Slipping into Maddness

Slipping into Maddness

Postby Driftingstar » Wed Aug 06, 2003 8:38 am

Cold and alone, Calandra twisted upon the hard pallet serving as her bed, trembling violently, nothing but the endless darkness to comfort her.



Anger, dark and menacing from somewhere within the dark battled anger.



She twisted again and curled up. Hoarse utterances, both Romani and foreign escaped her fevered lips in whispered urgency.



She was floating, ripped away from the anger. Fear and overwhelming sorrow struck deep. Fear for her, fear for someone else… Sadness for someone dear to them….

Horrified, she stared weak-kneed and frozen, her eyes fixed upon an image of utter chaos. Blurred, confused figures outlined by fire, her throat and eyes burned from the thick smoke and the symphony of shrieks and yells were all but drowned by the roar of the flame.

“go… now!” A long forgotten voice, a figure crumpled at her feet, rough hands shoved her towards the underbrush. Confusion, then pain, blinding. She sank to her knees where she stood… but this time it was different. There was no darkness to follow the pain. The fire and confused cries melted away leaving her with only the limp form of a man strewn carelessly upon the forest floor… Tyralor... Burnt, lifeless, and cold. She shivered, tears sprang forth as the mocking image burned into the back of her mind and faded as a voice echoed for her arrest.

Then the darkness.

“You and Sill have been charged with the murder of Tyralor McDougal”

“We didn’t do it! We found him like that... I don’t know what happened!” Urgency filled her voice. Fear returned. Inescapable it reared up, grasping at her and another, Sill, with its hateful touch enclosing them both within its merciless grip. Darkness faded again. This time the stage was set. Upon the town square a sea of unfamiliar faces jeered at the pair of them despite their innocence, mocking the Gypsy’s’ grim fate, the gallows to their backs.




She woke abruptly with a gasp, damp tangled locks of dark hair fell across her face. Fear and confusion seized her again barely able to force the panic out of her breath as cold, gray, blurry light greeted her. Voices whispered from somewhere, but her brain would not focus enough for her to place where it came from. Then realization hit her... Her breathing came in sharp gasps now, involuntarily as the gypsy’s gaze fell upon a pair of guardsmen gawking at her from the outside of her small prison. “Go away!” she regained enough of her wits to shout at the gawking pair, her untouched bowl of cold gruel flung in their direction, emphasizing that she did not them there.

Point taken, they left muttering about their gruel-splattered clothing. Breathlessly she sank back against the wall, closing her eyes, shutting out the world. She didn’t belong there. Sill didn’t belong there. No one cared. Forgotten, alone, she shivered.
"Lets just say that if complete and utter chaos was lightning, he'd be the sort to stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armor and shouting 'all gods are bastards'."
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keeping promises

Postby Driftingstar » Mon Sep 01, 2003 1:28 pm

Days, if not weeks had passed since the nightmare. She had long since given up counting the hours. There was no point in it. Slumped against the cold, rough wall, Calandra stared though the darkness at the opposite her, trying to ignore the weak, fevered feeling that plagued her. So the council had found both her and her cousin guilty, she suspected that they would. That thickheaded Lieutenant, Kilborn, had been dead set on their proving guilt.

“We have a few things to discuss first…” A bitter laugh escaped her as thoughts drifted back to her trial and on those departing words. Though they did not say it, she had seen the look in their eyes. Guilty. Yet, they had not even possessed the decency to tell them. Just that thought alone caused her to shake with unseen rage. Cowards, all of them, to let her learn their fate through the whispered conversations between guards and by those kind few that still made the occasional visit.

“ It isn’t over yet.” She reminded herself stubbornly as a pang in her side caused her to curl up in a ball on the hard floor. She clenched her teeth, refusing to give in. “Just a little longer, please.” Her thoughts trailed off as sleep mercifully overtook the pain. Yet, a dream rose up shortly afterward. Anger, then fear, then the silent drifts of nothing like before, a void of cold, consuming darkness. Chilling laughter issued from it, taunting and jeering from unseen depths. Next, she found herself in a darkened room, huddled on a bed. A dark-haired child clung to the bedpost by her head, weeping silently for her lost parents. In the next room, she could barely make out a pair of voices caught in a heated argument. Confusion took hold of her. Where was she?



“Are you alright?” asked through pain-clenched teeth, but the tear-stained girl did not reply, only looked at her. It was within that silent watery stare that she found her answer.

“How many?” A muffled unfamiliar man’s voice in perfect Romani could be heard asking in the next room.

“Eight.” Answered a second voice, distantly familiar to her.

“And the others?”

“Dead…or as good as…How is she?”

“Sleeping. But it doesn’t look good.” Then a pause “You know that I cannot keep her here Teague…If anyone found out that I was harboring fugitives…”

“Gypsies…” he interrupted harshly.

“Now look here. I hold nothing against you and your kind. But I would be risking all of our necks if I let you stay. I cannot. Will not put my family in that kind of danger.”

“And what about my family, Sutton?”

“Get away from here. Go to the border…”




Then, the voices and the room melted away. The cold void returned and faded again. This time, she was standing on the bank of a small river, the same dark-haired child that had been in the room with her was now huddled against the moss coated trunk of a fallen tree.



“Did you find her?” Came a concerned voice, the same familiar voice she had heard when she was in the room.

“You don’t need to be afraid. I’ll take care of you.” she found herself saying as she ignored the voice, her arms outstretched to the girl not much younger than herself. “I’ll keep you safe. I promise…no matter what happens”




Then this too vanished, replaced by darkness.

The confusion of visions gradually drew her into consciousness as she fumbled to sit up staring blankly at the ceiling with unfocused eyes, ignoring the red mark that was seeping into the bandage on her side. The images and words spoken in her dream still burned vividly in her mind. “I’ll keep you safe…no matter what happens”.

A fine job she had done at that. That same girl now sat in a cell down the hall from her. But maybe there was hope. She could offer a confession; go against everyone by taking full blame for the murder that neither committed if it meant that Sill would go free. But would they listen to her? The gallows were already under construction. She had to try. Her mindset, she curled up again but did not return to sleep.
"Lets just say that if complete and utter chaos was lightning, he'd be the sort to stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armor and shouting 'all gods are bastards'."
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