark-haired girl is clawing at the cracked ground beneath her, frantically searching for something she cannot name. From the world around her she can surmise that it is vár, the season of new life and rebirth. When she fell into the darkness, it was haustr, the season of change and harvest.
As she sifts through the dirt, she sees a glimmer of shining wood. With a small gasp of joy, Idoun pulls the battered eski out of the ground and hugs it close to her chest, a sigh of relief escaping the girl.
However, the sigh agitates the...stuff in her lungs, and Idoun coughs once more, the force of her body’s rejection eventually sending her onto all fours, still repelling this foreign invader. She does not know what this is, but Idoun has a feeling that it is somehow connected to her seven months of darkness. After all, it was quite difficult to put one such as herself to such a deep sleep, so someone went to very great trouble to keep Idoun out of the way.
When her shuddering coughs cease, Idoun carefully rises on her still-unsteady feet. Taking a nearby stick and transforming it into a graceful staff to help keep her steady, Idoun sees light to the east.
She starts walking.
