First: shelter.
Dessrivæ sits lazily on her black stallion. The sun filters through the trees casting pale yellow drops of light on the patchy under-work of the forest. Brown, auburn, orange and gold leaves litter the ground everywhere at her horse's feet. Her crystal blue eyes stare monotonously from beneath the shadows of her hood.
Fitting. Monotony. It was the way of her life, now. Nothing but a dull rythm of day and night; eating and sleeping; waiting, watching, fearing and killing.
Time had lost its importance. Time was no more. All there was now, was sequence. That's all time is, really--a sequence of events. That's all she measures anything by anymore: she huntes before she cookes, she cookes before she eats, she eats before she sleeps; the sun rises before it falls; she lived with her father before she lived with her husband, she lived with her husband before she ran away with her lover, she ran away with her lover before he died, he died before she was here.
Somewhere in the treetops above her, birds squak and sing and fight. The wind swayes the branches ever so slightly. The sound it makes, sounds like water running through a shallow brook. The leaves on the ground are picked up and swirled and tossed about before settling down once more.
Her lips are pressed loosely together. Her eyes sweep everything in her vicinity calmly. Her face is emotionless.
Who can tell how long she has been sitting here with her horse? Has it been only a few seconds? Has it been minutes? Hours?
How long has her lover been dead? Days? Weeks? Years?
It is impossible to tell anything anymore. And she does not care, anyways.
With just the smallest amount of pressure from her legs, she urges the horse on.
He picks up one foot, sets it forward. Picks up another, sets it forward. Then again. Then again. And again. Slowly he is walking, hardly reluctant, but lazy. Like he has been asleep for ages and his muscles are only now waking up again.
Dessrivæ is aware of every plod of his hoofs on the ground. She watches with quiet fascination as spots of sunlight pass over his dark mane while they walk. Otherwise, the walk is without event.
There is no interuption to the consistancy of the forest. Then---there is a house.
With just as much effort as it took to get him moving, she stops him again and stares curiously at the house. It is large, as large as the one she lived in with her husband, even. It is old, however. As old as this forest, perhaps? Doubtful.
Vines have grown over the top of it. They have consumed it and claimed it theirs so that it looks like a green box. It is impossible to tell its original color or material. The vines themselves are dull and dark like the color of mold.
There was once a foot-beaten path not far from where her horse stands, but all that can be seen of it now are pieces of dusty brown showing through the intricate weave of plants and leaves on the forest floor here and there alligned in a seemingly straight row.
Forest growth crowdes the old house. There is a circle of shorter sapplings all around it where the land had been previously cleared.
A thought occurs to her. Again, she urges the horse forward with her legs and they trot the short distance to the house.
She circles the house once. Twice. There must be a door here somewhere. It takes her a couple more slow rounds around the house before she finally notices a rectangular patch of vine that seems... displaced somehow. Perhaps it is a difference in shade that she notices. It is hard to tell.
She swings one leg from over the horse while her other foot finds the ground. Then both feet are on the ground. The leaves crunch crisply beneath her feet as she makes her way to the house.
When she is only inches from the rectangle, she stops. There is definetly something different about this patch here. She reaches up and grabs a fistful of vine. With a little bit of force given to the stiff vines, she pulls them away and reveals a piece of dark, unvarnished wood.
Satisfied that this is what she is looking for, she pulls aside more vine, then more, and more. Eventually a rough shape is ripped away from the green.
Two doors are uncovered now. Side-by-side. Across both of them, resting on rusty metal brackets, a thick piece of board lies.
Her heart jumps to her throat and tears spring to her eyes. This door was locked from the outside.
Tentatively, her heart filled with horror, she lifts the heavy board. The molding wood cracks and splinters from the pressure. Startled, her breath catches in her throat. She stops and takes a deep, quivering breath. She steadies herself.
She takes a step back to take another, more complete look at the double doors. Then, without warning, she thrusts her foot in the middle of them, commanding the wood to snap and crack with the force. When her foot comes back to the earth, her hood has fallen from her head and the rest of her robes are disheveled. The horse is unsettled now from the sudden clammer and lifts his hooves and places them down again nervously several times.
There is a rather large hole where her foot had impacted the two doors but they are still standing. With a grunt, she kicks them again and again and again. Splinters of wood fly all around her and dust is starting to kick up from the heavier pieces hitting the ground and from her horse's agitated prancing.
It takes a minute for the dust to settle. Sunlight hits it in the faining noon so that the air appears the same tan color as the dirt. When it has completely settled, all that is visible beyond the splintered doors is faint shadows against fainter shadows against deep, voided shadows.
Dessrivæ pulls on the stallion's reigns, bringing him closer to her, in need of some comfort. The sun on her hair brings out every shining red hue but for all the sun's attempts to capture the blue of her eyes, it is, instead, trapped inside them and kept prisoner, hidden behind the dankness of her life.
She steps forward, past the splinters of wood which snap up at her feet when she steps on them. The horse is tugged along behind her.
She dully notes as the shadow of the houses walls above her cross her face as she steps over what is left of the doors. Once completely inside, she stops and waits for her eyes to adjust. At first all she sees is shadows.
Note: Ce n'est pas fini. (not finished)
