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She hadnt remembered sleeping, but a few particles of leaves on her clothing would say she had possibly rested somewhere for an unremembered length of time.
perhaps it would seem as if she blinked, but an hour or two's rest she had gotten.
She walked in the direction she felt she should go in, not trusting the instinct of course, perhaps her own instincts had a hand in steering her course.
In any case, the edge of the forest would be seen up ahead through the gnarled tree trunks and twisted limbs a clearing. She heard strange sounds small yet still they rang an echo. Unafraid she ventered forth her eyes to see a small number of dwarves, carrying, loading and hauling what looked to be some sort of precious metals from what looked to be a mine.
The dwarves that did see her slowed their pace, but didnt seem alarmed neither reacted to the other right away, just almost seemed to take to other in the form of a semi pause.
Then, guessing she was harmless, one of the dwarves would approach Kierstien standing a bit away from her. She of course saw him moving towards her, there werent a great number of them there. She did not draw a weapon, They seemed to be armed with battle axes themselves. She simply stated "Hello" to the little dwarf.
"Who Are You?" The dwarf peered his eyes at her unapproving of her disrupting their work. "My appoligies" she told him, "I am Kierstien, simply passing through". The dwarf looked at her, perhaps realizing she was not there to harm them, he asked her, "You need work?" The dwarves must have been in an awful way to ask a stranger if they'd like to help out. But before she could answer the dwarf told her. "Free food, and place to sleep, Get caught stealing consider yourself one less handless" Dwarven kind had less appreciation for eloquent speaking and simply put words to meaning, quite matter of factly.
She sure could use a hot meal and a bed so she agreed to help the dwarf for one day, and stay that night and she would be off in the morning.
She would walk the rest of the distance between them and extend her hand. He would shake it. "Deal" they both said.
He wasted no time in putting her right to work, he shuffled her in line to lift the peices and carry them to the cart to which they were loading them onto. She stated, "I have an ax.. can I dig?" she had used that ax in battle before, and knew it to be a fine ax good for digging through rock with. The little dwarf scoffed, he wasnt to friendly with letting a stranger go in their mines and dig at least here in the open she could be watched to make sure she didnt try to steal anything.
But knowing how little help they had, and seeing three good men already carrying the heavy metals back to the cart.. perhaps he took pity on her, she must have looked a fright. As the man said, "Your first order is to go back to the villiage and find my wife Ryianne she will get you something to eat, I cant have you passing out in there." The head dwarf would direct her and she would go find his home.
She would be greeted warmly by the man's wife who surely didnt gain the pleasure of company outside of their own villiage often.
The two talked while the woman known as Ryianne would make her a wonderful and more than satisfing meal, even more than her incredible hunger would allow her to consume.
Kierstien would politely excuse herself stating she needed to return to the mine and do her part to repay the dwarf and his wife for their kindness. She pulled her ax from her pack and got in line with a nod to each at her side she began to use the strength that wonderful meal had given her to dig out quite an array of different sized peices.
When the day's work was done, the one she had spoken with before offered her a room at his house, and would not take no for an answer. Returning to the home, she was allowed to bathe like civilized people again and rest in a comfortable bed.
The strain of the past days, and the hard work in the mines had her worn completely out, and she passed out with no trouble at all in the bed provided by the nice dwarf family.
She rested until the morning's light finding the husband and wife already awake, they offered her breakfast before she set out. "Oh you are too kind, but I'm afraid I need to get an early start this morning, thank you so much for your hospitality."
And she headed off in the direction she saw earlier, it looked to be a winding passageway through the mountain itself, she would venture onward into the unknown as she walked noticing etching on the walls of all sorts of colorful and very detailed dragons.
Kierstien wouldnt realize she was headed down the path that lead to a Desert, the Realm of unknown. Who knew? Perhaps the Druids of the desert would be kind to her or perhaps the Gods would turn them and the elements against her.
As she walked further into the passage.
 Kierstien · Sat Sep 29, 2007 @ 07:50am · 1 Comments |
