02-18-2018, 01:03 AM
(This post was last modified: 02-22-2018, 12:22 AM by King Ghidorah.)
Upon finally emerging from the shadows of the trees Pinay set her pack aside and stripped off her ash-stained leather armor. Down to her leggings and gambeson, she sat at the edge of the forest with her glaive close at-hand. The night-time air was cool, and smelled of rich soil and wildflowers in equal measure. Before her, open countryside rolled away, past rocky plains and open fields towards far-away mountains: jagged, white-capped silhouettes on the horizon, glowing silver with distant moonlight. The beleaguered elf stayed there until morning, engaged in fitful reverie, her repose aided by the feeling of the breeze against her ravaged face and denied by the horrific, malevolent heat of the anger in her mind.
At first light she rose, ate a single biscuit and some dried fruit from her supplies, and donned her armor without a word. With the haft of her weapon resting across her shoulder and the ruddy orange sunrise staining everything in shades of bronze and blood, the last Oskinder set out alone across the lands of the Kingdom.
Pinay had never been to Dalaran before, but she knew the way; travelers lacking the power of flight had to make the trip to Minas Tirith first, and from there fly by Pegasus to the floating City of Mages. It was a long way to travel on foot - more than a week's march from the outerlying duchies - but her tribe had been nomads; she'd walked greater distances.
It was the solitude that bothered her.
For the best part of a decade the golden-skinned Oskinder elves had roamed the countryside of western Camelot, camping for months at a time in fields and forests and avoiding large settlements. They had moved as a broad unit, a procession hundreds-strong, grouped by clan allegiance - except for the watchers: the warrior-caste would run ahead in pairs, forming the vanguard and foraging for food. Only rarely had they sent representatives into the bigger towns and cities to trade for rare materials made urgent by some crisis or other; On those particularly daunting missions into the world of the city-building societies Pinay's kind had always traveled in packs.
The hideously-scarred elf-maid knew the road well, but over all her years spent in the Omniverse and for centuries before, she'd always had companions: friends and kinsmen, either at her side or awaiting her eventual return. With the sickly furnace-glow of trauma and death illuminating her thoughts and the mindless warbling cackle of King Ghidorah still echoing in her brain, traveling didn't feel the same as it had before; the horizon no longer held promises - only questions.
At first light she rose, ate a single biscuit and some dried fruit from her supplies, and donned her armor without a word. With the haft of her weapon resting across her shoulder and the ruddy orange sunrise staining everything in shades of bronze and blood, the last Oskinder set out alone across the lands of the Kingdom.
Pinay had never been to Dalaran before, but she knew the way; travelers lacking the power of flight had to make the trip to Minas Tirith first, and from there fly by Pegasus to the floating City of Mages. It was a long way to travel on foot - more than a week's march from the outerlying duchies - but her tribe had been nomads; she'd walked greater distances.
It was the solitude that bothered her.
For the best part of a decade the golden-skinned Oskinder elves had roamed the countryside of western Camelot, camping for months at a time in fields and forests and avoiding large settlements. They had moved as a broad unit, a procession hundreds-strong, grouped by clan allegiance - except for the watchers: the warrior-caste would run ahead in pairs, forming the vanguard and foraging for food. Only rarely had they sent representatives into the bigger towns and cities to trade for rare materials made urgent by some crisis or other; On those particularly daunting missions into the world of the city-building societies Pinay's kind had always traveled in packs.
The hideously-scarred elf-maid knew the road well, but over all her years spent in the Omniverse and for centuries before, she'd always had companions: friends and kinsmen, either at her side or awaiting her eventual return. With the sickly furnace-glow of trauma and death illuminating her thoughts and the mindless warbling cackle of King Ghidorah still echoing in her brain, traveling didn't feel the same as it had before; the horizon no longer held promises - only questions.