A thump in Emray’s head was what roused her from unconsciousness. It was a slow, methodical beat. She felt some sort of rough cloth cradling her head as it jostled back and forth in a very unpleasant manner, and when she opened her eyes she saw a roof of cloth above her.
Slowly, agonizingly, she rotated her head to get a gauge of her surroundings. Her neck cracked and popped as she tested its range of motion, and her vision was still spotty at best, but she was able to at least ascertain that she was in the back of a wagon.
She wondered why she was in a wagon, traveling to who-knows-where, when all the memories come flooding back into her head. The festival, the attack, the soldier, everything came back into a wave that sent her shooting upright.
“Where am I?!” Emray screamed, startling a figure next to her as the entire world rotated around her and her head throbbed with motion sickness. She immediately found the bile rising in her throat, and quickly crawled to the back of the wagon to vomit off the edge. Her shoulder burned as she pulled her way forward.
As Emray relieved herself she felt a hand trace small, gentle circles on her back, comforting her as the contents of her stomach emptied out onto the rough dirt road beneath her.
“Hey, hey, take it easy, you’re safe now,” a soothing female voice said. “Just let it all out, no need to rush.”
When Emray finally finished dry heaving she shuffled back into the wagon, her head feeling slightly better and her stomach infinitely so. She turned to face the woman she’d startled awake and found that she was the human woman from Antareon’s band.
“Y-you were at the f-festival,” Emray stammered, her words falling out of her mouth like the vomit had.
“I was, and so were you. Do you remember what happened?”
Emray looked at the woman, her soft brown eyes and elegant facial features helping to calm her down. It wasn’t much, but it was enough that Emray felt she could answer the question without breaking down into tears.
“The Tower was attacked, a lot of people died, and it was the Enclave’s fault,” Emray answered. “Antareon helped me out, cast some magic that made us invisible, and then a soldier knocked both of us out when Antareon tried to negotiate.”
“That’s good, that’s very good,” the woman replied. “After seeing the two blows to the head you took we were worried we were going to have an amnesiac or a concussion victim on our hands.”
“Don’t rule it out yet,” another voice, like Antareon’s but more gruff, called from the driver’s seat. “She did just vomit her guts out the back of the wagon.”
“Who’s he?” Emray asked nervously. “Who are you, both of you?”
“Right, manners,” the woman replied. “My name’s Susanna, and that cheerful chap is my twin brother Gregor. We picked you and Antareon up after everything died down last night. Both of you looked like you’d taken a pretty rough beating, but fortunately Xeerya had some healing tonics that helped stabilize the two of you.”
As if on cue, a green scaly hand popped in from the flap of canvas leading to the driver’s seat and gave a finger-wiggling wave before popping back out again.
“She doesn’t speak the Enclave tongue, but she says hi,” Susanna commented.
Emray looked around the interior of the wagon she was in, taking in the cramped space like it was the finest room in the finest inn in the Crown City. Various cases for instruments were stacked all along one of the benches, a few burlap bags loaded with something were being used to weigh them down, and spread out next to the makeshift palette she’d been laid out on was Antareon, still asleep and with a few bandages crossing his face. His eyes were furrowed like he was having a bad dream, but he stayed asleep nonetheless.
“He was quite the trooper last night,” Susanna commented. “He refused to drink Xeerya’s potion until you got yours, and then helped hoist you into the wagon despite having what Xeerya thinks was a ruptured liver and heavy internal bleeding.”
“Is he going to b-be alright?” Emray asked, eyes locked to Antareon.
“Xeerya’s the best alchemist I’ve ever met, if she can’t get him back on his feet with one of her potions then I don’t think anyone could.”
“She’s an alchemist, he’s a very skilled wizard, and all four of you are making your living as a traveling sideshow?” Emray wondered aloud. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
Susanna let out a low chuckle followed by a dreamy sigh. Emray felt her face heat up in embarrassment.
“Child, you have him mistaken,” Susanna replied. “He’s no wizard, at least not like any wizard I’ve ever seen. He’s damn near unique as far as the magical arts are concerned; all he’s ever said about his magic is that it comes from the universe itself.”
Emray looked hard at Antareon, and remembered how he plucked his strings to turn them invisible. She heard the hollow, tinny twang echo through her head, felt the rush of energy as the sound reverberated. It sent a chill down her spine to recall.
“I guess I can ask him when he wakes up,” Emray said. “Where were you all when everything went down? Last I saw of Antareon he was talking with Xeerya, but I didn’t see you nor your brother.”
“We were actually busy packing everything up for the evening,” Susanna answered. “Enclave picked a mighty fine time to get the drop on us, I’ll give them that.”
“Why would the Enclave do something like this?” Emray muttered. “The Allied Towers aren’t necessarily a part of the government, but we’ve had a long-standing and mutually beneficial arrangement with the Enclave of Eight for centuries.”
“You’re quite inquisitive for someone who took two thorough blows to the head not ten hours ago,” Susanna playfully chided. “You should rest, these questions aren’t going to get answered here. I’ll get you up when we camp down for the evening.”
Susanna gently patted the folded up blankets on Emray’s laid out bedroll, and while her mind was racing with questions and theories her body was still craving darkness and rest.
As Emray laid back down she caught another look at Antareon. His eyes weren’t furrowed anymore, but she again saw the age marking his face. He was an old elf, and despite everything he’d gone through for her he still made sure that she got cared for first.
If that was what caring about others entailed, then Emray might have found a teacher.
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