Crystin drew in a sharp breath, fear prickling her all over. She looked to her right, where the timber platform stood. There was no one there. The same to her left, the passageway she had just travelled. That left only the mine shaft, and she wasn’t about to climb it to find out who or what was up there.
She scrambled to her feet, sending another dice rolling as she did. She held her breath, watching as it spun endlessly over and over, trying not to think that her fate might be somehow be determined by how the dice landed.
It came to a sudden stop, its spots facing squarely upwards.
“Another six!” The same gruff voice, “She rolled a double six!”
Crystin gave an involuntary whimper. She wondered how fast she could move back up the path she had taken with both hands on the wall behind her. Perhaps she would do better to let go and just run; she knew after all that there were no holes or obstacles the way she had come.
“What if you take a wrong turn?” A second voice rasped.
Crystin froze, “Who are you?” she demanded, her words bouncing from the walls as if mocking her, “What do you want with me?”
“What do we want with you? That’s rich, since you’re the one who came in here uninvited!”
Crystin paused, considering, “Then you mean me no harm?”
“Depends. Who are you?” the first voice asked.
“More to the point, why have you come here?” This was a new voice; a near-whisper that made her hackles rise.
“I don’t want anything from you! I didn’t even know you were here! I don’t even know who you are!” she pleaded.
“Well then,” the first voice said with relish, “let us introduce ourselves.”
Figures appeared on the timber platforms; materialising into existence as if they had been there all along. Four men, all dressed as miners, their clothes shabby and torn; hats sitting on their heads like humble, dust-covered crowns, the jewel being the candle lamp attached to the front of each. Their flames burned dully, casting the wearers into half-shadow; each of them ghostly pale and wide-eyed, like the weird, colourless creatures that can only be found in the deepest subterranean caves; the dankest, darkest places most people never see.
One of the miners lay on the topmost platform, resting on an elbow, eyeing her with obvious disinterest.
The next platform down was empty, but the one beneath held the weight of two men, if their form had any weight at all. They were standing, leaning on the wooden rail, looking at Crystin with equal disdain.
On the lowest platform sat a younger man, his feet resting on the rungs of the ladder, his elbows resting on his knees. Crystin doubted she would get far if she tried to run; he was close enough to jump down and grab her in an instant. She wondered if he was capable of grabbing her, deciding against finding out. If they chased her out of the cave, she would be once more exposed to the danger of the Helwynd.
She was stuck between a rock and a hard place. She gave a grim smile at the analogy."
hey! you! you should go read my WoF fanfic (post-canon) about my two OCs Stoneshine and Azalea. It’s called Sanctuary and the description is: When Stoneshine, a mud-nightwing hybrid, runs away to Sanctuary (a town famous for housing scavengers and hybrids) to save his life, he is excited for his future. What will happen when the future he looked forward to is threatened by dragons from the past he tried to escape from? An assassination plot and struggle, my @ is opal_fire
Julian, a Roleplayist in California who describes the interesting aspects of history through his roleplays. Here Julian Caesar Blanco will discuss some dragon stories. https://ext-5561411.livejournal.com/1000.html
Pyro is a small lil bb, about the size of a large pine cone. It lives in the Thicketdown Forest, most of the time, in a burrow in the base of the Fogmoss Tree. It shares the burrow with Cassava Mouse.
I have a mug on my counter filled with old coins, pennies, nickels, some euros and francs left over from travels abroad. The whole thing smells like that tang of metal and ozone against your fingers. Pyro likes to sleep in there, curled up into a little scaly ball. Honestly, I’d be worried about it becoming territorial over one of the coins if Cassava hadn’t assured me that she has no room in the burrow for another table.
Hook's Notes:
Rom is the groundskeeper. He tends the godswood around the temple, as well as the woods around the school, and he keeps a general eye on everything else. He takes care of the familiars that don't belong to anyone, and he keeps the ravens.
Corvids in general are sacred to the clan, but White Ravens hold special significance. We have... a lot of them. We can't eat them, obviously, so whenever the hunting team traps any, we just introduce them to the rookery. They could fly home if they wanted to - some of them do, and some of them come back to visit and some of them don't - but most of them stay, because our hospitality is so great. Rom feeds them well and makes sure the rookery stays clean and in good repair, and he teaches them small bits of poetry. Which is quite freaky, when you run into one, and it starts quoting Shakespeare at you, especially when it happens outside of the godswood. Like, you expect weird things to happen in the godswood, for other reasons as well as talking ravens (who like to hang out there, it's their second favorite place after the rookery), but if you're just, you know, coming home from market and get "Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean!" shouted at you from a tree, it's quite concerning. I'm not sure why Rom can't teach them Mary Oliver and Robert Frost instead of Tennyson, but tragedies are his thing, I guess.
On a side note, Moose insists that our poets are actually from another realm and that they came to us out of the Rift that he's convinced he also came through, but that's just ridiculous. There's a portrait of Tennyson in the library, he was a brown-hewed Tundra with mournful eyes. There's also a portrait of a great weapons master named Obi-Wan Kenobi, telling you to read. I'm not sure what being a weapons master has to do with reading, but I guess he was just really invested in education. In the picture he's a Skydancer wearing a lot of white armor.
Anyway. Rom keeps to himself and his birds mostly, he almost always has at least one perched on his shoulders, but he also spends a lot of time with his mate, Hella. He mostly just nods along while she rambles about theories and concepts, from what I've seen, but perhaps he reads poetry to her, too. Maybe he reads the happier, more romantic ones to her, instead of to the birds. Maybe he isn't really as morose as he seems, and just thinks it fitting that ravens go about talking about death and mourning. I don't know. He's a part of that camp that I don't hang out with: Hella and Zvi and Moose and all of them. Scarlett doesn't hang with them either, so I'm really in the dark.
This might be an issue, actually. What if they end up scheming something, and none of us like hanging out with them, so none of us know? Maybe I should do some spying. Though, Sim's got an in with them, she would let us know if something was up... I'm probably just being paranoid. I'm letting Briseis' gossip and doomsday-ing get to me. I should stop peeking into those predictions magazines she leaves lying about...
