Please say she's only dreaming

This page was imported from a forum post dated October 29, 2012 in the category Art and Fiction by BrokenRain. Its content is likely to be out of date!

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Mon, 10/29/2012 - 07:58

Hiya All! This is a little something I wrote for my character Shandar. Holds no real meaning, I just needed something to do. Shandar's been having a bit of a hard time getting used to her new life, and she's been having nightmares, and this is one of them! Nothing too scary, but the creepyness is mostly sociological, so if you have trouble with that, don't read this. I think that's it...Enjoy!

    (The mousemaid looks to be of about 8 seasons. She is pretty- her eyes are a deep, warm brown, and her fur is a pleasant blue/grey color. The mouse’s eyelashes are long and dark, her teeth are very white. She seems to be always ready with a laugh or smile, though there is pain hidden in her eyes if you look hard enough. Her tunic is a pale pink, cinched at the waist with a belt. From this hangs a brown bag fringed with sea glass. A carving that looks like a younger version of her an a tall fox shows from the top of the open purse. On her back hangs a mandolin, the strap crossing her chest. Tossed into her belt is a dagger and sling, complete with a clinking pouch, most likely containing stones. She carries herself straight and tall, with grace. An ugly, puckering scar protrudes from her back, revealing itself along her neck and behind her left ear.)

    -This is Shandar, though many seasons in the future, skipping into the orchard at Redwall Abbey. She stands still for a moment, listening and smelling, feeling the air. She turns and climbs up into a blossoming apple tree, the petals falling around her like soft rain. Setting into a broad crook between two branches, she pulls her mandolin away from its holder on her back. A scroll, previously tied to the mandolin, falls onto her lap, and she shifts it so that it won’t fall to the ground. Unrolling it, cradling her mandolin, she hums a few bars, the strokes the strings of the wooden instrument. She frowns, not liking the sound. The paw on the parchment goes to the tuning nubs. Shandar twists them until the instrument is tuned to her satisfaction. After humming her starting note, along with the pull of a string, she focuses on the scroll.

    -Her light voice drifts across the orchard, sweet as the scent of spring in the air. She sings, her voice rising and falling, full of emotion contained in her words, this story she is telling to whomever may listen. Shandar’s small paws strum the mandolin’s wire, coaxing flowing notes out into the open from their hiding place within the wood. A few parting notes linger as her voice fades, the song done, but the story not over.

    -The mousemaid leans back into her nook, pleased. Singing releases something unpleasant in Shandar, and she always feels better for it afterwards. Her mind wanders down brilliantly lit corridors. Brother Benar. Rue. Kiara. DoraRose and Leon. Flicktail. Wildefray. Rabbie. Desire. Dunnel. Ragg and Darkwatcher. Hale. That helpful but slightly irritating squirrel sister in the infirmary who was always there when Shandar was sick. Oz. Scioto. Ahndia.These thoughts are fleeting, like a stone skipping across a pond surface. What come up next are like the ripples after the pebble has sunk. The fear. Hatred. Pain. Helplessness.

    -She falls asleep as they creep in, souring the edges of the pleasant memories, burning behind her eyes. Asleep, she can do nothing to stop them. Awake, she can’t change anything. She sobs, trying to draw breath deep in her chest. Thankfully, there are not enough to last long, unless they replay, again and again, tormenting her with these things of the past.

    -Her eyes flutter open, and with a squeak, she falls off the branch, falling a greater distance than she had climb up.

    -Shandar opens her eyes, standing in the abbey entrance. The building is dark and quiet. Not a sound, save her own short breaths, can be heard. She takes the stairs two at a time, hoping to see at least evidence that a beast has been here. She finds none. Her uncovered paws leave a trail of prints in the dust, but they are blown away, swirling into eddies, by a wind that has come in through a rotting window shutter.

    -She enters Great Hall, the home of the famous tapestry, the tapestry that she used to sit in front of and talk to, and it still hangs. The tapestry of Martin the Warrior, who would never allow evil things to come into his abbey. She readies a sigh of relief, but comes up short. The tapestry hangs in tatters, mold and mildew giving it a gross sheen.

    -Shandar stills, the breath catching in her throat. She stares, taking in every detail, before turning and running from the horrid sight, up the stairs. She slips on the dust, catches herself, and keeps going. Her destination is not set, only to a place where she can't see the tapestry. She barges into a room, banging the door open, disappearing in a cloud of dust. As it settles, she sees the light shining into the nearly perfect room. Every object is in the correct spot, dusty and unused. The sword of Martin hangs above the grey tinted bed, rusty and dull. A charcoal picture lies on the desk, showing the smiling, crumbling faces of a mouse with his wife, holding their baby daughter and the paw of an older son. The family is all too familiar to Shandar. She flees once again, tears carving rivulets in her cheek fur.

   -As she nears the stairs again, the floor gives way, the rumbling noise of the falling abbey growing and echoing. She falls, and lands, crouched on a pile of rubble, in Martin’s tomb. The casket top has been torn open- nothing is inside. Whomever was here re-carved Marin’s face on the casket top- He has become  a grotesque figure. A combination of beasts have taken his features, and now he looks not of this earth. The panicky mousemaid senses another in the room, and she struggles to draw her dagger. A wall of blackness hits her from behind, silent, and she screams as she crumbles.

    -Shandar screams, waking others in nearby rooms. The veins in her neck stand out as she twists her fists in her blankets. Ahndia, in the bed next to Shandar, bolts upright and takes Shandar’s paw. “Shan? Shan!”

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