When Huldra became aware of her surroundings there was a stray, slightly manic part of her mind that wished suddenly that she could go back the where she had come from. The vast black nothingness of the portal that she had come through formed into an entirely new landscape and the mare found herself on the edge of a precipice, a curve of mountain trail that fell away on one side into a sharp cliff face. There was enough time to arrest her forward momentum but by the time she was able to stop herself, her painted frame was teetering dangerously close to edge. Her gasping, panicked shriek echoed back at her as she watched, horrified, as the stones she had dislodged clattered down the incline and out of sight. She didn't dare to move, hardly dared to even breath for a long moments before she felt steady enough to take a step backwards onto the solid path she found behind her. Several meters away from the edge, and the mare's attention lifted to let her fear-stricken eyes take in the rest of the landscape.
Mountains.
Mountains when just moments before she had been in a marsh, when just moments before she had been amidst a surging mass of bodies trying to escape a monster bent on destroying them and the very lands they had inhabited. But now, she was alone, and second by second it was that solitude, that eerie quiet, that disturbed her far greater than her change of location. Kisamoa the killer was gone, but so was Tarik, who had been consumed by shadow and smoke, and Ralik, whom she had pushed into the portal, and so was Siggy...
Huldra felt the absence like she imagined it might feel to have one's body ripped in half, the soul that had been tethered to hers was simply gone. "Siggy?" the gasping question was ragged in her throat; a childish, pitiful thing. She could not have prepared for this, could never have imagined that suddenly the snake's presence could be so unceremoniously ripped from her heart and mind. She staggered, disoriented and looked around again as though she might see the little adder there but there was nothing and no comforting hiss in her ears from a body twined around her horns. "SIGGY!" She shouted it now, like her sheer desperation would produce some answer from somewhere in the stone spires that rose around her. "RALIK!" No answer made it's way back to her. She couldn't bring herself to yell for Tarik.
Keep a hold on yourself! Some instinctual sense of self-preservation seemed to snap into place and Huldra tried to tamp down that quakeing panic that had taken a hold of her. A few slow deep breaths helped with the trembling but her heart was still rushing maddeningly in her ears; a staccato beat that pounded fear into her brain Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. "You're not in Valhalla yet, bitch, pull yourself together!" At least she didn't think she was dead... The sound of her own voice, however, seemed to help. It was something to fill the gaping hole of nothing that threatened to engulf her and so she kept speaking her thoughts aloud as she tried to figure out.
"They're alive. Wherever they are, they're alive; you can worry when you're not about to fall the fuck off a mountain. By the gods did it have to be fucking mountains?" She looking again at the path she had found herself on. It seemed well established, and so must lead somewhere. She chose the direction that seemed to be going slightly more downward and set off at a careful yet doggedly determined walk. "Get yourself out of this fucking place and figure out where the fuck you are and then you can fall apart you miserable wench." And she continued to mutter in a similar vein as she trudged into whatever it was that would greet her here.
Mountains.
Mountains when just moments before she had been in a marsh, when just moments before she had been amidst a surging mass of bodies trying to escape a monster bent on destroying them and the very lands they had inhabited. But now, she was alone, and second by second it was that solitude, that eerie quiet, that disturbed her far greater than her change of location. Kisamoa the killer was gone, but so was Tarik, who had been consumed by shadow and smoke, and Ralik, whom she had pushed into the portal, and so was Siggy...
Huldra felt the absence like she imagined it might feel to have one's body ripped in half, the soul that had been tethered to hers was simply gone. "Siggy?" the gasping question was ragged in her throat; a childish, pitiful thing. She could not have prepared for this, could never have imagined that suddenly the snake's presence could be so unceremoniously ripped from her heart and mind. She staggered, disoriented and looked around again as though she might see the little adder there but there was nothing and no comforting hiss in her ears from a body twined around her horns. "SIGGY!" She shouted it now, like her sheer desperation would produce some answer from somewhere in the stone spires that rose around her. "RALIK!" No answer made it's way back to her. She couldn't bring herself to yell for Tarik.
Keep a hold on yourself! Some instinctual sense of self-preservation seemed to snap into place and Huldra tried to tamp down that quakeing panic that had taken a hold of her. A few slow deep breaths helped with the trembling but her heart was still rushing maddeningly in her ears; a staccato beat that pounded fear into her brain Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. "You're not in Valhalla yet, bitch, pull yourself together!" At least she didn't think she was dead... The sound of her own voice, however, seemed to help. It was something to fill the gaping hole of nothing that threatened to engulf her and so she kept speaking her thoughts aloud as she tried to figure out.
"They're alive. Wherever they are, they're alive; you can worry when you're not about to fall the fuck off a mountain. By the gods did it have to be fucking mountains?" She looking again at the path she had found herself on. It seemed well established, and so must lead somewhere. She chose the direction that seemed to be going slightly more downward and set off at a careful yet doggedly determined walk. "Get yourself out of this fucking place and figure out where the fuck you are and then you can fall apart you miserable wench." And she continued to mutter in a similar vein as she trudged into whatever it was that would greet her here.
Huldra
She's long gone with her red shoes on
Gonna' need another lovin' baby
She's long gone with her red shoes on
Gonna' need another lovin' baby
art by farrodakora
