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Description
Featuring Mindelan
Winter, Year 758 of the New Age
Blackwood Forest, Near the Caves

Run; The sensation to move, the need to plunge into the abyss, drove at her like a wild beast. There was the unmistakable urgency that she belonged somewhere else. Her eyes, blind to all but the magic she’d seen all her life were widened with her panic as she lurched to her feet. Disturbed slumber from where she’d simply collapsed at the agonizing loss all but forgotten now as that urge pulled at her. A thin blanket of snow which had formed on her back spilled to either side of her in her haste. The Oracle needed to be home now.
A wretched, horrid dream burned into her mind. What vision she might have had would have been utterly and completely destroyed had she witnessed that in reality. As it was she remembered only being tucked by Gaelachs side, as often she was in visions, staring down at the world from the stars. Though she knew the stars were high, high up above them she saw everything with perfect clarity.
The Moon Pools were surrounded with nearly every Oakfern in the caves. How had Nazam managed that? It was not a sacrificial night. She could not speak her question and Gaelach did not answer her thoughts. Instead he had her watch and listen. The words came murky and distorted to her and she swore she felt Gaelach scold her for fighting the vision but how could she not? This could not be possible. Berach was a prisoner? Had Nazam lost what little mind he still possessed?
She leaned closer to examine the scene. Not one but two does that did not belong to Oakfern existed there now- though one she knew was there because she, herself, had let the owl-faced child stay. But this stranger? Berach had never been bad at- She screamed and cringed away as light more fierce than any she’d known blinded her.
She lurched forward with great, bounding strides. She could not let his hunt for her be in vain. If half of what he’d warned her about were true- what could have gone on while he was away? Her ears turned back against her head as she ran. She pulled at the water of the world around her to boost her own stregnth, though this only succeeded in depleting a different reserve of strength and energy. At this rate she’d be no better than a babe slipping from its mothers womb for all the good she could do the herd by they needed her. They needed her.

How could she be so selfishly foolish as to abandon them? And to Nazams clutches of all things? Screaming her frustration would do her no good now. Gasping at the cold air with lungs throbbing from the dulling ache of the winter chill she rushed on.

Snag- ignore it. Let her hair be trapped she could continue. Snap! threads of champagne-dark mane and tail whistled in the breeze on branches where they had been caught and left behind in her blinded, mad dash.

This way, my child. Time is short. So very short. That voice. That oh-so-familiar voice brought new tears to her eyes and she stumbled, leaning against a large black tree for support. How long had it been since she had heard his voice? How much she’d loathed the idea of ever hearing it again and how filled with love and need now that she heard it now. Move, when your God asks you to jump you don’t stop to ask ‘how high’ you just do it.

Without further prompting she pressed on, her legs lifting and arching over snow drifts as the storm picked up wildly about it blotting the world into a nothingness of black, white and the occasional gray of Blackwood forest.

There, to her right, was the Red River- wasn’t it? That led to the Warrens. She could make it to Oakfern through there! Hope sprang up deep inside her and she took a deep breath grasped at the energies she could and thrust herself forward, rushing the ground beneath her and forcing snow to arch away from her. It splattered against the massive trunks, guiding her in a weaving pattern around the dangers and traps of blackwood.

Not once but twice she passed a baffled Blackwood soldier and both times they screamed at her to halt, gave chase but a few steps and collapsed as their lungs began to ice over. She had no time for this! The herd needed her! Berach needed her!

It crept up on her. That age-old familiar feeling of exhaustion. The depletion of strength one does not have. It ate at her slowly. Starting with her legs so that she began to stumble and leap in smaller bounds before moving up her hips and shoulders in a raging fire of aching muscles. Finally it consumed her back and even stretching and bending and bowing was more than she could manage.

Tears stained her cheeks now. Crystallized into tiny glitters of ice where the cold breeze and bitter winter grasped at them. They built up as she ran until her face was coated from eye-corner back in a swooping of glittering ice akin to the feathered rough of her owl-friends round face. He hooted from above her, swooping down periodically and in her vision of magic and water she saw the red pulsing of his heart and the lines of his veins glowing, glowing, glowing. And then he’d be out of her sight again and she’d be left to the mercy of winter.

Leap, bound, stumble. She groaned as she collapsed. One leg struggling at an odd angle. Had she broken something? There had been no horrendous - POP! - to say she had. Don’t stay down. She struggled to her feet, testing her leg. Sprained, she sighed with relief. Only sprained. N’noi hooted at her. The urgency in his tones disturbed her. What did he know that she did not?

Gritting her teeth she snapped her leg with a jerk, setting the sprain in a wild throbbing of tear-drawing pain. She didn’t have time to baby herself right now. It had been made quite clear the herd needed her.

Not like this. Gaelachs voice whispered through her body and groggyness claimed her. N’noi hooted nervously on his branch, watching with wide eyes that glowed in the moons reflection as Mindelan staggered to a hollow tree and collapsed deep inside. They need you alive, My Mindelan.

Morning brought with it a warmth that chased away the moons gentle touch. It shivered her flesh and stirred her in a shuddering breath. She blinked her blind, bleary eyes at the world. Was she home? She sniffed. No. The musk of the forest was still thick. The dirt beneath her soft despite winters freezing touch. It had been someones bed before it was hers.

But I had been running. She shook herself, standing and splaying her legs to balance. Her ankle throbbed fiercely. I had been, but I stopped, why did I stop? She stepped out into the snow and stood there, letting it chill her ankle

I need to stop this before I kill myself. She couldn’t, though. Dammit she couldn’t leave them to that monster any longer. It had taken long enough for her to open her eyes to the world and remember that she did not serve herself and her own pities but the herd of Oakfern and Gaelach.
Very Good....

The Warren Part 2I do believe my gracious host thought I was stupid. He made exaggerated gestures for what I was to do in the warm den and insisted that I help. I did not mind, after waking that first night warm and less achy I was all the more grateful for the old Badgers assistance but he was a grumpy impatient thing. When i missunderstood or did not move fast enough he became like Amaya, impatient and grumpier- which i did not think possible until it happened. Ice had begun to set on the entrance again and it was my job to clear it away so he could venture out; now that it was clear I had disturbed a hibernating creature. It was my job, too, to reseal the entrance against wind and cold at night.
Each day there was a shocking new task for me as he learned my limits. He had me knocking boughs from imperial trees with hard cocoons of frozen water and globs of snow. These he used to reshape the entrance to his den and scattered along the floor. I will admit the still richly green limbs provided fragranc Blinded in RageNazams heart raced wildly to the thrumming chant on the crowd as the word rose from an understandable rumble to an unintelligible roar. The waters bubbled and slurped greedily at the chosen sacrifice. Her paleness making her vivid and defined against the darkness of the cavern around her. She seemed to reflect at odd angles on the water but he pressed the vision aside, excusing it as her being so painfully pale.
Finally the time came and the water engulfed her in the most beautiful arch and swallow he’d seen the shamans use thus far. At first it was perfect and then… and then it wasn’t. Something was wrong. Something was horribly, terribly wrong. What had the shamans done this time? Had he needed to lead the ignorant fools into destroying the oathbreaker with his own magic or no?
He opened his mouth to speak but before sound could come out the world erupted with light so bright it put the sun to shame and brought tears to the slender, red kings eyes. It

forest reference

Description
Featuring Mindelan
Winter, Year 758 of the New Age
Blackwood Forest, Near the Caves

Run; The sensation to move, the need to plunge into the abyss, drove at her like a wild beast. There was the unmistakable urgency that she belonged somewhere else. Her eyes, blind to all but the magic she’d seen all her life were widened with her panic as she lurched to her feet. Disturbed slumber from where she’d simply collapsed at the agonizing loss all but forgotten now as that urge pulled at her. A thin blanket of snow which had formed on her back spilled to either side of her in her haste. The Oracle needed to be home now.
A wretched, horrid dream burned into her mind. What vision she might have had would have been utterly and completely destroyed had she witnessed that in reality. As it was she remembered only being tucked by Gaelachs side, as often she was in visions, staring down at the world from the stars. Though she knew the stars were high, high up above them she saw everything with perfect clarity.
The Moon Pools were surrounded with nearly every Oakfern in the caves. How had Nazam managed that? It was not a sacrificial night. She could not speak her question and Gaelach did not answer her thoughts. Instead he had her watch and listen. The words came murky and distorted to her and she swore she felt Gaelach scold her for fighting the vision but how could she not? This could not be possible. Berach was a prisoner? Had Nazam lost what little mind he still possessed?
She leaned closer to examine the scene. Not one but two does that did not belong to Oakfern existed there now- though one she knew was there because she, herself, had let the owl-faced child stay. But this stranger? Berach had never been bad at- She screamed and cringed away as light more fierce than any she’d known blinded her.
She lurched forward with great, bounding strides. She could not let his hunt for her be in vain. If half of what he’d warned her about were true- what could have gone on while he was away? Her ears turned back against her head as she ran. She pulled at the water of the world around her to boost her own stregnth, though this only succeeded in depleting a different reserve of strength and energy. At this rate she’d be no better than a babe slipping from its mothers womb for all the good she could do the herd by they needed her. They needed her.

How could she be so selfishly foolish as to abandon them? And to Nazams clutches of all things? Screaming her frustration would do her no good now. Gasping at the cold air with lungs throbbing from the dulling ache of the winter chill she rushed on.

Snag- ignore it. Let her hair be trapped she could continue. Snap! threads of champagne-dark mane and tail whistled in the breeze on branches where they had been caught and left behind in her blinded, mad dash.

This way, my child. Time is short. So very short. That voice. That oh-so-familiar voice brought new tears to her eyes and she stumbled, leaning against a large black tree for support. How long had it been since she had heard his voice? How much she’d loathed the idea of ever hearing it again and how filled with love and need now that she heard it now. Move, when your God asks you to jump you don’t stop to ask ‘how high’ you just do it.

Without further prompting she pressed on, her legs lifting and arching over snow drifts as the storm picked up wildly about it blotting the world into a nothingness of black, white and the occasional gray of Blackwood forest.

There, to her right, was the Red River- wasn’t it? That led to the Warrens. She could make it to Oakfern through there! Hope sprang up deep inside her and she took a deep breath grasped at the energies she could and thrust herself forward, rushing the ground beneath her and forcing snow to arch away from her. It splattered against the massive trunks, guiding her in a weaving pattern around the dangers and traps of blackwood.

Not once but twice she passed a baffled Blackwood soldier and both times they screamed at her to halt, gave chase but a few steps and collapsed as their lungs began to ice over. She had no time for this! The herd needed her! Berach needed her!

It crept up on her. That age-old familiar feeling of exhaustion. The depletion of strength one does not have. It ate at her slowly. Starting with her legs so that she began to stumble and leap in smaller bounds before moving up her hips and shoulders in a raging fire of aching muscles. Finally it consumed her back and even stretching and bending and bowing was more than she could manage.

Tears stained her cheeks now. Crystallized into tiny glitters of ice where the cold breeze and bitter winter grasped at them. They built up as she ran until her face was coated from eye-corner back in a swooping of glittering ice akin to the feathered rough of her owl-friends round face. He hooted from above her, swooping down periodically and in her vision of magic and water she saw the red pulsing of his heart and the lines of his veins glowing, glowing, glowing. And then he’d be out of her sight again and she’d be left to the mercy of winter.

Leap, bound, stumble. She groaned as she collapsed. One leg struggling at an odd angle. Had she broken something? There had been no horrendous - POP! - to say she had. Don’t stay down. She struggled to her feet, testing her leg. Sprained, she sighed with relief. Only sprained. N’noi hooted at her. The urgency in his tones disturbed her. What did he know that she did not?

Gritting her teeth she snapped her leg with a jerk, setting the sprain in a wild throbbing of tear-drawing pain. She didn’t have time to baby herself right now. It had been made quite clear the herd needed her.

Not like this. Gaelachs voice whispered through her body and groggyness claimed her. N’noi hooted nervously on his branch, watching with wide eyes that glowed in the moons reflection as Mindelan staggered to a hollow tree and collapsed deep inside. They need you alive, My Mindelan.

Morning brought with it a warmth that chased away the moons gentle touch. It shivered her flesh and stirred her in a shuddering breath. She blinked her blind, bleary eyes at the world. Was she home? She sniffed. No. The musk of the forest was still thick. The dirt beneath her soft despite winters freezing touch. It had been someones bed before it was hers.

But I had been running. She shook herself, standing and splaying her legs to balance. Her ankle throbbed fiercely. I had been, but I stopped, why did I stop? She stepped out into the snow and stood there, letting it chill her ankle

I need to stop this before I kill myself. She couldn’t, though. Dammit she couldn’t leave them to that monster any longer. It had taken long enough for her to open her eyes to the world and remember that she did not serve herself and her own pities but the herd of Oakfern and Gaelach.
Very Good....

The Warren Part 2I do believe my gracious host thought I was stupid. He made exaggerated gestures for what I was to do in the warm den and insisted that I help. I did not mind, after waking that first night warm and less achy I was all the more grateful for the old Badgers assistance but he was a grumpy impatient thing. When i missunderstood or did not move fast enough he became like Amaya, impatient and grumpier- which i did not think possible until it happened. Ice had begun to set on the entrance again and it was my job to clear it away so he could venture out; now that it was clear I had disturbed a hibernating creature. It was my job, too, to reseal the entrance against wind and cold at night.
Each day there was a shocking new task for me as he learned my limits. He had me knocking boughs from imperial trees with hard cocoons of frozen water and globs of snow. These he used to reshape the entrance to his den and scattered along the floor. I will admit the still richly green limbs provided fragranc Blinded in RageNazams heart raced wildly to the thrumming chant on the crowd as the word rose from an understandable rumble to an unintelligible roar. The waters bubbled and slurped greedily at the chosen sacrifice. Her paleness making her vivid and defined against the darkness of the cavern around her. She seemed to reflect at odd angles on the water but he pressed the vision aside, excusing it as her being so painfully pale.
Finally the time came and the water engulfed her in the most beautiful arch and swallow he’d seen the shamans use thus far. At first it was perfect and then… and then it wasn’t. Something was wrong. Something was horribly, terribly wrong. What had the shamans done this time? Had he needed to lead the ignorant fools into destroying the oathbreaker with his own magic or no?
He opened his mouth to speak but before sound could come out the world erupted with light so bright it put the sun to shame and brought tears to the slender, red kings eyes. It

forest reference