Moon Witch Ch. 09

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I can't quite escape a feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach, even as we ride further away from the heart of Gra'marah. Azrath's words when he came to see me just a few hours ago seem to circle around in my tired mind. I feel like he had shown those feelings through his actions continuously as he'd ravaged me, but it was the first time he had outright said the disturbing thought process behind his abuse of my body and mind.

Even now, bobbing along atop the horse and tucked between the general's steady arms, when I remember some of those drug-hazed experiences under Azrath, I can feel my face getting warmer. He said that I need to be owned. I remember the little smile that he gave me as he said he'd enjoy breaking me, and even though I'm sure that I would never want that, the very thought sends shivers of perverse excitement across my skin.

I won't ever belong to him, I tell myself sternly. But still, every deranged thing he said to me circles my mind, mocking me. It was completely factual that I'd come to climax despite it all being forced. I want to bury my head in my arms. I feel like I can hardly trust myself to be honest. Remembering my bodily reactions feels like the most damning evidence that everything he said was true.

In any case, now I finally have a chance at freedom and to get away completely from this nightmarish ordeal.

When the general came to see me and tell me that he'd come to make good on his vow, I didn't feel any relief. So far, he's barely demonstrated that he can be trusted. Apart from being one of the only ones of Gra'marah to seem to take my side when I first arrived, he's done little to reassure me that he is on my side. I can't help but think that it stings a little that it wasn't until Azrath deciding to execute Hes and Awvag - my heart throbs a little at the thought that their execution will be taking place soon - that Erik decided that Azrath isn't some god to be worshiped.

At the same time though, there is an element of easiness that settles between the two of us as we both mull over our own thoughts. It's as if my cold feelings melted so quickly when he did show me that he's finally willing to help me. I think that it's because of my own desperation that I was so receptive to him. I hope so, anyways.

My stomach feels twisted up in knots, suffocated amidst all the ambiguity swirling around in my head. Maybe Azrath is right and I do need to be 'owned' as he'd put it. Maybe the general has finally had some sort of a change in heart from his blind loyalty.

I think that he can sense how tense I am, sitting slightly away from his torso so we're not touching as much as possible. He speaks lowly to me, and because we're so close together his deep voice comes from right beside my ear. The intimacy of it makes the hairs on my arm stand up. "What do you plan on doing when you first see Era again?"

The only light in this whole situation is that I know I'm going to see my baby sister soon. Despite the unique mix of despair and anxiety that threatens to take over me, I feel just a bit of the lightness that hope affords me.

It's funny that I can barely think about the good of the situation because the stress of everything else feels so much heavier over me and my thoughts. I can't help but feel like things are too different now - that I'm too different now. Even when I return to Sorrea and my home, even if I resume making healing potions to make us a living, I'm still going to be carrying with me the humiliation that Azrath put me through and the sadness of losing dear friends during my short time away.

"I don't know." I don't really feel like explaining all of those thoughts and feelings to the general, so I keep my mouth shut. I'm aware of how curt my answer is but I'm beyond the point of caring about making polite conversation.

"Tell me about how you two used to spend time together." He doesn't sound demanding, and like he always does, I can feel my iciness melt way too quickly.

So I tell him about the first time that we really had fun after mother passed away. Era was always closer to mother, so she took the death much harder than I did. I saw for the first time how I must have been after papa passed. For me, though, I felt numb. I was just in survival mode, making sure that we had enough food for the two of us and that we had enough fire for the winter to avoid freezing to death.

I had gone out to forage for some troutberries near the river. I'd asked Era if she wanted to come with me, but she had barely grunted and just rolled over in bed. I'd been experimenting with some new traps, and a little snow rabbit had gotten caught in it. It was a bunny, way too small to eat, but I decided to take it home to show Era since she'd always loved looking at bunnies and squirrels and all the furry things that lived around us.

I took the bunny, still wrapped up in its net, spent some time gathering troutberries until my fingers turned numb, and then trudged back home, my clothes dripping and my toes and fingers prickling with frostnip. I called her over to take a look at the surprise I found for her, and after some cajoling she finally relented and got out of bed. I was kind of excited to see her look of delight, but I didn't anticipate that she would look back at me with the most horrified expression.

"We can't eat him! He's too little!" She said to me indignantly.

This was the first time I'd seen some life out of her for days now, and being the mean older sister I am, I snatched the bag back up. "We haven't been eating any proper food, and this is the only meat out there I could find."

I immediately felt bad because she started crying, coming to me and grabbing the net from me. I was too startled to do anything but let her grab it. She carefully took out the animal and threw down the net with tears streaming down her face. "You will not, Selene!"

She grabbed the bunny around its middle and then used her other hand to support its butt while I tried to explain myself in a rush. "Era, I wasn't going to cook him, I was just kidding. I brought him back for you on purpose to try to cheer you up. I'm sorry."

But hearing my explanation only seemed to make her cry harder. "You're-" hic! "An awful s-s-sister!"

"I'm sorry," I said again, nearing her to wipe some of her tears away.

"N-no..." She said in kind of a despairing way. I followed her gaze to her hands, where I saw no more bunny. He'd left behind a gift for her though.

Something about the sight of my dear sister, crying uncontrollably with rabbit poop all over her hands really made me lose it. Especially after days of us hardly speaking to each other or looking at each other, it was as if all of the emotion released from within me in the form of laughing at the absurdity of the sight in front of me.

"It's n-not funny!" She tried to say through her tears, but it only made me laugh harder. She started to crack a bit of a smile even while still crying. I was definitely the one who laughed more, but eventually we got her cleaned up and she stopped crying. When the rabbit had stress-pooped on her she had been surprised and dropped it, and then we were faced with the task of picking the fast little critter back up.

It was made much more challenging than it should have been due to all of the things we had laying about on the floor that the bunny could hide under and behind and between. At some point somehow, she hit her head on something trying to make a dive, which set us off in another fit of giggles even as she started crying again.

We eventually caught him and kept him around for the rest of the day before we released him outside again. Era decided to name him 'Sir Bun...dles-of-Poo' which was a reminder of his generous gift to her every time we referred to him.

I recount this all to the general now, aware that he can hear the smile in my voice while talking about the memory. He's quiet while listening, save from a quiet chuckle or two.

"You know, I was kind of obsessed with the rabbits in Sorrea. I don't know if you noticed or not but we don't have any of the cute furry kind in Gra'marah - desert rabbits are little disgusting gremlins. When I moved in with my aunt I would go to the forest behind her cottage and chase them around with a stick hoping to catch them." He sounds happy recalling his boyhood memories.

"Why did you live in Sorrea, anyways? I would think that given your levels of... Patriotism, you grew up in Gra'marah."

"Ah, that. I was kicked out." He says it like it isn't a big deal at all, but I can hear just a hint of hardness in his voice. "Sometimes I'm jealous hearing of how things were between you and your father, because mine- Well, he didn't like me at all. I would see the way he treated my mom and even young I knew that it was wrong. She- she endured a lot to protect myself and Asa, even if Asa wasn't even her blood child. She was a good woman, couldn't even find it in her heart to despise my father's bastard child."

Despite myself I lean back a little more. I feel like I need to make my physical presence known as he describes what his childhood was like.

"I remember I was about ten or so. I felt like I was a big man, and I finally worked up the nerve to say something to him. I-" He pauses. Breathes out. "She protected me. I thought I was going to protect my mom, but she was the one who paid the price to protect me. I don't know how she convinced him to save my life, but she did and then she sent me away to live with her sister. That side of the family was originally from Gra'marah but have floated between here and Sorrea for generations. My aunt was in Sorrea."

"How did you end up coming back here, then? I can't imagine that you would want to after everything."

"Asa actually sent a message to me. She let me know that mom was on her deathbed. She.... She had the sickness. By the time I got back, I barely had time to say goodbye. She could hardly recognize me, she was so delirious."

"My parents were the same way before they passed," I say softly. The sickness has touched so many households with the death and despair it leaves behind. I never considered that it would be the same way in Gra'marah that it's been for us in Sorrea, too.

When Erik speaks again, he has the same quiet voice that I do. "Yeah. It was traumatizing seeing her like that. It messed me up bad. It felt like Gra'marah wasn't home anymore, but I guess I'd always held onto hope that one day I could come back when my mom escaped from my dad. It was messed up that until her last breath he was the one by her side."

He's quiet for a while longer and I don't say anything, thinking of what it was like when my parents passed.

"Sorry for mentioning him, but- Azrath was the one who gave me purpose at the time. We grew up together until I left for Sorrea. When I came back I was almost a man, and so was he. At the time he wasn't king but he himself was in the military. He told me he'd been increasingly interested in the politics of our country and that he could have a trustworthy friend by his side. I was promised a job, security, and most of all... The trust of a friend."

Neither of us verbally acknowledge the absurdity of the statement given the fact that we're both on the run from this psychotic friend of his.

"It all sounds pretty rough," I offer. I don't feel like the general wants any sympathy. "Doesn't seem like you can go back to Gra'marah now, then."

He gives a dry laugh, and I can feel the rumble of his chest behind me. He continues lightly now, as if he didn't just reveal to me how grim his home life was throughout childhood.

"I mean, I like to think I turned out a little bit better than the worse case scenario. But no, I don't think so. I'm pretty sure Azrath would find some way to torture me, if he doesn't give me the simple release of an execution, just for how a friend has betrayed him. But I was actually thinking that I'll ask my aunt to take me back in if she'll have me. It's been years since I've seen her, I'm sure she'll be surprised at how big I've gotten."

I wonder what his aunt must be like, if she's somewhere in between Gra'marian and Sorrean. I've always thought that our cultures were complete opposites but now I wonder if there are some similarities at all.

Gra'marians are, in my opinion, disgustingly open about their more animalistic desires, but... I also think about everything I've heard about the inner circle and King Rosland's council. There are endless stories about all of the lords' and ladies' scandals and fights for power. I wonder if it maybe is just a bit more simple in Gra'marah, where it seems that if you don't get your way, you just get a sword to run through your political opponents with.

"You won't miss Gra'marah? It seems that you had quite a bit of power there, as a general and all."

"I think I'll miss being called Eryx the most," he says. I've learned his tendencies just enough to know that he's lightly joking, probably to avoid answering the real question. "Sorreans don't really like foreign sounding names, after all."

The distant memory of him looking at me mulishly and insisting on being called Eryx comes to mind. In my head, I feel like I call him general half the time anyways, but even that probably isn't an appropriate name for him anymore.

"I think we're almost here, by the way," he says without giving me a chance to respond.

We've come quite a way up north, but he had explained that we were going more towards the east before happening on the Gra'marian-Sorrean border. We passed a cluster of tents and headed into the forest right behind it. Our horse has slowed to a slow walk, seeming to dislike the narrow path surrounded by brush we're following.

"We should try to be as quick as possible. In truth, I'm worried that if we get to the border too late they'll already have alerted the officers to be on the look out for the general and the young woman."

"Right," I respond. With only the light of the moon lighting our way, it's difficult to see things clearly. All of the darkness feels a little suffocating, and it feels wrong to make much noise and disturb the quiet peace of the night.

I'm reminded of the giddiness I felt that night when I went out to gather the moon-glow, which feels like a lifetime ago. While I mostly felt hope and excitement that night, the electric undercurrent of magic and fate seemed to be equally as present here as it did then.

"This place feels really... Right." It's like the air is singing to me, drawing me into the forest.

"Oh, good. I was nervous that I wasn't headed to the right place after all," he admits.

For all the confidence that Erik - Eryx - usually has, he seems to be losing his nerve a little bit. "Are you nervous?" I ask.

"It honestly just doesn't feel good here," he says. "But you're the witch, so I'm sure you know a bit more about this stuff than me."

I ignore his words. I thought that at the least this could just be a wild goose chase, but I guess I never considered how it might be dangerous. "I'm sure that we'll be fine." Even though he could promise me physical protection, I have nothing to offer in the ways of combat or magical protection.

Now that he brings it up, though, there is something a bit unnerving about this place that's thick with magic. I wish that I had my white crystal to cast some protection over us like I did for Era and I in Sorrea, but I don't. I decide to at the least try to offer us some protection and whisper what I remember. I don't feel like the magic around us is necessarily malicious, but it is definitely cloying.

I haven't even gotten through one sentence when there's blinding light and suddenly Erik and I are atop our horse in another world. Whereas before the sky was void black with only the pale moonlight lighting our way, I see the sky is a bleached grey thick with clouds. Something is falling from the heavens - at first I think that it's snow given how white and fluffy the pieces look, but when I grab one from in front of me and examine it, I see that it's a flower petal.

"What..." He doesn't say anything else, just seemingly observing the new world we're in just like me.

"I did this," I say a little breathlessly. "I think I did this."

We come to a clearing, where there's a hill with a cottage built into the side. Everything is covered with the white petals, making the whole view look like we're in a winter snowscape.

He stills the horse and we both stare at the door wordlessly. He's the first to speak.

"So you can just transport us to another dimension? I didn't know you were that kind of witch."

"I think it's when I tried to use magic," I say quietly, uncomfortable with raising my voice and disturbing the peaceful scene we've stumbled into.

"I guess there's no use waiting, then." He dismounts and then helps me slide off.

The height difference of being on a horse and on my own two feet will never get old, I think to myself. It always feels a bit like there's too much gravity on me as I wobble about whenever I get off of a horse.

We near the door. Erik - Eryx - has a hand on the small of my back as we walk, and it helps me feel steady as I approach the door. The wood is made of a dark brown, almost grey-black wood with the patterns of knots and burls extending over its surface. I raise a fist and knock.

The door opens almost immediately and suddenly I'm face to face with a woman. She has the look of the desert people, with smooth brown skin and dark eyes. She stands much taller than me, with a beautiful figure barely hidden by a long and sheer maroon gown. Her hair is in braids wrapped around her head in Gra'marian fashion. Everything about this woman screams beauty to me. When she opens her mouth, her voice is low and smooth.

"Ah, it's been so long since I've had visitors. And one a Sorrean, no less. Do come in, will you?" Then she's pulling us in past the door and shutting it, ushering us to have a seat on cushions in the floor. The interior is warm and inviting, with most of the furniture made of the same dark wood the door was made of.

I exchange a look with Eryx as she bustles around the kitchen and hums happily. She brings over a tray with little cakes, porcelain cups, and a kettle on it. At the least I think I have to say that she's bringing them considering the fact that they're floating right over her shoulder, following her as she glides over to us. She has a seat on her own cushion, pouring out tea and offering us cakes in mid air.

I take a bite of the cake and relish over the taste of dried cherries that fills my mouth. From my side, Eryx looks at me like he can't believe I'm eating food offered by the enemy.

"It's fine," I say. I have the feeling that there's nothing malicious about this woman. Not in her little cakes, at the least. So Eryx takes a bite of his cake, all to what looks like a very amused Desert Rose.

She smiles at us. "So. It's not often than anyone comes to visit me. I haven't been sought out as polite company very much since the rumors started, so we must be feeling very desperate to be coming here."

Eryx looks uncomfortable, but I feel a little lost at the hints of sarcasm barely hidden in her voice.

"Oh! So we have someone who hasn't heard of the rumors," she says cheerily. I'm taken aback at the speed at which she talks, launching from one sentence to the next. "Let me tell you a little story. Once upon a time, there was a man who came in looking for a spell. He was very very rich and had everything he could ever want in his world. There was just one thing that he couldn't have. He wanted a bright future for his lovely daughter, who I did meet and she was indeed so lovely. Such a sweet girl from head to toe, the kind that you just look like and know is the sweetest through and through.