909–911, 9th Era, some time after the end of the world
Ixadal
A pull, a splinter, a crack.
Everything went white.
… It all came to an end.
For just a moment.
Peace … chaos
SPLASH
Cold water rushes over the firbolg’s chest. He stands, a cold wind brushes past him. Alive? He reaches for his left arm with his right hand; still gone.
His eyes start to focus. Voices … Peach? Esmund? Aureya … no. Strangers, chanting? Singing.
Choose.
He takes the right path. He always tries to take the right path …
A day passes, a week, the one armed firbolg sits on the river’s shores.
Time passes, it always does. He returns to the river’s shores hourly at first … then less, and less. He begins to wander beyond Kendel’s Forge searching. They call folk like him returned, but they don’t always return here.
He follows leads, he finds little, breadcrumbs of stories, fragments of the reality he knew. Echoes of …
Two years pass in a blink. Salinger Morel, a one-armed dishevelled blue skinned firbolg with shoulder length black hair and a scraggly mess of a beard wanders through a darkened woodland. The air is crisp and cold, and so are his footsteps on the fallen leaves glazed with frost. Just beyond the corner of his vision a feathered serpent glints in shades of teal, blue, copper and iridescent scales darting in and out of the shadows of the canopy’s branches and boughs.
In the distance, further north according to the rumor is hope. He’s been travelling for a few weeks now, and based on the description it could be them. It’s definitely them; it has to be.
A howling wind whips through the forest cutting through his layers like a knife, and beyond it a cry? His stomach growls, and instinctively so does he.
Camp here, two hours. Eat, rest, and continue.
A half eaten scrap of bread in his mouth, his back against the warped trunk of an old magnolia tree, his bedroll unfurled and yet unused the big blue man softly snores.
A crash. He starts awake, a breaking limb in the distance? His heart races, adrenaline rapidly pushing the sleep from his eyes. A creaking snap! Closer this time. He scrambles for his weapon, but it’s tucked in his bedroll … where he should have been. A searing pain jolts through his left hip as something sharp and hot slices through his flesh.
He’s being pulled, dragged through the forest floor, too fast to make out the features of his assailant. Flipped into the air he can smell hot rancid breath and sees rows of teeth about to engulf his entire head in a quick clean CRACK!
He’s pulled up by his ankles as he feels feathered wing beats, a familiar clicking reptilian birdlike cry, and a burst of flame lights up the shadowy form that had nearly liberated Sal’s head from his shoulders.
It sinks beneath the leaves then bursts up through them, a blur of curved claw tipped whipping ropelike limbs barreling up the trunk of the tree as Poppy, the auronachus, launches herself and the firbolg up past the treetops and just out of their attacker’s reach. There’s a sickening sound like a buzzsaw tearing through a young elm tree accompanied by a high pitched howl that follows the pair of would-be dinner guests as they move beyond the creature’s ability to follow.
“I’m starting to lose count of how many times you’ve saved my life girl,” Salinger says softly as he sits atop a mossy cliff edge side by side with what would be best described as a 15 foot long feathered dinosaur (from snout to tail), her teal plumage seems to shift in color between warm and cool tones as she moves, her scales a shade cooler than the firbolg’s slate blue skin tone, and they have nearly matching dark burgundy almost black eyes. The large birdlike reptilian creature winds itself around Salinger like a massive cat, gives a quick whip of her tail, and lets out a huff.
“I know, this has been a long one. We’ll go get my equipment back. Hopefully that thing doesn’t track by scent … and finish this last leg of the hike then we’ll have our answer.” Poppy’s scaled and feathered tail whips again a bit more violently. “AND, you’ll get a whole—” Another whip. “—TWO, of the best trout I can catch from the river back at Kendall’s.” A soft agreeable snort.
A half day later they are standing in front of an overgrown encampment, which could, if one were being generous, be called a small house. Salinger kicks in the facsimile of a door, all he sees is recently shredded bodies and rags in the ruin. He tears through them screaming in a panic to try to identify who they were, but only finds a horned helmet and the remains of a tattered dress.
He weeps … a little softer, and a little shorter than the last time.
Within: S14 E01 - Reunions
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