Ena's blog

She poked at the spherical morsel with half an effort, watching it dodge the inevitable fate of her fork as a wounded animal runs in circles of its own forest. Her stomach hurt, her temper was ill, and she could do nothing but worry about her upset mother on the other end of the table, watching her wring her hands and sniffle occasionally, shaking her head every time. Her mother hadn't touched her food either.

"HELP!"

Ena's eyes snap open and she lurches forward to sit up in bed, hands scrambling. The screeching in her ears stops and her breath returns to her, arms batting away the covers that threatened to ensnare her. Her chest heaves while she pants for air. After two or three pants she glances around quickly with a fear-ridden gaze, coughing once and searching the tiny ruined house she was making a habit of using. No one was there. She was safe.

Just in case Ena didn't feel old before, she really felt it now. The cramping in her legs, the air catching in her throat and feeling thin in her lungs, a sheen of sweat slowly beading its way past her forehead and the coughing. No more thistle for her, she was out of shape! Her chest ached, her arms (which were doing nothing but flailing and beating away shrubbery) were sore, and her heart pounded against her ribcage like a bird in a box. To make matters worse, she was panicking.

Technology was amazing.

Mouse had found the most clever device! It was a round piece of wood... or maybe it was two pieces. If someone took a rolling pin, cut off a two-inch section from the middle wood, and worked a groove down almost all the way through (but not quite!), and from all angles, that would be the contraption. Just add a string attached to the inside and for some strange reason the thing would bounce back up the string after you tossed it down. Ena had been playing with it for three hours and twenty six minutes now.

((Forgive the dark emo-ness! She's under the impression she's gonna die, let her have a moment! u.u))

In this day and age, Mouse had come to take a lot of things as inevitable. Injury was inevitable. Poverty was inevitable. Heartbreak... though it had no right to be, was inevitable.

She lay cradled in a tree's arms, staring up into the canopy and watching the white fluff roll its journey beyond the mess of leaves. In her thumb and forefinger, she slowly turns a ruby. His ruby.

When even the moonlight that was powerful enough to pierce Tirisfal canopy was no longer strong enough to reach inside the crypt, Ena decided it was a good place to stop. It was also the first flat room she had found in a relatively long descent of hallways. Getting out would be a royal pain, but that was in the future. For now. Now she had peace and secrecy to enjoy the dusky drawer.

She was so. Bored.

Anymore it took a miracle and a lot of gold to excite Ena, and a lot of gold no longer meant the measly eighty gold that she made on her first job. No, now it took no less than four digits to get this rogue off her ass. Especially if she was comfortable. If she were being brutally honest with herself... Ena was feeling old.

Most cultures considered it honorable for a wounded soldier to get back up and return to the fight. Whether it be a tendon-snapping slice, or a missing limb altogether, the hero of the story is the one that makes the pained effort to sit up in their hospital bed. Slowly they reach for their weapon, using it like a cane but only until they manage to stand. The perilous journey from the bed to one's feet is amplified by grunts and groans of effort, a face nearby whether it be nurse or comrade is in awe and begging that the hero rest.

There are days things just refuse to end. Like torture. The pain lingers and lingers, before it's inflicted again, and then more lingering. And more lingering. Because you're so annoyed with the lingering, your mind wanders and as if on cue, you're in more pain not because of some master inquisitor, but because pain likes to multiply at least once before it stops.

That was how Ena felt when she had to give away gold.

Slowly the scenery began to shift upwards, darkening gradually from the corners. And then it was back! And then slowly it was shifting up again, and then it was back!

Enah was nodding off.

((Author's note: This is Ena's past, sort of a story-told memory and with most of it from her point of view))

Born here, and more or less raised here.

"...You.. still owe my group... ten gold.." Mouse practically growled the words to Toliman, glaring with excessively angry eyes. But it was almost too much, the searing hot pain from her ribs adding heat to her cheeks, and after realizing that her breathing was growing less and less functional, her face more and more pale, she spat out an order. "Lyir! ...Tend to Sezer..I don'.. I... I'm gonna go lie down for a minute..." And she rushed into the inn, leaving Lyir with a confused frown.

It wasn't fair! He cheated.

She hadn't seen this knight in eons. EONS! Of all the people to heal her strange injury it -would- be someone she had tried to rob on a frequent basis. That was just the perfectly funny thing to happen, wasn' it?

Their beds were the softest, and the bread and cheese plates were the finest! The decor was flawless, intricate with firmly placed stone mosaics in the floor and perfectly matched paint and wood stylings in the wall. The sheets were the wrong, yet right, color and the pillows. Ah, the pillows. Real down pillows that squished beneath her and pushed her back up like clouds.

Were it not for her hurt pride and paranoia concerning the aching in her ribs and slightly difficulty breathing, Ena would be quite happy in the Ledgermain.

It had been forever since she had desperately needed to climb a tree. The action was symbolic in many forms, instinct to many creatures and a relief to Mouse. The heavier her bags, the more it took out of her and the easier she would sleep regardless of the thoughts that constantly nagged at the back of her mind, nagging like a thousand screaming voices that wouldn't be silenced.