[SWP] caught like a rabbit

[Pavetta]

p a v e t t a - - - Is it hours later? Days? Hoofbeats on the cold cavern floor, a gentle hum of vibrations and echoes. Not alone, she realizes gratefully, until…the hoofbeats aren’t close anymore, they are receding rapidly into the darkness. Pavetta struggles to regain consciousness, to open her eyes, to call out. Wait, she wants to say--scream—but her throat burns in protest and her mind is shrouded in a heavy, impenetrable fog. Or is it smoke that clouds her senses? She can still taste the ash on her tongue; in her throat, in her eyes, everywhere. Or is she hallucinating? Imagining another soul because it might bring her some sense of comfort to still the terror in her heart? “Don’t leave me…” Her voice is a mere whisper. Will the stranger even hear her pathetic cry for help? “Please...” Don’t leave me… Her eyes close once again and she drifts. She is a child on the mountain, surrounded by lonely temple walls and vain sorceresses. She recalls a figure in the rain, shrouded in shadow and mist. Mother. Pavetta knows it is her—hair the color of spilled wine, green eyes like a viper. Why does she stand there in the rain, cold and indifferent to Pavetta's childish cries? The sisters usher Pavetta away urgently, their voices low and fierce until she can no longer see the woman in the rain... Mother… Drip, drip, drip.  She blinks again, waking to droplets of water peppering her brow from above. Am I alone? Cool, musty darkness. A still, quiet emptiness. She can feel the cave breathing; the air circulates and pulls drafts from deep within the bowels of the earth. The raging fire seems to be a distant dream—a nightmare. The cave must be larger than she initially thought if the air is this cool, this clean. And the dripping…might there be a spring nearby? Her eyes are foggy with uncertainty, but yes, someone else is here but it is difficult to make out the stranger’s shape due to her dark coloring. A haze of glowing red lingers on coal black skin. “Water,” she croaks as she props herself up with all the strength she can muster. “Please.” a pearl in pigshit, a diamond on the finger of a rotting corpse, creature in whom nothing, but nothing, remains of an elven woman ---

@Sloane