Vignettes

[Volk]

[The following posts in this thread will be brief vignettes of Ameline in her travels.]

 

Vignette I: Alone

 

The gentle sounds of deep sleep echoed throughout the halls of the Desert Jewel house in a tranquil euphony. A deep bass-laden breathing resonated from the private chamber above, while a light and restful breathing weaved a rhythm from the basement. Candles flickered from sconces on the walls casting sprightly, jubilant shadows throughout the basement staircase where a restless Ameline sat, chin in hand.

 

She leaned her head back against the intertwined wood and stone makeup of the wall, wrapping her arms around her shins. From her perch on the stairwell, she had a clear view of Rienette who slumbered on a cot below. She shifted her eyes to look on the woman curiously. Another guest; another temporary soul in transit to somewhere else.

 

The somber Ameline allowed a forlorn sigh to escape her chest and reached into her satchel for a small parcel wrapped in linen. The night was young; only two bells had passed since her host, Iron Sea, and fellow wayward Elezen had retired for the evening. As she held the parcel in her hands, she closed her eyes for a moment and thought on her many broken promises and the religious platitudes she had been handing out lately to anyone willing to listen. She wasn’t even sure she believed herself anymore.

 

While she fixed her eyes on the shadows dancing on the staircase wall opposite of her, her hands began to gently unwrap the linen to expose a rough leather-bound journal and a small gilded charcoal container. She set the charcoal aside for the time being; she would want no record for posterity on this low moment. Instead, she began to flip through the pages; some contained rough sketches of the faces of men and women she had met in her journeys while others contained unsent missives too tender for another’s eyes to lay upon them.

 

A gentle smile tugged at the corners of her mouth as she flipped to one of the first remaining entries in the journal. A charcoal scrawl depicted a stern-faced Elezen man in Ishgardian military garb sitting against the ruins of a cottage, lance draped across his shoulders. She smiled warmly as she looked on the drawing and exhaled lightly before turning the page.

 

A smeared charcoal annotation in her handwriting read, “. . .Captain Vallerin Urleaux fell today in the final defense of the hamlet. Should the Twelve truly care for us, let him find peace at their side.”

 

Her hands went limp as the journal tumbled from her trembling grasp, pages springing free from the worn binding and fluttering to a rest in the basement. Her emotions stirred strongly; shame, abandonment, loneliness, and loss crippling her. She curled into herself and closed her eyes, finally feeling the weight of a day’s journey pressing down on her. As she began to drift off to sleep balled up in the stairwell, she dwelled on the recent words of a fellow countryman:

 

“For a deserter to redeem herself – that would be one for the history books.”

[Volk]

Vignette 2: To Break Another

 

Deep within the porous cavern systems of the Twelveswood, a battlefield grew tranquil and almost seemed to disappear. At a remote mouth of the labrynth, a lone lance stood plunged into the damp clay, swaying in the breeze stirred by a nearby cascading waterfall. A few yalms away, Ameline laid motionless on her back, staring up toward the source of the falls as she blinked idly. Her breathing was erratic; every few seconds, she gasped softly and grew a bit paler.

 

She reflected on the events of her bout: A duel to the death with Miette Pellicier in Elezen tradition – ceremonial hunting knives only. The fight itself seemed to endure for an eternity in the moment, but as she reflected, she realized it could not have lasted more than a few fleeting minutes. For all of her posturing on compassion, she had instigated the duel and even backhanded the noble. She thought fondly of the strikes, hypocrisy be damned.

 

Ameline clenched a fist and could almost feel the deep vibrations of kinetic energy in the slender bones of her hand from the moment when it connected with Miette’s cheek. She let her hand go limp as she felt another pang of pain crash over her. Her lips seemed to be drying out even in the humid cavern environment.

 

As she gasped for breath again, she remembered the fury she felt as Miette jettisoned a powerful Elezen knee into her midsection. She rolled her mail up to expose her bare midriff and leaned up a bit, wincing sharply as she examined the area that was targeted. It was already showing signs of deep tissue bruising.

 

She let out a labored chuckle as she contemplated her reaction to Miette’s attack to her stomach. She remembered her deceptive retaliation with a sense of pride: She feigned serious injury from the jutting knee, doubling over. While she was reeling from the attack, she planted her hunting knife through Miette’s boot – shearing clear through the leather, flesh, and into the earth underneath. It had immobilized Miette, a sound tactic in theory, but it didn’t end the way she thought it would.

 

Ameline finally began grasping at the earth with her hands and shuffling her prone frame toward the cavern wall with her boots. She labored for a moment, but finally propped herself up. She untied the first few strands on the collar of her mail tunic and slipped her bare shoulder out from its protection. The armor peeled from her in a painful sensation exposing three intersecting deep lacerations a mere few ilms from where Miette had placed an arrow through her in their last encounter.

 

She put a hand to her face, unable to escape the pain as the memory of Miette’s knife wildly stabbing her shoulder came back to her. She could still feel the force of Miette’s slender hand bearing down on her shoulder as Ameline thrust her own knife deeper into Miette’s foot. She could have succumbed to the pain, or finished the clearly cornered and frenzied woman. In the end, she chose the latter.

 

The victor considered her technique in grabbing Miette’s hand and garroting her with the other. She simply couldn’t finish the deed. She couldn’t strangle a noble of her native kingdom, let alone the sister of her suitor. As she remembered looking on her bested foe after releasing her, she noticed the image of the usually haughty Miette displaying a tender vulnerability as she sobbed. Her words stuck with Ameline, “I don’t want to hurt you - If I fail, they will kill me.” She snapped back to the present, scoffing as the crimson streamed from the lacerations in her shoulder.

 

“Why? Why did I let her go? No matter. It will not be long now, I suspect.” She thought to herself.

 

Slowly, her vision began to fade in a shallow, rhythmic pulse. She slumped from her upright perch, sprawled on the gritty earth of the cavern. Just as she began to feel herself slipping away, a voice called out from afar: “Is anyone alive down there?!” She couldn’t muster the strength to reply; just a hope that they would find her while her body was still warm.

 

Suddenly, she felt the tickling sensation in her spine from the Aether: “Are you there Captain? I did my best.” She thought as a few gentle sounds escaped her mouth. She closed her blurry eyes and felt a deep tranquility as hollow voices around her rang out.

 

"Is she dead?" The voice from before echoed.

 

A different voice replied, "No, but she's lost a lot of blood. Summon the healers, this one will need them."