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Old 10-21-2003, 02:04 AM   #5
piosenniel
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GaladrieloftheOlden's post

Hessa awoke to the sound of hacked coughing from the next room. She debated for a few seconds the idea of curling up and going back to sleep, but a louder cough pushed the measure to the other side, and, her eyes still heavy with sleep, she threw off the warm blanket and rose, shivering. Grabbing a worn shawl quickly from a chair she pulled it tight around her shoulders, over her slightly threadbare nightgown, and softly opened the door to the next room. "Mother," she called. "Are you alright?" Another bout of wheezing followed, and then her mother’s hoarse voice: "Quite alright, Hess, quite alright... go back to bed, dear." "Well, call me if you need me," Hessa said, unconvinced, in an unusually gentle voice. She walked out of the room and shut the door carefully behind her. Sitting back down on her bed, she wrapped herself again in her covers against the cold, but did not take off the shawl, brooding. Then, swinging her legs over the side, she lay down, hoping to catnap, at least. But slumber did not come, though her eyes were long closed. She strained to hear any noise from the next room, but it seemed her mother had settled down. She hoped so, at least. Concerned, she wondered how she felt. And why she even cared. She would not have cared had it been anybody else. Why should she? Nobody else mattered. She shrugged in the darkness of the windowless room, then chided herself for her silliness. Nobody was there to see her gesture to the walls. Finally, she slid into a doze...

She was 6 again, living in Minas Tirith. She was at home, twirling about in front of her parents and older brother, her crimson dress billowing about her childish form. Her mother was laughing, and her father was just sitting still, his dark eyes alive with humor. Her brother merely, stood, fidgeting. She was joyfully running into her mother’s arms and twisting her fingers into her dark hair. The picture changed. She was 9, reading from a piece of parchment, her brows furrowed, her eyes darting out every so often to check on her mother, waiting for her to doze. 11, running through the town and hearing news of traitors rooted out, spies caught, and then coming home, hearing tales of the brave corsairs to whom she belonged, whispered, from her brother. 13, her birthday, her father giving her, solemnly, the ring with the hidden blade... and then the day, a few months later, when the men had come to take away her father and brother...

She realized that she was no longer dreaming, but remembering, sitting upright in her bed, her teeth chattering still with the morning cold. She did not want to remember it all again, but the painful images seemed to burst through a wall in her mind, coming to a skidding halt just before her eyes. She remembered the days when she and her mother had run from Minas Tirith. She remembered how she had missed the half of her family that was now gone, in those first few months. She remembered how they had reached Umbar and settled down in the city, helped along by friends and relations, her mother now ailing. She remembered how she had wished to help the corsairs, because of her fiery hatred for the men who had taken her brother and father. And how, in time, she had forgotten most of it, and entered the life of a young woman in the town, and enjoyed it immensely. But she had not forgotten, she chided herself, she remembered it all... but really, her father and brother did not matter. Long dead, probably, she thought. None of it mattered. She couldn’t help the efforts of the corsairs, really, no matter what little things she heard in town and brought back to them, or what rumors she could spread for them, because she had no mind for politics.

But then, unused to such lengthy contemplation of serious subjects, she jumped off the bed, and, calling to her mother that she was going out for an hour or two, turned to find a suitable dress. She cringed a bit as she looked at those she had, because all of them had somewhere or other a worn spot or tear, no matter how skillfully stitched up. Then she wondered if she might find one somewhere else. Looking around the rather small room, she checked in the corners, the chest, even. Finally, sighing, she got down on her knees and reached under the bed, squeamishly and abruptly drawing back her hand at every dust bunny she caught by accident. Then, reaching what she had meant to, she grabbed hold of a basket and pulled it out. Heaving it upwards, she placed it on top of the bed, and began to look through its contents. There were a few dresses inside, two of them untouchable for the time, being those she wore only on special occasions. There was one, however, which was quite decent, clean and tight and a dark reddish maroon. She pulled it out, but did so carelessly, and a dagger clattered to the floor. She swooped down gracefully to pick it up, frowning. She didn’t know why she still had the thing. She was far too afraid of blood to ever use it, anyway. She dusted it off and put it back in the basket. Then, she went to change.

Emerging from a darkened corner a minute or two later, she cast a sidelong look in the mirror and smiled from under her eyelashes, as though flirting. Then, remembering her dream, she twirled, beginning to laugh. Taking a comb from her bedside table, she ran it through her long black hair, pushing its weight behind her shoulders, where it swayed softly. Then, putting on her ring, the blade inside hidden by a large stone, she took a last pleased glance and smile into the mirror and was gone before the door slammed, all thoughts, unpleasant and not so, left behind for the whirling and speeding world of gossip and the streets outside and screaming vendors in the marketplace...
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