Bird on a Wire - Part 1
Bird on a Wire - Part 2
Bird on a Wire - Interlude 1
Bird on a Wire - Part 3
Bird on a Wire - Part 4
Bird on a Wire - Part 5
Audea stared up the stony hill in the darkness, bent trees dotting the washed out landscape like tombstones as she tightened her grip on her sword and began to move upward, step by step. Her armor weighed her down like an albatross around her neck, all sharp metal and rough leather, her body covered in small scrapes and bruises from the hateful garment. How long had she been wearing it now? Days? Weeks? Would she ever be able to remove it again? Not yet at least…not yet.
As she reached the first rise, her elder sister Averill stood waiting. Hair bound in a tight bun, arms crossed, face composed in her typical expression of prim disapproval. She had become an old spinster long before her time. Averill stepped forward, blocking Audea’s way, her voice weary but filled with disdain and disappointment. “I told you naught would come of your foolishness but sorrow and now look at you. Off to foreign lands filled with strange folk and danger, leaving your proper place and for what? To be a hero? You are no hero, Audea Merton…all you’ve become is a murderess, my girl. Just a filthy murderess. Where is the responsible, hard-working sister I loved? Somewhere our parents weep in their graves over what you have become, why do you continue hurting them? Come home to where you belong Audea, do your proper work and let this madness go. Let it GO, Audea! This life isn’t for you!”
Audea shook her head violently, and shouldered past her big sister, trudging more determinedly up the hill as it grew steeper, rockier.
As she reached the next rise, a pretty child in pigtails and carefully mended petticoats sat on a rock kicking her feet, bored. Her little sister Allyna looked up at Audea and smiled brightly. “THERE you are…I have been waiting ever so long. I thought you’d left me all alone for good! I missed you, and want to play the way we used to. You promised you’d never leave me Audea…and now you’ve gone away! But you PROMISED.”
The child began to weep, clinging to her sister’s arm. “PLEASE Audea...come home with me like you promised…you swore you’d be there…don’t be a liar Audea. I trusted you….”
Audea paused, looking into the girl’s weeping eyes, weeping along with her silently…then gently pushing the child’s hands away, walking past her as Allyna cried after her. “I HATE YOU AUWDY…I HATE YOU FOR LYING TO ME!!!”
Steeling herself the girl climbed further, the hill turning into more of a cliff, requiring her to pull herself up over the brutal stones with her hands. As she arrived at the top of the hill where the kidnappers had made their camp she could see dead bandits everywhere, many of them torn asunder as if by some wild animal. Across the remains of the camp was a dying tree, beneath which she could see a figure huddled under a blood stained blanket. Audea gasped and started to move, but the Elf Xanderian stood between her and her love, slowly cleaning her gore-soaked sword as her demon bow chucked dryly across her back. Her eye was haughty and amused, clearly having had a marvelous time.
Xanderian smiled, her pale face so beautiful yet so terrible. “Hail silly Songstress. Why do you labor so, in armor that ill becomes you, with a sword that your very touch makes mock of? A pruning hook or a broom would be more suitable for your grip. Perhaps you might return to your lute, amusing the drunken Breedogs as their greasy hands grope at your skirts? Leave these matters of glory and adventure to others, and remain in your place, my pitiful little “sister”.”
The elleth laughed like breaking glass at her own jest, sheathed the sword and reached out, touching Audea’s cheek as she had done so often, but this time her touch was like the chill of the grave. “After all, what do you chase in your folly? Hawke? MY Urchin???” The huntress laughed again. A knowing, earthy laugh. “What use does he have for you, when he has such as I to spice his nights? Besides, you are just the village chit he will use and forget when he embraces his true heritage. You may be a fitting plaything for Hawke of Begger’s Alley to clutch and wrestle with in some sweaty back alley in Bree, but Gwaelion of Gondor should and will have much finer a consort then you could ever be. Go home to your sisters…meet a pigherder and bear his whelps happily…it is what you were born to do. Leave adventure and heroics, romance and love for your betters…such as I.”
With a snarl Audea shouldered passed the archer and ran across the blood smeared camp. Near the tree stood the ranger Braichanar, his green cloak wrapped tight around his shoulders as he mourned. “She was so young, so full of life, and yet we could not save her. Why did she not see sense and stay where she belonged?”
Frantically Audea wrest the blood stained blanket away to reveal the brutalized form of a young girl. She stared down at Audea of Bree in her one good party dress, flowers in her hair and a winsome smile across her lips…and her throat slit from ear to ear.
The ranger’s deep voice echoed as Audea reeled back. “Why did she choose to kill herself???”
--
With a start Audea awoke, the simple camp she and Xanderian had set up in Waymeet around her, the afternoon sun warm on her face. Sitting near her was Xanderian, carefully fletching arrows. Without looking up from her work, the elleth’s gentle voice soothed her. “The dreams of the late born are lessons you strive to teach yourself, or fears you seek to banish. Which was yours?”
Audea slumped back against the bedroll where she had fallen asleep in the middle of the day, exhausted after the night’s efforts and with more to come as soon as Braichanar returned from scouting.
If only she knew the answer to Miss Xan’s question, she thought to herself as she realized sleep was over for the day…if only she knew.
