Aeshaeidr stirs from her sleep with a gasp and a shiver, the winter cold of Dunland seeping in through her tent and forcing her to rouse. She ushers herself out of the tent with a grunt, pulling her fur cloak tighter over her shoulders. The cold is unnatural; it is unlike the cold of home, the cold of Wildermore. This is frigid with fear, of the uncertainty in where she is and what she is doing.
She watches the frost that forms in the air as her breath passes her lips - it rises into the night sky and she looks up in order to watch it fade from view. The stars were bright, much easier to be seen now that most of the fires of the camp had died down. Few were still lit, remaining to offer warmth to those who were on watch duty in the late hours. The woman leaves her tent behind to go stand by the nearest fire in order to warm herself.
As she huddles by the pit, holding her hands out for what meager warmth could be found, another shiver runs through her spine. She wonders now if she should have stayed in the tent; she was grateful for it here, for, at the last camp, she did not have one, and was left to warm herself beneath what extra furs were thrown her way. Aeshaeidr takes it to mean that those she travels with now accept her more readily, which just makes the chill in her stomach turn colder with dread.
The smoke of the fire wisps up into the starry sky, and she watches it rise as she had her frosted breath. The fire itself brings to mind the memory of the skirmish at the Heathfells; the blaze that had consumed the barricades between her fellows and the Dunlendings loosing arrows at them.
None of it felt real; Alweard’s injury (and his subsequent disappearance, which she feels great distress over), the crawling about in the dirt to see the knife warmed enough to treat it, nor the bravery of Thorvall and Wrecca in their protection of their injured friend - enough so for them to even cover her as she raced forward along the hill to spread the oil that would later consume the barricades in flame.
The only thing that feels real is Wrecca’s words that have settled in her chest as the deep cold has; “She will get herself killed!”
That much feels true, she reasons, for only a fool would have raised a sword with which she has no training and rushed forward into battle. Only a fool would have sold her experiences as being much more than they were in order to get the chance to leave with them from Helm’s Deep. She is a fool, and she is going to get herself killed for it. That much she knows.
The sputtering embers that crackle in the firepit is enough to draw her focus back to it, and out of her worrisome thoughts. She is here now, and there is nothing more to be done about it. The only thing she could do from here was her best - and if her best got her killed, then so be it.
Aeshaeidr exhales once more, watching the frost of her breath mingle with the smoke before they both rise into the air. She simply prays that she will not be found out before then.
