The Last Breath

[BLACK BART]

I am a being aged beyond memory, an eternal life force that has existed for eons without contact of my own species or that of the planet on which I have been stranded.

But eternal time has worn on me and I reach out for the contact of others. But with contact comes risk, and so I choose those who I touch with extreme care...


Her name is Grace, a slender blond of incredible beauty...But breathtaking beauty was not her blessing, rather it was a curse...

For by being born poor, her beauty was used as a thing for sale, and at a ripe young age she was put on the "market" by the very people who brought her into this world.

And in a very few short years her eyes had seen more evil and perversity than most have ever fantasized about...




I stand beside her, watching those eyes close for the very last time, her breath leaving her in a ragged death salute. Her final customer for the evening taking his fantasy too far, and in a fit of rage beat her and left her to die...

Bending quickly I pressed my lips to her bloody ones, and with my kiss give her a small peice of my essence....then without a backwards glance I leave...


"We will meet again" I promise her gently as the night wind whispers "You will be drawn to me when it is your time...."



A closed thread...to be played by a few....PM if you wish to join, otherwise enjoy the dark fantasies and writing of those who have.......

 

[Sienna]

Grace.

20 year-old female, blonde and petite, although described as slender by general description of her human species. Classified as an orphan, but used as a "pleasure slave" by the higher order of the society she belongs to.

Pleasure Slave. Just another name for a disposable human, trained to take the abuse of the evil higher order and if necessary, die for the cause.

.......................................................................................................

I waited and watched as my friend Valisa went first. We hugged each other, knowing that we may never survive the ordeal and our friendship of the past childhood and short adult years will come to an end.

The guard dragged her from my arms. We shed no tears, because we were trained to show no emotions. All those feelings were washed from our minds as children. But we knew that hugging gave us some comfort in times of uncertainty.

Valisa was stripped of her gown, her wrists tied behind her and made to lie face down on the cushioned table, with her posterior raised. I had to watch. We knew what was coming because we had been trained for this. But not this extreme.

The man approached her, drunk and in the company of friends he
made fun of her by slapping her buttocks hard. Valisa cried out with pain and I closed my eyes at that point. This was not in our training. I knew that something terrible was going to happen next, because so few of us ever return to our dorma-cells once we are called upon. And those that return, never speak again.

"Watch!" the guard pushed me and yelled his harsh word down my ear. He laughed at me, squeezed me tight on my shoulder, hurt me. "Watch and see what you have to do......and you must do it well or else..."

I opened my eyes and saw Valisa being taken from behind by the first man. I watched and listened to her screams throughout and then the second man had his turn, this time taking her soft black hair in his hand and pulling it hard towards him with every deep and heavy inconsiderate thrust of his loins. She cried. She called my name.....

"Grace!....oh Grace, for the love of the Gods, please help me!"

I stiffened. I watched the final blow being administered to her.

Valisa was left lying on the table, bleeding heavily. The second man had struck her with his thin sharp sword. I could not see what wounds she had from where I was standing. But I knew she was dead.

The guards removed her body as the men joked amongst themselves. "Where is our next one? That one was so thin and weak, I think a discount on our credit should be claimed." I heard one of them say. At that point I realised that I was free to turn and run. The guard was not by my side.

To run, what was it it like to run away from this. My inner reactions sprang into life. I turned and ran. I knew I was doing something which was total forbidden, and punishable by death, but either way I knew that on that day death was close at hand.

To run gave me a moment of freedom. I escaped. I ran through the house, along its high passageways, down its wide staircases and my bare feet slapped against the cold tiled floors. I was lost.
Somewhere between the inner garden and its fountain and behind me more stairs and passages. I needed to get out into the metropolis, out into the streets so that I could hide. But I was trapped as much as I was lost.

"Got you!" the voice said as I turned quickly, straight into the arms of the leather clad guard. He stood looking down at me and I gasped for breath. I felt fear on top of exaustion. He struck me with a blow across my face which hurt so much. "Trying to run away is not acceptable. I have been given permission to kill you!"

I lay on my back, squirmed away from him only to be beaten some more until I could remember no more.............

 

[BLACK BART]

A second contact

The young red haired woman woman lay dying, her body consumed by cancer, the pain taking everything from her that she had left to give.....

I stood by...posing as a Doctor," the only friend she had left" She had moaned thru clenched lips the previous day....

Her pain filled eyes closed, and her long, lean figure trembled slightly as she died....

"This life was not meant for you to live" I said gently, holding her head in my hands I bent down...."I will give you another, one without sickness or the evil of disease, and one day we will meet"

Her lips were slightly parted as mine touched them, and a small part of my energy passed between them, becoming part of her...

"You will return to the beauty of youth, all that the disease has taken from you will be returned, the only scar you will bear will be this one" I promised her as her body began to tremble, her chest drawing in air....

"We will meet again, you will know where to meet me, when it is time" I promised as I left her side


Time has passed by....The recurrent thread of life has been spun...Lives are linked in this endless stream, some...such as Grace's and Valisa's more so than others...

I have given them each a new life....and with that a second gift...one that will be revealed as TIME passes....In my lonely quest to make contact, I reach out again and again....linking more lives to my own....

OOC: PM me if you have questions....and I have room for more male and female players......as time progresses the theme will become clearer......a good mystery is never solved until the end....

 

[lasciviously_yours]

I awoke from a night’s fitful sleep, totally unprepared to start the day. The same way I have awoken the last five nights, beginning on the evening of my “Rebirth Party” as my parents always called it.

I celebrated my fiftieth year of what I called my “second life” with much joy and celebration. My children had invited many friends and family, those that were still alive, and we toasted until well into the night.

After the guests had left, I returned to my empty room, remnants of a long dead husband still lingering, with a light heart that has not been felt in a while. I have lived a strong and good life, but the sadness of friends and family passing usually accompanied me to bed. I sat in front of the small vanity table my husband had made for me and given to me on our wedding day. I took his watch in my hand as I did every night before bed and touched the scratched face. His death, 14 years ago, took me by surprise. I guess because I had not been in ill heath, why should he be? Ridiculous logic, I know, but I have no other explanation of my ignorance regarding his health.

I let my gaze fall from the watch and allowed it to travel up to the looking glass. I was always a bit skittish looking into mirrors, but the years have afforded me the ability to sort of “get used” to my appearance. I had not aged a day since my second life began. My long red hair, still cascading down my shoulders, not a tinge of graying or thinning hair. Soft brown freckles still dotting across the bridge of my nose and my cheeks. My muscular pre-cancer body returned. My fingers traced the thin scar that ran down my cheek. Mirroring and silhouetting my cheekbone perfectly. No one could ever explain how I came to get the scar. My mother and father always told me I was born with it. My earliest photographs of myself show it perfectly. It has always enhanced my beauty, I felt, never distracting from it.

50 years was a lot to have gained when for all speculations, I should have died. I do not remember a great deal during the worst year of my illness. My mother had brought in a new doctor to see me a few days before my healing began and he spend much time, seemingly days and nights by my bedside. I was 20 at the time, and that is where my looks have stayed unchanged. The last night I saw that doctor, 50 years to the day, he had been with me for several hours. I remember bits and pieces of our conversation, but the most vivid memory is of him touching my face, placing his lips upon mine and telling me that we would meet again. I have not been sick, a cold, the flu, a runny nose, another day in my life. My oncologist could not explain where the caner in my body went to and eventually he gave up. Over the years, I have witnessed the passing of my husband, many friends, and one child, while never adding a day to my own aging, it would seem.

Than night I feel asleep in a warm wash of happiness not felt in quite some time.
The dreams began then.

I awoke the first night before dawn. Vague memories of dreams, well, nightmares. A cold, stone room. A time period far in the past, 1700’s I would guess. I was dressed in a white velvet slammerkin, the kind of which a whore of the time would wear. It was torn and bloodied. I had long black hair that was knotted and unclean. The gown was ripped from off my body and I was laid across a wooden table, violently raped and beaten. I was screaming out and being laughed at by men I could not see. A thin blade from a sword being dragged across my cheek, matching the direction of my present scar. The brutality of the unseen men, unmatched by any comparisons. I called out a name, Grace…and then I awoke.

Same dream to the exact detail, every night since my party. Every night I awake remember smaller pieces of the idiosyncrasies making up the dream. This morning, the fifth dream, I thought perhaps another woman in the room. A blonde. Maybe this was Grace. I did not know, but I did know it was causing me to lose a great deal of sleep and was wearing heavy on my mind during day hours, as well.

I rose out of bed, threw on a pale pink, silk, robe and glanced at the mirror, so many questions still left unanswered from throughout the years.

 

[Sienna]

Grace & Valisa.

I stood over her body on the cold slab....Valisa was no longer dead I knew. Like I had been, she was in a special sleep that cheated death. Suddenly she breathed in air and let it out....her eyes opened wide.

"Shhhhhhh!..." I covered her lips with my fingers. "Say nothing."

We spoke in whispers, we were both naked, along with the other dead lying on slabs. "Where is this?" she asked.

"It is the house of death. The place they bring people when they die, before the burning." I replied. "We can escape." I pointed to the door, partly open. "Through there....the street."

Together we walked to the door holding hands. It was quiet and clear of anyone in site. We walked out and slowly, quietly moved towards the main door that led into the street. "We have no clothes..." Valisa whispered.

"Shhhhh!...we can steal some while it is still dawn."

Out into the quiet narrow street and freedom. We had never been out into the metropolis un-guarded before. It felt so good.

"What now?" Valisa whispered.

"We hide until it is safe.....find clothes and food. The Gods answered us!.....Answered you Valisa. We are alive!."

"Was we dead?" she asked, still dazed by her rebirth

 

[BLACK BART]

The third contact....

Her name was Gen....to me at least from the first time I saw her...Her complete name being Geneviere Ansone...

She too died a death before her time. caught in the middle of a war that had no meaning....A war that still rages on in all times, in all lands....

The wooden "bolt" drove thru her heart as she knelt to tend to the wounded on the bloody battleground, and she fell with a surprised expression on her face...The blood quickly draining from her naturally pale skin left her grey eyes and red lips standing out as she looked to the heavens above for the last time.

Gathering her small frame in my arms, I brushed her straight black hair away from her face, telling her immobile form.

"This is not a place for a lady to be, nor for her to die...."

Straightening the simple, blood stained dress over her ample bosum I placed her on the ground beside a small babbling stream.

"This is where you should spend your time" I continued my thoughts out loud as I folded her hands, admiring the small but well cared for nails "Perhaps in your next life there will be no wars..."

With a kiss I left her, the bloody arrow clenched in my hand, shaking my head at the evils this species could do to each other.....

"We will meet again, my lady" I promised her "And I will return this to you, to remind us all...."

 

[lasciviously_yours]

Grace & Valisa

“I…I don’t understand.”

“You do not have to understand, neither do I. Something saved us. We are alive, but we must get out of here and hide.”

I was shaken by what had happened. I remember the rape, the blade across my cheek, then nothing until this moment. I felt like I had been asleep. My body was refreshed, not broken as one would expect. I touched my face, a single raised line marked the path of the blade, but no blood shown on my fingertips.

Grace pulled my hand in an encouragement to get moving and I followed her through the dirty streets. There was sewer run-off everywhere and the recent rains had turned the dirt drives into pools of filth. We ducked into and down an alley behind a lodge house.

Breathing heavily, we stop at the end of the alley.

“Grace, please…do you know what happened?”

“Not completely, I watched you raped, your face cut. I thought you were dead. You…were dead. I tried to run away while the guards lifted you off the table. I made it through the house but they found me. He burned my leg, Valisa, with the flame of his cigerette. Look it has scarred already, as the scar on your face has. He beat me. He told me he would kill me. That is the last thing I remember before waking up, feeling healed and rested. And finding you.”

 

[BLACK BART]

The Fourth Contact

They dragged him from the stinking dungeon, his robe torn and greasy...Despite the ardous trial and tortures he stood tall, his dark brown eyes showing the humour that he recognized in his final moments.

"Nicolas Tiaparni, You have been sentenced to death, for the crimes of Heresy against the Church, and spreading the false beliefs of another heretic, Copernicus" The man announced as he tore the white collar from the bound mans neck and used it to light the kindling piled at his feet.

The fires rose tall about the tall, dark haired man before he consented to acknowledge it, and the pain it was creating, hiding him from sight as his Priests smock burned off him, and it was then that I chose join him...

"Are you....?" He questioned, his pain filled eyes opening wide at my apparition...

"No, no one so important" I answered him as my hand grasped his shoulder. "And you were not yet deigned to join him"

When the flames settled, no evidence was found of the learned priest they had just burned, and they deemed it proof of his defying the church....A claim I smiled at as I had placed his sleeping unburned form in a vinyard, miles away...

"We will meet again" I promised him, in another time when I call for you"

 

[ariosto]

Amadeo

He would not have seen them had not the wolves kept him awake that night.
The moon was full and bloated and in spite of a clear sky the night was opressive, full of the stink of the sewers that rose everytime the rain fell.

The wolves began howling at midnight and Amadeo rose up in a cold sweat and crossed to the window.
There were no wolves in the city of course. At least not four legged ones. They came in his dreams when the moon was full with eyes of fire and claws and teeth and they tore him, ripped him, they...
Unconciously he rubbed the scar tissue on his shoulder which for some reason would itch and burn whenever they came.

Amadeo was a wine merchant. A very successful one.
His vinyards were now in the hands of hirelings and he could live in a big three storied house in the City and live a life of wealth and ease.
Two years ago his wife died and the plans they'd had to fill the big house with children died with her.

He saw them running through the shadows, two slender naked girls fleeing from the House of Death. There was no point to it of course. They were always caught. Indeed as he listened he heard the barks and brayings of the Mastiff's as they pursued the women. They could not possibly make it.
He watched them duck into the portico of his own home just below him. Amadeo glanced up and judged how long they had before the fangs and claws of the dogs tore into their young bodies.

The wolves...

He made a decision and hurtled down the stairs grabbing a candle from Leopardi the old retainer who had wandered onto the landing.
Throwing latches off the door he opened it and rushed into the courtyard.
"Listen to me "
He said as he started unlocking the iron grillwork door to the street.
"Listen to me...you have no time!...Come in QUICK!
I'm your only chance to live."

 

[Sienna]

Grace & Valisa

"I know where you two have come from....quickly come inside!"

We did not hesitate. We both took refuge in the man's house. Valisa suddenly stood still, her eyes staring at nothing but the blank wall. "Grace!..." She held my arm tightly......"I see her!...I can see her...in my mind....I see her!"

"Who is it you see Valisa?" I asked.

"The beautiful woman with red hair...."

"You two need clothes." the man said pointing the way inside. "I know you are from that orphanage. I know all about it. They use you for slaves. Trust me I am your friend."

"Valisa!.....who do you see?" I cried out to gain her attention.

"Did they make her drunk?" the man asked.

"No!...she can see visions." I pulled her face towards me and looked into her glazed eyes. "Valisa!....Valisa!"

"I see a woman. Not like us....but.....she is so beautiful."

"Both of you, please come inside. Quickly.....before the guards find you." the man took us into his home and Valisa came out of the trance. He offered us clothes and food and then told us about the orphanage.

To us the orphanage was our home for the past 18-20 years. He explained that we were "pleasure slaves" rather than anything else and he had been watching the things they did secretly.

"You know nothing of the outside world do you? They only tell you the things they want you to know." He clasped his crucifix as he spoke and whispered his prayers under his breath. "God will help you now."

"Yes!.." I replied in excitement. "The gods did help us. They gave us life again."

"No child.....no!....there is only one God. Not the ones they made you believe in."

 

[LadyGaladriel]

She looked out across the battlefield, seeing the wounded fall, seeing the field stained red. A mounted soldier tore down the field, wearing the colors of the 'enemy'. There were no enemies any more, not in her mind. All just the same people over and over. All of them. . . poor souls. The mounted soldier struck one of her people down. It was not a fatal wound, and her job was to help him. To help as many as she could. She grabbed her medical gear and headed toward him. Trying to keep out of view was made easier as the battle made its way away from the makeshift camp. At the soldiers side, she spoke mumbled words to her, words of his loved ones,
"Shh." she told him gently and pulled out some medicine. It was then that she heard it, a war cry, terriblew and loud. . . and close. She looked up quickly, moving in front of the soldier, however useless a gesture it may have been. Her eyes locked with his, his face twisted into a mask of hate and fury. She saw his anger, his fury, his hate, but she also saw his pain. No one wanted this war. Their locked eyes seperated them. She had not looked into the face of one of the 'enemy' before. She had only seen the twisted faces of the dead. Now she knew that this war was wrong. She had felt it before, and now she knew it. Her mouth opened to say something to this man, this man who appeared to be a kindred spirit.
That was the reason she was shocked when she felt the wooden bolt plunge into her breast to her heart. Her breath came out in a gasp, and as she fell, she saw the mounted soldier ride away.

Geneivire sat up in bed, her back stiff as a post. That dream again. She covered her face with her hands. The dream had been terrifying her for so long now. It was too much. She needed some way to escape it. She wondered about seeing her doctor about some sleeping pills.
An image rose in her mind. One of a man's face. Familliar, and yet, she was sure she had never looked upon this face before. Shaking her head, she sat by the window, staring out into hte eempty street until the sun rose.

 

[BLACK BART]

Unlike my earthly counterparts I had no need to sleep...my body was restored by the energy that lived within it, and "rest" was not necessary to my being...

But like all humans I had a great need for "companionship", to listen to the thoughts of others and know I was not alone. To communicate in hopes of keeping my sanity....

This need as time passed became greater and greater for me, and more often I found myself reaching out and invading the thoughts of the ones I "contacted"

Nightly, as sleep fell upon them I came into thier slumber conciousness and shared them...felt them as if I were indeed there with them the day they experienced them.

"You must find all who are as you but not the same" I began to tell each as I left them and thier own dreams came in reaction to my visit... "Find them"

 

[Sienna]

Grace & Valisa

I sat in the bathtub, enjoying the feel of the warm soothing water and I drifted into a shallow sleep......then it happened. I saw the soldiers, the battlefield and I was inside someone....

The soldier struck me with his arrow.

I woke up, thrashing in the water and clutching my breasts with both hands, gasping for breath.....Valisa held me and I stared into her eyes.....she comforted me and I realised that it was just a dream....

Amadeo rushed into the room and looked at us both. Slowly he was begining to realise there was something strange about us and he was piecing the whole thing together in his mind.

"Another dream? Or is it a vision?" he asked. "You two need help. And I wish I knew how to help you both....."

 

[ariosto]

The women were quiet again, resting in their chamber. Amadeo had fed them, given them clothes and had tried to assure them that here in this house they were safe.
The house was a patrimony he had purchased of Holy Church and as such still had the strength of sanctuary within it's thick walls.
He had prayed for their bodies and their souls throughout most of the night and now stood quietly just before dawn looking into the room at them sleeping.
They were lovely young women both of them. Though he had tried to disregard their nakedness when they first came he'd failed miserably and found himself looking at them, their faces, breasts and loins with unholy lust. He coveted them.
He had been praying for himself as well as them.
The howling of the wolves that had echoed in his ears most of the night was dissipating with the dawn as it always did....

 

[lasciviously_yours]

Grace & Valisa

I awoke with a start, but the feeling of Grace's rising and falling chest gave me an immediate comfort. The sleeping chamber that Amadeo had given to us only had the one bed. However, it was clean, fresh straw and being so close to Grace took some of the fear away.

I slipped my arm around her waist and brought myself up closer to her, pressing my breasts against her back. Her body was so warm and inviting. I could not remember too many minutes of our young lives, that we were apart, we needed each other and I was convinced that we would die for each other, as we almost had. I pressed my face into her fragrant hair and closed my eyes once again, letting my hands slowing caress her stomach.

Her skin was so soft under my touch and I was blessed to let my mind wander to her and my desire to take care of her instead of the horrid dreams that have been plaguing us both.

Mine of a beautiful woman, hair the color of a sunset, scar identical to mine. She comes to me each time, sitting in front of a reflection glass. She has a piece of jewelry in her hands. A calming dream, followed always by the dreams we both share...wolves, fire, some sort of battlefield. A man, burned at the stake, a woman shot in the chest with an arrow. They were terrifying us both.

I shuttered and again pulled Grace close to me. The dawn breaking outside our window brought a golden glow to the room and sounds of the city coming to life.

Grace began to wake, drawing her legs up tight to her body with a slight whimper.

"Shhhh, it's ok Grace. It's me. I am here. I am here."

She pushed her hips back into my body as I held her close. I ran my hand down the length of her lithe body, feeling it tremble under my palm. Slowly bringing my fingers up her body, grazing the tips over her nipple, hardening from the morning chill.

"Did the dreams come, Gracie?'

"Yes," I heard her whisper as she turned her body towards me.

 

[Sienna]

Valisa was gentle. She was slightly younger and so beautiful than I. We had been raised in the orphanage together since we were both two years old. Inseperable. Never before had we dreamed so much of the same recurring dreams.

Amadeo was convinced we had been exposed to some form of "black magic". No. It was what our masters wanted us to believe in. We were now exposed to the realities of the outside world in a land they call Lombardia.

Valisa hugged me close as I lay half awake and in sleep, thinking and dreaming. The same things drifting through my semi-concious mind until dawn. "Did the dreams come, Gracie?" she asked.

"Yes....." I turned to her, lying next to her and brushed her black smooth hair with my hand. She smiled at me and I returned it. I would not know what to do without my Valisa.

Leopardi entered our bed chamber. He was old and mute, and made a sound for us to move ourselves. Amadeo wanted us and it was urgent. I looked out into the street and saw the guards on horses and on foot. The mad dogs on chains pulling them. They were heading for the house and I knew at that moment it was time for us to leave.

 

[ariosto]

Amadeo was waiting in the hall as the girls emerged. His face was ashen and gaunt. He was dressed in a thick woolen traveling cloak and held out two similar garments to Grace and Valisa.

Here, put these on. Not a moment's to be lost.
They came this morning. The Duke, may he rot in hell, recieved a fiat from his Holiness striping away the Vila's Right of Sanctuary and ordering your immediate removal and return to the House of Death...
Who are you!? What have you done to merit this...this attention!

They took the robes and began putting them on, both silent, eyes downcast.

No matter then. Leopardi will stall them. You follow me now into the storage cellar. We can make an escape though the postern gate by the river.
I'm going with you.

Amadeo led them down through a basement full to bursting with casks of wine.
Fumbling for a set of thick keys he opened a heavy oak door out on to a dock where a small flat boat sat, gunwals nearly awash from the weight of the wine barrels it was lading.

He helped them in, nearly pushing them with his haste.
One of you take an oar and row with me., he said. Which of you can steer a boat?

 

[Sienna]

I steered the boat as Valisa pulled at the heavy oar with Amadeo at the other. The river stank vile and it was still. "It leads all the way to Venice..." he told us.

"Venice?"

"Its a town, another city. There you can get on a ship in the harbor and I am still escorting you." He looked back at his house and cursed the guards and the Duke's name. "Just steer forwards...Valisa keep up with me."

Valisa was not strong enough to pull the oar so easily, already she was showing signs of fatigue. The coat opened and on each stroke back the oar brushed against her breasts painfully.

"Let me take a turn.." I reached for Valisa's oar.

"No!...We have to keep moving." Amadeo shouted. "We will reach a flow very soon and ride it most of the way. Pull Valisa, pull harder! Whoever you two are, God above is telling me I have to be a party to helping you. Why I do not know."

 

[LadyGaladriel]

Geneviere tossed and turned in bed. Images flew through her mind, each quicker than the last.
"NO!" she cried, sitting straight up in bed. Another bad dream, yet Geneviere was not yet able to see her bedroom. In front of her eyes danced a bloody scene on a battle field. "Watch out" she called too late, as a girl was stabbed through the chest. A quick shack of her head, and she was back to reality. She stood, and crossed to the bathroom. It was time for a cold shower.

 

[BLACK BART]

There was no easing the pain of death, and to live and relive it only made the pain grow....Each had felt that pain, and each would continue to until they were to understand it, and face it down.

Time and time again I touched them...and time and time I failed...There would be one final chance, a single window of time to help them ease the pain into memories...

"Come to me...." I began to leave the message as I looked at them thru the smoke of thier nightmares "Come to me and ease the pain"

But there was one who had yet to remember...his faith was strong, yet he denied the past and the truth in it....


"You...you must face what you deny..in spirit and in flesh" I pressed into the resiliance of his faith...."Before it is too late for all of us"

 

[lasciviously_yours]

Grace & Valisa

I was so weak I could barely continue. I was so mentally exhausted, the dreams that haunt my nights have become visions that interrupt my day as well.
My mind was inundated with battlefields, and death. Gracie was there, but yet...it did not look like her, save for her scar. I was sure the man, Amadeo, was a part of the visions, scared as he is now. Another woman, she was always present as well. And lastly a dark cloaked figure, I was unsure if it were man or woman...

Then there were the other scenes. More quiet and calm. There was no death in these visions. But again, the 5 of us, in strange clothes, in a strange setting. Not in the skin we have now, but the scars...the knowledge that we were them remained.
The meaning of the dreams and visions were lost on me, yet, there must be something. Of this, I am sure.

"Val, please you must try and row," I heard Grace say.

"Yes...I...of course." I was so tired.

 

[Sienna]

The river began to broaden as we left the city. The rowing became easier for Valisa and Amadeo and we had escaped the guards for now.

"Val!....Valisa!" I cried out as she slumped over the oar. Amadeo helped her back into his arms. "Is she....?"

"No...simply exausted that's all. The current will help us the rest of the way. Pass me the water."

I handed Amadeo the bladder of water and he poured some of it over her lips and gently washed her face. Valisa came around slowly. She was having the visions once more. Her eyes gazed out into nowhere. "Geneviere....." she murmered a name.

I noticed the bruising on her breasts and covered them with the cloak. Geneviere? Of course! I remembered that name too. The battlefield, the man burning at the steak and...

"Grace, help me row and I will steer." Amadeo laid Valisa down and brushed the hair from her face. "We are still in danger. It will take maybe two days to reach Venice and we must be very careful. Valisa will be well again soon. She is just fatigued. Quickly.."

 

[ariosto]

The river wound it's lazy way through pastoral beauty. Scenes from a story book. Sheep in the meadows and farmers toiling behind their oxen. They passed some of Amadeo's lush vinyards heavy with fruit and he drew the cloak over his face when he saw those who might now him.

As they day wore on the sun grew hotter and the thick woolen cloaks became suffocating. He took his off and soon sweat ran down the muscles of his back.
"You don't look like a merchant."

He turned, Grace was staring at him from the tiller where she had relieved Valisa. The other girl was again in fitful slumber. Val had stripped the cloak from her and the bruising on her breasts seemed worse in the harsh noon day light.

"I worked with my hands and my arms before I became one." He answered.
The girl was exquisite. She made him...made him
He shook his head. there was a lean grey wolf inside pacing...pacing...

"Here", he reached down and drew a thin linen shirt from the baggage he had thrown into the boat.
"You'll pass out in this heat. Put this on."

He shipped the oar and the current carried them
onwards. He sat down by the sleeping girl and idly ran his fingers through her hair as Grace changed into the cooler garment.
His mind was full of questions, full of things that had no shape, that crowded him into dark places.

He felt Grace's hand on his shoulder.
"You are scarred like us. You are one of us."
One of WHO!!!...But the wolves were there again...many, many, wolves.

He stood up and grabbed her by the shoulders.
Took her in his arms...
My God! a woman's body...so long...it's been so long!

 

[LadyGaladriel]

Geneviere could stand it no loonger. SHe had to go. . . where she didn't know, but something, someone was calling her. She tossed some things into a cloth bag, wrapped a cloak around her, and headed out. SHe had to find . . . it. She had no idea whom she was searching for. . . but hte dreams. .. she had to find him or her, and soon.
The door slammed loudly behind her, but she did not hear in her panicked attempt to free herself from her thoughts.