bring down the heavens (leironuoth, aeotha)
A gold base. Circular, sloping upward to form a smaller circle. In that smaller circle rested a single wax candle. Hard wax, if his eyes did not deceive, the kind that they made in cities. Skandra didn't know precisely how far they were from a city who made hard wax candles. Not something you liked to use if there were another option in the summer. Hard wax candles were winter things. He would assume then that it was winter. The gold inlay on the candle holder spoke volumes of its origins. He thought it was a pattern of leaves and vines. The sort of code language that had been used once upon a time to communicate if there were humans about. Elves used that script. Strange to see it marking a candle, but there were other oddities before he asked about the candle.
Many other oddities.
The last thing he recalled clearly was Aeotha taking a spear in the gut, and Skandra hurling Gershul into the fire. Everything after that was a blur of black shapes and thick smoke. His chest ached from the coughing he'd done. Trying to expel it from your lungs was more painful than he figured it should have been. Fire. Kicked Gershul into the fire? Punched him? Something. Skandra's head ached as hard as a thing had ever ached in his whole fucking life. Remembering what had or had not happened was not just a chore. It was essential. There was a bandage on his arm. There were bandages around his legs, around his stomach. He always remembered how he got his injuries. Knowing how it really happened made it easier to lie about.
Besides, women were the ones who forgot how they'd been injured.
There was a flag hanging above them. Skandra thought he knew the flag, if not its owner. Blue and red. A chevron laid over a circle. It was an Elvish house unless he missed his guess. The banner itself was made of fine silk - one half blue and one half red, sewn together. Skandra was reasonably certain that he should have recognized it, but he did not. What he recognized was the scent of healing balms. They were also the sort of thing that elves used, and frequently. Skandra remembered walking in on some old nag of an elf who was brewing the stuff. That iron pot must have been caked with the miserable gunk. Yet she'd screeched at him as though he'd discovered something important and threw a bellows at his head.
"No sign of him," a voice said.
"Probably won't be," another voice said. "He either burned up or got away."
"Should we keep looking?"
"For fuck's sake, yes," the second voice seemed appalled. "This isn't some sloppy operation. He could be hiding in a hole in the ground."
Skandra was certain that he knew the voice, if not the name that went with it. He still had managed to crawl about five feet from where he was, and that was perhaps more than he should have. Crawl and then stand up. All that remained of his clothing were his trousers. Battered and torn - he might not have cared, but given the fine nature of everything else in this tent, he had to assume he was among friends. There were ways of keeping prisoners in camps that were less than friendly. Skandra's favorite had been digging square holes in the ground, then lowering wrought iron cages into them, so that only one row of iron faced sunlight.
He was having a hard time keeping his thoughts organized.
"Are they awake yet?"
"I haven't checked on them."
Skandra raised a hand to the bandage on his arm. It was hard not to envy those who could be completely healed in the span of a moment, or less. Aeotha was lying atop a mattress, just as Skandra had been, but there were no bandages in evidence. She was still fast asleep. Those sheets were silk despite the very camp-like feel of their accommodations. No cots. In each corner of the tent, a lamp atop a fine stone stand, shielded by glass and poisoning the calm with light. Skandra rolled his neck to one side, and then the other. There were his effects. A coat draped across the back of a chair. The sword propped up next to it. The Vel. He seized that piece of fine alchemic origins, and pointed it in the direction of the tent flaps as they opened.
One rush of mountain air. There was Leironuoth, and an elf Skandra did not recognize at the side of the Champion. Both of them were dressed for the cold weather. Their eyes took a handful of seconds to adjust to the relative darkness, but when they did, that elf's hands went up. Skandra shoved the Vel into place behind his belt. Leironuoth only shook his head, as though he were used to such discourteous action and had nothing to say about it.
"Of all the people to come save my life," Skandra laughed as he snatched his shirt from the chair. "I guess my only question is what took you so fucking long."