A Foolish choice, but Oh well

“Septimus has gone ahead”……..//FOOL one of the first rules you learn as a fighter is do not travel in hostile lands by your self!!!// Is the first thing through Oko’s mind…//Oh well, at least if any one is watching and counting this should throw them off of the trail for a bit We can also give whats left a deceint burial if we find anything // is the second thought.

Out loud Oko will say “So now we trravel, I think the Rranger is best in front, I’ll be in the back keeping an eye out for any trrouble from that dirrection” After saying that Oko will fall back a bit till he is the last one in the party as the group moves north.

Oko will be in the back off to the side, whichever side is the upwind side will be his normal position while traveling.

"I suppose we should ride through the village, and get out on the road to the Northeast." Zara looks off that direction. He probably does not want to be seen with us going through the town."

Zara looks to the others.

Dae is concerned when she to Ehlonna she had seen something that had lightened him up,perhaps it was only wishful thinking because so soon after that his saspect had turn depressingly somber. However it was true they could not just wait here for him to show up. So with a heavy heart she rode on.

The small town was quickly passes through and then the companions moved out into the farmlands that surrounded it. what ws she going to do with Septimus's stallion if he never showed up.

Somber and grave he walked, heavy-hearted and embraced within the folds of despair. He was a danger to them, he sensed, and like a cancerous tumor, he would rid himself of them, and they of him. For the good of his friends.

He turned towards the Village.

Partway through town Zara speaks, as hse eyes search for Septimus. "It may be he skirted the village and will meet us on the other side of it. That way anyone following us, if they question the people of the village about us, would only find out that he was not with us as we rode through.

Dae turns to Zara. You may be right about that let sus hope so for now. He would know his own needs to keep his movements secret best.

Dae turns bak and continues quickly through the town moving out into the more open lands of farms and open fields. Still well populated in this area. she knew it would get much less so the closer they got to the gorder of the Barren lands.

The day was pleasent enough to enjoy except for their missiong party member. Dae kept a watch out and was the first to spot something she did not expect something was moving their way and a rapid pace greater than normals horse movement. from behind them on the road.

She turned around to get a better look. "We have company coming up fast behind us and fast. Just be prepared."

(( INTERNET'S UP!!!!!!!!!! Will have a post up tonight, a good long one. Septimus is of course, contemplating a terrible course. I expect he will meet up with his fellows tonight. HE`S BACK!!!!!! ))

Silence.

Septimus raced alone through the sea of blowing, unfathomless grass. Long shadows passed, and crossed, and covered him. Blinded and staggering he had run for two miles only to be driven into a dizzy spell of coughing. His heart pounded, and his limbs were touched with faintness. An ocean of yellow stretched before him, dotted with the rare islands of farmhouses, and all was silence. He had run from them until his heart was full to burst, thinking only of the distance he could place between them and him, had run until he had collapsed in the bracken, and had lain there like a wounded animal unto he regained the strength to stagger to his footing once more.

Shadows deepened and his trembling legs refused to carry him for another fruitless race. He lost his balance and collapsed unto his side, feeling the sweet impact of the earth against his weary body. His wild, hunted eyes closed as he lay there helplessly trying to muster enough strength to move on. The cries of the buzzard birds echoed in a private hell. They were waiting for him, calling for him. He was already marked for death.

This is my friend.
See how he glistens.
See this one shine...
How he smiles in the light.
My friend.
My faithful friend...

With shaking fingers he drew his dagger from its protecting sheath, hissing in agony as he carelessly allows it to slice through the soft flesh of his hand in his haste. Without venom but lethal, a weapon of honesty, it rested upon the flats of his palms. His cold gaze traced its perfect curves, caressed them with his eyes, knowing each design, each edge of the weapon. It winked at him knowingly in the light, promising deliverance.

Speak to me friend.
Whisper...
I'll listen.
I know, I know you've been locked
out of sight
all these years, like me
My friend...
well I've come home to find you waiting.
Home, and we're together!
And we'll do wonders.
Won't we?
You there, my friend?

He gripped it feverishly, the blind grip of a drowning man, casting a feral, wary gaze about him. If he would die, he would do so alone. He kissed the hilt with reverence. It would not the instrument of his death but the tool of his salvation. His little girl was waiting.

Come let me hold you.
Now, with a sigh, you grow warm in my hand.
My friend!
My clever friend...

He gazed into it once more, and it reflected his gaze like a mirror. His eyes stared back from hollows and yet they smiled. They would find him...He plunged towards the darkness in a faint of elation and bitter fear as the dagger flew towards his chest, towards his struggling, treacherous heart. A sudden sound caused him to hesitate for a split second as the voices of his fellowship rang fresh upon the air and the blade tore into his flesh, releasing blood dramatically, but falling shallowly, skirting the heart. Bleeding heavily, weakened, he sank to the earth in a widening pool of crimson, as the voices of his companions rang dully in his ears.

Rest now, my friend.
Soon, I'll unfold you.
Soon you'll know splendors
You never have dreamed
all your days,
my lucky friend
'Til now your shine was merely silver.
Friend, you shall drip rubies, you'll soon drip precious rubies...

Setipmus embraced the earth beneath him willing it to cover him completely. His life's blood seeping into it feeding Mother Earth. Not is a gush as he had hoped, but steadily enough. So if he just laid where he was it would have the same effect.

The breeze ruffled his hair even among the tall grasses that hid him from view. No more voices to toment him, soon there would be nothingness. A gentle caress soft and comforting and a soft embrace, warmth and love he could feel it around him

"Get up, Septimus." his mother's voice gently called to him. "There is a new day awaiting you. No time to tarry here. There are so many things you have yet to accomplish, my dearest son. Get up your friends need you and you need them. Get up Seppy, be strong for me be strong for yourself. Setipmus felt the pull of his mother's voice the question was would he respond.

Above the fallen figure hidden in the deep grass a lone flying creature watched circling high above.

OOC: okay we will be away until Late Saturday night. Everyone still with us please post. We have lost our cleric but a new one is arriving--the dust on the road,

OOC: I have lost track of this so much... Jason is with Zara, right?

He is with Zara!

Sorry about my absence.

As Dae stopped and waited to see who was approaching them so quickly she saw the flying creature that seemed to be approached with the rider coming their way suddenly dipped and circled and dropped out of the sky into the field just over a rise between the them IT essential block what was happening from view.

The rider then seemed to pause and leave the road towards where the creature had flown down. Soon the rider too was hidden by the small rise in the ground.

Septimus, if he is conscious hears "Wakey, wakey" in a sibilant whisper into his ear. a warm flow of healing energy washes through his body not much just enough to stop the blood from flowing out into the thirsty earth. There is a sharp pinch on his ear. "Wake up,” comes the sibilant voice stronger and closer now. I can’t carry you."

As the rider approaches the creature looking very like a bright shining gem cover miniature dragon calls out. "Bleeding all over, I fix. But him not awake yet." not yet away."

”I will be right there, Jewel." Moraglin dismounts from her Obsidian horse what stand quietly until she gives it another command. A tall slender woman dressed in divided shirt robes, the Mystic Theruge makes her way over to where Jewel waited for her

Her hair is black streaked with gold her eyes golden like a cat's elven looking but not completely elf,, her skin was light golden tan.

Slipping back the hood of her riding cloak she kneels down to examine the man lying injured far from anywhere that she could see. HIs horse was some yards way cropping the grass.

She is rather suprised to find the man's own dagger out under him and blood on it tip. Moraglin frowns slightly even as she wonders whether or not he tried to kill himself or had an accident. There is no real way of knowing until he wakes.

Jewel, fetch that horse while I will heal him. Moraglin takes up her holy symbol and prays to her Deity. She then uses her highest level heal and follows it with Restore.

"This is your lucky day, whoever you are, if this was an accident, if not you may not appreciate what I did for you. Ah well it wouldn't be the first time my efforts have gotten me into a fix."

Septimus is now healed and totally restored, all fatigue, exhaustion and any ill health has been reversed.

"Wake up now" (Use Command) comes the commanding feminine voice. "You can thank me later, or not at all, for saving you."

The cloud abated. Afterwards he would remember nothing but the darkness that ebbed and flowed like the sea at high tide. The shadows flowed over the striking beach at sunset and drowned him, pulling him into the choking broiling sea where dark charred frames like the bones of some primal whale-like ancestor thrashed and floated. No minds behind actions and he envied them. For them, the abyss was nothing and everything.

And he forgot the colour of the sunset above the sea.

The drowned pale thing lay motionless, pitiful and beautiful, ghastly, lovely. His body was curled up upon himself, protective of himself, as if in that ebbing sea the years had been washed away and he was a boy again, a little dying boy with a closed, bruised eyelids and a pale little mouth, beautiful eyelashes curled upon the whiteness of his cheek, devastatingly dark, and terribly pure.

He was shrouded.

And his eyes opened in the dark.

When you look into the abyss,
The abyss also looks into you.

They fixed upon a stranger.
And held nothing.

Like a prince in a reverse fairytale he rose slowly, calmly, his cold, reptilian gaze fixed on the stranger, as he rose from the bed of crushed, bloodied grass. Without taking his eyes from his impromptu saviour he shifted the collar of his sailor’s shirt, dread causing his throat to close. Finally he glanced down, once to his pale, emaciated upper chest and saw that it was whole.

Cowardice.

He fixed his gaze at her again and his eyes glowed with feral righteousness, totally mad and totally sure. He bared his teeth at her and hissed like a serpent, and with a movement that lacked grace, a lunge that was little more than a muscular spasm, he grasped the dagger with its random flowers of crimson on silver and leaped towards her with the same total conviction of a leopard leaping on unaware passerby.

His fury gave out before he reached her and he collapsed at her feet, broken down by his grief, crying voicelessly, words lost. He snarled at her without words , the idiotic creature that had stolen him from his dark dream, that had returned him to this hell. Heaven was a fairy tale and hell was other people and soon he would die screaming, without dignity.

Without redemption.

The goddess that controlled life and death had cheated him.

“Kill you”, he murmured helplessly. His first words since returning from the cloud, and he spoke them with as much conviction as a toddler. Reborn.

“Kill you, goddess”.

And in that darkness when I'm blind
With what I can't forget
It's always morning in my mind
My little lamb, my pet.

"Not today, I think." came the cadenced voice. "Well it seems you are not overjoyed to be saved. But never mind, I don't." the feminine voice continues. Well that clears up one thing I had questions about your injury was not accident. Kill me you might want to but I do not mind your words since your rather pathetic attempt to stand does not bode well for any further attempts. So what I want, I get at this point in time.

Suddenly she waves a wand and Septimus floats up into the air, about her shoulder height, her cat like eyes glitter a bit as she watches him like some insect under a magnifying glass. She satisfies herself that he will keep for now.

"I do so hate bending down; it plays havoc with my hair." She smoothed her carefully coffered curls that hung down about her, restrained only by a diadem on her head that dipped to a point with a large black opal at the center of it.

"Now, I will just tether you to my horse and you will come along with me. I really do not have time to waste." The woman fastens ties a length of silken rope to Septimus's belt. She removes his dagger and any other sharp implements from his body.

There now it is a nice day to just watch the clouds roll by. If it were a nasty day I would just stock you into my bag. I thought you might like this better." It is a strange procession that makes it way back to the roadway and on to the woman’s original path. A horse and rider were ragging a floating man and a dragonette leading a horse behind them.

She picks up speed again trying to get to the others she ws sent to fines. Topping a slight rise in the land she spots the others in the distance. Adjusting the goggles on her eyes she can see the four of them matching the description she was given.

She slows slightly and approaches the group at a more normal pace. After all if she saw someone riding up to her like this she might be leery of herself. No, she thinks, she wouldn't but concedes others may be.