Heart's Dirge

[Sjira]

(Posted: Mon Jun 29, 2015 10:32 pm)

A flower needed water and sun to grow. The waves needed the moon in order to flow. And a heart needed love to live.

These were the simplest of thoughts to pass through the small woman's thinking that night. How she was missing Panther. Months again he was gone. Almost half a year's time. And a heart had known the pain of it before...for years at a time before, and it was in mourning. Did others feel such things as deeply? Eyes had seen some very few do so.. but it was not often.

As she climbed the stairs to leave the common room behind that night, her head pounded. Heart weighed with worry over another absence. The last one...she had nearly not seen his return to her. This time, she could only guess that the gods in their cruel games intended to simply keep him. How it pained her that she might ever have to fully let him go to breathe again. Was he not her very life's breath?

And the horrible dreams of a faceless form trying to drown her or do her harm in other ways was keeping her from sleeping. The headaches would not leave her that week. Herbs had been acquired from a vendor at the marketplace after her last visit there. Lips could taste them in the water she had been sipping that night.

Her empty hand passed against the wall of the hall's way where she paused midway down the lamp-lit corridor. The pain was so strong in her head that it would have been best to be carried. But her own feet served her in this way that night. As the strongest pain eased enough to do so, she continued until she reached the door belonging to the rooms kept there. It was brought open, just enough to step inside and close it well and quietly behind her.

Best it was not to trouble others. They had so much more to do and talk about amongst themselves. So she had seen self to those rooms lest she worry any that might have seen her. Dusky features were a bit ashen that night and beneath her eyes a darkness had settled to make her look as ill as the pain was making her start to feel. How long had it been since the dark dreams had come back? Weeks. Weeks, it was guess.

She moaned a little, easing self down on the pelts before the dormant small hearth in the room. The mug of water with its herbs was half finished and she set it to the flooring nearby. Not even a hot bath that night could be bared with the pain of the headache wearing her out so.

Soft, quiet she hummed a melody from Llothgar that mothers in the plains among the Se'Leqi tribe sang to their children at night to ease them to good, strong dreams to renew them for the day ahead. It was a lullaby the small woman knew well from hearing it from others there, as she had no children of her own to sing it to.

Away from the noise of the common room's crowd, she relaxed fully and was soon asleep without thought to anything else.

***

Quietly, she had spent all of the next day in rooms kept at the inn of the Red Dragon. She came out a few times, only to get some food, water, and to make some tea.

Few things distracted her from the pain that she rarely spoke of to others. But for who she was, she could not help but to feel it so deeply. She longed for her him and could not have him. It was one crawling pace at a time that she was making her way through this. It had happened a few times now. There was need to find the strength to get up off her knees. The pelts were left behind, finally, to make her way slowly through the rooms kept there.

The basin as the middle of the dresser was empty. With slight effort, the pitcher was lifted and water splashed into the unpainted, earthenware bowl there. As she did, she saw the ornately braided necklace of leather hanging from a corner of the mirror. Black stones were woven into the three-stranded necklace with three particular stone beads to interrupt the pattern with white, blue, and red. The red since it had been her mother's favorite color. The white stone represented s'jira for the single, white lock of hair she had had amongst her much darker strands for years. And there was the blue stone that eyes lingered on. It was for her sister, Se'vrasi.

Lips did not speak of her to others, except perhaps once or twice with Panther. Se'vrasi had been allowed to keep her freedom and had known nothing else. Tales, whispers spoke of her as a woman who wielded a blade well and that her aim with a spear both matched well to any man's. She was also much stronger in most ways than her younger sister, s'jira.

A blink of black colored eyes, she realized that she had made a mess with the water with some of it spilling over the basin's edge. Wearily, slender and small hands righted the pitcher so that she could see a cloth against the wood and steal from it the spent water.

She found herself greatly missing a sister she had very little in common except for their mother, their homelands, and the color of their hair.
Se'vrasi was several inches taller than her. She was also very sure of herself and never needed to seek another's shadow for comfort. She cast her own shadow well enough.

S'jira hung her head. The pain within it was easing as eyes closed to remember back to a time before the small woman had come to RhyDin with Master Kiroth. To self, she smiled a little. Before they had left her beloved homelands, Se'vrasi had argued with great anger with Kiroth. She was not his property and did not hold her tongue when it came to what she called an insane notion of running away with her sister. It had not been running away, but Se'vrasi would not hear it. S'jira had always marveled at her sister's fire. Her sister was lovelier than her and full of strength and fierceness. Se'vrasi meant fire-flower amongst her people and her sister had been named well at birth.

A hand still wet with the water passed against the back of her neck while she kept her head lowered. There were still reasons to smile, even through the pain. And so she did for a small while..

***

The window belonging to the rooms was opened. It was never locked. There was reason for that. Perhaps after so many years, it was out of habit. Fresh air was allowed to rush inside and bring with it the sweetness of spring, causing the curtains to fluttered briefly at times when the breeze was strong enough to do so.

She moved away from the window and slowly set about tidying the room that was sorely lacking in attention. Covers were haphazard with some draped so far over its left side that they dragged the flooring there. It had been a restless last few days. The pelts on the flooring across the room's way had proved a bettered rest. She made the bed and wiped down the surfaces of all of the tables in the adjoining rooms.

Eyes spent a look towards the papers and journal, as well as ink and more on the table at the room's corner. But she did not do anything with them for the moment. She would think of them later.

Movement was slow but it was doing her good to being up and about. She found against the pounding in her head until it eased to a tolerable measure. When the room was neatened, presentable enough for any to look upon it, she changed into the sleeveless, soft-leather patchwork dress. Hems brushed against her shins as she moved out of the room and closed the door behind her. Too long that day she had been within those immediate confines and there was need to at least manage a way to the rooms of the common room and kitchen below.

***

Spending even that smallest measure of time in the common room while it was Amber's shift was enough to help a little with what pained her.

A heart lightened to hear that Amber had down well in her testing with Brewing Ales.

Weary, but she was far better by the time she had made it back to the rooms upstairs. Given time a step or three along life's path, and it was her hope that the nightmares and headaches would fade away altogether.

***

Day by day passed and the strength to do more than to think was hers again.

There was far more to do with hands. Far more productive things.

The horseblanket that Madison had asked for was finally finished that very morning. She had sent it by courier before she had even started to help at the docks.

It was the smallest sense of completion in a task and heart, as well as soul were better for it. Thought the rains came and went for days and did not allow for anything but dour moods and soaked clothing, s'jira continued on.

There were fish to clean and cut at the docks, the wash and cleaning in some areas of the Red Dragon Inn to do, and after a time, there were the repainting of the dozen or so little houses for the four-winged fae-like creatures she had discovered in the Glen years ago.