(O.O.C. - I can move this farther down if necessary. The muse has struck now, though. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] )
Birdie slipped under the storeroom door and through the crack, crawling and leaping over rock and rubble until she gazed down on the chained men.
The air of decay and suffering was all around her. She could taste sickness through her feet, and feel the despair through her antennae. This was not the barren but spacious accommodations reserved for passive Halflings. This was where dangerous Men were kept until all fight and hope had left them. Birdie choked.
In the gloom of the cages she could not tell the conditions of individuals from here. To her insect eyes these were just massive, still shapes, all asleep or comatose. The Skinchanger leapt down to the floor of the pit and morphed to human form.
Some of the Men were nothing but bones wrapped in bags of skin. Whether they could even walk to get food anymore was doubtful. Some looked to have been here for a lesser time. Wasted and sick from want of light and air, but still able to move if motivated. One was dead. Bird hoped that he would be removed come dawn. “Please,” thought Bird, “don’t let the guard be drunk. Please let him remember to check.”
She slowly walked down the line of cages, checking each Man as well as she could in the dim light. There seemed to be some 15 or so left. Out of how many? The cages stretched on down the corridors, but only the ones closest to the door were still occupied.
Bird turned to go back to the crack, when her foot stepped on the loose dirt near the wall, and a small shower of pebbles slid to the floor. She froze as the man in the cage before her rolled his head and locked eyes with hers.
His eyes widened and he gasped as he saw a shadowy form of a cloaked woman. “Who are you?” he whispered through dry lips. The man laying next to him also turned, struggling to sit up as he saw what his companion looked at.
“Hush!” Bird whispered back and she gazed furtively down the corridor. How could she have been so stupid! But then she looked into the dark, sunken eyes of the prisoner, and her heart filled with pity. So she had been seen. There was nothing for it now. She could not leave without saying some small words of comfort.
“What is your name, Man of Andúnië?”
The man licked his lip and gave a dry cough before answering. “Gilrain, my Lady. And this is Rumil. But how came you…?”
"No, there is no time for questions.“ Bird held up her hand, and then, words came to her, she did not know from where. “Men of Andúnië. Fear not. Your time is short, but help is at hand. In three days time your prison will be opened, and you must make your way to the sea. Númenor is doomed, but hope will live if you follow the Elf-Friend to his new kingdom. Have faith, O’ Faithful!”
Bird looked around and blushed beet-red at her outburst, for now every man in the prison had awoken and were gazing at her, their eyes shining in the darkness. Quickly she morphed back into neekerbreeker form before she made a complete fool of herself. The men gasped and blinked as the woman before them disappeared into thin air.
“Well,“ thought the skin changer as she leaped for the opening in the wall. "Mith and Pio will string me from the yardarms for sure. Making promises like that to those poor Men! How could I have done such a thing? Well, if we fail, they’re all dead, and us as well, and those promises will not matter. I least I hope they won’t. Oh, what was I thinking?”
The men sat in silence, gazing at the space where the woman had stood. “Gilrain?” asked Rumil, “Who was that? Think you Silmariën herself came to us?”
“No,” breathed Gilrain, “It was Elbereth…”
[ October 23, 2002: Message edited by: Birdland ]
|