[piosenniel]

“Lindir”

It was warm. Familiar . . . comforting, almost. The ceaseless clamoring of the others was shut out . . . their mutterings and imprecations, their howls of frustration. They’d gone . . . all gone . . . when the spirit this body had housed had risen to join them.

Ingir had pushed close about the fallen Elf as his captain has asked him to do, willing the fellow to give up and join them. ‘That body’s nearly dead,’ the self-claimed captain had said. ‘Let’s claim his spirit for our side.’

But not quite dead. There was a vacuum left behind that pulled at Ingir even as the others had pulled away, their ghostly arms slung over their new cohort’s shoulders in a welcoming camaraderie. And Ingir’s desires pulled just as hard at the body left behind. He had not wanted to die. He’d been young . . . was still young . . . and the thirst for life still ran strong in him.

Ingir slipped in, putting on this cloak of a body . . . wrapping it about him with a mighty will.

There was a sharp pain in his side and beneath him he could feel the pebbly ground pushing at his back uncomfortably. He moved a bit, opening his eyes a slit and slamming them shut just as quickly at the sharp, clear vision of an unfamiliar face hovering above him.

‘Lindir?’ he heard some voice call.

‘Ingir,’ he mumbled. He could sense the lips moving and the air as it forced from his lungs and made his voice. Familiar motions . . . yet new . . . and exciting. He groaned again and opened his eyes, willing them to take in what he could see without fright.

‘Lindir!’ some voice said again.

‘Water,’ he rasped. He felt the light touch of another's mind and shut his tightly against intrusion.