It was very, very dark. A tiny bit of light filtered into the room, but the air felt damp and stagnant and it smelled even worse, rotten and toxic and off.
It took Hara a little while to figure out what was going on, but after working out that she hadn't left any debts unpaid - well, not this unpaid - she began to wonder where Plim was and remembered.
Sniffing tentatively Hara smelled blood and a dull ache on her face, followed by some careful prodding, reminded her of her nose. Her fingers didn't come away bloody, but she felt dry crusts across her lips and chin.
It was difficult to make out much of anything in the room, even how big it was, everything blurry and fragmented. A part of her worried for Plim, the memory of the fall replaying again before her eyes in the dim, but Plim was agile and strong, better in danger than Hara. Still, she knew the twisting worry working through her body wouldn't be free until they were reunited.
For a while Hara tried piecing together her surroundings, a dull throb twisting through her body. She couldn't work out anything except for an infrequent drip of moisture on her shoulder and the fact her feet, which felt oddly stiff, were bound together. Neither of these facts being overwhelmingly helpful, Hara had just decided to try untying herself when something in the room moved.
Unable to see a thing and yet sure she wasn't alone, Hara tried her best to move, even just to shift aside a little, but something caught in her stomach and she felt it tug her back just as a voice spoke from the darkness.
'I don't think so.'
She couldn't tell whether it was human or beast speaking. Images flashed through her mind, but she couldn't hold them still. It was a voice devoid of all feeling except for the faintest hint of amusement; the words were spoken so fast that they melded into each other and it took some time before Hara understood the meaning. By then the throbbing pain throughout her body had intensified and with it her anger reared its head.
'Let. Me. Out.' She spoke slowly, her own voice so full of emotion, despite its being rough to her ears, that it almost exploded out of her. The thing in the room shifted, made the beginnings of some sound, but Hara was not finished.
No. Hara was nowhere near finished.
'Of. This. Festering. Pit,' she continued, trying to shift her feet so as to loosen the ties, but with each movement they seemed to grow tighter and tighter so that she could practically feel the cord passing through her skin. The voice sneered, a grating, painful sound. All of it, the pain and the sounds and the smell and her anger and the sensation of someone standing right there but being unable to see them combined to make her almost vomit. Her eyes watered and she closed them quickly, held them shut just for a moment, although the room was hardly more distinguishable with them open. It was as if there was something over her eyes and all she could see was a glimmer...
'If you don't, I will return.'
A sharp exhale, like a muffled laugh. 'I know,' the thing said. Hara focused her eyes on the glimmer, a spot of light so faint she wasn't sure if she was making it up. It seemed to flicker for a moment, like a leaf shifting in a breeze.
'What do you want?!' Hara screamed, eyes locked on that light, the promise of all that lay beyond the stifling room. She felt it reaching for her, her heart and soul and her head reaching right back.
Now was no time to be locked up.
There was a slam and a second later something crashed into the room, coming through a door and bringing with it so much sunshine that Hara wondered how she hadn't seen it, how something so simple as a door has held it back.
'Hara!' She felt a fluttering at her face and then there was Plim, eyes full of worry and wings beating so fast they hit her in the face a few times as she twittered frantically.
'There you are,' Hara said hoarsely, reaching out and waiting for Plim to land on her hand before bringing her close, looking at her intently. She kissed the dove and tried not to wince at the pain in her nose. 'I didn't hurt you, did I?'
There was a noise in a far corner of the room, but when Hara whirled around it was only the witch, the one who had hired them, and with one look at her windswept hair and muddy shoes Hara saw she wasn't her captor.
'No.' The witch walked forward slowly, stepping on dry leaves and glass and over twisted pieces of metal, her gaze so focused it was amazing she didn't trip.
'Hello there,' Hara said politely before turning back to Plim.
'The bird talks?' The witch looked at Plim. So did Hara, although her gaze was significantly more content.
'Plim? Of course.' The witch cursed, but Hara didn't have time for that. 'Plim? Are you ok?'
'Good as gold,' the bird chirruped, rubbing her head against Hara's grimy face, careful to avoid the blood.
'I think we should worry about you at the moment, quester,' the witch muttered, but Hara felt almost back to normal now Plim was with her, so (once more ignoring her employer) Hara stood.
~
'Thank you,' Hara whispered as the witch cut away the last of her ties, replacing them with bandages that made Hara feel like she was about to teach a seminar on forest fitness. The witch, shaking her head, left Hara to get to her feet and went to wait in the doorway. Now that Hara could see, the piece of dirty cloth no longer obscuring her vision, she took in the room as she successfully got to her feet and walked with Plim to the door.
It was small, dark, messy. Empty.
'Where are they?' she asked, looking around as she stepped into a small entry way, trying to take in every detail and also none at all.
'Not here.' The witch held open another door and Hara tumbled into the forest.
She had so many questions and her body was starting to throb with pain, but all she could do, all she could feel, was relief.
She cried for a long time, feeling the ground beneath her feet and fingers, the smell of the wind, trees, sky replacing all the stale air in her lungs, her eyes replacing the images of that grimy place with this, with trees and nature and light.
Plim landed on her hand and when Hara looked at her she cried even harder, especially when the small dove pecked a kiss on her cheek.
'You're back, Hara,' Plim whispered, nuzzling Hara a second time. 'You're safe.'
'You're covered in blood, Plim.'
Plum clucked. 'Yes. Well.'
'That's yours...' the witch said awkwardly. 'Come on, lets get you cleaned up.'
Despite Hara and Plim's weeklong trek through the forest, it only took a matter of hours to return to the witch's cottage on the edge of the woods, the foxgloves out front swaying back and forth as if in delight at their mistress's return. Plim perched on Hara's head the entire time and as the witch brought down her broom, Hara rolled off into the grass and laughed.
~
'I'm fine!' Hara exclaimed, attempting to swat the witch away fruitlessly. 'I was just happy to be out of the forest, that's all.'
'Take a look at your stomach,' the witch said, fiddling with the side of Hara's head. Hara, rolling her eyes at Plim, glanced down.
'Oh.'
'"Oh" indeed. Now pipe down. You're still under my employ and I'd prefer not to have you bleed out on my floor.'
'Should... I pull it out?' Hara queried, gesturing to the stick that was... sticking out of her stomach. Hara didn't know how she hadn't noticed it, although now she did it made that particular throbbing ache seem quite reasonable.
'So,' the witch said, ignoring Hara's query. She stood so close that Hara could make out every single freckle, the wrinkles around her eyes as delicate as a spiderweb, two small pock marks under her lip. Hara could also smell smoke, laced with pine and sweetness, as if this witch had walked through a spring bonfire. Looking to her eyes, eyes that were deep and determined, Hara imagined she probably had.
Then she blinked.
The eyes blinked right back at her.
'Well?' the witch asked, looking slightly stunned.
'You've got nice eyes,' Hara admitted. 'What's your name?' she added as the witch laughed, a laugh that abruptly stopped.
'What?'
'Your name?'
The witch looked at Plim, who looked back with a blank gaze to match Hara's.
'Aren't you supposed to be questers, seekers of truth and knowledge?' the witch fired, looking completely taken aback.
'That doesn't mean we're also psychic. It'd be helpful, really helpful, but it's not a perk of the job.'
'It was on,' the witch said, speaking slowly and ominously, 'the note.'
'Hmm?'
'The note! The note I sent, requesting your - oh for goodness sakes, I even introduced myself when you came here!' Again she looked to Plim, again the witch was met with a pair of very blank eyes. 'Marigold. My name is Marigold.'
'Nice to meet you, miss Marigold witch.' The witch gave Hara a cold look. 'Sorry.'
'You should be! The very basis of you questing lot! I can't even begin to-' she strode about her room, picking up things and piling them into her skirt pockets; Hara and Plim exchanged a look, which Marigold caught. 'I once employed a lady to help tend my garden,' she said abruptly, dipping a cloth into a small tub of water and passing it to Hara, who instantly took to cleaning Plim. 'This lady, however, turned out to be a quester and before the week - the week! - was out she was off, a higher cause calling her off to do some battle.'
'We're a fickle bunch,' Hara agreed, turning her head at Marigold's instruction and allowing the witch to clean some wound at her neck. 'Thank you,' she added a minute later.
'Hold still...' Marigold got up and returned with a small pair of scissors, which she used to cut something. 'Thank you for what?'
Hara inched her head around and met Marigold's gaze, which was oddly confused. 'For the rescue,' she whispered, hurriedly turning back to Plim and bowing her head in shame. Then she caught sight of the stick still protruding from her stomach and quickly closed her eyes.
'Thank your bird, not me. She's the one who got me.' Plim squeaked and the witch sniffed. Hara opened her eyes and smiled at Plim, a little surprised to see her vision blurring with tears. 'Yes, well, a story for another time. Do you want to be up for this or not?'
'For...? Oh.' Hara focused her gaze on the fire across the room, thinking of anything other than the stick and thus unable to think of anything but. 'I'll be find, don't worry, we questers-'
She fainted.