Flicking her sword from the earth to her hand Geriel parried, blocking the impending blow. Swift as a wink she caught the mans wrist with her own cold as death hands. "Fool!" She rasped, it echoed through her own halls," You fool! Do you think that I can read minds?!" She looked at him and changed her shape. It was the dead gaze that looked at him now.
"I was a mother once," she said through dead and cracking lips," My children are all but dead, and here you are. A descendant of them."
She let him go and looked at him again, "All beauty and love was stolen from me in these tunnels. The only thing that I wish is to see the semblance of them again." This time her face although dead and cracking became twisted with her anguish. " You call me a wench, but I have known no man but that of my husband." Her face twisted in disgust again, pieces of dried flesh flaking to the ground. Looking at his face again she said, "You need proof of my mortal heritage look at the hilt of my sword."
Then without thinking, or in distrust she looked at him through shriveled but narrowed eyes, "How do I know you speak the truth, boy? For all I know you are lying about your heritage just to fool me."
Her eyes dropped to the man's breast plate. She saw the crest upon it. And she could have wept.....
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Bloody Stumps!!!
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